The United States would be forced to act if it discovered that Damascus allowed Iraq to hide weapons of mass destruction in Syria during the war, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview published Wednesday.
Rice said she was sure Iraqi weapons of mass destruction would turn up eventually. But she said it was possible some had been removed from Iraq before the fighting concluded last month.
"We have assurances from the Syrians that nothing crossed their borders. Time will tell," Rice said in the interviews given to El Pais and three other Spanish dailies.
But if that assurance turned out to be false, it would create a very serious situation and the international community would be forced to act, Rice said, according to El Pais.
Pressed about whether she meant another war, Rice simply repeated that the international community would be forced to act.
The Syrian ambassador to Spain, Mohsen Bilal, denied that Syria had provided a haven to Iraqi officials or possessed weapons of mass destruction. "We have no fear and no secrets," Bilal told journalists Wednesday.
(Albawaba.com)
