10/27/2004 09:39:13 PM|||Nathan Moore|||

Per Drudge

Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned. John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, “almost certainly” removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.

How many arrows does this take out of Kerry's quiver? I don't know if this technically qualifies as an "October Surprise", but it certainly changes the dynamic. The link to the Washington Times article seems overloaded right now. I was able to look at it a second ago, but closed my browser to get a refreshing beverage.

The link is back up. Further

"The Russians brought in, just before the war got started, a whole series of military units," Mr. Shaw said. "Their main job was to shred all evidence of any of the contractual arrangements they had with the Iraqis. The others were transportation units."

First oil-for-food, and now this. Russia is not to be trusted. Apparently, neither now is Democratic campaign rhetoric. And there's more

A second defense official said documents on the Russian support to Iraq reveal that Saddam's government paid the Kremlin for the special forces to provide security for Iraq's Russian arms and to conduct counterintelligence activities designed to prevent U.S. and Western intelligence services from learning about the arms pipeline through Syria.

So, assuming, as we should, that this ought to be play some role in the next six days, what of Kerry's campaign strategy now? After twenty years in the US Senate, he had decided to focus the home stretch of his candidacy to 380 tons of high grade explosives. The plan appears to have blown up in his face.

|||109893163370481925|||Damaging