Editor’s note: Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.
Now that the U.S. Congress has nearly finished a bill that allows President Bush to sanction Syria for support of terrorism, Damascus will withdraw some 5,000 of its occupying troops from Lebanon in an effort to reduce the growing pressure, according to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
While Syria is trying hard to convince the Bush administration to block the legislation that would impose a virtual trade embargo on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the online intelligence newsletter says, the president will sign the bill.
Assad claimed that terrorist groups have been shut down in Damascus. No one bought that bogus claim in Washington. Now Syria plans to use Lebanon to lobby against the Syrian Accountability Act.
Damascus plans to embark upon what will appear to be a major troop withdrawal from Lebanon to give the administration, and particularly the State Department, some ammunition to stop the proposed U.S. sanctions.
Arab diplomatic sources said Syria has conveyed to Lebanon a decision to remove some 5,000 Syrian troops from Beirut and the central region of Lebanon. The withdrawal will probably occur over the next two weeks as Congress completes work on the legislation and sends it to President Bush to sign.
Nevertheless, Syria will still have between 30,000 and 50,000 troops in Lebanon after that pullout.
The bill requires Syria to stop supporting terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, halt production of weapons of mass destruction and cut off aid to Iraqi guerrillas if it seeks to avoid sanctions. Among the penalties for non-compliance, the United States would prohibit sales to Syria of dual-use items and the president would be required to impose two of six penalties.
Those penalties are banning exports to Syria, prohibiting U.S. businesses from operating in Syria, restricting the movement of Syrian diplomats in the United States, blocking the flights of Syrian airlines to the United States, reducing diplomatic contacts with Syria and freezing Syrian assets in the United States.
Already the United States lists Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism and imposes sanctions on the country, which is also ineligible to receive most forms of U.S. aid or to purchase U.S. military equipment. The United States does not currently have an ambassador in Syria, though the embassy is operating.
Most U.S. businesses in Syria are oil companies, and Syria primarily imports agricultural products, irrigation equipment and medical supplies from the United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2002, the United States imported $160.8 million worth of products from Syria and exported $274.1 million in goods to Syria. The numbers are a relatively small part of Syria’s overall trade, which totaled $5.1 billion in imports and $6.1 billion in exports in 2002, according to the U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.
Though the House’s bill was introduced in April and the Senate’s in May, the Bush administration waited until October to say it would not protest the bill.
“We have expressed that we are not opposed to this bill … And I would remind you that we have repeatedly said that Syria is on the wrong side in the war on terrorism, and that Syria needs to stop harboring terrorists,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said after earlier refusing to speculate about the possibility of economic sanctions.
Before its change of heart, the White House had asked Republican congressional leaders to keep the legislation from moving forward, fearing that it would complicate events in Iraq and disrupt the “road map” for peace in the Middle East.
However, the White House, weary of Syrian aid to terror groups in Israel and Damascus’ failure to better patrol its porous borders, dropped its objection shortly after Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton testified to Congress that Syria was allowing militants to cross its border into Iraq to kill U.S. soldiers and was trying aggressively to acquire and develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
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