David Kay: WMD found in Iraq less toxic than most things under your kitchen sink

Conservative blogs have been drooling all over the place ever since a report surfaced that 500 munitions of mustard and sarin nerve agents were found in Iraq.  Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum presented the finding to the Senate this week, at the same time as polls indicate that he continues to trail his 2006 Democratic challenger 52% to 34%.  The Pennsylvania Republican was overjoyed on the Senate floor because he and his fellow party members could prove once and for all that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq:

"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," said U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Of course, Santorum left it at that and chose not to admit the fact that the weapons were from the 1980s, a time when no one would dispute that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.  Secondly, according to intelligence officials, the munitions were so old that Saddam could not use them even if he had intended:

...intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity becauseof the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were producedbefore the 1991 Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemicalmunitions manufactured since then. They said an assessment of theweapons concluded they are so degraded that they couldn't now be usedas designed.

They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the Iran-Iraq War, said David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004.

He said experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100percent agreement" that sarin nerve agent produced from the 1980s wouldno longer be dangerous.

"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen sink at this point," Kay said.

Therefore, very smartly, the White House chose not to make a publicity stunt out of this non-story.  As for Rick Santorum, two things are for certain: he has yet to retract his comments, and he still trails Democratic challenger Bob Casey with just more than four months to go before November.

Bottom line: the sanctions enacted by George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton between the end of the first Gulf War and the start of the second Gulf War worked, and Saddam was powerless.  Anything else is stretching the truth -- something that we have been growing more accustomed to seeing these days.
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Related news on the following blogs: Goofy Blog, Drinking Liberally in Cincinnati, The Stress Blog, Nero Fiddled, The Carpetbagger Report, Citizens Against Lies

Comments

[dogeatdogi]

LOL!!! To bad he wasn't wearing that lovely lavender suit while being "overjoyed" on the senate floor. It would have made for a nice finishing touch!!
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/files/2006/06/Santorum_pink.jpg

[dogeatdogi]

Link...

http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2006/06/is_rick_santorum_try.php