World Threats

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BREAKING:SenMcCain says he received letter from PresObama saying Syria HAS used chemical weapons
— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) April 25, 2013

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Following Israel’s 2007 raid that destroyed a Syrian plutonium plant, it now appears that the Syrians had a parallel uranium enrichment plant. Despite the Ba’athist state’s denials of working with former Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, new evidence is emerging.

In al-Hasaka, Syria, suspicion has arisen at a site nominally identified as a cotton-spinning plant. DebkaFile had a very similar story earlier today, identifying the uranium as being from Saddam’s Iraq. This site is very similar to a design that Khan sold Muammar Qaddafi’s Libya before that country dismantled its nuclear program in 2003.

It appears that the IAEA has also released documents catching Khan and the Syrians red-handed:

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency also has obtained correspondence between Khan and a Syrian government official, Muhidin Issa, who proposed scientific cooperation and a visit to Khan’s laboratories following Pakistan’s successful nuclear test in 1998.

This also comes after the country received a visit from the disgraced scientist:

The former investigator said Syria acknowledged to the IAEA that Khan made at least one trip to Syria to deliver scientific lectures, as The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004.

The plans for the Syrian site are almost identical to those that Khan sold Qaddafi.

Another set of the same plans was turned over to the IAEA after Libya abandoned its nuclear program. Libya told the IAEA it had ordered 10,000 gas centrifuges from Khan, most of which it intended for a facility that was to be built according to the plans. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium in the weapons-making process.

The investigator said the layout of the Al-Hasakah facility matches the plans used in Libya almost exactly, with a large building surrounded by three smaller workshops in the same configurations. Investigators were struck that even the parking lots had similarities, with a covered area to shield cars from the sun.

These plans show Assad again not playing by the rules, believing Syria to be above international law because it can play it both ways in the Middle East. On the one side, Assad can help Iran and fund Hamas and Hezbollah while also claiming to be a bulwark against al Qaeda. Assad cannot have it both ways– and hopefully his days are coming to an end.

Photo credit: Arms Control Network.

The big news today is that the Syrian government resigned, which should give everyone some appreciation for just how panicked Bashar Assad really is. Aware that fear could encourage his opposition, his regime staged massive rallies in support of him but they don’t tell the whole story.

Al-Jazeera’s reporters have been prevented from visiting Deraa and Latakia in an attempt to focus attention on the pro-Assad rallies. According to the Reform Party of Syria, the regime ordered all workers at government-controlled offices and organizations to turn out. “In other words, of 22 million people in Syria, the real supporters of Assad can fit in one large square in Damascus,” an RPS email stated.

The rallies consist of three types of crowds, according to Farid Ghadry: The Rent-A-Crowd (those on the regime’s payroll), the Scare-A-Crowd (people forced into participating) and the Fool-A-Crowd, those who participated believing it was a pro-reform rally. Of the third group, “they are staunch opponents of Assad and believed, after Assad promised reforms on national TV, that real reforms and democratic reforms are forthcoming. So, they joined today’s demonstrations in support of reforms and not Assad,” he wrote.

Other news:

• The Washington Times reports that Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian dissident, says that the opposition does not want U.S. aid or the Obama Administration to take too hard of a line, fearing it would discredit the dissidents.

• Caroline Glick writes that Syria has a large missile and chemical weapons arsenal including Sarin and blister agents. She writes that the February 2009 issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review said that Syria began expanding its CW arsenal and building new Scud missile bays in 2005 after the reported arrival of Iraqi WMD. She suggests, among other things, that Israel arm the Kurds.

• There are those that argue that a post-Assad Syria will be worse. The Asia Times has an interesting analysis that says that the hoarding of food following price reductions through tax cuts sparked the uprising. The author concludes that a post-Assad Syria will be a “failed state.” Patrick Seale in Foreign Policy agrees, predicting sectarian warfare between the Allawites and Sunnis.

• A group of dissidents issued a joint declaration in Damascus in support of the creation of a democratic state where all are treated equally. In other words, regime change.

Click here for my latest FPM article. Karl Rove says his biggest mistake was deciding against a counter-offensive targeting opportunistic politicians trying to claim President Bush was evil enough to lie the country into war. That was a big mistake, but I name a bigger one: Not trying to vindicate the decision to remove Saddam Hussein using mounds of evidence, including Iraqi government documents, found after the invasion began.

Click here to read my latest Pajamas Media article. It is about my conversation with Charles Duelfer of the Iraq Survey Group and Ha’aretz’s report about satellite photos showing suspicious activity as Masyaf, a location that perfectly matches the description of a site in Syria said to house Iraqi WMD.

