🚀 go-pugleaf

Matt Telles wrote:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041028-122637-6257r.htm

Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms

By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and 
related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 
2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
     John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for 
international technology security, said in an interview that he believes 
the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" 
removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa 
facility, south of Baghdad.

     "The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole 
series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred 
all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the 
Iraqis. The others were transportation units."
     Mr. Shaw, who was in charge of cataloging the tons of conventional 
arms provided to Iraq by foreign suppliers, said he recently obtained 
reliable information on the arms-dispersal program from two European 
intelligence services that have detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi 
weapons collaboration.
     Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated 
from other arms like mortars, bombs and rockets, and sent to Syria and 
Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said.


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