WMDs in the local section

The lead story on the front page of today's (Del.) News Journal bears this bold, black headline:

Report concludes Iraq had no WMDs.

(The Journal doesn't post wire stories on its site, but you can read the report by the Associated Press' Ken Guggenheim here.)

That's page A1. Here's the lead story from page B1:

N.J. lawmaker presses Army on VX.

Next to that is the B1 package headline:

Mustard gas shells to be destroyed.

Looking for weapons of mass destruction? There aren't any in Iraq — but we already knew that.

But if you want to find massive stockpiles of VX nerve agent, look in Newport, Ind., where the U.S. has 1,269 tons of the stuff. The plan is to "neutralize" it — turning it into something like Drano — and then dilute it and dump it in the Delaware River. Residents of South Jersey and Delaware are understandably nervous about this idea. Particularly since the "neutralizing" process may not actually work.

Before Hans Blix began his weapons inspections in Iraq, I had suspected that he would find there stockpiles of deteriorating mustard gas shells. None were found in Iraq. But they have been found in lower Delaware, where such shells keep turning up in driveways along with other live ordnance — grenades, mortar shells — dating back to World War I.