Saddam’s Weapons

Now we know—Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction after all, said Kevin McCullough in Townhall.com. For three years, as inspectors have failed to discover the dictator's suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological arms, George W. Bush has been 'œpummeled mercilessly' by critics who say the U.S. invaded Iraq on false pretenses. But last week, Sen. Rick Santorum and Congressman Peter Hoekstra unveiled declassified portions of a Pentagon report that vindicated the president. American forces have recovered 'œa minimum of 500 weaponized munitions' containing mustard gas and sarin. 'œThat's enough nerve agents to kill more than 8.3 million people—or the island of Manhattan, or the city of Chicago.'

This is big news, said E. Thomas McClanahan in The Kansas City Star. Yet true to form, the liberal mainstream media all but ignored the revelations dismissing them as 'œa bit of grandstanding by a couple of Republicans.' That's exactly what these so-called revelations are, said Ted Diadiun in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. 'œA little basic reporting' quickly revealed that these 'œdegraded' munitions were manufactured before the 1991 Gulf War—possibly as long ago as the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. The weapons inspectors who spent months looking for Saddam's arsenal predicted we'd find precisely this kind of ordnance. In fact, they had previously reported uncovering shells just like the ones that Santorum and Hoekstra so breathlessly announced. In any event, experts have already concluded that this stuff was too old and too weak to pose any kind threat to anyone, let alone the United States.

William Arkin

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