“...people wring their hands when they thought the... terrorists might get their hands on weapons of mass destruction, although I know Syria had them on their own.”
Syria has (had?) a very roubust chemicals weapons program, one they built long before the Iraq war. Their stockpiles are some of the largest in the Middle East. Syria never needed Iraqi chemical weapons. That’s why I’m bemused by the ‘hand-wringers’, as you call them, on Free Republic who can be counted on like clockwork to start bleating out the “Iraqi chemical weapons” line in Syria threads.
I don’t think Iraq’s weapons were moved for the benefit of Syria, although both countries were Baath party controlled and their self-interests were partially linked. I think the reason was to make the US invasion look like a mistake and unnecessary. The media took the ball and ran with it. But I believe I have read where we have military units waiting in Jordan to sweep in and take control of stockpiles in case the Syrian government fell. So all the hand-wringers aren’t Freepers. They are from all over, including in our government.
My main point was, it was never shown to my satisfaction that Iraqi WMD did not exist, but I tend to believe they were moved to Syria. We know that Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds and I think we would have seen evidence if he had destroyed them.
That isn’t about hand wringing that Syria has them it’s about countering the lie that Iraq had no WMDs.