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Fox News Debunks Santorum’s WMD Claim

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Posted on Jun 22, 2006
Santorum gets Truth-checked
From ThinkProgress

Rick Santorum (center) is confronted with an inconvenient truth concerning his apparently bogus claim about an Iraq WMD discovery.

Mere hours after Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) announced breathlessly at a press conference that “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” a FOX news reporter found out that Santorum was hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions already acknowledged and dismissed by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group.

Watch Santorum dissemble when confronted with these truths on air. (h/t: Think Progress)


Think Progress:

Today, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) held a press conference and announced “we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” Santorum and Hoekstra are hyping a document that describes degraded, pre-1991 munitions that were already acknowledged by the White House’s Iraq Survey Group and dismissed.

Fox News’ Jim Angle contacted the Defense Department who quickly disavowed Santorum and Hoekstra’s claims. A Defense Department official told Angle flatly that the munitions hyped by Santorum and Hoekstra are “not the WMD’s for which this country went to war.”

Fox’s Alan Colmes broke the news to Santorum. Watch it:

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By Sam Talun, August 31, 2006 at 4:05 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

the US supplied him with chemical and conventional weapons.
THAT is the TRUTH

queensjournal.ca/article.php?point=vol131/issue1/features/lead2

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between the years 1973 and 2002, only one per cent of Iraq’s imported major conventional weapons came from the U.S. By contrast, 57 per cent of Iraq’s imported weapons came from the USSR, 13 percent came from France, and 12 per cent came from China.

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By Dave O'Mara, August 17, 2006 at 10:52 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I’m still looking to see where Senator Santorum’s facts were “debunked.”  I guess you feel you can make a claim and no one will read far enough to find out you’re full of feces(which this entire Web site seems to be).

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By William, July 1, 2006 at 1:10 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Dave Jones,
Thanks for the enlightenment.  I do recall reading this speech.  I guess that due to the distain for all the other lies and misleading information, I was too incenced to notice that “one” about “The WORLD has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values…”.  It being buried in the rest of the speech talking about Saddam’s “defiance and excuses” and speaking of Al Quieda in one sentence and in the next insinuating Saddam was linked with the organization… I missed it. I overgeneralized when making that statment that you pointed out.  Thank you for bringing my attention to it. I was wrong to say “he never”.  It is not a good idea to make absolute statements in attempting to make one’s point.  My statment should have been more in line with “he rarely”. I believe this speech was presented just as some of the trappings of the “propraganda” initiative were begining to unravel. Don’t hold me to it though.  Maybe you can go to Google and find out.
Thank you for attaching the speech.  It gave me an opportunity to reread it and to see just how much baloney he and his people were
espousing.
If I were President in 2002, I would have considered all the information available and not just the “cherrypicked” “intelligence being wrapped around the policy” to assure we went to war. 
I know this is hindsight, but he (Bush)himself has distroyed any “honor and prestiege” that myself and around 60 + % of the American public may have had for him.
I guess one could read this speech and compare what he was conveying then as to what has acutally occurred and find the “emperor truly has not cloths.”
Have a peace filled day.
Will

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By Dave Jones, June 30, 2006 at 10:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

William from 6/24/06,

Your comment about Bush never talking about democracy in Iraq prior to the invasion is mistaken. As the URL I linked to shows, Bush gave a speech in Februrary 2003 where he talks about how democracy in Iraq can be a transformative force in the Middle East:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030226-11.html

Since you’re so smart, do you think in 2002, if you were the President, you’d be willing to wager the honor and prestige of your Presidency on the chance the Saddam would NOT eventually give any WMD to some terrorist group to use against his sworn enemy, the US?

Maybe you should consider you’re not so smart after all.

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By ANNA, June 26, 2006 at 5:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Poor Rick seems distraught. Down right desperate. When did he first learn of the weapons of mass destruction? How sad! Some of these people must be terrifed at the thought of looking for real jobs when they get the boot in November. Unlike most people who lose their jobs, at least they’ll know why. Not like the people at General Motors. We do live in interesting times. Thanks, ANNA

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By Quitcher Bitchin, June 25, 2006 at 1:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Hey - they HAVE found the WMD!  It’s in North Korea!  Quick Rick should have jumped on that, but he’s so busy with keeping his lips planted on Bush’s ass and generally being weird that he missed it.  Is Spaztorum really a full-closet homosexual?  Well, I’ll be! “Here’s yer sign, Rick”. 

