Congressman Hoekstra and I are here today to say that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons.... Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist.
"We"? Did Santorum and Hoekstra do what teams of UN weapons inspectors and the Iraq Survey Group couldn't? As Think Progress notes, this is what the administration's investigators found:
While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible Indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter, a policy ISG attributes to Baghdad's desire to see sanctions lifted, or rendered ineffectual, or its fear of force against it should WMD be discovered.
Think Progress also notes this admission from Bush himself.
The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.
Maybe Santorum just has some super-duper security clearance, giving him access to information that the administration doesn't get. Or maybe he's just grasping at whatever straws are within his reach as he competes with Conrad Burns to be the least popular Senator in the country.
Update [2006-6-21 22:51:2 by mcjoan]: smintheus has much more here.
*** UPDATE ***
Santorum debunked over WMD's by (of all networks) FAUX NEWS
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*** MORE UPDATE ***
Iraq chemical weapons too old to use: US intelligence officials
***
The reason, discovered!
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