Iraq Unloading WMD Into Syria.

A47: On Hezballah...in my opinion they are a milita and not a terrorist organization. That doesn't mean I condone what they're doing so there was no need for you to list their war crimes. Hezballah works more like a private army than a group of terrorist which is far more dangerous to Israel.

IMO, you are trying too hard to prove that Syria is a threat without any evidence. Now, you're making these false assumptions and corrupting your original post with shady links. Part of this is my fault because I took the focus off of Iraq unloading WMD into Syria. Still, none of the questions you've asked even deal with the WMD in Iraq, let alone, a transfer of those WMD to Syria. As far as we know there were no WMD. So first you must prove that these WMD existed, then you must prove that Assad accepted these WMD. Assad doesn't appear to have a hard on for jihad. So I don't understand why you think he'd make such a destructive move.

Even the evidence offered by Seekerof in Saddam's Syrian Stash thread is flawed intelligence. Tenet said that "intel is not an exact science"...the only science is real science and the only way you can get that is through inspections. Dr. Kay came back from Iraq saying there were no WMD where Powell claimed in his speech to the UN. Powell's speech was based on intel and Kay's conclusions came from science. Which is more credible?

We must first prove there were WMD then find evidence that Syria accepted these WMD during the lead up to war. It isn't enough to make claims that can't be proven or backed up with nothing more than propaganda websites. Goodness, anyone can put a up a website full of anti-Syrian propaganda, fake maps, and false "witnesses" statments. It doesn't take a genious.

I said it earlier, time will produce more evidence of Syria's trechery and what do you know, it has.

Originally posted by Dbates, All credit for this information goes to him.

Originally posted by dbates
Intelligence sources have discovered that Syria has been smuggling SCUD missiles and WMDs into Sudan on commercial airliners since January 2004. There seems to be concern in Damascus that the U.S. will target Syria next in searching for WMDs. Syria is has been previously under suspicion for receiving many of Iraq's weapons before the U.N. inspections were intensified in Iraq. Since Libya has revealed its weapons program, and Iran and North Korea have been stalling, Syria could very well be the next focus of the U.N. and the U.S. in the "Global War on Terror."

 

Washington Times
Western spy agencies say Damascus is smuggling missile and weapons of mass destruction components to Sudan so they won't be detected anywhere in Syria.
Since January 2004, Syrian President Bashar Assad has ordered shipments of Scud C and Scud D extended-range missiles as well as weapons components to be flown to warehouses in Khartoum, Middle East News Line reported Friday.
Intelligence sources said the Syrian shipments were placed on civilian airliners but authorized and directed by the Defense Ministry.

The situation in Israel is heating up as well, and if Hamas continues to operate out of Damascus, the U.S. could use this as a pretext for an inspections push. The U.S. has been putting pressure on Syria since May 2003 to cease assisting terrorist organizations, and to open itself up for U.N. inspections. Recently the U.S. was to implement a series of sanctions against Syria to pressure it to comply with U.S. demands, but Israel's killing of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin postponed the actions. The U.S. has slowed its pressure in light of the recent uprising in Iraq, but Syria must realize the seriousness of its situation. American tanks are a mere 250km (150 miles) from its capital, Damascus.

Other Sources:
BBC

Gee, I thought Syria had no WMD?
If Syria don't have WMD, then what are they moving?
Maybe those being shipped to Sudan have an owners label on them.


seekerof

Originally posted by Seekerof
Gee, I thought Syria had no WMD?
If Syria don't have WMD, then what are they moving?

Maybe those being shipped to Sudan have an owners label on them.

seekerof

|

Dont wory seeker, the Savior of the Middle East, Bashar is simply moving them to destruction facilities, because hes just such a nice guy.

Great info agent47 and seekeroff, keep it coming.



[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Muaddib]

Dr. Kay Had Maps with Coordinates of WMD Hiding Places in Syria

In the last 24 hours, DEBKAfile went back to its most reliable intelligence sources in the US and the Middle East, some of whom were actively involved in the subject before and during the Iraq war. They all stuck to their guns. As they have consistently informed DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly , Saddam Hussein�s unconventional weapons programs were present on the eve of the American-led invasion and quantities of forbidden materials were spirited out to Syria. Whatever Dr. Kay may choose to say now, at least one of these sources knows at first hand that the former ISG director received dates, types of vehicles and destinations covering the transfers of Iraqi WMD to Syria.

www.debka.com...

