Yeah, i still say those pesky WMDs are in Syria.

[stevo]

http://www.nysun.com/article/24480

Saddam's WMD Moved to Syria, An Israeli Says

By IRA STOLL - Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 15, 2005

Saddam Hussein moved his chemical weapons to Syria six weeks before the war started, Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom says.

The assertion comes as President Bush said yesterday that much of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was incorrect.

The Israeli officer, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, asserted that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. "He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria," General Yaalon told The New York Sun over dinner in New York on Tuesday night. "No one went to Syria to find it."

From July 2002 to June 2005, when he retired, General Yaalon was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, the top job in the Israeli military, analogous to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the American military. He is now a military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He made similar, but more speculative, remarks in April 2004 that attracted little notice in America; at that time he was quoted as saying of the Iraqi weapons, "Perhaps they transferred them to another country, such as Syria."

The Israeli general's remarks came on the eve of Mr. Bush's speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, in which the president addressed the issue of intelligence and defended the decision to go to war. "When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Mr. Bush said in remarks that were one of a series of speeches he has given recently on the war.

Mr. Bush's defense of the war echoed themes he has been pressing since before the war began and through his successful campaign for re-election. "Given Saddam's history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat - and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power."

An official at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, Entifadh Qanbar, said he believed the Israeli general's account, but that the Iraqi government is "basically operating in the dark" because it does not have its own intelligence agency. He said the issue underscored the need for the new Iraqi government to have control of its own intelligence service. "We don't have any way to find anything out about Syria because we don't have intelligence," Mr. Qanbar said. He said there is a high-rise building in Baghdad with 1,000 employees working on intelligence but that it has no budget appropriation from the Iraqi government and "doesn't report to the Iraqi government."

"Nobody knows who it belongs to, but you should understand who it belongs to," he said, in what was apparently a reference to American involvement.

An Iraqi politician, Mithal Al-Alusi, whose sons were both assassinated in Iraq last year, told The New York Sun's Eli Lake last month that his party would press the Iraqi government to renew the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Al-Alusi said he believes Saddam clearly had the weapons before the invasion. "They will find the weapons, I am sure they will," Mr. Al-Alusi said.

A spokesman at the Syrian embassy in Washington did not return a call seeking comment. But General Yaalon's comment could increase pressure on the Syrian government that is already mounting from Washington and the United Nations. Mr. Bush has been keeping the rhetorical heat on Damascus. On Monday, he said in a speech, "Iraq's neighbor to the west, Syria, is permitting terrorists to use that territory to cross into Iraq."

Also Monday, Mr. Bush issued a statement saying, "Syria must comply with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1559, 1595, and 1636 and end its interference in Lebanon once and for all. "The resolutions call for ending Syria's occupation of Lebanon and for Syrian cooperation into the investigation of the assassination of a Lebanese politician, Rafik Hariri.

On Saturday, the White House issued a statement calling attention to Syrian prisoners of conscience such as Kamal Labwani. "The Syrian Government must cease its harassment of Syrians peacefully seeking to bring democratic reform to their country. The United States stands with the Syrian people in their desire for freedom and democracy," said the statement, issued in the name of the White House press secretary.

Yesterday, the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, described Syria as an "oppressive regime." He also pointed to a recent report by a United Nations investigator looking into the assassination of Hariri. "The Syrian Government has failed to offer its full cooperation," Mr. McCormack said, citing the U.N. investigator's report that "details allegations of document burning by the Syrians, of intimidating witnesses."

When, during an interview with the Sun in April, Vice President Cheney was asked whether he thought that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria, Mr. Cheney replied only that he had seen such reports.

An article in the Fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an appearance on Israel's Channel 2 on December 23, 2002, Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon stated, "Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria." The allegation was denied by the Syrian government at the time as "completely untrue," and it attracted scant American press attention, coming as it did on the eve of the Christmas holiday.

