Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief

The Sunday Telegraph (UK) ^ | 1/25/04 | Con Coughlin

[saquin]

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."

[TheDon]

Well said.

[MississippiMan]

It was Powell and Rice's brilliant idea to pussy foot around with Dopi Anus (Koffi Annan) for six months.

Yup, but POTUS had the ability to say, "NO, we're not doing this nonsense." He didn't. The buck stops with Bush. Not Powell. Not Rice. A lot of folks--I'm not saying you're one of them--want to look back now and remember nothing other than Bush "standing up" to the UN. They conveniently forget all the "I REALLY mean it this time!" moments between him and the UN. It went on for what, six months? All the while Saddam could do anything he wanted.

MM

[Howlin]

My choice is July 25 -- the day before the RAT convention

I agree with Gordon, the day AFTER their convention.

But I want OBL produced, even if he's frozen solid. :-)

[FreedomFighter13]

Yeah, but we had in excess of over 1 million men to fight in those campaingns, today to the total ground fighting force is less than 900,000 and that's including the Army and the Marines plus their reserves and gaurds. I have fought against these enemies in the first gulf war, in somalia, in kosovo, and in afganistan last year. To much war for an old man of 38

[justshutupandtakeit]

He doesn't mind half-assed thinking though.

[alnick]

Ah, so Kay's comments were taken out of context in the earlier reports.

[alnick]

And the vial of botulinum toxin. And the castor beans. And the centrifuge. And the underground prison where Saddam's henchmen carried out bio or chem weapons experiments on prisoners.

[alnick]

I wanted to scream too because Fox News, and almost everyone else, including me, allowed ourselves to become distracted with the WMD stockpiles as a political argument that the fact that Saddam had a WMD program has become insignificant.

[alnick]

Kay did issue a report in September. You should read it.

[Pro-Bush]

Bump/Ping!

[TheDon]

Thank you for your service.

I think our current force is much more capable than that of WWII. No reflection on them. If they had the same weapons, communications, and logistics back then as we do today, they wouldn't have needed as many men either!

[OldFriend]

To make matters worse, I turned on FNC and there was Judge Napolitano discussing how there are NO WMD, and he has a military expert, Hunt.......who is saying the President has to address the country and say he was wrong. That all the intelligence was wrong. Clearly this was taped prior to the Kay clarification. But Powell has put his foot in his mouth or perhaps he has intentionally stabbed the President and Blair by saying maybe there were NO WMD........

[marron]

I want to add my voice to what you just said. We let ourselves get so distracted by WMD stockpiles as a political issue that WMD programs has been made to seem insignificant.

It isn't.

Remember that France, Germany, Russia, and China all had established commercial ties to Saddam in spite of sanctions. Their ties couldn't fully be utilized while sanctions were in place, and would be useless if Saddam were removed. Which means they were bought, they took the bait, hook set, fish in the boat.

When Saddam was able to buy enough votes on the Security Council to veto any action against him, and he had done that, that means that sanctions are on their way out. And sanctions were in fact on their way out.

That leaves us a choice. Either stand down while Saddam emerges from his box, with the full backing of the aforementioned countries, meaning he is unstoppable at that point, with WMD programs intact and easily reconstituted, or we move now before sanctions can be voted out and take him out.

We chose the latter. WMD was a tangential issue. India has nukes and we don't really care because India has no mass graveyards out behind their torture chambers. WMD in the hands of someone who isn't going to attack any of our friends is a legalistic issue. WMD in the hands of someone who most assuredly will is a military problem, and time is of the essence... not because the WMD's are about to be deployed, but because sanctions are on their way out.

[jla]

^

[meenie]

That was a war that was fought to protect ourselves from an attack upon us. In other words we were defending ourselves. There is a difference. The laws in the United States show this. A person that uses a weapon to wantonly go out and kill a victim is guilty of murder.

A person that defends himself against this type of individual and kills the intruder is excused as self-defense. This example has evolved through centuries of Christian history and is declared a natural law. This natural law was applied as a reason for attacking Iraq. The excuse was given that we had to act immediately because there was an immediate attack pending. Similar to the robber standing outside your door with a gun in his hand.

