So the WMD went to Syria?

[Charlie P]

U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday.

Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD." Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."

The Iraq Survey Group's main findings -- that Hussein's Iraq did not possess chemical and biological weapons and had only aspirations for a nuclear program -- were made public in October in an interim report covering nearly 1,000 pages. Yesterday's final report, published on the Government Printing Office's Web site ( http://www.gpo.gov ), incorporated those pages with minor editing and included 92 pages of addenda that tied up loose ends on Syria and other topics.

U.S. officials have held out the possibility that Syria worked in tandem with Hussein's government to hide weapons before the U.S.-led invasion. The survey group said it followed up on reports that a Syrian security officer had discussed collaboration with Iraq on weapons, but it was unable to complete that investigation. But Iraqi officials whom the group was able to interview "uniformly denied any knowledge of residual WMD that could have been secreted to Syria," the report said.

The report, which refuted many of the administration's principal arguments for going to war in Iraq, marked the official end of a two-year weapons hunt led most recently by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer. The team found that the 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. sanctions had destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capabilities and that, for the most part, Hussein had not tried to rebuild them. Iraq's ability to produce nuclear arms, which the administration asserted was a grave and gathering threat that required an immediate military response, had "progressively decayed" since 1991. Investigators found no evidence of "concerted efforts to restart the program."

Administration officials have emphasized that, while the survey group uncovered no banned arms, it concluded that Hussein had not given up the goal of someday acquiring them.

Hussein "retained the intent and capability and he intended to resume full-scale WMD efforts once the U.N. sanctions were lifted," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said yesterday. "Duelfer provides plenty of rationale for why this country went to war in Iraq."

In one of the addenda released yesterday, investigators addressed the risk that Iraqi scientists will share their knowledge or material with other countries, particularly Syria and Iran, given previous contacts, financial inducements and professional opportunities. The report concluded that the risk exists but said "there is only very limited reporting suggesting that this is actually taking place and no reports that indicate scientists were recruited to work in a WMD program."

As for the possibility that insurgents in Iraq will draw on the expertise of Iraqi scientists to develop unconventional weapons for use against the United States and its coalition forces, the report describes these efforts so far as being "limited and contained by coalition action." The survey group was aware of only one scientist assisting terrorists or insurgents. He helped them fashion chemical mortar munitions.

The report found that missing equipment, however, "could contribute to insurgent or terrorist production of chemical or biological agents."

In most cases the equipment appeared to have been randomly looted, but in selected cases it appeared "to be taken away carefully," Duelfer said in an interview yesterday. Overall, though, "it's like going to a demolition derby for car parts," said Duelfer. The right equipment "is hard to get."

Four military personnel assigned to the survey group's mission perished in the violence that engulfed Iraq, and five others were seriously wounded, in a mission that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

No further work is planned, although teams are on hand to be dispatched when credible reports of weapons material are received in Iraq. The report says, however, that continued reports of banned arms in Iraq "are usually scams or misidentification of materials or activities." It predicts that such reports will continue.

Although new information may be forthcoming, Duelfer said in an accompanying letter that he has "confidence in the picture of events and programs covered by this report."

"If there were to be a surprise in the future," he added, "it most likely would be in the biological weapons area" because the size of those facilities can be so small.

Duelfer also recommended that the United States release some of the scientists and technocrats who are still being held captive in Iraq strictly because of their work on Iraq's weapons programs dating back to the Gulf War. "Many have been very cooperative and provided great assistance in understanding the WMD programs" and Iraq's intentions, and have exhausted their knowledge of these subjects, he wrote. "In my view, certain detainees are overdue for release."

Of 300 individuals on a "blacklist" developed by U.S. military and intelligence officials before the war, 105 have been detained. But the list, said the report, was flawed. "Some very despicable individuals who should have been listed were not, while many technocrats and even opponents of the Saddam regime made the list and hence found themselves either in jail or on the run."

