Reports of Iraqi WMD's in Syria; What You Won't Hear on Network News

In July of 2005, I wrote an article explaining why I believed that Bush did not lie about Iraqi WMD’s. In that article, I suggested that one explanation for what happened to these weapons is that they were transported to Syria shortly before the war began. If you would like to read the whole article, click here , but the following is the excerpt from that article that is relevant to this report:

A second possible explanation for what happened to Iraq's WMD's is that they were shipped out of the country to a neighboring terrorist state. Syria comes to mind. Is there any evidence to indicate that this possibility is more than just wild speculation? You bet.

According to The Washington Times, Iraq Survey Group, a 1,400-member team organized by the Pentagon and CIA, has information from Iraqi sources indicating that "Saddam Hussein periodically removed guards on the Syrian border and replaced them with his own intelligence agents who supervised the movement of banned materials between the two countries..." (Scarborough)

In the same article, retired Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr., who heads The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the U.S. intelligence agency that analyzes satellite imagery, is quoted as stating, "There is no question that there was a lot of traffic, increase in traffic up to the immediate onset of combat and certainly during Iraqi Freedom."

While this is not proof that WMD's were shipped across the border in the days before the start of the war, when evidence of satellite imagery is examined in light of the afore mentioned information from the Iraqi sources, there is certainly cause for a reasonable suspicion that Iraqi WMD's have found their way to Syria.

Further indication that Iraqi WMD's may have been shipped to Syria came in the form of an April, 2004 planned al Qaeda chemical weapon attack in Jordon. Five trucks originating from Syria and containing 20 tons of chemical weapons were intercepted in Jordon, just 75 miles from the Syrian boarder. Had the attack been successful, up to 80,000 people could have died from the resulting cloud of poison gas.

In a May 6, 2004 interview with Larry Elder, terrorism expert John Loftus stated, "There's a lot of reason to think (the source of the chemicals) might be Iraq. We captured Iraqi members of al Qaeda, who've been trained in Iraq, planned for the mission in Iraq, and now they're in Jordan with nerve gas. That's not the kind of thing you buy in a grocery store. You have to have obtained it from someplace."

Elder then asked, "They couldn't have obtained it from Syria?"

Loftus replied, "Syria does have the ability to produce certain kinds of nerve gasses, but in small quantities. The large stockpiles were known to be in Iraq." (Elder)

Recently, there have been reports from those who claim to have direct knowledge that Iraq's WMD's were, in fact, shipped to Syria. On December 15, 2005, The New York Sun reported on what the former top man in the Israeli military, General Yaalon, retired chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, has said on the subject. In talking about Saddam and WMD’s, Yaalon stated, "He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria. No one went to Syria to find it."

General Yaalon's claim reiterates what Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said over three years ago. The Fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reported that on December 23, 2002, Sharon stated, "Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria."

Now, an Iraqi general claims not only that the Iraqi WMD's are in Syria, but also that they are in the hands of al Qaeda. Last week The New York Sun reported that Iraqi general Georges Sada claims to have knowledge that Iraqi WMD’s were shipped to Syria.

”There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am confident they were taken over."

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

What about speculation of the connection between Iraqi chemical weapons and the attempted al Qaeda chemical weapon attack in Jordon? NewsMax.com reported yesterday that General Sada directly linked the two in an interview with Monica Crowley of WABC Radio.

"As a general, you see, we should keep our secrets," Gen. Sada told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley. But when news broke of the foiled WMD attack on Amman, he changed his mind.

"I understood that the terrorists were going to make an explosion in Amman in Jordan . . . . and they were targeting the prime minister of Jordan, the intelligence [headquarters] of Jordan, and maybe the American embassy in Jordan - and they were going to use the same chemical weapons which we had in Iraq," he told WABC.

It's amazing that reports such as these are not headlines on every major news network. When Joe Wilson said that the President had lied about Saddam Hussein's seeking to acquire uranium from Niger, the press was all over that. However, when evidence refutes Wilson's claim (see FactCheck.org ), the press largely ignores that evidence. Now, you hear little if anything from the network news agencies regarding these claims of Iraqi WMD's being in the hands of al Qaeda in Syria.

It's an absolute tragedy that the American press is so blatantly anti-American in what it chooses to report and to not report.