Posted on 09/20/2004 1:12:21 PM PDT by JOHN ADAMS
U.S. DETECTS SYRIAN CW IN SUDAN
WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The U.S. intelligence community has determined that Syria deployed weapons of mass destruction in Sudan's rebel Darfour province.
U.S. officials said the CIA has obtained what it deemed reliable information that Syria used a range of air bombs and perhaps rockets filled chemical and biological weapons in the war in Darfour. They said the BW and CW were used in Sudanese military attacks against African villagers in Darfour.
"The U.S. intelligence community has clear evidence that Syrian weapons and experts arrived several months ago and tested the operational use of a range of biological and chemical weapons in Darfour," an official said. "The results were devastating." The officials said Syrian BW and CW were deployed in fighting in Darfour in June and July. They said hundreds of people were killed in the attacks, which appeared to mostly comprise of bombs being dropped by parachute from Sudanese Air Force An-24 air transports. ===
NOTE: The above is not the full item. This service contains only a small portion of the information produced daily by Middle East Newsline. For a subscription to the full service, please contact Middle East Newsline at: editor@menewsline.com for further details.
They have proof that Syria is not only bombing people in Sudan, they are doing it with BW and CW?!
I'm more than a little skeptical.
Thanks, A.A. Cunningham. I hadn't seen the Die Welt report before. I did, just now, find this denial by Sudan of the report you cite (and it comes from Albawaba, so you know it must be true!):
Sudan denies report Syria tested chemical weapons on people in Darfur
17-09-2004
http://www.albawaba.com/news/index.php3?sid=285127&lang=e&dir=news
Sudan has denied a recent report published by Die Welt, a German newspaper, claiming that "Syria tested chemical weapons on the Darfur public in the western part of Sudan, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people."
A statement from the Sudanese Embassy in Ankara reported no military cooperation or accord between Damascus and Khartoum. It also cited that no such accusations have been made by the international groups currently at work in Darfur. The statement asked, "Where are the corpses of tens of thousands of people who are claimed to have been killed?"
The statement declared that Sudan possessed no chemical weapons. Additionally, it recalled the 1998 US strike against the Sifa Drug Company, suspected by the US government of manufacturing chemical weapons, and said that the US claim was "baseless."
The German newspaper said that its story was based on intelligence reports from European states. The Sudanese government believes that such disinformation is part of a US - Israeli campaign to undermine Syria's international influence. (albawaba.com)
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What I find odd is that the IMRA/Middle East Newsline piece sources the report to the CIA, which has not exactly been friendly to the President's Iraq policy. Also, though IMRA/MENL say US officials have released this info, I don't find it elsewhere on the web. Both IMRA and MENL are reliable sources, but it'd be nice -- actually, it'd be extremely nice -- to see this report in other media, and with attribution to somebody identifiable in Washington.
"Gee, I just can't imagine where the Syrians got this stuff!"
Do yah think the "Made in Iraq" stamp might tip them off?
The Syrians have had this stuff for years - and so has Sudan.
Go to: http://www.globalsecurity.org
On the upper part of the left margin,look for WMD.
Click that,go to the page that opens, and click "countries" (near the bottom)and a page of countries will open.Just click on the ones you want.
They're fairly neutral-even a bit on the disarmament side.
I understand this is all baby milk --- made in baby milk factory.
I think the crates shipped in read:
"From your good buddy Saddam."
I think that's one of the reasons we are in Iraq in the first place, to provide a staging ground for attacking Syria. We're going to have to do it someday, might as well do it when we have the troops there.
KJV-"Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap."
NKJV-"Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, And it will be a ruinous heap."
NASB-"Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city. And will become a fallen ruin."
NIV-"See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins."
NLT-"Look, Damascus will disappear! It will become a heap of ruins."
Well, in just about every version of the Bible, Damscus is going to be toast. Seems like today would be ok.
Actually, the GlobalSecurity site says that, while they have an aggressive program to develop this stuff, they lack precursers for both BW and CW, and would need outside assistance to actually produce and deploy either. GlobalSecurity says they've obtained such assistance recently from France and Russia, two countries that also helped Iraq. I don't think the information on GlobalSecurity's web page regarding Syria is enough to make it unlikely that Syria's current use of this stuff, if that's what it was, was possible because they got materiel from Iraq.
The GS page on Sudan and CW (they apparently don't have BW) is even more supportive of the theory that the stuff came from Iraq: Sudan's entire program of WMD production is, according to GS, joint with Iraq, and Iraq hid stuff in Sudan in the early '90's to evade UN weapons inspections. Such a record of cooperation hardly disproves the theory that the weapons used recently came from Iraq.
Right on !
I picture ( I'm no chess player, but I do remember 1 or 2 moves ) a sort of "Knight's Gambit" (a double gambit )with forces in Afghanistan poised to hit Iran/Pakistan as needed; forces in Iraq poised to hit Syria and Iran as needed.
It's interesting to not we are confronting ALL of these nations in a far more direct manner than previously possible.
Chapter and verse?
ping your pinglists please
For your information, ping
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