The Pentagon's Whitman said that he was unaware of any scientists who had been released recently because of Duelfer's appeal and that the Defense Department routinely reviews detainees' status to see "whether or not they are a threat to the coalition and Iraqi security forces and whether or not they continue to have intelligence value."

They must all be buried under the sand I guess.

[DougMD]

the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD."

Just because there is no evidence that senior officials have said anything about it doesn't mean it didn't happen. I would be surprised if they DID open their mouths about it, considering the immediate danger they and their family would be in for having done so.

Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."

Here are a few sources that are opposed to Bush's plan to go in to Iraq who conclude that WMD's and or components were shipped out of Iraq to Syria and other neighboring territories:


N.Y. Times: Iraq Had WMD 'Stockpiles' in 2003

In a stunning about-face, the New York Times reported Sunday that when the U.S. attacked Iraq in March 2003, Saddam Hussein possessed "stockpiles of monitored chemicals and materials," as well as sophisticated equipment to manufacture nuclear and biological weapons, which was removed to "a neighboring state" before the U.S. could secure the weapons sites.

The U.N.'s Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission [UNMOVIC] "has filed regular reports to the Security Council since last May," the paper said, "about the dismantlement of important weapons installations and the export of dangerous materials to foreign states."

Story Continues Below

Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 25/01/2004)

David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.





In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam.

"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

Dr Kay's comments will intensify pressure on President Bashar Assad to clarify the extent of his co-operation with Saddam's regime and details of Syria's WMD programme. Mr Assad has said that Syria was entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own biological and chemical weapons arsenal.

Syria was one of Iraq's main allies in the run-up to the war and hundreds of Iraqi officials - including members of Saddam's family - were given refuge in Damascus after the collapse of the Iraqi dictator's regime. Many of the foreign fighters responsible for conducting terrorist attacks against the coalition are believed to have entered Iraq through Syria.

A Syrian official last night said: "These allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false."

24 January 2004: Disillusioned inspector quits Iraq arms hunt
7 January 2004: Assad given weapons ultimatum
6 January 2004: We won't scrap WMD stockpile unless Israel does, says Assad



United Nations inspectors:
Saddam shipped out WMD before war and after
June 11, 2004
World Tribune.com


In April, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed El Baradei said material from Iraqi nuclear facilities were being smuggled out of the country.
The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program.

The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite image of the same location in February 2004, in which facilities had disappeared.

UNMOVIC acting executive chairman Demetrius Perricos told the council on June 9 that "the only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap," Middle East Newsline reported.

"It's being exported," Perricos said after the briefing. "It's being traded out. And there is a large variety of scrap metal from very new to very old, and slowly, it seems the country is depleted of metal."

"The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," Perricos told the council. Perricos also reported that inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags.

He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent both to Europe and around the Middle East. at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month. Destinations included Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey.

The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters ? the latter required for the production of chemical and biological warheads.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Ewen Buchanan, Perricos's spokesman, said. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax."

The UNMOVIC report said Iraqi missiles were dismantled and exported to such countries as Jordan, the Netherlands and Turkey. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, an SA-2 surface-to-air missile, one of at least 12, was discovered in a junk yard, replete with UN tags. In Jordan, UN inspectors found 20 SA-2 engines as well as components for solid-fuel for missiles.

"The problem for us is that we don't know what may have passed through these yards and other yards elsewhere," Buchanan said. "We can't really assess the significance and don't know the full extent of activity that could be going on there or with others of Iraq's neighbors."

UN inspectors have assessed that the SA-2 and the short-range Al Samoud surface-to-surface missile were shipped abroad by agents of the Saddam regime. Buchanan said UNMOVIC plans to inspect other sites, including in Turkey.

In April, International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohammed El Baradei said material from Iraqi nuclear facilities were being smuggled out of the country.

Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exporting Saddam's WMDs

June 18, 2004
FrontPageMagazine.com
Ben Johnson

The assertion that Saddam Hussein had no Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to last year?s liberation has been rendered absurd ? by United Nations weapons inspectors.