Syria shares a 376-mile border with Iraq. The Syrian ruling party and Saddam Hussein had in common the ideology of Baathism, a mixture of Nazism and Marxism.

Syria is one of only eight countries that has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty that obligates nations not to stockpile or use chemical weapons. And it has long been the source of concern in America and Israel and Lebanon about its chemical warfare program apart from any weapons that may have been received from Iraq. The director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March of 2004, "Damascus has an active CW development and testing program that relies on foreign suppliers for key controlled chemicals suitable for producing CW."

So who wants to bet the weapons turn up in syria just in time for the 2006 elections? Karl Rove is the evil genius. I've been saying it for the last 2 years, Syria=IraqiWMDs. Someone will find them one day. In the mean time, back to your regularly scheduled program.

[Seaver]

Why is this so hard to believe? They share a massive border with Syria, with highly mobile weapons platforms.

Syria is a VERY close Ba'athist ally to Saddam, and is extremely anti-western.

[Willravel]

The day a high ranking Israeli tells the truth about an Arab state is the day I eat my hat. That's like Dr. No saying that James Bond is gay. Dr. No is not a good source for information on James Bond, just as Israel is not a good source of reliable intel on Iraq. Dollars to doughnuts this is just another racist/religionist statement.

[Mojo_PeiPei]

The only fault in Israeli intelligence concerning Iraq is it was obviously advantageous to them to have Saddam removed from power. The same Saddam who attempted to get nuclear weapons for what he himself claimed was Israeli's destruction, the same Saddam who launched chemically laced missles into Israeli pending invasion in 91', and the same Saddam who was one of Palestinian terrorisms biggest financial backers.

But seriously, knowing that the Mossad is one of the best intelligence groups on the planet; Coupled with the fact that at some point Saddam did have the weapons, and that everyone and their grandma knew so, I don't put it out of the realm of possibility that Saddam moved his weapons to his crazy baathist neighbor.

What is so hard to believe about the Israeli's telling the truth regarding the Arabs btw?

[Brewmaniac]

Wouldn't you think that a large movement like this show up on satellite and wouldn't we monitor this for many months prior to war!

[stevo]

Large movement? There is always movement between syria and iraq. What would be out of the ordinary if civillian jet liners, with the seats gutted out, and then loaded with WMDs flow into syria? All intel would show is a normal civillian flight, possibly iraqi aid to syria. It would only take a few jetliners, not some huge caravan of trucks with missles sticking out the back. ITs really not that hard to imagine.

[pan6467]

Originally Posted by Brewmaniac

Wouldn't you think that a large movement like this show up on satellite and wouldn't we monitor this for many months prior to war!

Very good point and if the movement were seen why didn't we say anything then?

OR was that another "intelligence screwup"?

And how many intelligence screwups are we having?

We want to trust wiretapping and pentagon spying and illegal detentions to an intelligence community that is screwing up?

Hmmmmmm..... so many questions, will come up IF the WMDs are found to have been transported to Syria.

[pan6467]

Originally Posted by stevo

Large movement? There is always movement between syria and iraq. What would be out of the ordinary if civillian jet liners, with the seats gutted out, and then loaded with WMDs flow into syria? All intel would show is a normal civillian flight, possibly iraqi aid to syria. It would only take a few jetliners, not some huge caravan of trucks with missles sticking out the back. ITs really not that hard to imagine.

I would have to disagree because if Syria and Saddam were really that close and we saw this traffic before the war our intelligence should have been intelligent enough to see that.

Plus are you for sure about all this traffic that went between the 2 countries?

If that's the case then why didn't Syria ship all kinds of food and such in?

Ahhhh yes, we isolated Iraq and had no fly zones and supposedly watched it like a hawk, yet now we are to believe that the WMDs would be easily transported there.

And there would still be the transportation from where these WMD's were to the planes....... and supposedly, if I recall we had sattelite photos demonstrating these bases and such, we showed the UN before the war.

