POST-WAR TERROR THREAT

Michael Ledeen has a way of scaring the pants off you without sounding like a frightened schoolgirl. His latest column deals with the situation we may face in post-Saddam Iraq. According stories in the Italian press, which Ledeen has distilled into English, there's a reason we haven't found chemical weapons caches in Iraq, and there's a reason we haven't run across many Iraqi scientists turned dissident in country--they're not in country:

According to this account, Saddam decided two months ago to secure some of his most dangerous technologies, along with some of his most skilled scientists.


To that end, Iraq and Syria signed a joint agreement on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons in Damascus on Jan. 17. As a sign of good will, Saddam sent Bashar Assad some samples: three CDs with mathematical formulae dealing with nuclear explosions; three test tubes loaded with anthrax and botulinum spores, and detailed analyses of tests carried out with these poisons on human subjects in Iraqi prisons.


The secret agreement provided for the transfer of Iraqi scientists and technicians to Syria, so that, along with the technology, crucial know-how would be preserved for the ongoing jihad against Israel and the United States. Three microbiologists and a small group of technicians, along with their families, entered Syria in the second half of February, and a top nuclear physicist and members of his team sneaked across the border early in March.


In addition, much of Saddam's supply of weapons of mass destruction was moved to Syria for hiding and safekeeping over the past few months, both to evade detection and to create a murderous legacy for the Iraqi dictator. According to other sources, Saddam has agreed to "be disappeared" into Syria, as Osama bin Laden vanished into Iran in the first days of the Afghanistan campaign.

Ledeen goes on to discuss Iranian and Syrian plans to harass allied troops as we rebuild Iraq, and to create a second Lebanon from which a chastened US would eventually retreat. It's a sobering read, and if true means the end of Saddam is but the beginning of the effort to destroy the Middle East's transnational terror aparatus.