Obama Administration: We’ve Lost Track of Syrian WMD’s

Panetta Admits Chemical Weapons Lost

In what can be described only as a stunning admission, yesterday current Defense Secretary (and former CIA Director) Leon Panetta admitted that the Defense Department and Intelligence Services have lost track of Syria’s massive stockpile of chemical weapons.  These same chemical weapons have been long believed to be from Iraq, who shipped them to Syria prior to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 that displaced former dictator Saddam Hussein.

“There has been intelligence that there have been some moves that have taken place. Where exactly that’s taken place, we don’t know.” Panetta said, in a Pentagon press briefing.

We don’t know?  When will we know, when they show up in New York or some other major American city?

Panetta then went on to say that Syrian rebels claim to have taken control of a military base that contains chemical weapons.

Immediately after the briefing by Panetta, Pentagon officials tried clarifying Panetta’s remarks regarding the status of Syria’s massive chemical weapons stockpiles by saying “we've never had perfect visibility into the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile, but we have excellent information that accounts for most of it," said a senior defense offiical, speaking after Panetta’s comments. 

Syria’s massive chemical weapons stockpile is a major concern not just for the United States but other countries in the region who fear they can be stolen by terrorists and either used, or re-located to Iran. 

Iran is a particular concern due to their oft repeated threats to eliminate Israel, most recently at the “United Nations” in New York just this week.

To make matters worse, US Intelligence agencies have little – if any – visibility into the numerous rebel groups throughout the middle east and due to cuts by the Obama Administration have even less visibility into the increasing number of splinter terrorist groups that may be aligned with Iran and Egypt’s muslim brotherhood.

Another fear is that President Bashar al-Assad also could use them against freedom fighters inside his own country or against neighboring countries, including Israel, to defense against potential outside military intervention by NATO, the U.S., or other powers. 

Panetta’s comments that he “doesn’t have any specific information about the opposition and whether or not they’ve obtained some of this, or how much they’ve obtained and just exactly what has taken place,”  are worrisome on more levels than I can count. 

I cannot imagine an intelligence failure of this magnitude under the Bush Administration not being on front pages across the country, but then the liberal lamestream media is covering for their boy in the White House aren’t they?

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