Iraq's WMD Secreted in Syria, Sada Says

By IRA STOLL - Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 26, 2006


The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force
says
Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by
loading
the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were
removed.


The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book,
"Saddam's
Secrets," released this week. He detailed the transfers in an interview

yesterday with The New York Sun.


"There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and
they
must be found and returned to safe hands," Mr. Sada said. "I am
confident they
were taken over."


Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top
general
during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam
"transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria."


Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass
destruction
in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration's
decision to go
to war in 2003. And President Bush himself has conceded much of the
point; in
a televised prime-time address to Americans last month, he said, "It is
true
that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
But
much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong."


Said Mr. Bush, "We did not find those weapons."


The discovery of the weapons in Syria could alter the American
political
debate on the Iraq war. And even the accusations that they are there
could
step up international pressure on the government in Damascus. That
government,
led by Bashar Assad, is already facing a U.N. investigation over its
alleged
role in the assassination of a former prime minister of Lebanon. The
Bush
administration has criticized Syria for its support of terrorism and
its
failure to cooperate with the U.N. investigation.


The State Department recently granted visas for self-proclaimed
opponents of
Mr. Assad to attend a "Syrian National Council" meeting in Washington
scheduled for this weekend, even though the attendees include
communists,
Baathists, and members of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group to the
exclusion of other, more mainstream groups.


Mr. Sada, 65, told the Sun that the pilots of the two airliners that
transported the weapons of mass destruction to Syria from Iraq
approached him
in the middle of 2004, after Saddam was captured by American troops.


"I know them very well. They are very good friends of mine. We trust
each
other. We are friends as pilots," Mr. Sada said of the two pilots. He
declined
to disclose their names, saying they are concerned for their safety.
But he
said they are now employed by other airlines outside Iraq.


The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted
to
cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special
Republican
Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including
"yellow
barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel." The pilots said
there was
also a ground convoy of trucks.


The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice
because
they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to
Syria,
which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.


"Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming," Mr. Sada said.
"They
handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians."


Mr. Sada said that the Iraqi official responsible for transferring the
weapons
was a cousin of Saddam Hussein named Ali Hussein al-Majid, known as
"Chemical
Ali." The Syrian official responsible for receiving them was a cousin
of
Bashar Assad who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or
Zulhimawe.


Short of discovering the weapons in Syria, those seeking to validate
Mr.
Sada's claim independently will face difficulty. His book contains a
foreword
by a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, David Eberly, who was a prisoner
of war
in Iraq during the first Gulf War and who vouches for Mr. Sada, who
once held
him captive, as "an honest and honorable man."


In his visit to the Sun yesterday, Mr. Sada was accompanied by Terry
Law, the
president of a Tulsa, Oklahoma based Christian humanitarian
organization
called World Compassion. Mr. Law said he has known Mr. Sada since 2002,
lived
in his house in Iraq and had Mr. Sada as a guest in his home in
America. "Do I
believe this man? Yes," Mr. Law said. "It's been solid down the line
and
everything checked out."


Said Mr. Law, "This is not a publicity hound. This is a man who wants
peace
putting his family on the line."


Mr. Sada acknowledged that the disclosures about transfers of weapons
of mass
destruction are "a very delicate issue." He said he was afraid for his
family.
"I am sure the terrorists will not like it. The Saddamists will not
like it,"
he said.


He thanked the American troops. "They liberated the country and the
nation. It
is a liberation force. They did a great job," he said. "We have been
freed."


He said he had not shared his story until now with any American
officials. "I
kept everything secret in my heart," he said. But he is scheduled to
meet next
week in Washington with Senators Sessions and Inhofe, Republicans of,
respectively, Alabama and Oklahoma. Both are members of the Senate
Armed
Services Committee.


The book also says that on the eve of the first Gulf War, Saddam was
planning
to use his air force to launch a chemical weapons attack on Israel.


When, during an interview with the Sun in April 2004, Vice President
Cheney
was asked whether he thought that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had
been
moved to Syria, Mr. Cheney replied only that he had seen such reports.


An article in the Fall 2005 Middle East Quarterly reports that in an
appearance on Israel's Channel 2 on December 23, 2002, Israel's prime
minister, Ariel Sharon, stated, "Chemical and biological weapons which
Saddam
is endeavoring to conceal have been moved from Iraq to Syria." The
allegation
was denied by the Syrian government at the time as "completely untrue,"
and it
attracted scant American press attention, coming as it did on the eve
of the
Christmas holiday.


The Syrian ruling party and Saddam Hussein had in common the ideology
of
Baathism, a mixture of Nazism and Marxism.


Syria is one of only eight countries that has not signed the Chemical
Weapons
Convention, a treaty that obligates nations not to stockpile or use
chemical
weapons. Syria's chemical warfare program, apart from any weapons that
may
have been received from Iraq, has long been the source of concern to
America,
Israel, and Lebanon. In March 2004, the director of Central
Intelligence,
George Tenet, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee,
saying,
"Damascus has an active CW development and testing program that relies
on
foreign suppliers for key controlled chemicals suitable for producing
CW."


The CIA's Iraq Survey Group acknowledged in its September 30, 2004,
"Comprehensive Report," "we cannot express a firm view on the
possibility that
WMD elements were relocated out of Iraq prior to the war. Reports of
such
actions exist, but we have not yet been able to investigate this
possibility
thoroughly."


Mr. Sada is an unusual figure for an Iraqi general as he is a Christian
and
was not a member of the Baath Party. He now directs the Iraq operations
of the
Christian humanitarian organization, World Compassion.


http://www.nysun.com/article/26514