Interesting article, a good tactic to try and get Iraqi translators, though guaranteed co-operation was the issue.
As far as the belief about the WMD secretly being shipped to Syria, Powell didn’t believe so, saying there was no hard evidence or any indication Syria had any kind of relationship with Iraq that would make such a thing possible, it wouldn’t be in their best interests. The US finding there were no WMDs came up with this idea, however David Kay who was the committee chief looking for the weapons chided them saying their allegations had no real proof, adding Iraq’s weapons were gone four years before the war. The US even claimed that Syria was funding the Iraqi uprising thoguh they had no idea if it was the Syrians, or old Iraqi exiles in Syria… even before the war while inspectors were in Iraq, the US was eyeing Syria’s WMD and had ideas about them disarming or having a regime change. Syria had agreed to disarm their WMD, but only if Israel also did the same. Those were the terms, however Israel disagreed and as expected so did the US.
Most accusations against Iraq and Syria came from Israel and Ariel Sharon asserted that Syria and Iraq made a deal that Saddam could smuggle his weapons there, claiming they had solid evidence. However if there really is solid evidence, then nobody has done anything about it. Given the recent Israeli spy scandal, the FBI was suspicious of whatever documents were sent to the US through Israel used as evidence to justify invading Iraq.
It does not seem Syria had done anything, even now seeing the US would rather concentrate on Iran. Quite frankly I don’t buy the idea that the UN purposely ‘delayed’ the US in order to help Saddam out. I find it funny whenever anyone who thinks along these lines goes about making fun of other ‘conspiracy theories.’
