Hundreds of chemical weapons
found in Iraq were produced before the 1991 Gulf War and probably are so old
they couldn't be used as designed, intelligence officials said Thursday.
Two lawmakers - Sen. Rick Santorum (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., and
House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich. - on Wednesday
circulated a one-page summary of a military intelligence report that says
coalition forces have recovered about 500 munitions with mustard or sarin
agents, and more could be discovered around Iraq. "We now have found
stockpiles," Santorum asserted.
But intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of
the subject's sensitive nature, said the weapons were produced before the 1991
Gulf War and there is no evidence to date of chemical munitions manufactured
since then. They said an assessment of the weapons concluded they are so
degraded that they couldn't now be used as designed.
They probably would have been intended for chemical attacks during the
Iran-Iraq War, said David Kay, who headed the U.S. weapons-hunting team
in Iraq from 2003 until early 2004.
He said experts on Iraq's chemical weapons are in "almost 100 percent
agreement" that sarin nerve agent produced from the 1980s would no longer be
dangerous.
"It is less toxic than most things that Americans have under their kitchen
sink at this point," Kay said.
And any of Iraq's 1980s-era mustard would produce burns, but it is unlikely
to be lethal, Kay said.
Asked about the potential danger to U.S. troops, Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld said: "They are weapons of mass destruction. They are harmful to human
beings. And they have been found."
The newly declassified military intelligence report was released Wednesday by
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. Santorum and Hoekstra had urged
him to release the report this week during congressional debates on Iraq.
The senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee questioned the timing
of the report's release. "What worries me is that the intelligence community —
Ambassador Negroponte in particular may be playing a partisan role in the 2006
election," California Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) said.
Hoekstra said the document is not a "smoking gun." But he hinted that the
chemical agents could be significant because they may have been added to the
discovered artillery shells after the first Gulf War. He noted that one of the
declassified findings says the munitions could be lethal.
"David Kay says anything produced prior to 1991 is not lethal anymore, so
what is the discrepancy here?" Hoekstra said. "I am 100 percent sure if David
Kay had the opportunity to look at the reports that describe these things, he
would agree with the finding that ... these things are lethal and deadly."
Intelligence officials said the munitions were found in ones, twos and maybe
slightly larger collections over the past couple of years. One official conceded
that these pre-Gulf War weapons did not pose a threat to the U.S. military
before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They were not maintained or part of any
organized program run by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
There is no evidence that insurgents have found the chemical munitions. But
one official said that insurgents have improvised conventional weapons, so they
could apply similar creativity with the vintage weapons.
