January 6, 2004
AT LEAST THE DEMOCRATS WON'T BE ABLE TO ARGUE HE DOESN'T HAVE THEM WHEN THE WAR STARTS:
Assad: We won't scrap WMD unless Israel does (Haaretz, 1/05/04)
Backing away from Damascus's customary denial of a weapons of mass destruction arsenal, Syrian President Bashar Assad has rejected U.S. and British demands for curbs on non-conventional arms, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported Tuesday."We are a country which is [partly] occupied and from time to time we are exposed to Israeli aggression," Assad said in an interview with the British paper, referring to Israel's presence on the Golan Heights. "It is natural for us to look for means to defend ourselves.
"It is not difficult to get most of these weapons anywhere in the world and they can be obtained at any time."
Assad said Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's surprise decision last month to scrap his nuclear and chemical weapons programs was a "correct step," calling on the international community to support the proposal that Syria presented to the United Nations last year for removing all WMD from the Middle East, including Israel's widely suspected nuclear stockpile.
"Unless this applies to all countries, we are wasting our time," Assad said.
Unfortunately for Mr. Assad, there is a double standard and America now determines who can have WMD. He can't. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2004 11:50 AM
Assad may not in his life have said anything as true as this: "It is not difficult to get most of these weapons anywhere in the world and they can be obtained at any time."
Posted by: David Cohen at January 6, 2004 12:19 PMDead Man walking.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at January 6, 2004 2:27 PMActually, the standard could be quite even-handed: Oh shucks, I suppose you both can have them WMD. However, whoever is most likely to be caught sharing them (or their precursor components) with terrorists gets no benefit of the doubt; and whoever is caught doing so gets to join Saddam, Osama, and Omar in retirement.
Posted by: MG at January 6, 2004 3:19 PMLGF(?) is reporting a Syrian journalist escaped to the Netherlands and told us where the WMD is in Syria.
Posted by: Sandy P. at January 6, 2004 3:51 PMIf one wants to read the small print (or not so small print, actually), countries such as Syria---and Iran---have this problem with Israel's existence. Israel is quite happy with Syria and Iran's existence, though not about their declarations, and plans, regarding Israel's obsolescence.
But fair is fair, symmetry is symmetry, and who really wants to read the fine print anyway....
Just complicates things.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 6, 2004 5:32 PMAs for reports about supposed Syrian reporters escaping, that's simply not credible.
Since it is well known that Syria is a perfectly free country and sits on the UN Security Council.
It is further well known that there is no WMD, was no WMD, will be no WMD and that Bush lied about it....
Now that that's been cleared up, the only rational explanation is that this Syrian dude is clearly a herring addict and would say anything just to get to Amsterdam.
Posted by: Barry Meislin at January 6, 2004 5:37 PMActually folks, it's a laugh a minute here in the cradle of civilization:
"Assad: We won't scrap WMD unless Israel does"
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/380033.html
"Arab League Chief: Syria has no WMD"
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/380506.html
"Assad Tampers with New York Times Interview: One Message to Americans, Another to Syrians"
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD63804
(via Andrew Sullivan, "Assad's Duplicity"
Barry:
Even Israel still denies having nukes officially, doesn't it?
Posted by: oj at January 7, 2004 8:16 AM