Home > Saddam’s WMD Moved to Syria, Says an Israeli

Saddam’s WMD Moved to Syria, Says an Israeli

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 15 December 2005
9 comments

Wars and conflicts International

Here’s an article to make the left go stark raving mad. The sufferers of Bush Derangement Syndrome have had a tough week, execution of Toukie, stunning success of elections in Iraq........now this.......LOL.

BY IRA STOLL - Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 15, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/24480

Saddam Hussein moved his chemical weapons to Syria six weeks before the war started, Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom says.

The assertion comes as President Bush said yesterday that much of the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was incorrect.

The Israeli officer, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, asserted that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. "He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria," General Yaalon told The New York Sun over dinner in New York on Tuesday night. "No one went to Syria to find it."

From July 2002 to June 2005, when he retired, General Yaalon was chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, the top job in the Israeli military, analogous to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the American military. He is now a military fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He made similar, but more speculative, remarks in April 2004 that attracted little notice in America; at that time he was quoted as saying of the Iraqi weapons, "Perhaps they transferred them to another country, such as Syria."

The Israeli general’s remarks came on the eve of Mr. Bush’s speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, in which the president addressed the issue of intelligence and defended the decision to go to war. "When we made the decision to go into Iraq, many intelligence agencies around the world judged that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. This judgment was shared by the intelligence agencies of governments who did not support my decision to remove Saddam. And it is true that much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong," Mr. Bush said in remarks that were one of a series of speeches he has given recently on the war.

Mr. Bush’s defense of the war echoed themes he has been pressing since before the war began and through his successful campaign for re-election. "Given Saddam’s history and the lessons of September the 11th, my decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision. Saddam was a threat - and the American people and the world is better off because he is no longer in power."

An official at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, Entifadh Qanbar, said he believed the Israeli general’s account, but that the Iraqi government is "basically operating in the dark" because it does not have its own intelligence agency. He said the issue underscored the need for the new Iraqi government to have control of its own intelligence service. "We don’t have any way to find anything out about Syria because we don’t have intelligence," Mr. Qanbar said. He said there is a high-rise building in Baghdad with 1,000 employees working on intelligence but that it has no budget appropriation from the Iraqi government and "doesn’t report to the Iraqi government."

"Nobody knows who it belongs to, but you should understand who it belongs to," he said, in what was apparently a reference to American involvement.

An Iraqi politician, Mithal Al-Alusi, whose sons were both assassinated in Iraq last year, told The New York Sun’s Eli Lake last month that his party would press the Iraqi government to renew the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mr. Al-Alusi said he believes Saddam clearly had the weapons before the invasion. "They will find the weapons, I am sure they will," Mr. Al-Alusi said.

A spokesman at the Syrian embassy in Washington did not return a call seeking comment. But General Yaalon’s comment could increase pressure on the Syrian government that is already mounting from Washington and the United Nations. Mr. Bush has been keeping the rhetorical heat on Damascus. On Monday, he said in a speech, "Iraq’s neighbor to the west, Syria, is permitting terrorists to use that territory to cross into Iraq."

Also Monday, Mr. Bush issued a statement saying, "Syria must comply with United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1559, 1595, and 1636 and end its interference in Lebanon once and for all. "The resolutions call for ending Syria’s occupation of Lebanon and for Syrian cooperation into the investigation of the assassination of a Lebanese politician, Rafik Hariri.

On Saturday, the White House issued a statement calling attention to Syrian prisoners of conscience such as Kamal Labwani. "The Syrian Government must cease its harassment of Syrians peacefully seeking to bring democratic reform to their country. The United States stands with the Syrian people in their desire for freedom and democracy," said the statement, issued in the name of the White House press secretary.

Yesterday, the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, described Syria as an "oppressive regime." He also pointed to a recent report by a United Nations investigator looking into the assassination of Hariri. "The Syrian Government has failed to offer its full cooperation," Mr. McCormack said, citing the U.N. investigator’s report that "details allegations of document burning by the Syrians, of intimidating witnesses."

When, during an interview with the Sun in April, Vice President Cheney was asked whether he thought that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been moved to Syria, Mr. Cheney replied only that he had seen such reports.

An article in the Fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an appearance on Israel’s Channel 2 on December 23, 2002, Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon stated, "Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria." The allegation was denied by the Syrian government at the time as "completely untrue," and it attracted scant American press attention, coming as it did on the eve of the Christmas holiday.

Syria shares a 376-mile border with Iraq. The Syrian ruling party and Saddam Hussein had in common the ideology of Baathism, a mixture of Nazism and Marxism.