With everyone focused on Iran and North Korea, attention is being lost on Syria. In my new article here, I make the case that Syria is a critical link in the joint programs of Iran and North Korea. We need to stop looking at each country as an isolated case and instead look at these programs for what they are–interconnected parts of an international effort to get WMD. When one falters, another will pick up the slack.

Check it out here. Duelfer admitted to me in an interview that he did not interview Georges Sada’s pilots who reported they personally flew Iraqi WMD into Syria, nor did he receive the Ukrainian intelligence passed to a high-level Pentagon official detailing the transfer. Unbelievable.

From the Reform Party of Syria a U.S.-based group seeking to overthrow Assad and bring democracy to that rogue state:

RPS has learned, via reliable sources, that a new delegation of Iranian and Ba’athist Iraqis supported by Iran has arrived to Damascus last week to energize the Syrian nuclear program. The delegation is comprised mostly of nuclear scientists but their specialized expertise remains a mystery.

Today, a friend of mine was over my house who, although she voted for President Bush and supports John McCain, doubted the credibility of my work on the possibility of the Iraqi WMDs being housed in Syria. We were discussing the article I recently published over at WorldNetDaily. Read it here.

“The President would bring it up publicly, he looks like a liar right now because of the whole issue,” she said. Despite my protests, the question persisted in her mind: Why is Bush silent? It’s a question in dozens of emails sent to me over the years, and a question debated by those of us who have put ourselves out there on this issue, despite the criticisms, despite the attacks, despite the slander as “neocons” and ignorant pundits who refuse to admit President Bush was wrong.

Rest assured, in my speeches and commentary, criticizing President Bush has become more often an occurence than praising him. Blind allegiance to a political ideology, particularly when I’m unsure of what my own ideology is, is not a sport I am practiced in.

So why is President Bush silent? Read the rest of this entry »

Check out this very important story I just broke on WorldNetDaily. I am most appreciative to them for giving the story the coverage it deserves. This is credible testimony with specific details. Bordenkircher explained to me how the stories told seperately by the military personnel and the civilians attached to the military did not contradict.

If you feel this story deserves more coverage, please send it to friends, family, talk radio hosts, columnists, etc. Let’s start the discussion on whether there is now enough evidence about Iraqi WMD going to Syria to consider it a strong possibility. However, don’t expect the Bush Administration to take up this debate. It reminds voters of their original decision to invade Iraq, which is now a political loser. And, if the rumors are true, may undermine the U.S./European effort to lure Syria into defecting from Iran and joining the West. So, don’t expect much from Washington on this one.

It’s an old report from 1999, but one worth mentioning in order to analyze Yevgeny Primakov’s relationship with Saddam Hussein and the Russian-Iraqi partnership as a whole. According to Seymour Hersh, Primakov was paid $800,000 in late 1997 by the Iraqi government.

Hersh also said Primakov helped Iraq thwart UN inspections. Primakov has a long friendship with Saddam Hussein, so we should not be surprised by the intelligence indicating that he helped Iraq prepare for the Coalition invasion, particularly with enacting “Operation Sarindar,” which is the plan developed by the Soviet Union (which Primakov contributed to) to rid third world allies like Iraq of WMDs should they face

The Weekly Standardissue of June 23, 2008, page 6 has a very interesting quote in response to an article by Stephen F. Hayes about the State Department under Condi Rice. One of Hayes’ criticisms is that the State Department remained silent about the Israeli airstrike on a suspected nuclear weapons development site in Syria.

In response, Sean McCormack, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the State Department, wrote: “In fact, we stayed silent in order to prevent a regional war in the Middle East.”

This says a lot about how the government operates with intelligence, particularly intelligence of a WMD nature that implicates a foreign nation. This demonstrates that the U.S. government will not publicly address certain intelligence if the result could be increased instability or some other concern (such as diplomatic relations), even if the intelligence bolsters the credibility of their policies.

No one can doubt that the information about a North Korean-assisted nuclear site in Syria would bolster the Bush Administration, yet they sat on it for the sake of stability. Therefore, IF it’s true that Iraq put some WMD in Syria, can we expect the Administration to publicly announce it, particularly if it’d damage relations with Russia, or the chances of potentially moving Syria away from Iran? An argument can be made that if the WMD-in-Syria theory is true, the Administration wouldn’t readily jump at the opportunity to announce it.

Federal Agent Claims U.S. Military Lost Key Intelligence Data, Pinpoints WMD sites unsearched, and other WMD went to Syria.

