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From FR Breaking News:

Syria seeking to oust Iraqi nuclear scientists

Syria is making desperate efforts to persuade Iran to accept a group of 12 Iraqi nuclear scientists and their families who had sought refuge in Damascus before the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein.

Quoting Western intelligence officials, the London-based Sunday Telegraph reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad fears that the US will use the presence of the Iraqi scientists as a pretext to target Syria and he is desperate to find a new home for them.

The possibility of moving the Iraqi scientists to Iran, a close ally of Syria, was first mooted when Assad visited Teheran last July. The intelligence officials believe he is still waiting for an Iranian response.

The scientists and their families were sent to Syria before Saddam was overthrown under a combined operation mounted by Saddam's now-defunct Special Security Organization and Syrian Military Security, which is headed by Arif Shawqat, brother-in-law of Assad.

The Iraqi scientists, who are said to have taken computer disks crammed with research data on Saddam's nuclear program, were given new identities, as well as Syrian citizenship papers and false birth, education and health certificates.

Since their arrival in Syria, they have been hidden at a secret Syrian military installation where they have been conducting research on behalf of the Assad regime.

But Assad has been prompted to reconsider sheltering the Iraqis as a result of growing concern in Washington over Syria's own undeclared programs for developing weapons of mass destruction.

American intelligence officials, according to the Sunday Telegraph, are concerned that Syria is secretly working on a number of such programs, including a nuclear weapons program.

Concern about Syria mounted after the US discovered evidence that Damascus has acquired a number of gas centrifuges - probably from North Korea - which can be used to enrich uranium, the vital ingredient for making nuclear weapons. (snipped)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1096172277300&p=1078397702269

Ex-CENTCOM No. 2: Intel Showed Iraq Smuggled Out WMDs

Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong (USMC Ret.), who until last September was the No. 2 in command of the Iraq war under Gen. Tommy Franks, revealed Sunday that U.S. military intelligence had determined that weapons of mass destruction were being smuggled out of the country as the U.S. prepared to invade. "I do know for a fact that some of those weapons went into Syria, Lebanon and Iran," Gen. DeLong told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg, while discussing his new book, "Inside CENTCOM: The Unvarnished Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"Two days before the war, on March 17 [2003], we saw through multiple intelligence channels - both human intelligence and technical intelligence - large caravans of people and things, including some of the top 55 [most wanted] Iraqis, going to Syria," Gen. DeLong explained. (snipped)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/9/26/161043.shtml