What happened to the idea that Iraq moved it’s WMD to Syria? Iraqi general Georges Sada said this is what happened, Israeli general Moshe Yaalon said that is what happened, Syrian journalist Nizar Nayouf said that is what happened and David Kay said that is what happened.
This isn’t meant to be a thread about the Bush admin or whether war was justified or not. I am wondering if Syria actually has Iraqs WMD and what the long term goal is. Why would Saddam move his WMD to Syria instead of just giving them up, is anyone searching for them in Syria, and if they are in Syria what is going to happen to them? Does Saddam plan to wait until after he is executed, then have his henchmen go over and dig them up, then bomb the hell out of Israel with them? If he did that he would probably go down in history as an Arab hero.
Did he? The conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group (which Kay lead until he quit) was that such a move was unlikely. It seems like everybody’s given up on this theory.
In my experience, it seems to be an article of faith among some segments of the far right that this theory is correct, and thus, the war was justified all along.
My dad listens to right wing talk radio and occasionally I hear snippets of Larry Elder whining about all this evidence about Saddam’s WMD’s that is being “ignored” by the “liberal media”.(everything but Right Wing talk radio, appearently).
We have a customer who comes in regularly that was in Iraq about a year ago. He claims the WMD being in Syria is common knowledge over there. Of course a popular myth can also be refered to as common knowledge.
What’s the reason given for moving them before the invasion? To embarass the US?
If you have WMD but don’t use them when your about to be removed frrom power what the’s point of having them? How can they be a threat to anybody if you’re afraid to use them?
AFAIK (and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) there is no hard evidence that Iraq did this. Without hard evidence we can merely speculate.
Why indeed. The only thing I can think of is a similar example where Saddam ordered his fighter jets to be flown to Iran during the first Gulf War…even knowing that he most likely wouldn’t get them back. Why you would do the same thing with WMD to Syria is beyond me though.
I doubt it. I would be surprised if this was the case.
Presumably the Syrians would hide them and they would become part of their WMD cache. I don’t think most of them have long shelf lives though so unless Saddam also shipped his WMD manufacturing facilities too it will be of limited long term use to the Syrians (assuming Iraq actually sent the things there :dubious: ).
You are assuming Saddam knew the future when he sent them there. Assuming for a moment he DID send them to Syria I doubt he had any great expectation of getting them back…he just didn’t want to be caught with them in his posession (I assume so he could take the moral high ground or some such thing). I doubt the war unfolded quite as he expected it too.
As for why he doesn’t say NOW that they are in Syria (again, assuming they are)…well, why should he? What does it gain him? Nothing as far as I can tell anyway. So, might as well just take that info to the grave.
BTW, I doubt that Iraqs WMD were ever intentionally for Israel. They were more in the form of regional blackmail IMHO.
Yeah other than the fact that the evidence for this is practically non-existant. What would the possible logic behind this be ? Why would syria risk transfering the weapons given the degree of scruitiny Iraq was under at the time ? The must have realized that most of the iraqi officals they were working with to arrange the transfer would be in US custody once the invasion was over.
And anyway if Syrai really wanted WMD why would the ones in Iraq be better than the ones they could produce at home ? Syria is reasonably well off state with no serious embargos or sanctions against them at the time, Iraq was a state crippled by years of massive trade embargoes, and who’s WMD regime was systematically taken apart by years of UN inspections and military action.
I figured that was sarcasm, but on second glance, probably not. ‘Saddam’s henchman’ would need an awful lot of help to do something like that, and I don’t know why Syria would risk its ass to help them.
I find it suspect that a country would damage itself so bad because it let the world think it had WMD’s and had a history of the technology would be able to eradicate any vestige of “evidence” that the Bush regime could not use as propaganda. As a matter of fact I am dumbfounded that research material hasn’t been found yet. I would be surprised if the most innocuous of countries didn’t have enough secret research to damn someone like Saddam .Where did it go? I don’t buy that Saddam’s Iraq was really as innocent as the pure driven snow and only wanted to put on a show of defying the West. Anything is possible, but I find it unlikely.
Not to be a weasel, but does a statement beginning with “in general I think” really need a cite? I erred in my other post by not indicating that this
was hyperbole. If I knew where to find a poll about Republican attitudes on this particular theory, I’d cite it.
The Iraq Survey Group said that they were certainly not innocent: as Bush said, the country did “retain the knowledge” of how to produce some weapons, and I’m sure Saddam wanted to have those weapons again. That’s not innocent, but it’s still not the same as having the weapons.
“By the 1990s, the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal included hundreds of tons of chemical agents. Weaponized agents include blister (mustard) and nerve (sarin, VX), and can be delivered in aerial munitions, artillery and rocket shells.”
Assuming that Iraqi WMD existed, and assuming they were moved to Syria there must’ve been a reason for it. And I don’t think Saddam would just move the weapons to Syria and leave them buried until some farmer stumbles onto them in 2031.
In Georges Sada’s book (the Iraqi general I mentioned earlier) he says Saddam was planning to use chemical weapons on Saudi Arabia and Israel before the start of gulf war 1 but backed out for some reason. If he backed out because he felt he had something to lose it sounds reasonable to think that he would wait until all hope was lost and perhaps try again.
If he had them then by using him he would guarantee his own demise. No one would object to eliminating his regime if he had done so. As it was he was probably hoping the west would pussy out as it normally does and he’d ride out the storm as he had done years earlier.
So we’re supposing that Saddam, who was cagey enough to rise to power in Iraq and stay there for almost 25 years, was stupid enough to send his best weapons out of the country before the war with no ability to recall them in case the invasion really happened? It’s not that I think the man was a military genius, but to put it mildly, I have a great deal of trouble believing he would be that dumb.
The nail in the coffin for the WMD-to-Syria theory, as I understood it from Duelfer’s comments at the time, was that there wasn’t evidence Iraq had the infrastructure in place to move them that way - which was also a strike against the notion that the weapons existed at all.
As an example: The largest military in the world is camped at your door. You have one nuke. Exactly how would you use one nuke? If you used it then you would be obliterated shortly there after. Same as if you had some chemical or biological weapons. If you use them you will be obliterated. Now if you have 100 nukes then you have a position to bargain from. One nuke gets you killed.
WMD are not effective weapons. They are all or nothing weapons. You certainly don’t use them against an enemy that could glass your country (and more important to Saddam, his own ass) end to end many times over.
Although, I’m sure that if Saddam had had WMD he probably was sorely pissed when he was in his hidey hole, just before he was captured, that he hadn’t used them. If he had had them, of course.
I think the reason he had them moved is because he though that he would continue to rule Iraq after the war, but if WMD were found the coalition forces might be more willing to take him out.
Now I have now idea where S.H. would get the idea that after you loose a war the opposing side gives you back your country (minus some airspace) and you stay in power.