Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief

[KMAN]

Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 25/01/2004)


David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam.

"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

Dr Kay's comments will intensify pressure on President Bashar Assad to clarify the extent of his co-operation with Saddam's regime and details of Syria's WMD programme. Mr Assad has said that Syria was entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own biological and chemical weapons arsenal.

Syria was one of Iraq's main allies in the run-up to the war and hundreds of Iraqi officials - including members of Saddam's family - were given refuge in Damascus after the collapse of the Iraqi dictator's regime. Many of the foreign fighters responsible for conducting terrorist attacks against the coalition are believed to have entered Iraq through Syria.

A Syrian official last night said: "These allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false."

 

[xpanda]

Interesting, because this article paints an entirely different picture:

No evidence of WMDs in Iraq: chief U.S weapons inspector [From cbc.ca]
Last Updated Mon, 26 Jan 2004 12:35:42

WASHINGTON - The outgoing chief U.S. weapons inspector, David Kay, said he doubts Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and questioned the information-gathering capabilities of American intelligence services.

"I don't think they exist," Kay said of Iraq's weapons after nine months of searching.

Kay had predicted he would find illicit weapons when he began the search shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

"We have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration," said Kay.

And on Monday, the group Human Rights Watch dismissed another Bush rationale for the invasion of Iraq, saying it cannot be considered a justifiable humanitarian intervention.

Executive director Kenneth Roth said Saddam's regime was a brutal one, but not in the years and months immediately leading up to the U.S.-led invasion.

"Such interventions should be reserved for stopping an imminent or ongoing slaughter," Roth said. "They shouldn't be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past."

Saddam's 1988 extermination of Kurds in northern Iraq would have justified an international intervention at the time, he added.

As weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize in the months after the invasion, U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair increasingly began to justify their actions on humanitarian grounds.

The statement by Human Rights Watch undermines the leaders' efforts to do so legitimately.

David Kay, who stepped down as chief weapons inspector last week, told National Public Radio in the U.S. that "it's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information."

The Bush administration said Saddam's program of WMDs, based on information gathered by the intelligence community, was part of the justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

When asked whether Bush owes the U.S. an explanation following Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people." [Interesting.]

Kay said that based on the intelligence that existed, he thought "it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat."

In an interview with the New York Times, Kay said he did not believe the White House put pressure on analysts to come up with intelligence pointing to a weapons program.

He said one problem was that the CIA should have had its own spies in Iraq.

Kay also said that Saddam had authorized a WMD program but that Iraqi scientists were able to fake programs and use that money for other purposes.

He said Iraq did try to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but it would have taken years to rebuild after being largely abandoned in the 1990s.

The White House has said that it remains confident that WMD will be found.

 

[KMAN]

Kay: Bush Was Right to Attack Iraq

Critics of the Bush administration have seized on Iraq weapons hunter David Kay's pronouncement over the weekend that Baghdad didn't have any WMDs immediately before the U.S. attacked last March.

But Tuesday morning Kay gave President Bush a full-fledged endorsement on his decision to go to war.

In an interview with NBC's "Today Show," Kay told host Matt Lauer that the U.S. decision to attack was "absolutely prudent."

"In fact," said Kay, "I think at the end of the inspection process, we'll paint a picture of Iraq that was far more dangerous than even we thought it was before the war."

Kay described Iraq's government as "a system collapsing."

"It was a country that had the capability in weapons of mass destruction areas, and ... terrorists, like ants to honey, were going after it."

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein "was putting more money into his nuclear program, he was pushing ahead his long-range missile program as hard as he could," Kay said.

Although Baghdad wasn't successful, Kay said Iraq "had the intent to acquire these weapons," adding that Saddam had "invested huge amounts of money" to do so.

The chief weapons hunter also debunked the notion that the White House pressured U.S. intelligence to exaggerate the Iraq threat.

"The tendency to say, well, it must have been pressure from the White House is absolutely wrong," he told "Today."

 

[Massmilwaukee]

I picture Kay as the Waterboy. Uh, duh... I don't know if we will ever find da WMD's of destruction... the needle dick was right, war was goooood.

 

[KMAN]

Great intelligent reply!

KMAN

 

[American]

One source says one thing, a different source says another. Which one is right? That's one of the points I've been trying to make. You can build a case for either side, backed up by numerous media sources. Which one do you believe? It comes down to accepting the version that you want to believe, the one that best serves your personal beliefs and idealogies.