Gidge
NES Member
Mideast: The chemical weapons that Syria is preparing to use may have come from a stockpile that Iraq used against its own people and which the Russians helped transport to Syria before Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Investor's Business Daily
Syria’s chemical weapons are on the move, their precursor chemicals having been mixed, a crossing of a line drawn by President Obama Aug. 20 when he said “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” So our resolute president decides to draw another line — that if Syria’s Bashar al-Assad makes use of those weapons, presumably against his own people or neighbors, he will face “consequences.”
Assad must be shaking in his boots, having dispatched 40,000 of his own people by more conventional means without any consequences from the United States. What’s another 10,000, Assad must be thinking, even if they go in a quicker and more ghastly way?
Obama’s appeasement has come home to roost. Assad remembers how Clinton, appearing on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” dismissed the idea of U.S. military action or regime change in Syria, claiming that unlike Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, Assad was considered to be a “reformer” by “many of the members of Congress.”
He remembers how the Obama administration inexplicably made a recess appointment of Robert Ford to be ambassador to Damascus after President George W. Bush withdrew our ambassador in 2005. That was in response to the bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in which Syrian involvement was widely suspected.
Will Assad use chemical weapons as Saddam Hussein used nerve gas in 1988 to attack Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, killing 5,000 men, women and children? Assad has shown no great regard for human life. If he does, it may be ironically with weapons from Hussein’s stash that were never accounted for.
Former Gen. Georges Sada, who served as No. 2 in the Iraqi Air Force under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book in 2006 titled “Saddam’s Secrets.” It detailed how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the U.S.-led action to eliminate Hussein’s WMD threat by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
Sada, who was appointed as national security adviser by interim leader Iyad Allawi and who was privy to many state secrets, described the transport of the deadly weapons in an interview with the New York Sun shortly after the book was published and said the weapons were received in Syria by a cousin of none other than President Assad “who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or Zulhimawe.”
Sada counted 56 flights in all. “Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes . . . including ‘yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel.’ The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks,” Sada stated.
An article in the fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that on Israel’s Channel 2 on Dec. 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.”
Three months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, Israeli intelligence detected Iraq moving large amounts of military material into Syria, material that could have included Saddam’s WMD.
Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel’s top general at the time, has said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
Of course, Syria has long had a chemical weapons program of its own, making it easy to accept any WMD stocks Iraq had to offer and hide them among its existing inventory. Unless we stop drawing red lines and take some concrete action, Halabja 1988 may be repeated, and with some of the same weapons.
Investor's Business Daily
Syria’s chemical weapons are on the move, their precursor chemicals having been mixed, a crossing of a line drawn by President Obama Aug. 20 when he said “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” So our resolute president decides to draw another line — that if Syria’s Bashar al-Assad makes use of those weapons, presumably against his own people or neighbors, he will face “consequences.”
Assad must be shaking in his boots, having dispatched 40,000 of his own people by more conventional means without any consequences from the United States. What’s another 10,000, Assad must be thinking, even if they go in a quicker and more ghastly way?
Obama’s appeasement has come home to roost. Assad remembers how Clinton, appearing on CBS’ “Face The Nation,” dismissed the idea of U.S. military action or regime change in Syria, claiming that unlike Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, Assad was considered to be a “reformer” by “many of the members of Congress.”
He remembers how the Obama administration inexplicably made a recess appointment of Robert Ford to be ambassador to Damascus after President George W. Bush withdrew our ambassador in 2005. That was in response to the bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in which Syrian involvement was widely suspected.
Will Assad use chemical weapons as Saddam Hussein used nerve gas in 1988 to attack Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, killing 5,000 men, women and children? Assad has shown no great regard for human life. If he does, it may be ironically with weapons from Hussein’s stash that were never accounted for.
Former Gen. Georges Sada, who served as No. 2 in the Iraqi Air Force under Saddam Hussein before he defected, wrote a comprehensive book in 2006 titled “Saddam’s Secrets.” It detailed how the Iraqi Revolutionary Guard moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the U.S.-led action to eliminate Hussein’s WMD threat by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.
Sada, who was appointed as national security adviser by interim leader Iyad Allawi and who was privy to many state secrets, described the transport of the deadly weapons in an interview with the New York Sun shortly after the book was published and said the weapons were received in Syria by a cousin of none other than President Assad “who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or Zulhimawe.”
Sada counted 56 flights in all. “Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes . . . including ‘yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel.’ The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks,” Sada stated.
An article in the fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that on Israel’s Channel 2 on Dec. 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.”
Three months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, Israeli intelligence detected Iraq moving large amounts of military material into Syria, material that could have included Saddam’s WMD.
Moshe Yaalon, who was Israel’s top general at the time, has said Iraq transported WMD to Syria six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
Of course, Syria has long had a chemical weapons program of its own, making it easy to accept any WMD stocks Iraq had to offer and hide them among its existing inventory. Unless we stop drawing red lines and take some concrete action, Halabja 1988 may be repeated, and with some of the same weapons.
