Here We Go Again

An article on the Jerusalem Post website states:

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.

Furthermore, according to a report leaked to the TV channel, Syria has arrested 10 intelligence officials following the assassination of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh.

This report was requested by congress. Congress would not sign off on the intelligence budget without a report on the target of the September 6 raid. What will garner most of the attention however, is the statement that Saddam moved part of his chem/bio weapons arsenal to Syria. This is really no surprise and its nice that the intelligence community can finally put this information in the public domain. As far as I know information regarding what happened to the remnants of his stockpile are still classified although some information has made it into the media.

For those that don't remember, on September 6, 2007, Israeli fighters struck what appears to be a nuclear reactor in Syria. Israeli intelligence hacked the Syrian air defense network which allowed their fighters to penetrate undetected and strike the alleged reactor which was strikingly familiar to the one in North Korea. I mentioned in an earlier post that North Korean and Iranian military officials were working together to place a chemical warhead on a Syrian missile which prematurely detonated killing several people. This cooperation is not new.

As far as the Mughniyeh assassination goes the arrest of 10 intelligence officials in Syria makes sense. Here is what I know thus far:
1. The order for the assassination most likely came from Assad's brother-in-law who runs much of the intelligence apparatus - apparently bad blood existed between him and Mughniyeh.
2. The actual operation was probably carried out with the help of Israeli Mossad, although the level of cooperation from Israel and the level of complicity from Syria is still unknown.
3. Mughniyeh was tied to the Hariri assassination - Syria may have been trying to distance itself from the international inquiry which is likely to find Syria responsible for the assassination with Mughniyeh's minion(s) as the operator(s).
4. This purge may be the last effort to remove all individuals involved with Mughniyeh and the Hariri assassination.

Syria will still have to deal with the finding of the international investigation, but will have little recourse since it has either disappeared or killed all involved. Either way Syria will continue to 'influence' Lebanese politics.

The WMD's are another issue that could cause problems for Assad. Syria has long been suspected of having a large chem/bio weapons program without the aid of Assad's fellow baathist, Saddam Hussein. Perhaps this 'revelation' will force the international community to apply pressure to the Assad regime to open up Syria's weapons programs. So, here we go again, but maybe this time it will be a little more interesting.