Now you have the right to blow him away with any type weapon you have. Unfortunately, for you, it is discovered that the person did not have a gun, that he was trying to get assistance for an auto accident that happened down the road. You reply that you THOUGHT he had a gun. This places you in the position of being very foolish and reckless at the least and probably headed for the slammer. As you keep protesting; "I thought he had a gun", you look very foolish and even accused of being a nut.

WW II, the man standing outside the door DID have a gun as Pearl Harbor showed. You DID have the right to defend yourself, which we did. We did not attack the man standing next to him, in this case, Germany and Italy, until they declared war upon us and declared their axis with the original killer. There is a big difference between WW II and Iraq as I have tried to show.

I do not expect to convince the neighbors that "I thought he had a gun" as an excuse. They will keep pretending that he is a paranoid nut that made a terrible mistake. Now to Iraq. Sadaam was a brutal dictator that abused his own people and people in surrounding countries. We see the same conditions in Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, North Korea, Colombia, and scores of other countries.

The first obstacle we face in eliminating all injustices in the world is that we do not have the resources to eliminate them all. The second obstacle is the fact that we do not have the authority to do this. The third obstacle that we face is the inability to defend ourselves militarily and economically. Someone has to pay the bills, and someone has to furnish the manpower for the armed forces. We need a genuis to figure this out over a prolonged period of time. We also need to figure out how to defend our borders, ports, and airports, for defense of America is the FIRST priority for being a nation.

Then, after all this is solved, we have to put a risk benefit ratio together to determine whether our intervention in different countries is causing more or less harm to the position we are taking. We have to ask ourselves if the deaths associated with our actions are greater or less than the original government we wish to topple. Most of all, we have to determine that the area will be more peaceful when we leave, because we cannot occupy the world. Our record has not been good. One only need to look at the conditions in Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti, Africa where we have been involved and answer the question: "Are these nations better off and more peaceful than when we came"?

I know these opinions of mine are foreign to the nuke 'em, blow 'em up crowd that enjoy this type of behavior, but they will determine the long range future of America. Do we move forward as an example of independence and peaceful intentions or do we go forward in the traditions of other empires that exhausted themselves in the ever increasing drive to dominate as much of the world as possible before collapsing. History does not treat this scenario kindly either.

[sirchtruth]

You're also making a big assumption ... that there were in fact WMD in Iraq prior to the start of the latest war. Saddam may have thought there were but seems that most of the evidence shows that they probably didnt exist. That doesnt mean that Bush was deceiving anyone. Even the UN folks thought Saddam was hiding something.

Everyone knew Saddam had WMD. The WMD certainly did exist the question is if they were destroyed where did their destruction take place?

Bush and Powell were totally correct in their statements.

Here is two possible scenario's.

1.Some WMD have been found, just not the quanity Saddam was supposed to have, so where did it all go?
2.The gov't is staying quite about WMD to find more.

Ya think by now we'd find some evidence of it either being destroyed or going somewhere. This WMD program Iraq had wasn't small and there is much that was not accounted for unless the UN and the rest of the world was lying about all those WMD.

[Commie Basher]

The propaganda mill is busy justifying another adventure in Syria.

You got that straight. The mysterious, magical WMDs will turn up in whatever country the necons next wish to attack.

[bushfamfan]

Yes, Israeli intel was the first to come forward prior to the war when UN 'inspectors' were let in, saying they weren't going to find any because they were moving them to Syria. Syria supported the regime through the war, has sent fighters to Iraq to attack our troops, made statements that are threats. Syria's taking Iraq's position on the axis of evil list. Israel knows their intel since they knew about Iraq's nuclear reactor when the world concluded they apparently didn't have one.

[Tricorn]

Does Kay not speak English or something? Why can he not make his story clear to the media?

[RobbyS]

There are mysterious and magaical weapons in Iran and North Korea. Are they also the imagination of the Jews?