Syria is one of only eight countries that has not signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty that obligates nations not to stockpile or use chemical weapons. And it has long been the source of concern in America and Israel and Lebanon about its chemical warfare program apart from any weapons that may have been received from Iraq. The director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in March of 2004, "Damascus has an active CW development and testing program that relies on foreign suppliers for key controlled chemicals suitable for producing CW."

Forum posts

  • They should smack the people responsible for the then northern no fly zone then. It was patroled by US and British war planes. Oh, unless the WMDs were hidden in the toothpaste of a so called tourist?

  • Remeber all that eminates from the HOMELAND is true. Thats why we have HOMELAND security. It is not for the US. its for the HOMELAND. Yes a Saddam that couldn’t stop years of sanctions, massive fraud and manipulation by US sponsered CIA programs left IRAQ with only one thing that was protecting it from invasion and that was it was not seen as any sort of international threat, so the HOMELAND decided to CHANGE THAT and helped US to do the HOKEY POKEY on 9.11 to ensure that the HOMELAND would control the oil in the middle east. Do you think the homeland is here in the US? Who is the mortal enemy of the Muslims and is in the middle east on a SHAKEY HOMELAND? Can you Guess?

  • This is really absurd. But all a perfect fit in the scheme of things.

    Played appropriately, the American public will no doubt swallow it all when the time comes because of their lack of thinking and reasoning. When it comes to this type of thing, anything negative alluded to the Arabs and Muslims reaches deep down to the visceral hatered that the American has for that community.

    No one stops to think that over the years, including those years that were relatively peaceful, the US would have a dozen satellites mapping every inch of the Near East. Because of the thinking of that region as a hot spot even Israel would have been mapped.

    No to mention the no fly zones; I am certain that recon was part of that mission along with the constant bombing that took place. But I digress.

    In particular, I am certain, that Iraq has been examined with a fine toothed comb during the intervening years of GWI and II. Thus, any and all movements of trucks, potential sites, personal, personal communications, official communications, etc. were tracked, recorded, archived, analyized down to how many times the toilet was flushed at the various palaces in Iraq.

    If there were truth and evidence to anything that the US administration said about WMDs, mass graves, mobile labs, etc... This would and could have made public (without comprimising secret methods). As such, because the American public is completely lacking in understanding what it really takes to construct and use mobile labs, anything the US says is taken in and that viscreal hate directed and fear inducted. As a related matter, the photos that were shown in some papers of the "mobile labs" that the US troops encountered were no more than portable laundry machines for the Iraqi troops in the field. And even here, the collective thinking of the various opposition groups settled on them being hydrogen generators for weather ballons; which they were not. Generating hydrogen in that quantity for any use in those conditions is just aking for trouble. But that is a different subject matter altogether.

    This excuse that the WMDs were moved to Syria is absolutily absurd. The special trucks needed or the quantity need moving would make is impossible to move, let alone in the given timeframe. And even had these WMDs moved about, there are methods and technologies that can sniff out residue to point to the past presence of such things. The Duelfur report does not go into the the methods involved but I am certain that numerious and highly sensitive tests were done for detection. There would be plenty of data. And as such there is none.

    As an aside, the drones that are violating Iranian airspace now and then have sniffers on board that can detect U235, U234 and U238 molicules/residue and from sensed ratios it can be deduced what are the real activities of the Iranian program. At this time, I am sure that these have not detected anything of the sort — thus, the US gvernment’s only program is to broadcast the fear of words to the American public. (Now, had the US have real and solid evidence, they would quietly approach the Iranian government and show them what they have and address the matter as normal diplomacy.)

    In this regard, many people are chasing the wrong sets of lies and going down the wrong path laid down by the administration. Which, in effect, what the leadership wants and which allows them freedom of choice and action.

  • Another Niger-aluminum tube story to, this time, justify actions against Syria. Considering Israel is Syria’s declared deadly enemy, I’d be very careful jumping to conclusions. Syria’s relations with Iraq, historically, were never that good since the two Baath parties competed for ideological purity and Arab leadership. So I don’t believe the article you posted to be truthful. Why can’t you produce satellite imaging of these supposed movements across the Iraq-Syria border?

    • Actually, Mr. Gardis, this theory originated from a dissident Syrian journalist, Nizar Nayouf, who named the three sites in Syria where the Iraqi WMD are stored.

      One weapons-cache location identified by the sources is a mountain tunnel near the village of al-Baidah in northwest Syria. The tunnel is known to house a branch of the Assad regime’s national security apparatus.

      Two other arms supplies are reported to be in west-central Syria. One is hidden at a factory operated by the Syrian Air Force, near the village of Tal Snan, between the cities of Hama and Salmiyeh. The third location is tunnels beneath the small town of Shinshar, which belongs to the 661 battalion of the Syrian Air Force.

