Santorum: 500 Chemical-Weapons Shells Found In Iraq
According to numerous sources but not yet on the wires, Senator Rick Santorum announced a few minutes ago that the US has found 500 chemical-weapons shells in Iraq. Hot Air has the hot link for what little data exists thus far. Apparently, some of the shells contained sarin and others mustard gas. No word has come yet on when and where the US found these munitions.
I will update this as more information becomes available.
UPDATE: Nothing on the wires yet at 5:10 pm CT, but let's think through what this discovery -- if it is new -- means. We have found a handful of such shells already in Iraq; I reported such a find here in November 2004. The shells had come from around the time of the first Gulf War and the contents had likely been rendered inert by the passage of time and exposure to air. That has a lot less significance than a find of 500 shells; that kind of stockpile could have done real damage to our troops during the invasion, and of course could also have caused a lot more trouble with civilians in the hands of terrorists, if properly deployed.
The political significance will be difficult to calculate without more information on when and where the shells were found, in what condition, and so on. However, their existence in those numbers will at least eliminate the argument that Saddam's WMD existed only in his head, a position that former Saddam henchmen have taken ever since they fell into Coalition hands.
UPDATE II: Here's a post that noted confirmation of one shell with sarin gas found in May 2004.
I'd be very surprised if the wires report this. It will be a buried story.