Paul (Dave) Gaubatz is a former U.S. Federal Agent (Arabic linguist/counter-terrorism specialist) who was deployed to Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His mission was to search for weapons of mass destruction. Four sites he identified as WMD burial sites have never been searched by the Iraq Survey Group and he has waged a three-year battle to get them searched. He is currently the chief investigator with the Dallas County Medical Examiner in Dallas, TX.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to the  Jerusalem Post: “An upcoming joint US-Israel report on the September 6 IAF strike on a Syrian facility will claim that former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein transferred weapons of mass destruction to the country, Channel 2 stated Monday.”

Update: The report given to Congress about Israel’s attack on a Syrian nuclear site did not contain the revelations the rumors said they would. Was such information was being discussed between Israel and the U.S. but didn’t make it past the review process due to opposition from the State Department and/or elements of the I.C. opposed to Administration policy? Or was the information legitimately deemed not credible and dismissed? Or was it just an inaccurate leak, and such information wasn’t under discussion at all?

Kenneth Timmerman has written an excellent, excellent book entitled, “Shadow Warriors.” While it is definitely partisan and there’s some small parts I question, most of what is said appears to be true from my research, particularly that ideologues in the Intelligence Community and diplomatic circles have waged a silent campaign against Bush Administration policies they disagree with.

Personally, I’d like someone to research whether ideologues who disagreed with the Clinton Administration waged a similar campaign, and whether ideologues in the government loyal to Bush Administration beliefs used similar tactics in the media and against their opponents.  It’s a very interesting topic. Personally, I try not to frame the conspiracy as Democrat vs. Republican, or liberal vs. conservative.

I characterize it as political activists inside the government, who do things that most liberals would disagree with, and believe in things such as far-left ideas, have a seething hatred of anything right-of-center and insubordination. These individuals often point-of-views which are very anti-Israel and embrace radical anti-Israeli propaganda (the overpowering Jewish lobby that controls the government, for example) and favor preserving the status-quo above all else. To me that is a specific point-of-view which cannot be defined as simply liberal or conservative, because you’ll find people who believe in such things on both sides of the aisle. Perhaps this minor clarification on my part is more an argument about semantics, and isn’t really a big criticism of Timmerman’s wonderful book.

That all being said, the information Timmerman presents, particularly about Iraq’s WMD programs, needs to be read by every researcher and analyst. Here’s a few important items:

• In the fall of 2003, John Bolton, then-Undersecretary of State told the House International Relations Committee that he had seen six classified cables about Iraqi WMD going to Syria. There were nearly two dozen reported sightings of the convoys said to be carrying WMD entering Syria, of which at least 6 or 7 were credible.  Bolton told Timmerman that elements of the Intelligence Community tried to discredit these sources. One source was criticized by pro-Syrian elements in the DIA, and other criticism came from the INR intelligence agency of the State Department. Ideologues in these two agencies refused to permit Bolton to say anything beyond simply confirming these reports existed during his testimony. (Pg 128)
• Between February 10 and 12, 2004, very important meetings were held between Deputy Undersecretary of Defense John A. Shaw; MI6 Director Richard Dearlove (and one deputy); Michael Shipster, the British director of Iraq operations; the MI6 Kiev station chief; Ihor Smeshko, head of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency (and two deputies); and James Clapper, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
  • At the meetings, Smeshko expressed frustration that the CIA station chief in Kiev blew off his intelligence about Iraqi WMD being spirited into Syria and Iran. Timmerman said the station chief “was a close ally of the CIA weasels” that actively opposed Administration policies.
  • Smeshko gave Shaw the names of dozens of Russian Spetsnaz officers who were in Iraq moving the WMD, along with the names of their units and commanders.
  • Shaw also learned at the meeting that two Russian ships left the port of Umm Qasr before the war and dumped hundreds of chemical agents into the Indian Ocean.
  • The DIA criticized Shaw’s intelligence and complained that he violated their turf. The CIA also tried to discredit Shaw and his sources.
• Timmerman also reported that Shaw had a non-governmental British source, going by the name of Stephen, who worked with the Iraqi Kurds and put together an intelligence network in the region. Stephen’s network saw eighteen-wheeler vehicles leaving Iraq for Syria and returning empty, and tracked the contents to specific sites in Syria and Lebanon, such as a Beirut-based hospital cellar where steel drums with skull-and-crossbones signs. The network even had the name of the doctor who received the drums.
• Also read Timmerman’s book for the story of Site 666 in Iraq, a location that was never fully searched and may have been a key site in Iraq’s nuclear program.
• Much, much more in his book. This is only an overview of just this one topic discussed in the book.