From Radio Blogger:
HH: Evidently, you've got some declassified information detailing 500 different shells containing prohibited weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But let me ask you, what did you announce today?
RS: What we announced was that after two and a half months of being aware of this document, we were able to get a copy of the document, and convince the intelligence community to give us a declassified version of the document. It is a very short synopsis, and I would argue incomplete synopsis, but nevertheless, it's vitally important, because what it does say, and I'll quote from it, "since 2003," so since the Iraq War, "coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain mustard or sarin nerve agent."
HH: Who is the document from, Senator Santorum?
RS: It's from the National Ground Intelligence Center, which is a division of the United States Pentagon. I think it's the Army. And what they go on to say is, and I'll quote again from the summary, not the classified report, "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 beyond the 500 that they have recovered."
HH: Now of these 500 shells that they have recovered, Senator Santorum, does the document, the unclassified version, tell you in how many batches they were discovered? Was it one? Was it 50 of 100, or one of 500?
RS: You know, I can't talk about what additionally it tells you. All I can tell you is there have been published reports on blog sites about this report...and the published reports say that 75% of these 500 or so weapons were in fact filled and usable, and very dangerous for the...if got to improper hands.
HH: That's fine. Again, putting away the classified stuff, focusing on the unclassified and published reports, is it your impression, Senator Santorum, that there have been a number of such discoveries?
RS: It is my impression that there have been a number of such discoveries. It's my impression that this is a very dangerous situation in Iraq, with the number of chemical weapons still believed to exist out there, and the threat that they might in fact get into the wrong hands. So Saddam, it is clear, from this report, had lots of chemical weapons around, and that people got their hands on them.
HH: Now the media thus far, I've seen it reported on Fox News, the website Freerepublic.com has got a number of threads running on it, but there is nothing about your announcement in the Washington Post or the New York Times as of three minutes ago. Are you surprised?
RS: Unfortunately not.
HH: Senator, of those 500 different shells, located in numerous place across Iraq, post-invasion, have any analysis been done as to whether or not any of them were manufactured after the Gulf War?
RS: The ones that are identified in the declassified information, are identified as pre-1991 munitions. Again, a lot of the discussion...there's going to be discussion of well, we haven't found any post-1991 munitions.
HH: There was also in a previous announcement of a small seizure of WMD, they were sarin shells, I believe, not long after the war. But it was about a dozen, maybe two dozen. The explanation was that they had just simply been misplaced, and overlooked in the effort to destroy the pre-existing, pre-Gulf War stockpiles. Is there information in these documents that indicate that there was an intentional effort on the part of Saddam's government to secret these weapons?
RS: Well, there is additional information that I think the public should be made aware of that could answer that question.
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