The claim that Saddam’s infamous WMD were moved clandestinely to Syria just won’t go away. An article in the New York Sun reports on a new book, Saddam’s Secrets, by the man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein's air force, Iraqi general, Georges Sada. He says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed.

‘There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,’ Mr. Sada said. ‘I am confident they were taken over.’ Mr. Sada's comments come just more than a month after Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam ‘transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.’

...Mr. Sada, 65, told the Sun that the pilots of the two airliners that transported the weapons of mass destruction to Syria from Iraq approached him in the middle of 2004, after Saddam was captured by American troops. ‘I know them very well. They are very good friends of mine. We trust each other. We are friends as pilots,’ Mr. Sada said of the two pilots. He declined to disclose their names, saying they are concerned for their safety. But he said they are now employed by other airlines outside Iraq.

The pilots told Mr. Sada that two Iraqi Airways Boeings were converted to cargo planes by removing the seats, Mr. Sada said. Then Special Republican Guard brigades loaded materials onto the planes, he said, including ‘yellow barrels with skull and crossbones on each barrel.’ The pilots said there was also a ground convoy of trucks. The flights - 56 in total, Mr. Sada said - attracted little notice because they were thought to be civilian flights providing relief from Iraq to Syria, which had suffered a flood after a dam collapse in June of 2002. ‘Saddam realized, this time, the Americans are coming,’ Mr. Sada said. ‘They handed over the weapons of mass destruction to the Syrians.’

Mr. Sada said that the Iraqi official responsible for transferring the weapons was a cousin of Saddam Hussein named Ali Hussein al-Majid, known as ‘Chemical Ali.’ The Syrian official responsible for receiving them was a cousin of Bashar Assad who is known variously as General Abu Ali, Abu Himma, or Zulhimawe. Short of discovering the weapons in Syria, those seeking to validate Mr. Sada's claim independently will face difficulty. His book contains a foreword by a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, David Eberly, who was a prisoner of war in Iraq during the first Gulf War and who vouches for Mr. Sada, who once held him captive, as ‘an honest and honorable man.’

We, of course, have no way of verifying either that statement or the information itself. But we should note it.