The Defense Dept. says no....

Saddam had not accounted for his WMDs following Gulf War I, as required by the armistice. The fact that weapons were degraded is beside the point.

The Iraq Survey Group concluded he maintained his capability to produce such weapons once sanctions were lifted, and Saddam was working with considerable success towards goal.

LB Buddy, you should read your own link. Chemical weapons were indeed found. It has been the policy of the United States for decades that chemical and bio weapons are weapons of mass destruction and could be countered by the use of nukes. That these munitions were of pre-1991 vintage or that they were not in useable form does not negate their existence.

Mustard degrades fairly quickly. Sarin does too, unless it is stored in a binary fashion, at least according to Wiki, in which case it's shelf life is indefinite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarin

If these are binary Sarin weapons, they are quite nasty indeed.

Here's more info.

The money quote:

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

This is just a move by Santorum to salvage a dead re-election campaign.

Lb Buddy,

The Democrats should stay away from WMD issue. Well, because the WMDs were in Iraq, and probably still are. Otherwise,they will be arguing whether or not Saddam should have had this WMD, versus that WMD, old versus new - new or used, two door vs four door.

They'll sound like Saddam's defense lawyers the longer they debate the issue, and the Republicans will cream them.

What does Spicoli (Sean Penn) say???

KMR:

My only argument in this thread is that this claim by Santorum and breathlessly reported by Fox news and the Corner kids is bogus, and the people saying so are the Whitehouse, the DOD, and the CIA.

LB Buddy,

The libs have been arguing for years, that Bush lied about WMDs. Well, 500 shells with mustard gas and Sarin proves he didn't. The fact that DoD says these weren't the jackpot they were looking for does not, as LMC points out, negate their value.

Intelligence gathering is an art, not a science. This is where Presidential Leadership counts - the ability to make decisions and take risk in the face of uncertainity. It is always easier to delay, to get all the information, is analysis paralysis.

The Democrats' position, demanding more of the intell than what was available, is effectively that the US know more about the Iraqi WMD program than the Iraqis themselves knew, is a recipe for inaction, and worse, forcing a future President (Rodham Clinton, Kerry, Algore) to react, or be defined by, to events rather than shape them.