Where Are the WMDs?

There is much speculation but Georges Sada, one of Saddam Hussein’s former generals says they are in Syria. So that’s nothing new. Some people have been saying that for a long time, so what does he have to offer that would lead anyone to believe that he actually knows something for certain?

Nothing really and for anyone to try to prove his statements truthful is going to have a next to impossible task ahead of them.

Sada says, in an interview with the New York Sun yesterday, that prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Hussein moved his chemical weapons on commercial jets that had been converted to cargo planes by removing the seats. He claims 56 flights occured into Syria as well as a ground convoy.

Sada claims that this all took place around the same time that Iraq was sending aid and supplies into Syria to help with a dam break in that country, so the international community paid little attention to what they were doing.

The General also claims to be close friends with the two pilots who flew the planes. It wasn’t until after Saddam was captured, that the two pilots came forward to Sada with their story but did not want to be indentified for fear of their lives and their families. Today those two pilots are flying in another country and yet they still fear for their safety and do not want to be indentified.

The same claim comes from Sada himself. He still has some reservations about his own safety and that of his family but with more and more Iraqis coming forward to tell what they know, perhaps he feels like it is his time too.

There is another issue that draws out skepticism about Sada’s story. He has just released a book called, “Saddam’s Secrets”. I know and you know that people will do many things to promote their book and its contents.

Sada has been making a bit of a media circuit doing interviews etc., as part of his book promotion. He does have a meeting scheduled next week with two Senators who are members of the Senate Armed Services Committe. They are Sessions from Alabama and  Inhofe from Oklahoma. They are hoping that Sada can give them useful information that might prove once and for all whether the weapons existed and if so, where they are.

Syria is one of only a handful of countries not to join the Chemical Weapons Convention – a treaty that obligates countries not to stockpile and use chemical weapons. They have also denied any accusations about having Husseins chemical weapons.

Several prominent people have claimed for some time that the weapons were moved to Syria. Ariel Sharon made a public statement on December 23, 2002.

“Chemical and biological weapons which Saddam is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria.”

Moshe Yaalon, Israels top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, told the New York Sun just over a month ago, that the weapons had been moved from Iraq to Syria.

In an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney in April 2004, he was asked whether he thought the weapons had been move to Syria. He said he had seen reports that had said that.

An investigation done by a man in Denmark, claims he knows where in Syria those weapons are and has gone on to say that he believes some of those weapons have been doled out to terrorist groups.

Again, proving it is next to impossible.

Other footnotes about Sada’s book. In it he claims that on the eve of the first Gulf War, Saddam was planning to use his air force to mount a chemical weapons attack on Israel. He also claims Osama Bin Laden visited with Hussein in Baghdad.

According to News Max, Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has challenged all conventional thinking about ties between Al Qaeda and Hussein. He is asking for the release of over 2 million documents from the Hussein regime stating that they may be able to prove a definate connection.

Tom Remington