Desperation

It’s almost poignant to see the way in which some are seizing on this story as a way to reassure themselves that the Bush (and Clinton) administrations didn’t gravely misjudge Saddam’s WMD programs in the five years before the invasion. Of course, Santorum is desperate, as reality-based conservative Professor Bainbridge explains. And we always need to keep an open mind. But the discovery of depleted, unusable chemical weapons from before 1991 is not, alas, the salvation some hope for. Money quote:

A Pentagon official who confirmed the findings said that all the weapons were pre-1991 vintage munitions "in such a degraded state they couldn’t be used for what they are designed for."
The official, who asked not to be identified, said most were 155 millimeter artillery projectiles with mustard gas or sarin of varying degrees of potency.
"We’re destroying them where we find them in the normal manner," the official said.

In October 2004, the president dutifully reported:

"The chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, has now issued a comprehensive report that confirms the earlier conclusion of David Kay that Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there."

Of course, if more evidence emerges from classified documents, we should keep our minds open. But does anyone believe that if the administration had real evidence, it wouldn’t have used it already?