Yawn...sorry no offence to anyone, but this is old news, this has been reported several times, both in the media and on this board...it's just that some people here, in their hatred for both America ( and what it stands for ), and Bush, it gets ignored here�

The article from Debka was reported on February 2, 2004, and was a follow up of a previous article...

So folks...you believe what you want, and more power to ya...but...as for me I've allways thought Sadaam had these wepons at the start of the war, it's just that he moved/hid them ( remember, they did bury their fighter jets in the sand ) before we could find them...

[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Yoda]

[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Yoda]

It would seem that Syria cant seem to keep its nose clean when dealing with those freedom thirsting Kurds, the worlds largest ethnicity without a country, the Kurds of Syria have been regularly persecuted with extreme prejudice, the most recent being last march, and from the looks of this article there appears to be no change for the future.

Syrian Kurds accused authorities on Saturday of arbitrarily arresting hundreds from their community and torturing some of them to death since a bout of unrest died down last month.

"The campaign of arrests and raids is continuing in all the Kurdish areas as well as in Aleppo and Damascus," Syrian Kurdish parties said in a joint statement.

"This campaign has in the past two days resulted in the arrest of hundreds of Kurdish citizens, including women and schoolchildren no more than 15 years old, all of whom were and remain subjected to savage torture."

Syrian officials were not immediately available for comment.

About 30 people were killed in unprecedented clashes between Syrian Kurds and police in March after a soccer match brawl in the northern town of Kameshli escalated.

Kurdish activists said on March 19 that authorities had freed 500 to 600 Kurds detained in the wave of unrest, but said there could be up to 2,000 more still in detention.

The state, which has accused unspecified foreigners of stirring violence to shake Syria's security, has not released its own figures.

The Syrian Kurdish parties said two Kurdish men, identified as Hussein Naaso and Ferhad Ali, had died this week as a result of torture in detention, while another man was in a coma.

"We condemn this racist policy against our people and urge authorities to cease the campaign of arbitrary arrests and free all of the detainees," the statement said.

Reuters

How can you sit and post on this thread that Syria is a moderate? Syria although granted not a clear and present danger to our national security, does pose a risk to the Middle East and all those who have interests there.

As to what Syria is doing to the Kurds, here's an article by Farid Ghadry, who is the President of the Syrian Reform Party:
Syria's Gulag

In a related but maybe 'unrelated' article I found, the mention of Iraqi WMD scientist are steadily being knocked off:
Iraqi scientists silenced

Mr. Buyer, who learned about the issue during classified briefings with Mr. Kay, recently raised the issue. He wondered why such scientists would be eliminated if they had no knowledge of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and why public officials seem to be taking so little note of the directed killings.

What this article may further indicate is that there are still "unseen" major to key entities of Saddam's 'inner-circle' that are seemingly still very active within Iraq. On a conspiracy note, the 'taking out' of these WMD scientists/specialists may also be the undertakings of several intelligence services.....France, Russian, Syria, and possibly Iranian come to mind and would have obvious underline motivations for 'taking out' these individuals.



seekerof


[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Saphronia
We must first prove there were WMD then find evidence that Syria accepted these WMD during the lead up to war. It isn't enough to make claims that can't be proven or backed up with nothing more than propaganda websites. Goodness, anyone can put a up a website full of anti-Syrian propaganda, fake maps, and false "witnesses" statments. It doesn't take a genious.

