Syria Chemical Weapons: Iraq WMDs Taken By Russia To Assad And Back Again

Did Syria chemical weapons come from Iraq’s missing WMD via Russia?

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, before President Obama proposed military actions some thought Syria’s chemical weapons were Saddam’s missing WMDs from Iraq. Even terrorist groups that were part of the Syrian rebels had no problem identifying the weapons as coming from Iraq. Interestingly, US military leaks indicated that American forces found some of Saddam’s WMDs during the last several years of the Obama administration.

The UN report on Syria’s chemical weapons noticed the delivery system had writing indicating it was Russian in origin. Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile is thought to be about 1,000 tons of nerve and blister agents. Now that Russia has brokered a deal for Syria’s chemical weapons to be given up, questions about their source are once again resurfacing.

Over the years, many have asked this same question. According to Syrian journalists, Saddam hid Iraq’s WMDs in tunnels dug under several towns near the northern Syria border. The transfer of Iraq’s WMDs to Syria was organized by Republican Guard commanders and Assef Shawkat, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s cousin and brother-in-law.

A former General in the Israel Defense Force named Moshe Ya’alon claims, “Saddam Hussein transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria [six weeks before Operation Iraqi Freedom started]. No one went to Syria to find it.”

Georges Sada, an Iraqi General in Saddams’ former air force, claims he was “very good friends” with the men who hid Iraq’s WMDs in Syria. In 2006, Sada said, “There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands. I am confident they were taken over [to Syria].”

Ali Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a former Iraqi general and “personal friend” of Saddam Hussein, also said in 2006: “I know Saddam’s weapons are in Syria due to certain military deals that were made going as far back as the late 1980s that dealt with the event that either capitals were threatened with being overrun by an enemy nation…. [Saddam Hussein] also has wanted since he took power to embarrass the West and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. After Saddam denied he had such weapons why would he use them or leave them readily available to be found?”

John A. Shaw is a former deputy undersecretary of defense at the Pentagon who tracked Iraq’s WMDs being moved out by Russian special forces. Just this week Shaw claimed some of Syria’s chemical weapons came from Iraq WMD stockpiles:

“My people on the ground definitively tracked the Russian movement of Iraqi [chemical weapons] and high explosives to three locations in Syria and two in Lebanon in 2003. Now we have the Russians ostensibly about to certify quantities of weaponry that until a few weeks ago no one admitted existed in Syria, much less that part of it had been moved from Iraq, or that all of it is Russian.”

Interestingly enough, Assad’s Syrian forces have recently begun shuffling their chemical weapons away…back to Iraq. Speaking of Russia’s role in all this, Shaw believes we have “made the poacher into the gamekeeper” and Edward Timperlake, a former deputy to Mr. Shaw at the Pentagon, concurs, saying, “I believe Russian special forces successfully moved poison gas shells out of Iraq, so what confidence should anyone have that the Russians can now be honest brokers in helping collect poison gas shells being used in Syria?”

If the allegations of Russia bringing Syria’s chemical weapons from Iraq are true, what do you think the US should do?