Syria Update

The Washington Post is reporting that inspectors in Iraq have not found any evidence that Syria hid Iraqi weapons.

At least that's what the headline reads. The second paragraph tells a different story:

Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators "found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD." Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein's government, however, the investigators were "unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials."

I wonder how they come to this conclusion when they aren't actually examining the Bek'aa Valley to see what weapons are present and their origins(and it is widely acknowledged that the Valley, which sits on the Syrian border, harbors terrorist groups and caches of weapons of all sorts).

This report strongly undercuts the belief of many, myself included, that Syria took Iraqi WMDs for safekeeping. Yet, without a sweep of the Bek'aa Valley we have no real way of knowing what is there.

Meanwhile, Syria is pulling out of Lebanon ahead of schedule. It took Syria 29 years to withdraw, and it wasn't a moment too soon. I wonder how many of the intel services are still there, despite the military withdrawal. It is the security services one has to worry about, not the military since the intel services can carry on the intimidation and coersion of the Lebanese polity via covert and subtle means.