Now, the belief is that Saddam never had them in the run up to the war in 2003 and that, as many on the anti-war side hold, is that Bush lied about WMD to get us into war. The story has evolved many time into this so-called truth:
This groupthink that Saddam had no WMD in March 2003 replaces the conventional wisdom that Saddam's scientists were all bluffing a psychopathic mass murderer by pretending to have WMD programs; which itself was a replacement for the theory that Saddam was purely bluffing all of us. And this, of course, replaces the conventional wisdom held by both parties for nearly a decade that Saddam had WMD in defiance of UNSC resolutions demanding he disarm.
So this is intriguing:
In the last few months, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah appears to have received over a hundred M600 ballistic missiles from Syria. Now, after many people scoured Google Earth satellite photos of Syria and Lebanon, looking for the weapons, something particularly interesting was found in northern Syria, outside the town of Masyaf. Google Earth users noted five compounds, that appear to be closed to all but authorized personnel. Inside these compounds there appeared to be entrances to bunkers dug into adjacent hills. In 2003, Syrian sources reported that Iraqi chemical weapons were sent to Syria, and some were storied in bunkers near Masyaf. These bunkers are believed to hold other munitions, including missiles being shipped to Hezbollah facilities in Lebanon.
Highly restricted bunkers where reports once indicated WMD were sent?
It would not shock me to find that Saddam sent his WMD to his ally Syria for safe-keeping, perhaps figuring he'd get them back after defeating our invasion, either before, during, or even after the fall of Baghdad.
Syria, weak conventionally, now holds on to the stocks in case of war with Israel, in this scenario.
Baathists are still resisting in Iraq, and many still live in exile in Syria. At some point, if my hunch is correct, someone with knowledge will sell the story for money or safety--whether to the press or Western intelligence agencies. I just don't believe that all the world's intelligence agencies had such an epic fail to get this question wrong back in 2002. Sometimes it takes a while for truth to come out.
