Hoekstra and Santorum op-ed on "WMDs"

Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Senator Rick Santorum have written a Wall Street Journal op-ed that expands on their misleading claims that we found WMDs in Iraq:

On Wednesday, at our request, the director of national intelligence declassified six "key points" from a National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) report on the recovery of chemical munitions in Iraq. The summary was only a small snapshot of the entire report, but even so, it brings new information to the American people. "Since 2003," the summary states, "Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent," which remains "hazardous and potentially lethal." So there are WMDs in Iraq, and they could kill Americans there or all over the world.

Note how Hoekstra and Santorum insinuate something they cannot prove. First, they say "So there are WMDs in Iraq," which is apparently designed to counter those people who said we did not find WMDs in Iraq. But, of course, we didn't find operational WMDs under the control of Saddam Hussein. Finding degraded 1980s shells does not count as "finding WMDs." The invasion was not premised on recovering rotting weapons from the Iran-Iraq war.

Hoekstra and Santorum then write that the shells "could kill Americans there or all over the world" as if the degraded shells are comparable to fully operational chemical weapons. That is simply not the case. While the shells could reportedly be used in roadside bombs in Iraq, they are unlikely to cause the "mass destruction" that makes WMDs such a unique and dangerous threat. The odds of terrorists exporting them from Iraq to attack Americans "all over the world" are laughably small.

Even the Bush administration isn't supporting their absurd claims. Shouldn't that tell you something?

Comments

[Stuart Levine]

Brendan--France is in trouble. According to Wickipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexploded_ordinance):

In the Ardennes region of France, large-scale citizen evacuations were necessary during UXO removal operations in 2001. In the forests of Verdun French government "demineurs" working for the Department du Deminage still hunt for poisonous, volatile, explosive munitions and recover about 900 tons every year. The most feared are those corroded shells containing poison gas, which can cause blindness or a slow, painful death from burned lungs. According to the film "Aftermath", these demineurs "have gathered more than twenty million shells but have lost six hundred demineurs. At this pace France will be fully cleared and safe -- in seven-hundred years." French farmers still find many UXOs when ploughing their fields; the so-called "iron harvest."

An American invasion may be imminent.