Syria Pursues Nuclear Weapons

Caroline Glick, the Middle East Fellow at Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, writes in the Jerusalem Post that, according to Kuwaiti press reports, Syria is actively pursuing a nuclear weapons development program, which it began in September 2004. According to Ms. Glick:

The Kuwaiti report maintains that the Syrian nuclear program relies "on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Uday and Qusai… transfer[red] to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the US-British invasion in March 2003." The report also asserts that the Syrian nuclear program is supported by the Iranians who are running the program, together with Iraqi nuclear scientists and Muslim nuclear specialists from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.

The program "was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria."

This report echoes warnings expressed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq that suspicious convoys of trucks were traveling from Iraq to Syria. Sharon's warnings were later supported by statements from former IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, who said last year that Iraq had moved its unconventional arsenals to Syria in the lead-up to the invasion.

Fortunately, we now have Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden to lead us in confronting this latest WMD threat, to say nothing of the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and Iran. Or perhaps not. Ms. Glick writes, "Iran, North Korea and al-Qaida have all been quick to interpret the Democratic victory in last Tuesday's Congressional elections as a sign that the US has chosen to turn its back on the threat they pose to America."

Surprise, surprise. Who wudda thunk it?