Ok I dont think you have a proper understanding of how daunting it is to come to a complete and concise compendium of Iraqs WMD.From experience gained at the end of Desert Storm more than ten years ago, it was clear to us and should have been clear to our critics, that finding WMD in the aftermath of a conflict wouldn't be easy. We judged that Iraq probably possessed one hundred to five hundred metric tons of CW munitions fill. One hundred metric tons would fit in a backyard swimming pool; five hundred could be hidden in a small warehouse. We made no assessment of the size of Iraq's biological weapons holdings but a biological weapon can be carried in a small container. (And of course, we judged that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon.) When the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), led by David Kay, issued its interim report in October, acknowledging that it had not found chemical or biological weapons, the inspectors had then visited only ten of the 130 major ammunition depots in Iraq; these ammunition dumps are huge, sometimes five miles by five miles on a side. Two depots alone are roughly the size of Manhattan. It is worth recalling that after Desert Storm, US forces unknowingly destroyed over 1,000 rounds of chemical-filled munitions at a facility called Al Kamissiyah. Baghdad sometimes had special markings for chemical and biological munitions and sometimes did not. In short, much remains to be done in the hunt for Iraq's WMD.

Your logic concering intelligence is dangerous. Fundamentally, the Intelligence Community increasingly will be in danger of not connecting the dots until the dots have become a straight line if one is to follow your accusations.

The evidence is there, Iraqis, not Americans, have come forward and acknowledged and provided evidence of the WMD.

CIA Statement on Recently Acquired Iraqi Centrifuge Equipment
The head of Iraq�s pre-1991 centrifuge uranium enrichment program, Dr. Mahdi Shukur Ubaydi, approached U.S. officials in Baghdad and turned over a volume of centrifuge documents and components he had hidden in his garden from inspectors since 1991. Dr. Ubaydi said he was interviewed by IAEA inspectors - most recently in 2002 - but did not reveal any of this.
Dr. Ubaydi told us that these items, blue prints and key centrifuge pieces, represented a complete template for what would be needed to rebuild a centrifuge uranium enrichment program. He also claimed this concealment was part of a secret, high-level plan to reconstitute the nuclear weapons program once sanctions ended.
This case illustrates the extreme challenge we face in Iraq as we search for evidence of WMD programs that were designed to elude detection by international inspectors.
We are working with Dr. Ubaydi to evaluate the equipment and documents he provided us.
We are hopeful that Dr. Ubaydi�s example will encourage other Iraqis with knowledge of Saddam�s WMD programs to come forward.

Ubadyi Link





We can all agree Iraq had WMD, that Syria has WMD, and that evidence leads to the fact that the two trafficked WMD tech and supplies.

Agent47: I don't agree with you. My post, which you quoted, is about the dots that need to be connected. You can't just assume that things are true and then take american troops into an area where they are not wanted and will be killed on some hunch you had while sitting around a table. There is no evidence for the things you are saying.

I watched Hans Blix on the O'Reilly Factor. It was a good interview even though I don't always agree with O'Reilly, I think he asked some good questions. Here is an exchange that was very interesting and relevant to this topic about what may have happened to Iraq's WMD.

Bill O'Reilly Interviews Hans Blix

O'REILLY: All right. Now you said in March 6, 2003, all right, that Baghdad may possess 10,000 liters of anthrax, which caught my attention, Scud missile warheads filled with deadly biological and chemical agents, and drones capable of flying beyond the 93-mile limit. Do you -- why did you say that?

BLIX: Because they were unaccounted for, and they might exist, and the difference between us and some of the countries on the Security Council was that they were pretty sure they did exist. I did not presume either that they exist or that they didn't exist.

O'REILLY: OK. So you said it's possible that they had the 10,000 liters of anthrax.

BLIX: It's possible. Precisely. Precisely.

O'REILLY: Because, as a journalist, I saw that, and that made me nervous, all right, but...

BLIX: Yes, yes.

O'REILLY: ... you didn't say -- now if you couldn't interview the scientists without, you know, being sure they weren't intimidated and you only had a few guys, a huge country, we're still over there not finding anything, weren't the odds are that he was playing a cat-and-mouse game?

BLIX: No, they were not playing cat and mouse because they let us in everywhere, and we went on 700 inspections, and we went to a great number of sites that were given to us by the U.S. and the U.K. and others where they said these were the best sites, and we didn't find weapons of mass destruction in any one of them. So that's when i...

O'REILLY: So what do you think...

BLIX: That's when I became to doubt that their intelligence was so good.

O'REILLY: OK. And, subsequently, your doubts, I think, have been proven correct, and I said that on this broadcast. Where do you think the 10,000 liters of anthrax went?