      The nephew of Zu Alhema al-Shaleesh, Assef al-Shaleesh, runs Al Bashair Trading Co., a front for the Assad family involved prior to the war in oil smuggling from Iraq and arms smuggling into the country. Al-Bashair has offices in Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad.

    • Actually, the first talk of Saddam moving his WMD’s to Syria appeared in the very Mossad-compromised Debka-Net-Weekly. The story appeared there in February 2003, although the WMD’s, it claimed, found a final resting place in Lebanon where they were buried in the Bekaa Valley by the Syrian military. Yaalon’s rendition of the story is, then, the third attempt to give this empty-of-hard-proof speculation legs.

  • WHAT TYPE OF VEHICLE WOULD IT TAKE TO MOVE LOADS OF CW? A 2 MILE TRAIN? FIFTY 18 WHEELERS? THE ANSWER IS NO, THEREBY MAKING IT POSSIBLE TO BE MOVED VIA LESS NOTICEABLE MEANS! DUH!

    • You have no idea what you are talking about. You are just frightened and accept the shallow excuses presented to you.

      You have no idea what a centerfuge is, I can tell from your straw man question and answer form of your reply.

      The size of a centerfuge for this activity is roughly the diameter of a farm silo and sometimes bigger (although not as tall.) They are constructed of very heavy material and cannot easily be taken apart. That is, they are not modeular in any sense.

      Even if you were to unbolt the device (centerfuge) from the floor and crane it over to a very large truck, the remaining base structures would give it away that there was a centerfuge present at some past time.

      They are assembled/constructed in clean rooms and any residual radiation ratio level readings from the surroundings would alert the inspectors of the past activity — as well as the presence of the clean room.

      When decommisiioning such things records are kept down to the smallest bolts. All of this is very time consuming — a lost radioactive bolt or a misplaced workman’s wrench is a dead giveaway of enrichment activity to the learned professional. The whole activity is very time consuming and needs technicians — not simple "house movers". It can take months, not weeks or days for decommisioning even just one centerfuge.

      I could go into more depth here, but I should expect that you begin to understand the impossible logistics involved.

      But just to mention again a lost bolt or two or the base from which a centerfuge was detached; detecting devices can find them and again the US inspectors did not state they found any evidence of such things.

      The other thing is there would be not one or two of these centerfuges but perhaps a hundred or more and the time it takes to dismantel just one would be prohibitive, let alone a complex.

      BTW, these centerfuges are extremely sensitive devices, moving them from their primary location would most likey make them obselete. Thus, if you are going to move them, then scraping them is more appropriate rather then moving them to some other location expecting to make use of them later. Again, if this movement occurred, you would have a trail of radiation that the sniffers can easily point to.

      Now as far as CW, I am not actively involved in such matters, but from what I know, again, the logistics are not an easy thing nor is it easy to conceal when stationary. Powell said something about 100 tons of VX and hundreds of tons of Sarin and other toxins in his talk to the UN just prior to the start of the war. All of this would require a large complex with appropriate infrastructure.

      The material would be in heavy cylinders reguiring cranes for moving and the primary structures where these would be located would be a dead giveaway. Especially, considering that ambient temps in Iraq can reach 140 deg F. the buildings of manufracture and storage would have to have some heavy duty cooling outside of the normal precautions for such structures. None of these were found. Otherwise, I am certain the report would have mentioned it as a matter of fact of recent or distance past activity; if only to bolster the administration’s position.

      All of this activity (both startionary and the decommisioning and moving) would be easily noticed and tracked by NRO and NSA and there doesn’t seem to be any data here that they can associate to strengthen the administration’s position.

      If, and this is a big if, there was moving of these items, to move them without an accident under some time pressures is an anomoly. And, again, any accident would have left some residue which the inspectors would easily discover.

      There is much more to the explainiation than I have gone into here; but I am expecting that you are beginning to think a little of what is involved; rather than being scared and posting a reply that is viod of reasoning; and thinking that these things were moved by other means, as in personal automobiles.

  • This is one pretty piece of disinformation. Coming from Ya’alon, who has been a voice of moderation in Israel with respect to Palestinian rapprochement, his claim that Saddam’s WMD’s were spirited across the Syrian border and into the waiting arms of Assad has the ring of authenticity. After all, Ya’alon does not come off as a bloodthirsty warmonger, so he must be telling the truth. But, we want more in the way of proof than his mere assertion. Israeli intel should be viewed with a jaundiced eye in light of its spotty history and its obvious self interest in wanting regime change in Syria, particularly when it would be secured by the United States military, not the Israeli defense forces.