Gertz Story – Russian Troops Likely Moved Iraqi Weapons To Syria Before The War

By Lorie Byrd ~ October 27th, 2004 @ 11:16 pm

I haven’t had a chance to digest yet, but here is the link. This is huge.

Here are the first and last paragraphs of the story, which do a good job of summarizing the piece:

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. ..

…Defense officials said the Russians can provide information on what happened to the Iraqi weapons and explosives that were transported out of the country. Officials believe the Russians also can explain what happened to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

I repeat — this is HUGE.

UPDATE: Even before the Gertz story broke, the NYT version was just too hard to swallow, for various reaons including those here.