I haven’t seen this in English/American news sites yet, but the leading Dutch newspaper claims that a Syrian officer has revealed that Iraqi stockpiles of chemical weapons and rocket components have been brought to and hidden in Syria with the knowledge of the Syrian government.
It will be interesting to see whether this is confirmed and what the reaction of the Coalition will be. Will Syria be next? Or is it preferred to keep the current regime?
Depends on if it’s true or not.
I’ve said it before, but if the American news hasn’t picked up on what would be a tremendous story, I have trouble believing there’s any chance it’s true.
Oh come now, Britney just got annulled, that takes precidence over some piddling little WMDs.
If you look at the front pages of the NY Times and Washington Post, you’ll see nothing about Britney and nothing about WMD either.
Spoilsport.
Still, I’m gonna file this under “Important If True” until more information comes to light.
There have been rumors to this effect for a long time (http://michnews.com/artman/publish/article_1583.shtml). I wonder this article contains new info or rehashing of old rumors.
The article claims that dissident reporter Nizar Najoef (who whilst prisoner got the Unesco-award for freedom of press in 2000) passed on the information to reporters of the Dutch Newspaper this weekend. Apparently, he had obtained the information from a highly placed Syrian intelligence officer.
The locations are provided in astonishing detail. It is also claimed that American intelligence is already aware of this, but that so far the USA administration has preferred not to react.
If true (and I’m not ready to agree that it is) that tells me the administration wants little to do with another middle-eastern military adventure 10 months prior to the election.
Electorally speaking I can’t really blame them, either.
Let’s assume for the moment that this IS true … if the United States WERE to admit that they know about it, they would HAVE to act against Syria (under the Bush Doctrine). This would nullify the US’ position as peacemaker between Israel and the Palestinians, as the Palestinians are so closely allied with Syria/Lebanon/Jordan/etc., and I don’t believe that’s something this administration wants to do right now. Iraq was sort of a pariah in the region, shunned (to some extent) by her neighbors. The United States acting against Iraq was far easier, I believe, than acting against one of the Mediterranean-region Arab states.
<rant>And I must take issue with the earlier statement that someone had not seen any reporting on the WMD’s, and therefore (the writer seemed to follow), it could not be true. I apologize if I misread this, but it seemed to say that “no reporting in the US press, no truth to the story.” The US media doesn’t report on MANY things that happen around the world … it doesn’t mean those things haven’t happened. Bear in mind that ALL of the major news outlets in the country are run by major corporations, so it’s always advisable to look for other sources of information besides MS(NBC)/CNN, etc. etc.</rant>
Well at this point, it’s no longer an issue of “Are the WMDs there?” It could be that they’ve got a leak and this is a pre-emptive cover story. So it’s pretty hard to tell whether any WMDs would have anything to do with Iraq anyways.
My two cents: this is sour grape-ism from the pro-war crowd. THey were banging their fists screaming about how they knew Sadaam had thermonuclear anthrax bombs hidden all over the place before the war. We went in, found out they were full of it, and now they’re back peddling that Sadaam must have hidden the weapons in some other country that (by happy convenience) we can’t look for them in. If there were a shred of actual evidence for this, or if it could be twisted to look that way, Dubya would be waving it to the press every half hour.
Oh, they’re there, all right. It’s a two-for-one deal. Obtain the hidden WMDs in Syria and, um, hmm, let’s say Iran, and Sudan will turn over Osama bin Laden. Got this straight from this one guy who says he’s in a position to know. Yup. Mm hmmm.
I can’t see why any neighbor of Iraq’s would be so stupid as to assist Saddam in hiding his WMDs. If we found out, this would be tantamount to inviting an attack. Perhaps this might have been done long ago during the first UN-sanction period, but that hardly counts. Post 9/11, any nation could plainly see that we were prepared to attack it if they aligned themselves too closely with the “Axis of Evil”. Why would any Arab nation risk so much for the despised Iraqi regime? Syria is certainly not pro-American, but Assad isn’t a lunatic like Saddam. Why on Earth would it be in their interests to hide Saddam’s WMDs? If someone can convince me that Syria would have something worthwhile to gain from such an arrangement, I might be less skeptical, but I’m inclined to recommend tinfoil hats for the sources of this rumor.
Exactly.
When and if they are found, we’ll hear it trumpetted from the rooftops. Until you see “Rumsfeld Press Conference on WMD Discoveries” simultaneously on CNN/Fox/MSNBC, and a news alert cut-in during “The Bachelor”, you can probably bet that it’s not the real thing.
And even then…
The Whitehouse’s current take on this affair:
Well, they seem to have found something in southern Iraq.
Possible Iraqi Chemical Weapons Found.
Don’t know how significant this is if it checks out. The Beeb is carrying the story as well.
From Dagger’s link:
Note the last part, if true, means this is just another false alarm, of sorts.
Look at the pictures of the mortar rounds in the Reuters article. They look like two week old dead fish that have been gutted by racoons and left to rot in the sun.