The Talk Show American

THE TALK SHOW AMERICAN: Senator Santorum announces WMD HAS been found in Iraq.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Senator Santorum announces WMD HAS been found in Iraq.

Transcript of News Conference to Release a Report on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction

From the Radioblogger.com.

Interview of Senator Santorum by Hugh Hewitt (audio mp3)

Hugh Hewitt's Interview with Senator Santorum in regards to WMD Announcement

HH: Joined now by United States Senator Rick Santorum from the great state of Pennsylvania. Senator, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show.

RS: Hugh, it is great to be with you again. Thank you, pal.

HH: Well, you've made some news today, and I'd like to explore with you what exactly was being said, because we can't find the tape. 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, and to whom was it addressed?

RS: It's from the National Ground Intelligence Center, which is a division of the United States Pentagon. I think it's the Army.

HH: Okay. And to whom was it addressed?

RS: Well, it's a classified report. It's just a report that they published. It's not addressed to anybody. It's a report which is a survey of ongoing recovery of chemical munitions. 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: Senator Santorum, can you tell us the name of the blog on which that report was featured?

RS: I will get it to you. How's that? I don't have it in front of me.

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. So this is exactly what we were concerned about, that Saddam in fact had large stockpiles of chemical weapons, and would in fact...those chemical weapons could in fact get into the hands of people who would like to do harm to America.

HH: Now Senator, is it your impression that the classified nature of this material is in place in order to protect the information that might assist insurgents from finding additional stockpiles? Is that...

RS: There's certainly...that is clearly an element, and there are certainly parts of this report that were not released that should not be released. And that would certainly be one element of it. But there are other elements that I think can be released that could shed more light as to the volume of the problem that we're confronting, or that we confronted in the sense that how many chemical weapons did Saddam Hussein have prior to the Gulf War, the second Gulf War.

HH: Now you were joined by Congressman Hoekstra, who's the chair of the permanent intelligence committee in the House...

RS: Right.

HH: ...and you're the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Is there any doubt in your mind that a fair-minded observer of the material you've had a right to see would conclude there is a serious threat of additional WMD as yet unsecured in Iraq?

RS: I think most people would look at this as a serious threat, and most people would look at this as saying that anybody who would claim that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the second Gulf War would not be taking a fair look at this situation as it is.

HH: Have you approached any of your colleagues from the other side of the aisle, Senator Rockefeller comes to mind, and ask them in the interest of national security to confirm your assessment?

RS: In fact, I just left the floor of the United States Senate, and asked each one of my colleagues to go up and look at it. This is a secret document. This is not a top secret document. This is a document that every member of the United States Senate has access to. And if they want to go upstairs in the Capitol building to look at this document, they can do so tonight.

HH: And did you get any response as you exited the floor? Were there other Senators about?

RS: Well, Senator Boxer was the next speaker, and she didn't comment at all on what I said. She moved on to another subject.

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. When we called the press...I will admit, we had hoped to get this document released to us earlier in the day, but we did not get it released to us until 4:30. There was a brief on it until 5:15. We had a press conference at 5:30, which as you know, is not prime time to have press conferences. But since the document was now available, declassified and available to all members, and was faxed around to several other members' offices, we thought it was important to characterize and put this in context. So we hastily called a press conference, of which...normally, I would think if you're announcing the finding of weapons of mass destruction, you'd get more than four or five reporters, but that's all we could seem to drum up.

HH: When you said you had a brief on it, who conducted the briefing?

RS: The intelligence community did a brief for Congressman Hoekstra in the Intelligence Committee over in the House.

HH: And did any United States Senator, other than yourself, attend that? Or did you...

RS: I'm not on the committee, so I could not attend the briefing.

HH: And so, why did Pete Hoekstra call you? Because of your long-standing interest in this?

RS: Actually, I went to Pete Hoekstra. I found about this from a tip, wrote two letters, one to the head of the Ground Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Center, and one to Director Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, asking for the report. It got nowhere until I called Pete two weeks ago and said Pete, have you heard of this report? He had not heard of the report. He was not aware of it. And he didn't know of its existence, took him a few days, but he was able to find out it existed, and then got a copy, and the rest is history.

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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. And again, what I think the Duellfer report was pretty clear about was that he had weapons programs in place, but that the sanctions were in fact effective in stopping him from producing more. But again, you can think about it this way. If you have X number, and let's just use number X for now. But if you have X numbers, and large amounts of weapons, why would you risk violating sanctions in trying to produce these things, when you have a program in place that once sanctions are lifted, you could produce very quickly, as well as you had stockpiles that you wouldn't have to produce if you needed to use them.

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: I'm not...first of all, I think the answer to that is no, as far as if you're saying was there an effort, do we know from this document whether there was an effor for Saddam to actually proliferate these weapons? No, I can't recall anything in the report that says anything...

HH: No, what I'm looking for is more he knew he had them, and he was trying to hide them as opposed to he'd forgotten where he put them.

RS: Oh, I'm sorry. Secret them. I thought you meant secrete, as in get them out.

HH: No, no, no.

RS: Well, there is additional information that I think the public should be made aware of that could answer that question.

HH: Very interestingly put, but you can't answer that based on what was declassified, and what was not?

RS: That's right.

HH: All right. Let me ask you then about the Christopher Hitchens remark earlier on this show. If nothing else, this demonstrates conclusively that the weapons inspectors would not have found these weapons. Can you concur with that?

RS: I would say that there's certainly a lot of the weapons...from what we...we know the nature of this, which is an ongoing process of trying to track and find these weapons, that this is now reported some three years afterwards, and they're continuing to find these weapons. That to me tells you that...and we control the entire countryside and have free access everywhere. So that'll give you an idea of how difficult this has been.

HH: Is it your impression, Senator Santorum, that we're receiving an increasing amount of assistance from Iraqi nationals in this WMD hunt?

RS: I don't know the answer to that. We are certainly receiving a lot of help, additional help, based on...and this is why these two Senate votes that we're going to be taking tomorrow are so important. We need to show the Iraqi people we are not going anywhere, that we're going to stay there, that they can trust us, that we're not going to be leaving in two or three years, then they're going to have to face all these people that they were able to provide information on, or that they're not going to have to pay consequences of cooperating with their government and with the United States, and with the coalition forces. That is vitally important, and that is now...with the government being established, our track record, and the President's clarity, we are starting to see a lot more cooperation, and I'm hopeful that that will lead to more cooperation with respect to the recovery of other weapons of mass destruction.

HH: Last question, Senator Rick Santorum. From the information that you have seen that you can discuss, as well as other published reports, are you concerned that al Qaeda has in fact obtained any of these pre-'91 weapons?

RS: Well, the report says that it has been reported in open press that I'm quoting, that Iraqi insurgents and Iraqi groups desire to acquire and use chemical weapons. So it is known that they are trying to. We have recovered some 500. We are still looking for, and that's, I think that's a fair analysis of the public statement. And so, this may be overhyping it, who finds them first?

HH: Do you believe...but is there any report that they have already obtained them?

RS: We have...I have no information about that.

HH: Senator Rick Santorum, thanks for spending time with us on a busy afternoon. More details at Ricksantorum.com. I appreciate it, Senator.

End of interview.

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