h/t Melanie Phillips, who, unfortunately, can’t provide the link because the article’s not accessible (without payment?), but cites Carolyn Glick in the Jerusalem Post:

In response to the Times story an international security Web site run by Ray Robinson published a translation of a story that ran on the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Seyassah’s Web site on September 25. Citing European intelligence sources, the Al-Seyyassah report claims that in late 2004 Syria began developing a nuclear program near its border with Turkey. According to the report, Syria’s program, which is being run by President Bashar Assad’s brother Maher and defended by a Revolutionary Guards brigade, ‘has reached the stage of medium activity.’

The Kuwaiti report maintains that the Syrian nuclear program relies ‘on equipment and materials that the sons of the deposed Iraqi leader, Uday and Qusai. transfer[red] to Syria by using dozens of civilian trucks and trains, before and after the US-British invasion in March 2003.’ The report also asserts that the Syrian nuclear program is supported by the Iranians who are running the program, together with Iraqi nuclear scientists and Muslim

nuclear specialists from Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. The program ‘was originally built on the remains of the Iraqi program after it was wholly transferred to Syria.’

This report echoes warnings expressed by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of Iraq that suspicious convoys of trucks were traveling from Iraq to Syria. Sharon’s warnings were later supported by statements from former IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon, who said last year that Iraq had moved its unconventional arsenals to Syria in the lead-up to the invasion. According to the US Senate’s Prewar Intelligence Review Phase II, which studied the prewar intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, in 2002, the US had learned from the Iraqi foreign minister that while Iraq had not yet acquired a nuclear arsenal, ‘Iraq was aggressively and covertly developing’ nuclear weapons. The Senate report concluded that Saddam was told by his own weapons specialists that Iraq would achieve nuclear weapons capabilities ‘within 18-24 months of acquiring fissile material.’

In the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, President George W. Bush repeatedly stated that America’s primary security challenge was to prevent the world’s most dangerous regimes from acquiring nonconventional, and particularly nuclear weapons. When Bush’s statements are assessed against the backdrop of the apparently advanced Iraqi nuclear bomb designs that were placed on the Web in recent weeks, it becomes clear that the US-led invasion successfully prevented Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons.

A good portion of Saddam’s family seems to have bought their way into Syria, perhaps with more than money.  Iran’s pushing its right to develop nuclear bombs before the dithering of the UN Security Council, plays into Syria’s hands.  Syria, of course, has been a member of the UN security council itself, and reprimanded for sanctions busting in favor of Saddam (yes, it’s Debka, but this one’s been proved).  So, while the UN sleeps, and the will to fight in Iraq diminishes, Israel may find itself caught between two nuclear regional states, the ultimate equalizer.  It has been said that if the coalition doesn’t enable a stable Iraq, it will be carved up by Syria and Iran, at least as client states.  The Turks may or may not oppose that, but the issue of a possible Kurdish state may cause them to stay on the sidelines.  Strangely, it appears that the Kurds and the Israelis are finding their interests become more and more convergent.  Perhaps it is time to push for the establishment of a Kurdish state, whatever that costs us in our relations with Turkey.  They will look to the EU for help, but France, oddly enough, will prove to be their biggest barrier.  Italy will turn out to be the major power broker in what unfolds.

In other words, Bush still has a trump card to play, if he needs to, to bring the Sunnis and Shiites together: the possibility of an independent Kurdish state that would be able to lay claim to some of Iraq’s precious oil.

And that’s all the prognostication you get from me, now.

B Moe points out this important post from Captain Ed:

A number of CQ readers caught something significant that I missed earlier in the quote from Jay Rockefeller. In trying to attack George Bush and fend off Chris Wallace, Rockefeller tells Wallace that he went out to Arab leaders to conduct his own foreign policy:

SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The � I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I’ll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq � that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.

Now, what the hell was Rockefeller doing revealing his analysis of American foreign policy and the direction of war strategy to Bashar Assad??

If this is true, Rockefeller should get ejected from the Senate and possibly stand trial for treason. In 2002, we were at war against Islamofascist terrorists, and Syria has long been listed by the US State Department as a terrorist-supporting state. What Rockefeller admitted was conspiring with the enemy during a state of war—and he should be held accountable, especially considering his admission of the act on national television.

UPDATE: One of the readers that pointed out this passage to me, Mark H., notes that Rockefeller’s conversation with Bashar Assad may have given Saddam Hussein 14 months to collude on the transfer of WMD to Syria, rather than the 6 we assumed he got when Bush wasted five months trying to get the UN to enforce its own resolutions. Another reader, Jay Tea from Wizbang!, suggests a prosecution under the Logan Act.

Between Rockefeller’s insidious pursuit of foreign policy initiatives that he had no authority to conduct, and Turkey’s refusal to permit US troops to operate out of their territory, with EU and UN collusion to shut it down, it appears that Syria may have gotten ahold of Saddam’s nuclear assets.  Perhaps the Dems should have considered rewarding Rockefeller with the Senate Majority Leader post?  He’s Chairman Elect of the Select Committee on Intelligence.