At least PA’s other senator, Specter, has a sense of which direction the gail’s coming from and knows when he ought to change his mind.

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By William, June 24, 2006 at 12:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Cory,
“blatant leftist activism.” Horse shit.  The MSM colaborated with the bushites in bringing about this war.  Have you forgotten Judith Miller and the New York times helping this facist administration by publishing the “cherry picked” intelligence as if it were the only information available. Not to mention Fox News (News? Ha!). The NYT had to subsequently rebuke themselves on the “umteenth” back pages of their publication with obtuse semi apologies.  Besides, when the WMD issue was discovered to be propaganda, then is when the Bushites began to flipflop to the notion that we invaded to plant democracy.  This was not heard at all prior to going to war.  It was all “mushroom clouds” and drones spraying poisonous materials over New York and Washington D.C. Also, the public fails to recall Richard Clarke and Paul O’neal stating the Bushites were obscessed with Saddam even before 911. Cory…. get your head out of your ass.  Sanitarium….I mean Santorum is a deluted, self serving, Neo Nazi, bigoted homophobe whom plays the lunatic christian right like a cheap violin. He may get you to fall for his crap but not individuals with the capacity to actually use deductive reasoning.
Will

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By William Day, June 23, 2006 at 7:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I watched O’Reilly last night to see if he would mention those “found WMDs” as alleged by Santorum on Wednesday and on as hyped up by O’Reilly on Thursday.  He never had the balls to even bring the subject up even in a passing way. And, he claims he never “misrepresents” anything and always admits when he is wrong.  So much for the O’Reilly version of the truth!

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By Jim B, June 22, 2006 at 8:54 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

A question re: comment 12244, and Mr. Blood’s amusing use of logic -  if the weaponry has “disentegrated, and the contents inert due to age,” how do they cause mass destruction?

Second point to the Clinton hating, can’t defend the conservative position so I have to refer back to the tired 90’s rant of “but Bill Clinton… fill in the blank…” For the final time, oral sex killed did not cost the tax payers $250 billion per year, and cost the American military 2,500 of their own.  This is not a Clinton issue, a media issue, or a liberal issue.  This is an incompetent George Bush issue, who exhibits the symptoms of a dry drunk most of the bad decisions he has made during his presidency.

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By Mace Price, June 22, 2006 at 8:44 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Very basically: Had Saddam Hussein possessed any Nuclear, Biological or chemical weapons, and the infrastructure to deploy them in a strategic regard, it would have been Likud policy to conduct an pre-emptive strike to neutralize such capacities. You’ll recall the Israelis did so in 1981. On this basis alone is the 36 month argument that Saddam Hussein was a threat to The US and its allies in the region largely fallacious…Sooner or later you’re going to have to face the reality, intents and designs of this conflict. That it has far more to do with Israeli indemnity at US expense than part of the War on Terror propagandists have attempted to hammer into the American public…who increasingly don’t seem to be buying it. Founded on contrivance and base mendacity this is turning into the worst Foreign Policy disaster since Vietnam. Any goddamned fool could see that it would, and frankly it deeply concerns me just precisely what will occur in this deeply polarized Nation in the wake of its final outcome. Once more, Sadaam Hussien had but negligible strategic military assets, and nothing deploy able in the well known context of WMD. And as such, did not to my mind warrant a military invasion occupation to the tune of 2,512 US troops killed, 20+k wounded, $320 billion+ expended, a bloodbath of an Iraqi civil war instigated…and on and on and on…

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By Brian, June 22, 2006 at 7:33 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

If there truly was a smoking gun against Saddam and WMD, why wouldn’t Bush be the one to make that point?

He doesn’t, because he can’t. It’s already been widely conceded that Saddam did not have the WMD that the White House said he did.
And had anything -ANYTHING- been uncovered, you can be darn sure the White House would have had those images on TV for all to see.
And once the public at large finally realized the WMD claims were a sham, and Bush could no longer hide behind that ruse, he then began saying Iraq was part of “the global war on terror.”
It pains me to say this but Iraq was better off four years ago than they are now (and so was the U.S.).

