Iraq Official: Saddam Moved WMD to Syria

www.newsmax.com ^

[French_for_Bush]

Iraq Official: Saddam Moved WMD to Syria

The former number two official in Saddam Hussein's Iraqi air force claims the former Iraqi dictator moved weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to Syria in the months preceding the current Iraq war.

Georges Sada revealed the charges in an interview Wednesday with the New York Sun. They are detailed in his new book, "Saddam’s Secrets.”

"Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming," Sada told the Sun. "They handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians.”

The former Iraqi general said Special Republican Guard brigades loaded WMDs onto two converted Iraqi Airways planes.

He said he was told of the operation by two pilots that helped transport the materials. Sada says 56 flights were made, and were accompanied by a ground convoy of trucks carrying similar materials.

The Sun reports that the flights attracted scant international attention because they occurred at the same time that Iraq was sending relief to Syria for a dam collapse.

Sada’s claims echoed those made by Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s top general in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yaalon told the Sun in December that Saddam had "transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”

According to the Middle East Quarterly, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon issued a similar warning in a Dec. 23, 2002 television appearance on Israel’s Channel 2.

"Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria,” Sharon said.

Together, their claims challenge the conventional wisdom in the United States and Europe that pre-war intelligence estimates were incorrect in suggesting the mass-murdering Iraqi dictator either possessed or was close to possessing WMDs.

Even President Bush has conceded the point, telling Americans in a televised address in December, "It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong.”

Recent reports by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard have similarly challenged the conventional wisdom on Saddam’s relationships with al-Qaida.

Hayes is calling for the release of approximately 2 million unclassified documents recovered in Iraq from the Hussein regime. He claims the documents could prove Saddam maintained significant contacts with al-Qaida.

Sada’s and Yaalon’s claims will be even more difficult, if not impossible, to prove, but several U.S. Senators will try to get to the bottom of the claims. Sada is scheduled to meet with Senators Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., next week. Both are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

[southlake_hoosier]

Very old news for some:

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=290

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=465

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=471

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=764

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=780

[Graymatter]

>>The Sun reports that the flights attracted scant international attention because they occurred at the same time that Iraq was sending relief to Syria for a dam collapse. From NewsMax, link below:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for instance, keeps apologizing for his speech to the United Nations on the eve of the Iraq war. But at least one chilling bit of evidence he introduced there has never been refuted.

POWELL: Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you're about to hear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26 [2002], on the day before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq.
The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, from Iraq's elite military unit, the Republican Guard.

TAPE TRANSCRIPT:

GEN: Yeah, yeah. I'll come to you in the morning. I have some comments. I'm worried you all have something left.

COL: We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left...

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/14/233507.shtml

[cchandler]

Can't be too many times. I had not seen it before.

Sorry, I wasn't too busy at work yesterday. I guess I got caught in the frame of mind that everyone was logging on as much as me.

[OESY]

"I was certain Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction before I was certain he didn't. See....


"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." -- From a letter signed by Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, & John Kerry among others on October 9, 1998


"I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- John F. Kerry, Oct 2002


"The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation." -- John Kerry, October 9, 2002


"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003



More on the WMD evacuation at:


http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004383.htm


* * *

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012944.php



http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2006/01/26/oh-those-pesky-iraqi-wmds/



http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2006/01/senator-rockefeller-you-are-in-trouble.html



http://markinmexico.blogspot.com/2006/01/who-is-georges-sada-and-why-should-we.html

[ridesthemiles]

I wonder where the pilots and cargo handlers are buried.""

Big desert out there...

[ridesthemiles]

What good is it? Bush has already said the weren't any WMD in Iraq. ""

I believe he has said "we haven't found any YET".

I don't recall him saying there weren't any there.

The jets dug up in the Iraqi desert were WMD's all by themselves.

[pctech]

Makes me wish he'd bring it at any time!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Unlikely. Several years ago they found rockets form Iraq in a junkyard.

[penelopesire]

Thanks for the great links. IT IS TIME TO ARREST SEN. ROCKEFELLER! We should all write our Sen/Congressmen today to insist that something be done about this treason.We should also write the FBI and the CIA to insist something be done.
It looks like Rockefeller and some 'key' democrats had this planned all along and had hoped to win the election by 'embarrassing' our President about the WMD issue. They conspired with the enemy to pull this off and should be arrested immediately. Frankly, there is enough evidence already to bring Rockefeller in for quetioning. Why hasn't it been done yet?

[TPartyType]

Just found this great blog posting regarding General Sada. He was a Christian who put his life on the line several times by opposing Saddam to his face (which should bolster his credibility).

[click here]

[TPartyType]

oops! You beat me . . . and then some!! Thanks for all the links.

(BTW, I've never paid attention to blogs all that much--just assumed they were vehicles for bloviation. But now I can see that many of them on the conservative web rings are doing precisely the kind of investigative work people used to attempt around here. Cool.) I've been looking for a way to penetrate the MSM fog. That's what first brought me to Free Republic.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the link!

[talleyman]

I have been trying to find that picture (jet buried in sand) for months now - do you have original source?

[jmwtn]

ABC Nightline is considering interviewing Sada about WMDs and other details from his book

[jmwtn]

How could we find WMDs in Iraq if they were already in Syria??

[jmwtn]

There will be Congressional hearings next week -- it's about to be announced.

[Irish Eyes]

...I guess I got caught in the frame of mind that everyone was logging on as much as me.

LOL....I have been traveling the last 10 days and was on a self imposed vacation from the news. I have found that it is not a bad thing to do once in awhile.

[OldArmy52]

Well, for sure the MSM will blaze this story on the front page for days if not weeks!

I can see it now: "Bush was right! WMD were in Iraq! etc"

[Seadog Bytes]

GOOD one!
...Thanks for the ping.

[strategofr]

"Teddy "non-swimmer" Kennedy"

Teddy swam good. It's driving was his problem.