Demetrius Perricos, acting chairman of UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), recently disclosed that his inspectors have been busily tracking shipments of illicit Iraqi WMD components around the world.

The Associated Press announced that UNMOVIC inspectors have found dozens of engines from banned al-Samoud 2 (SA2) missiles, which were shipped out of Iraq as ?scrap metal.? Most recently, UNMOVIC agents found 20 SA-2 engines in Jordan, along with a great deal of other WMD materials. Officials discovered an identical engine in a Rotterdam port in the Netherlands and believe as many as a dozen extra SA-2 missile engines alone have been transported out of Iraq and remain unaccounted for. Inspectors believe at least some of these engines have also reached Turkey and hope to search Turkish ports in the near future.

UNMOVIC estimates as much as 1,000 tons of scrap metal a day are leaving Iraq bound for foreign shores.

Besides the SA-2 engines, inspectors also found Iraqi ?dual use? technology in Jordan, items purportedly employed in civilian affairs that can be used to create or enhance deadly weapons systems. The New York Times noted that among those items were ?fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles and a reactor vessel - all tools suitable for making biological or chemical weapons.?

UN spokesman Ewen Buchanan put the threat of ?dual use? technology into perspective. ?You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter,? Buchanan said. ?You can also use it to breed anthrax.?

Before the war, Saddam?s regime cast its possession of ?dual use? materials in the most innocent light, a ruse familiar to students of the Cold War. UNMOVIC wisely rejected his sunny assessment.

Today, UNMOVIC inspectors are deeply concerned about the possibility of WMD proliferation. A Reuters news story captures their distress:

?A number of sites which contained dual-use equipment that was previously monitored by UN inspectors has [sic.] been systematically taken apart,? said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the New York-based inspectors. ?The question this raises is what happened to equipment known to have been there.

?Where is it now? It's a concern,? Buchanan asked.

?The existence of missile engines originating in Iraq among scrap in Europe may affect the accounting of proscribed engines known to have been in Iraq's possession,? UNMOVIC said.

The report said the U.N. inspectors also found papers showing illegal contracts by Iraq for a missile guidance system, laser ring gyroscopes and a variety of production and testing equipment not previously disclosed.

Many of the ?dual use? components UNMOVIC found in foreign ports had been previous tagged by UN inspectors in Iraq before the war. And transfers are taking place rapidly. During his presentation, Perricos showed the Security Council a picture of a fully developed missile site in May 2003 that had been entirely torn down by February of this year.

Perricos? June 9 testimony is made all the more credible by the fact that he is hardly a neo-con stalwart. USA Today described his mindset just three months ago: ?Demetrius Perricos, acting head of the United Nations weapons inspection program, can't disguise his satisfaction that almost a year after the invasion of Iraq, U.S. inspectors have found the same thing that their much-maligned UN counterparts did before the war: no banned weapons.? Today, Perricos? smile has disappeared.

(It should be noted that Perricos was honest enough to say the Iraqis were dragging their feet in destroying banned missiles just a month before Operation Iraqi Freedom began. He said at the time that Saddam viewed a partial and halting disarmament as a ?way by which the possibility of war is being further avoided.? He added: ?I cannot tell whether he genuinely believes in the inspection process or not.? Evidently, the fact that Saddam expelled all UN inspectors during the Clinton administration wasn?t a clue to the UN?s Sherlock Holmes.)

These revelations came during a closed meeting of the UN Security Council held last Wednesday, June 9. However, the investigations are not new. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) launched its own probe into Iraqi WMD transfers a full six months ago, when a Dutch scrap metal company discovered five pounds of yellowcake uranium ore in Rotterdam. The sample was shipped from Jordan but Jordanian officials said the metal originated in Iraq. (Perhaps this is the yellowcake that atomic sleuth Amb. Joe Wilson insisted Iraq never purchased from Niger.) IAEA Director Mohammed El Baradei warned two months ago that evidence of Saddam?s WMDs is being shipped abroad.