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By Cory, June 22, 2006 at 7:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

All the Dems owe Bush and the American people an appology!  500 WMDs confirmed.  How many more will be found before this is all over?  So why is the MSM not plastering the most important headline of the year on every frontpage?..oh, thats right.  Blatant leftist activism!

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By Andrew, June 22, 2006 at 6:01 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The onus is on the person making the claim.  If the US claims Iraq has WMD then the US has to prove it.

Anybody with even thread-thin knowledge of basic logic understands the proper placing of the burden of proof.

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By Joe Random Guy, June 22, 2006 at 5:22 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

2500 people died for rusty, non-functioning weaponry that, incidentally, are the same chemical weapons we sold to Iraq in the 80’s. *cough cough*

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By Jim Blood, June 22, 2006 at 4:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Since when does logic and facts mean anything to the Mainstream Media and the Hate Bush crowd? 
This recent disclosure of information meets the criteria of “WMD” but as it will be with an ideological group where the definition of “is” was the linchpin for their idol, so will we nit pick.
If clinton can with a straight face say oral sex is not sexual… well, regardless of the condition of the mustard gas, mustard gas is a WMD.
Remember, this is not about the war on terror and the Iraq theatre of this war, it is these illogical,irational, emoticons hate Bush.  And their MSM lackeys… will not report these because it is good for Bush and their rule of thumb is if it bleeds it leads, if it hurts Bush, it leads.”
Jim

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By Brian, June 22, 2006 at 4:08 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Regarding comments from TGM: You need to stop believing in the Bush propaganda machine and look at what is factual.
Among other things, the United Nations was searching Iraq for 8 years. During this period, more weapons were destroyed than all the weapons destroyed during Gulf War 1.
The U.N. later pulled out of Iraq. Later, Bush II got the U.N. back in, with the ability to search locations unannounced, anywhere.
What was it, then, that Saddam was not cooporating with? Truckloads of documents were received that, I believe, took weeks to interpret.
No smoking gun was ever uncovered.
Saddam said he did not have WMD. Guess he told the truth.
The only people not telling the truth in this sordid fiasco is Bush and his cronies.

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By dg, June 22, 2006 at 4:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

You bury organic material in the 120 plus degree heat of the desert for twenty years, you get sludge, not a prohibited weapon.  If you don’t know where it is, you can’t declare it.  And if you haven’t found any evidence PRIOR to starting a war that kills 100,000 people, that’s a breach of our obligations under international treaty, the “supreme law” of the country according to the constitution, a war crime according to Geneva conventions.

By the way, our DOD can’t find $300 million dollars of Iraq funds.  And good luck asking it where it dumped OUR WMD… somewhere of the eastern seaboard within 5 miles and near dive sites.

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By mojo, June 22, 2006 at 3:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The US government needs to come clean and admit that during the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was an ally of America and that the US supplied him with chemical and conventional weapons.

THAT is the TRUTH that the Americans can no longer keep hiding.

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By Real American, June 22, 2006 at 3:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Quit yer nitpickin!  Next thing, you’ll be demanding that Congress stop distribution of the new Superman movie because it glorifies an illegal alien who has control of and uses weapons of mass destruction.

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By Bud, June 22, 2006 at 3:51 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The U.S. would not give Saddam ample time to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions. When inspectors renetered Iraq in late-2002 they found that the government had not reconstituted any of its destroyed, dormant weapons programs.

Perhaps the U.S. inpsectors would have uncovered this stockpile if the U.S. hadn’t withdrawn its inpsector team prior to the unwarranted 1998 Operation Desert Fox, a massive bombing raid aimed at Baghdad. Saddam wouldn’t allow the inspectors back in, and with good reason, for the U.S. had punished Iraq without reason.

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By tgm, June 22, 2006 at 11:43 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

It does not matter if the war heads are pre 1991, nor does it matter if they are not the WMD that were the stockpiles that we thought Saddam had… the onus was on Saddam to declare all WMD in his disarmament obligations laid out in the many United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs). Saddam did not regarding these WMD, therefore, he was in breach of his disarmament obligations.

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