[samcol]

This looks like pure propaganda if I've ever seen it. I'm sure Saddam decided to hand-off the the big HIT ME sign to Syria instead of use them on us. When are you guys going to figure out that this was the PNAC plan. Nearly the whole middle east, country by country. Now it's all coming true and you guys just eat it up.

[irateplatypus]

i don't have a clue whether or not WMDs were shipped to Syria...

but I am quite certain it could easily be done w/out US surveillance. you can fit enough weaponized sarin gas in a kia to kill thousands. with ~150k troops presently in iraq we can't control what comes through the syrian or iranian borders. why on earth would you suppose we could do so with saddam still in power?

[Marvelous Marv]

Originally Posted by willravel

The day a high ranking Israeli tells the truth about an Arab state is the day I eat my hat. That's like Dr. No saying that James Bond is gay. Dr. No is not a good source for information on James Bond, just as Israel is not a good source of reliable intel on Iraq. Dollars to doughnuts this is just another racist/religionist statement.

If there was ever a classic case of "poisoning the well," this is it. Apparently, no high-ranking Israeli has ever said a true word about any Arab state. Allrighty then.

Back in 2004, David Kay said the WMDs had been moved to Syria. It's my understanding that his word has been gospel to Democrats ever since he said he couldn't find any WMDs in Iraq.

Link (to a British source)

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."[Is he a relative of yours?]

[Willravel]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

If there was ever a classic case of "poisoning the well," this is it. Apparently, no high-ranking Israeli has ever said a true word about any Arab state. Allrighty then.

Back in 2004, David Kay said the WMDs had been moved to Syria. It's my understanding that his word has been gospel to Democrats ever since he said he couldn't find any WMDs in Iraq.

Link (to a British source)

If this information can be substantiated, it will be substantiated by someone other than an Israeli official. Until there is some evidence, then why are we discussing it? The Iraqi weapons were *probably* destroyed and dismantled in the early to mid 90s. At least there is some evidence of that.

[Mojo_PeiPei]

There was evidence that there were still weapons remaining as late as of 1998...

[Marvelous Marv]

Originally Posted by willravel

If this information can be substantiated, it will be substantiated by someone other than an Israeli official. Until there is some evidence, then why are we discussing it? The Iraqi weapons were *probably* destroyed and dismantled in the early to mid 90s. At least there is some evidence of that.

Just so I understand, you're saying that David Kay is not a reliable source, right?

[The_Jazz]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

Just so I understand, you're saying that David Kay is not a reliable source, right?

I think that there isn't enough proof one way or another. David Kay may believe that, but he could be wrong. He could be right. It needs to be substantiated by other sources, and I think that we all agree that the Israelis probably not necessarily the most believable source of information since they definitely have an axe to grind.

[Rekna]

Let's say Saddam wanted to move his alleged stockpiles prior to the war. What exactly would this require? First he would have to know where all his weapons are, then he would have to provide these locations to people to move them, and issue commands for them to move them. This would require a TUN of paperwork to effectivley communicate. It would leave behind a huge trail to be followed. There would be documents that contain orders, documents that contain the locations of these weapons, documents that contain information on how to properly move them, and then there would be a lot of witnesses who helped move these. Yet years after we invaded Iraq we have no evidence of any of these documents, no evidence that he didn't actually disarm when he said he did, and we have no witnesses coming forward to say they helped with the move. In order to believe that these weapons were moved we have to assume that saddam and his soldiers were so maticulous that they were able to shred and hide every single document involved in this move, that they were able to do the move in such a way that the US wouldn't notice with their spy planes and satalites, and then manage to silence (kill) every single witness involved who might speak up a few years later when there was no fear of reprisal from saddam and company, of course this killing would have to have been done in such a way that no one noticed, and then finnaly the bodies would have all had to been hidden.

Or there is an alternative, Saddam was purpousfully making it seem like he had weapons in order to make his hand look stronger than it was, when he saw the US was going to call he decided to fold but the US wouldn't let him fold and forced him to stay at the table.

