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Source: http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041028-122637-6257r.htm
Russia Tied to Iraq's Missing Arms
(Washington Times) Bill Gertz - 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. John A. Shaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said 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. Most of Saddam's most powerful arms were systematically separated from other arms like mortars, bombs, and rockets, and sent to Syria and Lebanon, and possibly to Iran, he said. Shaw said he believes that the withdrawal of Russian-made weapons and explosives from Iraq was part of plan by Saddam to set up a "redoubt" in Syria that could be used as a base for launching pro-Saddam insurgency operations in Iraq. The Russian units were dispatched beginning in January 2003 and by March had destroyed hundreds of pages of documents on Russian arms supplies to Iraq while dispersing arms to Syria, said a second defense official.