The Saddam-Syria Connection
The Duelfer report is proving to be a veritable treasure trove of useful information. Now, fresh off of exposing Black Jacques Chirac, Gerhardt Schroeder, and Vlade Putin as Saddamites, it's Bashir Assad's turn in the proverbial barrel.
Not only was Damascus financially rewarded with over $1.2 billion in illegal arms contracts for leasing its UN Security Council vote to the Butcher of Baghdad, but as many have suspected and quite a few have reported, Syria was also given custody of Saddam's WMD stockpiles:
"'A lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria,' Duelfer said. 'There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points. We've got a lot of data to support that, including people discussing it. But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say.'"
He "cannot say" because the only possible way to verify it is to liberate Syria and throw Assad into the same prison cell in which Saddam is languishing. But it's difficult to imagine what else Saddam would have wanted to stash next door for safe-keeping against his eventual return to power. And there is also the little matter of last April's foiled al Qaeda chemical attack against the American embassy in Amman, Jordan, that could have killed as many as 20,000 people, which was launched from Syria using weaponry and materials that could only have been Iraqi in origin. The mastermind behind it? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The truth is if President Bush made any mistake vis-a-vie Iraq, it was not that he "rushed to war," but that he did not rush to war. He wasted six months by going the Kerryite "multilateralist"/UN route instead of blowing off that den of crooks, thieves, and murderers - six months that Saddam was able to use to very effective propaganda effect, knowing full well how the President's domestic enemies would use the absence of the primary premise for war against him in an election year.
True, bypassing Turtle Bay would have shorn us of British support, making our own burden that much greater. But we'd have gotten the WMDs. With that vindication in hand, international support from current Coalition allies (at the very least) would have certainly been forthcoming. The whole "BUSH LIED!!!" smear-a-thon would have been deprived of the bulk of its fuel.
And a vast amount of highly dangerous weaponry would not have "proliferated" out of our grasp to a place or places where we'll have no choice but to go in after it.
To shameless appropriate Michael Ledeen's favorite catch-phrase, "Faster, please."
Not only was Damascus financially rewarded with over $1.2 billion in illegal arms contracts for leasing its UN Security Council vote to the Butcher of Baghdad, but as many have suspected and quite a few have reported, Syria was also given custody of Saddam's WMD stockpiles:
"'A lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria,' Duelfer said. 'There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points. We've got a lot of data to support that, including people discussing it. But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say.'"
He "cannot say" because the only possible way to verify it is to liberate Syria and throw Assad into the same prison cell in which Saddam is languishing. But it's difficult to imagine what else Saddam would have wanted to stash next door for safe-keeping against his eventual return to power. And there is also the little matter of last April's foiled al Qaeda chemical attack against the American embassy in Amman, Jordan, that could have killed as many as 20,000 people, which was launched from Syria using weaponry and materials that could only have been Iraqi in origin. The mastermind behind it? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The truth is if President Bush made any mistake vis-a-vie Iraq, it was not that he "rushed to war," but that he did not rush to war. He wasted six months by going the Kerryite "multilateralist"/UN route instead of blowing off that den of crooks, thieves, and murderers - six months that Saddam was able to use to very effective propaganda effect, knowing full well how the President's domestic enemies would use the absence of the primary premise for war against him in an election year.
True, bypassing Turtle Bay would have shorn us of British support, making our own burden that much greater. But we'd have gotten the WMDs. With that vindication in hand, international support from current Coalition allies (at the very least) would have certainly been forthcoming. The whole "BUSH LIED!!!" smear-a-thon would have been deprived of the bulk of its fuel.
And a vast amount of highly dangerous weaponry would not have "proliferated" out of our grasp to a place or places where we'll have no choice but to go in after it.
To shameless appropriate Michael Ledeen's favorite catch-phrase, "Faster, please."
posted by JASmius at 8:58 PM
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