The New York Sun is reporting a confession by a former Iraqi general who served as the number two man in Saddam Hussein's air force. He claims that Saddam relocated his chemical weapons prior to the US invasion by moving them to ... are you sitting down?
Syria. (Go ahead, take a few minutes to recover from your utter disbelief.)
I've blogged about this at least twice before. It only takes common sense in order to "connect the dots" on this one, folks.
(h/t The Anchoress)
ADDED: Much, much more from RightWingNuthouse, including a statement made in an addendum to the official report filed by Charles Duelfer, head of the ISG (Iraqi Survey Group):
“ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war."
This story is far, far from over.
And check out my two previous posts, linked above, for a "stockpile" of other evidence.
Related:
Here is a good article from The American Thinker published in April 2004 entitled "Pesticides, Precursors, and Petulence." Some excerpts:
The anti-war left and the media continuously shift the goal posts about WMD stockpiles. But what does the term “stockpile” mean for WMDs? One nuclear bomb is not really a “stockpile,” but it would only take one, set off in an American city or dropped on US forces in the field, to make everybody wake up and smell the coffee.
... “Stockpiles” of biological weapons? A stockpile of bio-weapons can be kept in a fridge in a scientist’s house. Ricin and botulinum toxin have already been found in sufficient quantities to regenerate a biological weapon (BW) capability in short order. No, the standard established by the left and their allies in the media is that we must find chemical weapons (CW). That is, if the US has not found pallets of CW projectiles in ammo dumps or munitions factories or at Iraqi Army unit areas, well then that George Bush flat-out lied to us. In a fashion, the critics are correct concerning CW stockpiles. Here’s why.
... Specifically ... Baghdad had rebuilt segments of its industrial chemical infrastructure under the “guise of a civilian need for pesticides, chlorine, and other legitimate chemical products.” Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical agent arena. In fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the “grandfather” of modern day nerve agents. Pesticides are also precursors of many other chemical weapons including Mustard-Lewisite (HL), Phosgene (CG) a choking agent, and Hydrogen Cyanide (AC) a blood agent.
It was not surprising then, as Coalition forces attacked into Iraq, that huge warehouses and caches of “commercial and agricultural” chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army and Marine chemical specialists. What was surprising was how quickly the ISG (Iraqi Survey Group) refuted the findings of our ground forces, and how silent they have been on the significance of these caches.
...One of the reported incidents occurred near Karbala where there appeared to be a very large “agricultural supply” area of 55-gallon drums of pesticide. In addition, there was also a camouflaged bunker complex full of these drums that some people entered with unpleasant results. More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman, and two Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve agent. A full day of tests on the drums resulted in one positive for nerve agent, and then one resulted in a negative. Later, an Army Fox NBC [nuclear, biological, chemical] Recon Vehicle confirmed the existence of Sarin. An officer from the 63d Chemical Company thought there might well be chemical weapons at the site.
But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative, end of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries dissolved into non-existence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate pesticides. One wonders about the advantage an agricultural commodities business gains by securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers six feet underground. The “agricultural site” was also co-located with a military ammunition dump, evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG.
Comments