BLIX: I think they might have destroyed them in the summer of 2001.

O'REILLY: 2001?

BLIX: Yes.

O'REILLY: And where would that be? Where would that destruction take place?

BLIX: Well, the UNSCOM went and we also went to a site where they said they had disposed them in the ground. There was no question but that they had destroyed a lot of anthrax, a lot of chemical evidence on this site.

O'REILLY: Did you find traces in the ground?

BLIX: Yes.

O'REILLY: You did?

BLIX: Yes, they did. But the problem was, you see, you couldn't verify the quantity of them. They had not allowed the inspectors to be there. So UNSCOM and we, too, suspected they might have spirited it away.

O'REILLY: All right. But nobody ever told you, Mr. Blix, this is what they did? No scientist...

BLIX: Yes.

O'REILLY: Did they tell you that?

BLIX: Yes, they said -- they said -- consistently said that they had destroyed it.

O'REILLY: Who's they? I mean did...

BLIX: The Iraqi scientists.

O'REILLY: The Iraqi scientists?

BLIX: Yes.

O'REILLY: OK. Why did...

BLIX: The Iraqi government. The scientists, too.

Scott Ritter appeared on Washington Journal after Kay resigned. He says that the original chemical weapons would have expired and Iraq would need to create more. Which probably explains why they destroyed them.
Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector (91-98) 2nd from top--30min long video.

And, I got a chance to catch George Tenet speech at Georgetown on cspan. The intelligence estimate of what Iraq had was just that, an estimate. Here's a transcript to that as well. No one knows for sure. We are still waiting on the final reports from the Iraqi Survey Group.
George Tenet explaination


[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Saphronia]

Another great post Saphronia.
What do Mr. Hans Blix and Mr. Scott Ritter have to say on Iraq's still unaccounted for WMD? The very unaccounted for WMD still on record and documented by the UN, as well as other nations?

Banned Iraqi weapons still unaccounted for, say inspectors
WMD Profiles
'Banned weapons unaccounted for'
U.N. fears some chemical and biological weapons hidden


More can be found on these unaccounted for WMD.
As such, perhaps these are what is refered to in those possible WMD that were possibly sent to Syria and are now being moved out of Syria? Just a thought.


seekerof

[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Seekerof]

Have we found any WMDs yet?

Originally posted by jrod
Have we found any WMDs yet?

Suspicous artillery rounds and missiles yes, actual stockpiles of WMD no.

Originally posted by jrod
Have we found any WMDs yet?

I suppose your trying to indicate that since no WMD were found that:
> they didn't exist.
> they were destroyed
> they were buried or moved out of Iraq
> that they (WMD) only existed in and on only half the worlds major nations intelligence reports and documents, including the UN.

Hmm....



seekerof

[Edited on 10-4-2004 by Seekerof]

Here is an article from the Washington Post. Several Iraqi scientist that worked on these programs are interviewed. It also gives a detailed account of the current inspections--the Blix inspections--and post-Gulf War I inspections.

Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper

It is possible that bio-weapons still exist, but in this article there is a description of a hand written letter attatched to a six page report. It came from Hossam Amin to Saddam's son Qusay after the defection of Hussein Kamel. In the report he gives specifics of what was destroyed in 1991 because of the information Kamel gave to the UN inspectors.

Five days later, [after Kamel defection] Amin dispatched a six-page letter to the president's son Qusay.

The person who provided a copy to The Washington Post had postwar access to the presidential office where he said he found the original. Iraqis who know Amin well and experienced government investigators from the United States and Europe, who analyzed the document for this article, said they believe it to be authentic. They cited handwriting, syntax, contemporary details and annotations that match those of previous samples. Markings on the letter say that Qusay read it, summarized it for his father and filed it with presidential secretary Abed Hamid Mahmoud.

Just before his "sudden and regrettable flight and surrender to the bosom of the enemy," Amin wrote, "the traitor Hussein Kamel" received a detailed briefing on "the points of weakness and the points of strength" in Iraq's concealment efforts.

Amin then listed, in numbered points, "the matters that are known to the traitor and not declared" to U.N. inspectors...