Jordan has been the recipient of Iraqi WMDs in the past. Most recently, Jordan seized 20 tons of chemical weapons while foiling an al-Qaeda plot to kill 80,000 people. The stockpile they uncovered contained 70 different kinds of chemical agents, including Sarin and VX gas. (Remember, last month Iraqi insurgents lobbed two chemical weapons at U.S. troops armed with Sarin and mustard gas.)

On April 17, Jordanian King Abdallah claimed these poisons came from Syria ? but experts say Syria only has the capacity to produce small amounts of these weapons, not the 20 tons al-Qaeda possessed. Significantly, David Kay and others have said Syria acted as a depository for Saddam?s WMDs. Former Justice Department official John Loftus has made a compelling case that even more WMDs are presently buried in Syria. And these are merely the latest in a long line of WMD discoveries, inside Iraq and out.

You may be forgiven if this is news to you: The mainstream media have chosen to ignore or downplay the significance of the UN?s vindication of President Bush?s policies. In fact, the predictably left-leaning Reuters news service blamed these WMD shipments?on America. Reuters wrote that ?the U.S.-led occupation force? had not adequately ?protected sites or items that inspectors tagged before the war because of their potential use in weapons of mass destruction.?

Apparently, one must live in Australia to get the truth. The Sunday Times? headline? ?UN uncovers banned weapons.?

The discovery of banned WMD engines should forever silence those who believe Saddam had no stockpile of weapons, or that all such stockpiles were destroyed before the war. Saddam gassed his own people. He had WMDs that miraculously ended up in the hands of Jordanian al-Qaeda terrorists. And now we find his pre-war armory of chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax agents, is being shipped around the world. The fact that these transfers have taken place in an independent Iraq should only reinforce the righteousness of toppling Saddam. In a post-Saddam Iraq, these weapons are being found in shipyards in the Netherlands and Jordan; had Saddam stayed in power, more and more of them may have ended up in the hands of Osama bin Laden. UNMOVIC?s finding is simply further evidence that Operation Iraqi Freedom was justified ? and the opposition was willfully ignorant of the threat Saddam Hussein posed to American security.

Ben Johnson is Associate Editor of FrontPage Magazine.
Copyright?2004 FrontPageMagazine.com

[DougMD]

And here is an article almost a year old about WMDs going to Syria and it being such a hot potato, Syria was looking to get rid of it! Your "lack of evidence" is no high official talking about it. The evidence from the articles I have posted are the antiwar NY Times, anti-war David Kay, anitwar UN, and actual people from different places that confirm WMD and or components were shipped out, to Syria and elsewhere.



The curious lack of curiosity about WMD
Larry Elder (archive)


May 6, 2004 | Print | Send


"Week after week after week after week," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., about President Bush's rationale for going to war with Iraq, "we were told lie after lie after lie after lie." Were we?

Jordan recently seized 20 tons of chemicals trucked in by confessed al Qaeda members who brought the stuff in from Syria. The chemicals included VX, Sarin and 70 others. But the media seems curiously incurious about whether one could reasonably trace this stuff back to Iraq. Had the terrorists released a "toxic cloud," Jordanian officials say 80,000 would have died!

So, I interviewed terrorism expert John Loftus, who once held some of the highest security clearances in the world. Loftus, a former Army officer, served as a Justice Department prosecutor. He investigated CIA cases of Nazi war criminals for the U.S. attorney general. Author of several books, Loftus once received a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

John Loftus: There's a lot of reason to think (the source of the chemicals) might be Iraq. We captured Iraqi members of al Qaeda, who've been trained in Iraq, planned for the mission in Iraq, and now they're in Jordan with nerve gas. That's not the kind of thing you buy in a grocery store. You have to have obtained it from someplace.

Larry Elder: They couldn't have obtained it from Syria?

Loftus: Syria does have the ability to produce certain kinds of nerve gasses, but in small quantities. The large stockpiles were known to be in Iraq. The best U.S. and allied intelligence say that in the 10 weeks before the Iraq war, Saddam's Russian adviser told him to get rid of all the nerve gas. It would be useless against U.S. troops; the rubber suits were immune to it. So they shipped it across the border to Syria and Lebanon and buried it. Now, in the last few weeks, there's a controversy that Syria has been trying to get rid of this stuff.

