WMD Secreted in Syria, General Sada Says

BY IRA STOLL - Staff Reporter of the Sun, January 26, 2006.

General Georges Sada told The New York Sun that the pilots of the two airliners that transported the weapons of mass destruction to Syria from Iraq approached him in the middle of 2004. "I know them very well. They are very good friends of mine. We trust each other," Mr. Sada said of the two pilots.

The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including "yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel." The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks. The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002.

Mr. Sada said that the Iraqi official responsible for transferring the weapons was a cousin of Saddam Hussein named as "Chemical Ali." The Syrian official responsible for receiving them was a cousin of Bashar Assad who is known variously as General Abu Ali or Abu Himma.