WASHINGTON – Democrats on Thursday ridiculed comments by two leading congressional Republicans that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.
Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who is engaged in a tough re-election battle, and Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said at a news conference Wednesday that unconventional weapons had been found in Iraq.
“Congressman Hoekstra and I are here today to say that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons,” Santorum said. “Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent.”
Santorum added, “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.”
The White House and the intelligence community have conceded that despite prewar assertions to the contrary, no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. This miscalculation is considered a major intelligence failure.
Santorum, in making his announcement Wednesday, was apparently referring to shells from before the Persian Gulf war whose chemical agents, sarin and mustard gas, were badly degraded.
Democrats seized on Santorum’s statement Thursday to say that the Republicans were “losing touch with reality.”
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Santorum was repeating old claims that no one considered evidence of an ongoing unconventional weapons program by Saddam Hussein.
“There is nothing new here,” Harman said. “Nothing in this report, classified or otherwise, contradicts the Duelfer Report, which assessed that we would find degraded pre-1991 weaponry in Iraq.”
Harman also complained that intelligence was being selectively declassified to support Republican positions.
But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a news briefing Thursday, said Santorum’s comments were correct.
“They are weapons of mass destruction. They’re harmful to human beings. And they have been found,” Rumsfeld said. “And they had not been reported by Saddam Hussein as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.”
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AP-NY-06-22-06 2021EDT
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