Bolton to give House subcommittee 'hard-hitting' account of Syria arsenal

[USAcommitteeX]

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton is expected to reveal new details about Syria's pursuit of chemical and biological weapons when he testifies before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia on Tuesday.

"It's going to be very hard-hitting," one senior administration official said. Bolton had originally been scheduled to testify in July. But the Bush administration, amid mounting questioning of the intelligence information it used to press for war with Iraq, decided to postpone it.

By delaying the testimony two months, the White House hopes Bolton's account concerning Syria, rather than questions about the administration's prewar contentions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, will be the focus of the discussion.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell accused Syria on Monday of not doing enough to end what he said was its support of "terrorist activity."

"So far the Syrian leadership has not responded as forcefully and as thoroughly as I would have liked and thus Congress is debating the act," Powell said.

Also this week, Israeli MKs will make a rare appearance alongside US senators and congressmen at a hearing on Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, Omri Sharon and Yuval Steinitz of Likud, and Ephraim Sneh and Haim Ramon of Labor will sit alongside Sen. John Kyl (R-Arizona), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pennsylvania), and Rep. Jane Harmon (D-California) and be given the opportunity to make statements and ask questions of witnesses.

The administration will be represented by Paula DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification and compliance.

On Friday, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency passed a US-backed resolution setting an October deadline for Iran to disprove it is running a covert nuclear weapons program. The board will decide in November on whether Iran has complied.

If it rules Tehran was in violation of the treaty banning the spread of nuclear weapons, it will appeal to the UN Security Council to become involved.

[Adam D]

How are we supposed to believe another administration talking head about WMDs? They have all but flat out admitted their failure to find WMDs in Iraq, but I guess when you have to beat the war drum for the 2004 elections, Syria comes out as a pretty easy target.

[USAcommitteeX]

Reguardles of how long ago, Saddam used wmd's and killed 5k kurds, he used them in the past why not the future?, better safe then sorry, thats why we went in