By now, I believe that the news of the discovery of 500 fully loaded chemical weapons shells by coalition forces has broken through to the American people.  That despite desperate attempts to shield the truth from the American people about anything positive in the post-liberation Iraqi Theatre in the War On Terror.  And the attempts to cast Senator Santorum and Representative Peter Hoekstra as some kind of kooks.

I have withheld my judgment on this story since I felt we have “been there before” in the discovery of WMDs that didn’t turn out to be.  I now believe that this news is very significant.  And the fact that it is NOT causing the major TV broadcast networks to issue “Special Reports” is probably proof enough to show how significant the information is.  After all, it violates their pre-written newscast scripts:  “Bush Lied, People Died”.

Gateway Pundit reported earlier this week that “it only took Saddam 15-20″ of similiar chemical shells to “murder thousands of Kurds” in 1988.  Santorum and Hoekstra reported 500 shells were found.

Since the media quickly moved the debate to: “Well, yeah but those shells were old and they weren’t really a danger”, the anti-American bureaucrats at the CIA and Defense jumped fully on board.  In the vein of Joe Wilson and Mary McCarthy, an “intelligence source” quickly jumped into the media discussion to announce these weren’t real WMDs.

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.”

But Defense Secretary Rumsfeld make an excellent point.

Rumsfeld, in a news briefing Thursday, said Santorum’s comments were correct.

“Certainly.  What has been announced is accurate, that there have been hundreds of canisters or weapons of various types found that either currently have sarin in them or had sarin in them, and sarin is dangerous.  And it’s dangerous to our forces, and it’s a concern.”

“They are weapons of mass destruction. They’re harmful to human beings. And they have been found,” Rumsfeld said. “And they had not been reported by Saddam Hussein as he inaccurately alleged that he had reported all of his weapons. And they are still being found and discovered.”

That is a key point.  Saddam violated UN resolution after UN resolution.  And while he claimed to at least report all of his WMDs, Santorum and Hoekstra have proven that is a lie.

Remember how worked up the media got us when a couple of envelopes of anthrax dust showed up at NBC and the Senate office buildings?  How we were told just a few spores could kill 100,000 people?  Everyone started buying duct tape and plastic wrap to cover their windows!

Well guess what folks.  Imagine what a dirty bomb loaded with even “degenerated” sarin gas could do if it exploded in Times Square!  A weapon of mass destruction.

The WMD in Iraq (as defined by Congress in its resolution of War Against Iraq) were found.  The real question is — what other truths in the War on Terror are being kept from us because it doesn’t “fit the script”?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

As I’m busy writing a paper, I won’t have much time today to comment on the decision of the New York Times “to disclose last night another classified surveillance program aimed at gathering information about terrorist plots.” Bill Keller, the paper’s executive editor, claims that, despite Administration’s pleas not to keep this legal program secret, he decided to publish the story anyway as “a matter of public interest.“

I wonder if Keller and others at the Times want to help the president by this. Given the president’s lackluster polls of late, the paper’s editors likely disclosed this secret program to show what a thorough job President Bush is doing to win the War on Terror. Without media disclosure of this clandestine program, Americans would not otherwise know what efforts the Administration has been taking to catch terrorists before they attack us.

Alas that in their zeal to show the president’s commitment to catching terrorists, the Times may have compromised this program which helped us track down and arrest at least one such villain. If the terrorists know about it, they may find different means to transfer money.

Not only that. On the same day the paper shows one of the many ways the Administration has been trying to track down terrorists, we learn of another success in the War on Terror. The Justice Department announced that it has broken up a terror ring in Florida.

Given that the Times devoted its front page to revelations of the clandestine program, it had to bury this good news deeper in the paper.

(Hat tips: Instapundit and Pajamas who have excellent roundups.)

UPDATE: Please note I have revised this piece since first posting it. While the president’s critics are engaging in their usual bellyaching about an Administration anti-terror initiative, it appears they’re rushing to judgment. As the Vice President (and others in the Administration) said today, it passes constitutional muster.

Other bloggers have pretty much said most of what I have to say about this program. Make sure to check the roundups not only on Instapundit and Pajamas, but also on Michelle Malkin’s blog. Like Calarato in comment #1 below, I’m pretty much with the Powerline guys on this one.

I believe there are two points to make about this story:

(1) It shows that the president is committed to the War on Terror, pursuing all legal means to track down terrorists seeking to attack Americans (hence my somewhat sarcastic spin in the headline above).

(2) The New York Times is more interested in “getting” the president than in respecting his the Chief Executive’s role in promoting the security of the American people. No wonder Vice President Cheney refused to give the Times special access to him during the campaign. As his daughter puts it in her most excellent book, Now It’s My Turn : A Daughter’s Chronicle of Political Life, “He knew the odds of getting a fair story out of the New York Times, in particular, were pretty much nonexistent.”

In Chapter 16, Mary details how in the final days of the 2004 campaign, the Times ran sixteen stories and columns on Al Qaqaa, a storage facility in Iraq from which 380 tons of explosives supposedly disappeared in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of Iraq. And then, as Mary puts its, a “search of the Times‘ own archives shows than in the four months after the 2004 election, there was exactly one mention of Al Qaqaa” in the paper. Seems the story was only important if it could hurt the president’s chances of reelection.

(Another reason, if you haven’t already to buy Mary’s book.)

UP-UPDATE: It looks like my attempt at sarcasm failed as one reader wrote in to ask if I were being sarcastic. No, I don’t think the NYT was trying to make the president look good. Its revelation will clearly hurt the Administration’s efforts to hunt those who would do us harm. But, it does show that the president is committed to using all legal means to catch those creeps.

UP-UP-UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds (AKA Instapundit) writes, “When big companies dump toxic waste into rivers to enrich themselves, they’re criticized by the press. But this is the same kind of thing — self-serving profiteering at the public’s expense.” I agree.

I’m happy to say that I first learned about this column while reading the latest issue of Log Cabin’s “Inclusion Wins” newsletter.  I’m only sorry I didn’t see it sooner! 

No Need To Deface US Constitution Over Gay Marriage – Charles Krauthammer

The Constitution was never intended to set social policy. Its purpose is to establish the rules of governance and secure for the individual citizen rights against the power of the state. It defaces the Constitution to turn it into a super-legislative policy document.

In the short run, judicial arrogance is to be fought democratically with the means still available. Rewording and repassing the constitutional amendment in Georgia, for example. Appealing the Nebraska decision right up to the Supreme Court, which, given its current composition, is extremely likely to terminate with prejudice this outrageous example of judicial interposition. 

Do not misunderstand, Krauthammer is no fan of gay marriage at all.  But he strongly believes that this is a clear issue about Federalism working and not being railroaded by a Constitutional amendment.  Fight it out at the state level.   Hoorah! 

By the way, if Peggy Noonan is Dan’s “Athena”, Charles is my… um…. male equivalent to Athena.  [Apollo, perhaps? suggests Dan who also loves Krauthammer.]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)