The most significant point in Amin's letter, U.S. and European experts said, is his unambiguous report that Iraq destroyed its entire inventory of biological weapons. Amin reminded Qusay Hussein of the government's claim that it possessed no such arms after 1990, then wrote that in truth "destruction of the biological weapons agents took place in the summer of 1991."

It was those weapons to which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell referred in the Security Council on Feb. 5 when he said, for example, that Iraq still had an estimated 8,500 to 25,000 liters of anthrax bacteria.

There is also some evidence in this article that Iraq was beginning to restart it's programs from scratch. Modher Sadeq-Saba Tamimi is interviewed. This is the guy that was in charge of starting the delivery systems, and he's also the designer of the Al-Sammuds that were destroyed by Blix's team. He claims they were finally getting some help from the Russians, but they didn't have the materials they needed to fully act on his designs.

*note: most of the US officials, current inspectors, and intelligence agents declined comment for this article. That also includes David Kay, but he had yet to resign at the time it was written.

The following article seems to highlight my point that for all of Bashars lip service to reform and normalized relationships with the West, he is at heart untrustworthy and bull headed. Syria is not a lawless state with a fragile banking system, it has the ability to seize and close accounts fairly easily and yet with Saddam Hussein's 3 Billion dollars sitting in Syria no one has taken action to terminate these accounts. This money is blood money obviously generated through violations of the oil for food program Heres a taste of the article.

Since the fall of Baghdad in April, American officials have scoured the globe in search of Saddam Hussein's legendary fortune. Now they think they have found a big chunk. According to a U.S. estimate, as much as $3 billion in Iraqi assets is sitting in Syrian government- controlled banks, a senior U.S. official tells Time, and Washington is anxious to determine that the money is not funding violence against Americans in Iraq, or being drawn down by regime officials and supporters.
For months the U.S. has quietly insisted that Damascus give up the funds. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in May and made that unpublicized demand. Top Syrian officials have been given the names of at least two suspect banks and provided with account numbers.

Syria's private response�that unspecified accounts were being frozen�was judged woefully inadequate. Publicly, Syria denies there is any Iraqi money in the country. But just over two weeks ago, the U.S. sent two American financial experts and two representatives of the Iraqi Central Bank to Syria to comb through records. U.S. officials now assert that Damascus has given them only "limited cooperation."

In the run-up to the war, Syria was among Iraq's principal trading partners, buying more than $1 billion worth of cheap oil annually in violation of U.N. sanctions.

"In the run-up to the war, Syria was among Iraq's pricnipal trading partners, buying more than 1 Billion worth of cheap oil...in violation of U.N. sanctions."

These weren't violations of GWB's sanctions, these were UN sanctions. Syria chooses to disregard this even though it is a member of the UN. Also, the time frame designated as the "run up to the war" would be a part of Bashar's glorius regime. The facts show: Bashar is uncooperative with the U.S low key request to freeze Saddams assets, and Directly violated UN sanctions for years under Bashar. Look at it this way, that billion dollars was a billion dollars of food deprived from starving Iraqis. Collin Powell did not demand Saddams assets be frozen and yet Syria chooses to stone wall him. Everyone can agree that Saddams 3 Billion should be put back into Iraqi reconstruction, whether your for the war or not. Now why does Bashar disagree? On what grounds?

Saddams Syrian Stash

Originally posted by Agent47
Where are Iraq's WMD you ask?

The answer is not "Iraq's WMD program ceased to exist after the Gulf War",no the answer is "Iraq's WMD has been moved to Syria."

Right. You're off the mark by miles.

Originally posted by EastCoastKid

Originally posted by Agent47
Where are Iraq's WMD you ask?

The answer is not "Iraq's WMD program ceased to exist after the Gulf War",no the answer is "Iraq's WMD has been moved to Syria."

Right. You're off the mark by miles.

Yes and from your half baked logic, then Halabja never happened and the Kurds werent gassed by Iraqi forces.

Take a long look at this and remember that we judged that Iraq probably possessed one hundred to five hundred metric tons of CW munitions fill. One hundred metric tons would fit in a backyard swimming pool; five hundred could be hidden in a small warehouse.

WMD doesnt just disappear and neither will the record of Halabja.




[Edited on 14-4-2004 by Agent47]

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