While insisting his country is cooperating with the United States in combating terror, Syrian President Bashar Assad appears to be waged in a game of semantics to avoid meeting demands of the Bush administration.
WorldNetDaily reported last month President George W. Bush issued an ultimatum to Damascus that it “must cooperate” with the U.S. as it continues replacing the Baghdad regime of Saddam Hussein, or else.
Bush and other administration officials have accused Syria of possessing weapons of mass destruction, harboring fleeing members of Saddam’s regime, sending troops to help Saddam and channeling military equipment including night-vision goggles to Iraq, which were used against coalition forces.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told CBS’ “Face the Nation” the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq were from Syria, brought in by the “busloads.” On one bus, military authorities reportedly found leaflets offering rewards for killing Americans, as well as several hundred thousand dollars in cash.
Most significantly, the U.S. has designated Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism for years over its support of several known terror groups, most notably Hezbollah and Hamas.
“They do, indeed, harbor terrorists. Syria is a terrorist state,” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
“Being on the terrorist list is not some place I’d want to be,” said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Upon the return from meetings with Assad earlier this month, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the Syrian leader agreed to crack down on the terrorist organizations.
“My clear message to President Bashar Assad is that some of the policies you’ve been following in the past will not take you anywhere in the future,” Powell said in an interview with NBC’s Tim Russert on “Meet the Press.” “Support of terrorist activities, a presence in Damascus of organizations that continue to cause terrorist activity to take place, which makes it hard to move forward on the Middle East peace process – these things have to come to an end. Will offices have to be closed? He said he was closing offices. He also indicated that he would constrain their activities.”
Subsequent wire reports contradicted this, quoting the leader of Hamas as indicating Assad had not notified them about closing their offices.
In an interview with Newsweek senior editor and Washington Post columnist Lally Weymouth, Assad denied pledging a crackdown and insisted any such moves would only come as part of a deal for Syria to get the Golan Heights territory back.
“You use the word ‘closed,'” he told Weymouth. “I talked with Mr. Powell about stopping ‘activities,’ not closures. The [Palestinians] have information offices and can appear on TV. But [restricting them] is related to the Golan – to resuming the peace talks on the Syrian track.”
When pressed on whether he had given assurances to Powell that restrictions would be placed on terror groups, Assad responded, “We talked about all these issues but no final decision was made. We are still talking.”
Assad further asserted the Hamas and Hezbollah offices weren’t “offices,” but “houses where these groups do media activities.” He also denied giving these groups arms.
“We give them political support because they want to get back their lands,” said Assad. “All the Arabs support the Palestinians and send them money. You cannot stop that. No one in our area calls it terrorism. They are talking about freedom.”
In the interview, Assad denied his country had biological and chemical weapons programs and said it didn’t have the manpower to stop fighters from crossing its border to sabotage coalition efforts in Iraq or block fleeing members of the Iraqi regime seeking refuge.
“These volunteers went through unsealed borders. The government of Syria had no relation with these volunteers,” he said. “We only have two official checkpoints from which you can enter Iraq, but the border is 500 kilometers. How can you close it? I told Mr. Powell, ‘You have an army; you control it.'”
Powell put the border issue squarely in Assad’s lap.
“If they keep that border sealed, and if they operate in a positive way with respect to what the coalition is doing in Iraq and with respect to the creation of a new democratic government in Iraq, then that tells us one thing about Syria’s decision to move forward, that they are looking for a better relationship with the United States. If they do not, then there will be consequences,” said Powell.
U.S. officials were talking about “consequences” – specifically regime change – well before the coalition’s decisive operation in Iraq and Assad’s subsequent recalcitrance.
WorldNetDaily reported in February that U.S. foreign policy plans call for regime change in Iran, Libya and Syria once Saddam Hussein is toppled.
“Change is needed in all those three countries, and a few others besides,” Richard Perle, former chairman of the U.S. Defense Advisory Board, told the London-based author and analyst Amir Taheri. Perle added that he felt reform can come from within in Iran and Syria.
Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin also reported in February that U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton made a pronouncement similar to Perle’s. The intelligence newsletter reported that Bolton said in meetings with Israeli officials that he had no doubt that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea after Iraq.
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