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GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT INTELLIGENCE BRIEF
U.S. intel: WMD went to Syria last year
Evidence includes satellite photographs of Iraqi convoys
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Posted: January 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern
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The U.S. intelligence community has found evidence Syria received Iraqi
missiles and WMD in late 2002 and early 2003, U.S. officials said,
according to
Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.
The evidence includes satellite photographs of Iraqi convoys believed to
be
bringing missiles and WMD into Syria as well as assertions from Iraqi
officials
that ousted leader Saddam Hussein ordered such a transfer.
Still, the agencies fail to agree that sufficient evidence has been
obtained to
press the issue with the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.
Importantly, CIA Director George Tenet shares this view, officials said.
As a result, the Bush administration and senior members of Congress have
reached different conclusions over whether Syria obtained Iraqi WMD. The
administration has determined the intelligence evidence remains
insufficient,
while senior staffers and members of Congress said the evidence is enough
to
press Syria to open its facilities to inspection.
"I think that there is some concern that shipments of WMD went to Syria,"
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said.
David Kay, who resigned last week from the CIA-sponsored Iraq Survey
Group,
went further. Kay said Iraqi officials told his investigators that WMD was
sent
to Syria before the war in Iraq.
"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," Kay told the
London
Daily Telegraph. "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 program. Precisely what went to Syria, and what
has
happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 20, President George W. Bush did
not
identify Syria as a U.S. adversary or a country having missiles and WMD
programs. The president did cite Iran and North Korea, both of which have
supplied systems to Damascus.
In December, Bush signed into law the Syria Accountability Act. The law
calls
for a virtual trade embargo on Syria for its occupation of Lebanon, WMD
program
and harboring of terrorist groups.
But Vice President ***** Cheney said Iraq had assembled WMD on portable
platforms, a development that would have enabled the transfer of assets to
other parts in or outside the country. In an interview with National
Public
Radio, Cheney did not cite Syria as receiving weapons from Saddam.
"We've found a couple of semi-trailers at this point, which we believe
were in
fact part of a [WMD] program," Cheney said. "I would deem that conclusive
evidence, if you will, that he did in fact have programs for weapons of
mass
destruction."
So far, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State
Colin
Powell have rejected the prospect that Iraqi biological and chemical
weapons or
missiles were sent to Syria. They echoed U.S. assessments that Saddam
would not
have trusted Assad with Iraq's missile and WMD assets.
"I have seen no hard evidence to suggest that is the case, that suddenly
there
were no weapons found in Iraq because they were all in Syria," Powell
said. "I
don't know why the Syrians would do that, frankly, why it would be in
their
interest. They didn't have that kind of relationship with Iraq."
.
