GRASPING AT PHANTOM STRAWS

Some conservatives -- not the smart ones, mind you -- are chuffing with absurd delight because two Republican lawmakers claim weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence,
made the claim and repudiated their own party.

Said Santorum:

"Since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. 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."

Umm -- degraded? And let's see ... 500 shells?

Fox News put it this way:

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."

There is also this. President Bush told the country that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- and it wasn't 500 shells with degraded nerver gas. It was:

500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands [and] ... upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents.

Those inconvenient facts won't matter to those who listen to talk radio hosts with fake names. They don't understand English. They only know duckspeak.