ARAB AFFAIRS - Oct. 28 - 'Iraq Hid Weapons In Syria'.

The director of top US spy unit, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Rtd US air force Lt-Gen. James Clapper Jr., says satellite images showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion of Iraq on March 20 led him to believe "unquestionably" that illicit WMD were moved outside Iraq. He adds: "I think people below the Saddam-Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse". He says he is providing a personal assessment. (But other US intelligence officials say his theory is among those being pursued in Iraq by David Kay, who is heading what has so far been an unsuccessful American effort to uncover the WMD cited by the Bush administration as the major reason for going to war against Iraq. Clapper's comments come as the CIA is preparing to mount a vigorous defence of its pre-war assertions that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was seeking to reconstitute its nuclear programme. Clapper's agency is responsible in particular for interpreting satellite intelligence). He says the heavy volume of traffic leading from Iraq to Syria before and during the US-led invasion convinced him "inferentially" that illicit weapons material had been smuggled outside the country. He declines to answer a question about whether he believes that illicit Iraqi weapons material was smuggled into any other country, including Iran.