Can someone apply Occam's Razor to these two senarios for me please.

[Charlatan]

You guys have it all wrong... Saddam used them on his own troops. That's why there was little to no resistance during the initial invasion. All the Iraqi soldiers were dead.

[aberkok]

I find it reassuring that people are going to think the WMDs are in Syria because Moshe Yaalon said so.

/sarcasm

As mentioned above, why is that anything like evidence?

[Marvelous Marv]

Originally Posted by Rekna

Let's say Saddam wanted to move his alleged stockpiles prior to the war. What exactly would this require? First he would have to know where all his weapons are, then he would have to provide these locations to people to move them, and issue commands for them to move them. This would require a TUN of paperwork to effectivley communicate. It would leave behind a huge trail to be followed. There would be documents that contain orders, documents that contain the locations of these weapons, documents that contain information on how to properly move them, and then there would be a lot of witnesses who helped move these. Yet years after we invaded Iraq we have no evidence of any of these documents, no evidence that he didn't actually disarm when he said he did, and we have no witnesses coming forward to say they helped with the move. In order to believe that these weapons were moved we have to assume that saddam and his soldiers were so maticulous that they were able to shred and hide every single document involved in this move, that they were able to do the move in such a way that the US wouldn't notice with their spy planes and satalites, and then manage to silence (kill) every single witness involved who might speak up a few years later when there was no fear of reprisal from saddam and company, of course this killing would have to have been done in such a way that no one noticed, and then finnaly the bodies would have all had to been hidden.

Or there is an alternative, Saddam was purpousfully making it seem like he had weapons in order to make his hand look stronger than it was, when he saw the US was going to call he decided to fold but the US wouldn't let him fold and forced him to stay at the table.

Can someone apply Occam's Razor to these two senarios for me please.

Or he could pick up a phone and call the people in charge with orders. A dictator doesn't have to answer to anyone in regard to filling out the "proper forms."

Saddam may not, as you said, have had everything we suspected he did, but by the logic expressed earlier in the thread, during the time we couldn't find Saddam, we should have just assumed he never existed.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by Rekna

Let's say Saddam wanted to move his alleged stockpiles prior to the war. What exactly would this require? First he would have to know where all his weapons are, then he would have to provide these locations to people to move them, and issue commands for them to move them. This would require a TUN of paperwork to effectivley communicate. It would leave behind a huge trail to be followed. There would be documents that contain orders, documents that contain the locations of these weapons, documents that contain information on how to properly move them, and then there would be a lot of witnesses who helped move these. Yet years after we invaded Iraq we have no evidence of any of these documents, no evidence that he didn't actually disarm when he said he did, and we have no witnesses coming forward to say they helped with the move. In order to believe that these weapons were moved we have to assume that saddam and his soldiers were so maticulous that they were able to shred and hide every single document involved in this move, that they were able to do the move in such a way that the US wouldn't notice with their spy planes and satalites, and then manage to silence (kill) every single witness involved who might speak up a few years later when there was no fear of reprisal from saddam and company, of course this killing would have to have been done in such a way that no one noticed, and then finnaly the bodies would have all had to been hidden.

Or there is an alternative, Saddam was purpousfully making it seem like he had weapons in order to make his hand look stronger than it was, when he saw the US was going to call he decided to fold but the US wouldn't let him fold and forced him to stay at the table.

Can someone apply Occam's Razor to these two senarios for me please.

Saddam filling out paperwork to get illegal wmd's transported to syria is like a drug dealer keeping detailed business records just incase the IRS audits.

[streak_56]

I'm sorry if I'm reluctant to believe the Israli official. To me, Israel seems to want to be the police of the middle east. That who they deem as a threat will be the next target. Personally if this evidence can be substantiated by someone other than an Israli official. Though I am not skeptical that they may have moved from Iraq to Syria, I am skeptical of the Israli Official.