White House to Delay Syria Sanctions - Sources

[Eye and Monkey]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-syria-usa.html

By REUTERS
Published: March 25, 2004
Filed at 8:58 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration has decided to delay new sanctions against Syria for backing anti-Israel militants, citing concerns about rising tensions in the region, congressional sources said on Thursday.

President Bush had planned as early as this week to curb future investments by American energy firms in Syria and prohibit Syrian aircraft from flying into the United States. Bush was also expected either to block transactions involving the Syrian government or ban exports to Syria of U.S. products other than food and medicine, the sources said. ``The situation on the ground in the Middle East warrants that the announcement be postponed,'' said one congressional source briefed by the administration.

Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam this week urged the Bush administration to reconsider imposing sanctions and said they would hurt American interests as much as Syria.

more -

[tlcandie]

1. Wow! Is this like a FIRST for this admin on backing down? Hmmm

wait what will they change their attention to or WHICH country instead? This simply cannot be all there is?! :shrug:

[DBoon]

2. What US trade with Syria?

Do we export anything substantial to Syria? Anything they couldn't get from the EU?

[yltlatl]

4. Little Less Than 1/4 Billion $ in 2003

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/product/enduse/exports/c5020.html

Top two categories:

1) Oil drilling equipment
2) Tobacco

Both American specialties.

Shrub DOES need Syrian intelligence, but only on the theory that he's genuinely interested in getting rid of terror--and NOT just in the short term. I wouldn't be surprised if some darker game were being played: I think ME politics has taken quite a jolt from Iraq.

[Zhade]

6. The CIA has been getting intel from Syria, by mutual agreement.

(Ignore source, site has reposted the article from NBC News.)

http://www.newsfrombabylon.com/article.php?sid=2201

The United States is quietly allowing Syria, which it has declared a state sponsor of terrorism, to illegally import 200,000 barrels of Iraqi crude oil a day in exchange for information about al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations, U.S. and Syrian officials have told NBC News.

SOURCES SAID THAT earlier this year, U.S. troops were saved from an al-Qaida attack in the Persian Gulf based on information from Syria.

“We supply the United States with any information we have on al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that we consider terrorist,” said Georges Jabbour, a political analyst at Aleppo University in Syria and a past adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

<SNIP>

In exchange, Washington has chosen to look the other way as Syria illegally imports 200,000 barrels of of cut-rate Iraqi oil every day in defiance of a United Nations-imposed embargo.

U.S. officials said the oil flows through an old, long-unused pipeline from the Kirkuk oil field in the north, which the Energy Department has estimated has more than 10 billion barrels of proven reserves. Syria denies importing the oil, but U.S. officials said it was lying.

Even though Iraq charges Syria only $14 a barrel — half the market price — the arrangement has yielded a $3 billion-a-year bonanza for Iraq, which a senior U.S. official said was used as a slush fund for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Imperial America's hypocrisy in action, folks. Nothing to see here, move along.

[madrchsod]

3. well since Sharon blew up

that guy in Gaza the CIA must have told bush to back off on the Syrians because those American interests is the Syrian`s intelligence on the muslim brotherhood

[Zhade]

5. BFEE probably figures it can make more off the upcoming I/P war.

Fucking predators.

[PurityOfEssence]

7. They want it sooooo bad, they do, they really really do

They can almost taste it. They wanted to stomp Syria last spring, but them damn rakis just didn't play along. Now they're "rotating" troops, so they gots lotsa them 'round there, but with those pesky elections just mess up everything.

[teryang]

8. What?

<Congressional sources briefed by the administration said the White House plans to clamp down on new licenses to prohibit U.S. energy companies from making future investments without disrupting existing projects>

Let's not allow demogougic politics interfere with any energy contracts.