The Hindu : U.S. charges Syria with harbouring Iraqi leaders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 14, 2003

International

International

U.S. charges Syria with harbouring Iraqi leaders

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON APRIL 13. The Bush administration is turning up the heat on Syria, saying that some senior Iraqi leaders may have fled to that country.

The latest charge came from the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who not too long ago accused Damascus of complicating the American war efforts in Iraq.

"We certainly are hopeful that Syria will not become a haven for war criminals or terrorists," he said.

One of the major charges against Syria is that it is allowing people to go to Iraq knowing that they are fighters who are going to engage the U.S.-led coalition forces.

The U.S. has captured one of the busloads of Syrians along with several hundred thousands of dollars in cash and leaflets "suggesting that people would be rewarded for killing Americans", according to Mr. Rumsfeld.

Damascus, which has vehemently denied that it is helping Iraq in any fashion, has said that the responsibility of monitoring Iraq's western borders with Syria rested with the U.S.

The Bush administration is increasingly being viewed with suspicion on its fuller agenda in the Middle East after the "regime change"' has been effected in Iraq. And one perception is that Washington will now turn its attention on Syria — a country which is in the State Department's "List of Nations" sponsoring terrorism but not in President, George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil'' list.

While senior Pentagon officials have made it a point to talk bluntly when discussing Syria, top civilian officials like Mr. Rumsfeld have made no bones of the fact that in the last phases of the Saddam Hussein regime it received military supplies, including night vision goggles and anti-tank weapons, to help in its conflict with the coalition forces.

The Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz, recently said that

Washington was not seeking a "regime change" in Damascus, but was only seeking to change the ''current bad behaviour'' of that country. Syria, Mr. Wolfowitz asserted, "should not meddle in Iraq".

On a different issue, Mr. Rumsfeld said on Sunday that he did not have any solid evidence over the fate of Saddam Hussein but the regime was history.

"He either is dead or he is going to be caught; we'll find him, the world will find him," he added.

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U.S. charges Syria with harbouring Iraqi leaders