The definition and meaning behind weapons of mass destruction is in desperate need of refinement, as Ricky Sanitorium made evidently clear the day before yesterday and William Arkin elucidates this morning.

The day before yesterday in a stunt designed to shore up his sinking Senatorial re-election bid, Rick Santorum (R-Nuts) engineered the declassification of a memo from NID John Negroponte, and then declared before all the world (and Faux News) that "we found them!"

Exactly what had been found? 500 ⁺/_- a few degraded chemical weapons munitions from the 1980-88 war with Iran, which had quite poosibly been bombed by us in 1991 and forgotten by the Iraqi regime.

More after the jump

Add Santorum's announcement to a tidal wave of Conservative blog triumphalism and you have a non-event, except that William Arkin takes this moment to remind us (actually me) that a debate on just what qualifies as WMD is extremely necessary in this nation right now. Arkin writes:

the current dust-up over an intelligence memo indicating that U.S. forces have recovered about 500 old chemical munitions does prove one thing: When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, we are unable to differentiate and unable to have a rational debate. The term WMD has also become so expansive as to become meaningless.

Meaningless indeed. I've long held that chemical and biological agents should not be considered WMD but rather unconventional weapons, reasoning that the destructive capability of anthrax (as in late 2001) or botulinum toxin or even sarin (as in Tokyo) is no where near as intense, overwhelming or destructive as nuclear weapons. Not only do nukes create mass casualties, they destroy critical infrastructure necessary to preserve life in the aftermath of an attack.

Arkin agrees:

The problem is that Santorum, Rumsfeld, President Bush, Cheney, and most Washington wonks love to say "weapons of mass destruction" They don't differentiation between, say, Russian intercontinental missiles with multiple nuclear warheads and 20-year-old Iraqi chemical shells.

The threshold is simply laughable for these people as well:

Many of the "chemical munitions" found in Iraq were even "unfilled" shells. That is, they had never been filled with chemical agent, according to the summary. But, as Rumsfeld says, "they are weapons of mass destruction."

No, Rummy, they are not. There are empty munitions shells.

The problem with this extremely loose definition is evident in the North Korea debate and may spin out of control in the Iran debate, which will happen sooner or later. As Arkin ominously warns:

The promiscuity of the definition, and the lack of differentiation, not only affects us today -- read: North Korea -- but will undoubtedly be used in the future. Imagine, for a minute, an argument over "inspections" in a stand-off with Iran. I'm sure Rumsfeld and co. would argue inspections can't be relied on,and that you never can be sure you've gotten everything -- look at those chemical munitions found in Iraq.

Foot-long Iraq shells at dozens of old munitions bunkers, many of which had been bombed 16 years ago, burying the contents, then become Iranian nuclear warheads.

Arkin's warning aside, if it's scary enough then maybe it really does add votes to a candidates tally. Perhaps Senator Sanitorium can be our guinea pig?