They're selling it to al Qaeda is one supposition. We know the Sudanese government demanded that the Syrian government empty its warehouse in Khartoum where they've been hiding illegal missiles along with components of weapons of mass destruction. But there's no doubt these guys confessed on Jordanian television that they received the training for this mission in Iraq. . . . And from the description it appears this is the form of nerve gas known as VX. It's very rare, and very tough to manufacture . . . one of the most destructive chemical mass-production weapons that you can use. . . . They wanted to build three clouds, a mile across, of toxic gas. A whole witch's brew of nasty chemicals that were going to go into this poison cloud, and this would have gone over shopping malls, hospitals . . .

Elder: You said that the Russians told Saddam, "There is going to be an invasion. Get rid of your chemical and biological weapons."

Loftus: Sure. It would only bring the United Nations down on their heads if they were shown to really have weapons of mass destruction. It's not generally known, but the CIA has found 41 different material breaches where Saddam did have a weapons of mass destruction program of various types. It was completely illegal. But no one could find the stockpiles. And the liberal press seems to be focusing on that.

Elder: It seems to me that this is a huge, huge story.

Loftus: It's embarrassing to the (press). They've staked their reputations that this stuff wasn't there. And now all of a sudden we have al Qaeda agents from Iraq showing up with weapons of mass destruction.

Elder: David Kay said, in an interim report, that there was a possibility that WMD components were shipped to Syria.

Loftus: A possibility? We had a Syrian journalist who defected to Paris in January. The guy is dying of cancer, and he said, "Look, my friends in Syrian intelligence told me exactly where the stuff is buried." He named three sites in Syria, and the Israelis have confirmed the three sites. They know where the stuff is, but the problem is that the United States can't just go around invading Arab countries. . . . We know from Israeli and defectors' intelligence that the son of the Syrian defense minister was paid 50 million bucks to bring the stuff across the border and bury it.

Elder: Why would al Qaeda attack Jordan?

Loftus: Jordan is an ally of the United States. It's at peace with Israel. And Jordan has a long history of trying to prosecute terrorists. . . . There are a lot of reasons. . . . They want to make an example of them. They want to terrorize as many of the Arab states as possible. This is sort of a political dream for the president. The worst nightmare is al Qaeda gets weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. And it looks like it's coming true.

A Syria/Iraq/al Qaeda/WMD connection? Why, this calls for a congressional investigation.



©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[Charlie P]

Al queida and Iraq? Bin laden hated Hussein because he wasn't a strict fundamentalits.

Your better off starting an investigation on the link between Saudia Arabia and Bin laden.

[Knightia]

Heard that before -So what? Bin hates the Americans & infadels even more . They share a commen enemy( more then one- that overrides any relgious differences. Dont know why ppl find that hard to believe.

Just as sadam insane may not be to relgious - reguardless he still considers himself a muslim.

[tardfarmer]

He named three sites in Syria, and the Israelis have confirmed the three sites. They know where the stuff is, but the problem is that the United States can't just go around invading Arab countries. . . .

?????????????????????????????????????

[tardfarmer]

Bin laden hated Hussein because he wasn't a strict fundamentalits.

that is correct, as a matter of fact Hussein felt the fundamentalists were extremely dangerous to his power and regularily had them tortured.

[Tazman]

Al queida and Iraq? Bin laden hated Hussein because he wasn't a strict fundamentalits.

Funny thing that he willingly took arms from the great Satan America who he also hated.

[Knightia]

Anyone who went aginst him - sadam was a target- that does not preclude him working with al queida hand& hand when it suits eithers needs.

Bin dont like the saudies either& there monarchy ,royal kingdom or much else.They would like to see them fall too.( maybe have the americans do there work for them again)

[Charlie P]

Taz, How many times have we done that in the middle east and around the world.

Didn't we also train Bin Laden?