CORRECTION/UPDATE on Syrian Vice President Resignation

The original story about the Syrian VP resigning was oooold. As in, back in June old. It's old news. Yahoo screwed up by linking it as if it were fresh news, and I followed them in that error. (I hadn't known he'd resigned, or if I read it at one point, I'd forgotten.)

The story Yahoo meant to link as fresh is also interesting, though.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatened former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri just months before he was assassinated, Syria's ex-vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam said

"I will destroy anyone who tries to hinder our decisions," Assad told Hariri during a meeting in Damascus, Khaddam told Dubai-based television Al-Arabiya in an interview from Paris.

Khaddam said the meeting took place a few months before the February 14 assassination of Hariri in a Beirut bomb blast for which a UN probe has implicated Syrian intelligence.

The Syrian intelligence services could not have carried out such an operation without the approval of Assad, he said, when asked if the head of state could have been unaware.

"No Syrian security service could take such a decision unilaterally."

So, I guess, when he said he'd have more to say, he's saying some of it now.

Although, I've got to say, I think I've read this story before too. But Yahoo says it's only 30 minutes old. Maybe he's just adding new details, or saying it again, or saying it more forcefully. But I think this, too, isn't exactly fresh news.

Thanks to Allah for the correction.

Original post follows:

[Link no longer links to old story] Blame Bush for causing this instabilty in the Middle East:

Veteran Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, widely regarded as the architect of his government's Lebanon policy before its troop pullout in April, announced his resignation.

"I have decided to resign," he told the Dubai-based satellite television Al-Arabiya in an interview from Paris.

Yeah... I think if I was going to make such an announcement, I'd do it from Paris, too.

Khaddam, 73, said he was "convinced that the process of development and reforms, be they political, economic or administrative, will not succeed" and that he preferred to choose "the motherland" over "the regime".

"I have many things to say, serious things, when the time is right," he said, adding that his relationship with President Bashar al-Assad was "amicable".

We'll see how amicable it is when he tries to kill you. Even in Paris.

I hope he's had the smarts to contact the CIA about protection and a possible quick escape route, should one become necessary.

Thanks to Allah.

I Don't Suppose This Has Anything To Do With Anything Update: (Where?)

WaPo:

The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said in remarks published Saturday that he believed Syrian authorities were behind the killing.

It was the first time that Detlev Mehlis has unequivocally accused Syria of responsibility for Hariri's assassination since opening the U.N. probe in June.

Via Instapundit, who did advise, "Stay Tuned."

Now, if the VP was the "architect of his government's Lebanon policy," presumably he had a hand in the assassination. So he's not a good guy.

But he is, it seems, about to tell us where the bodies were buried, perhaps because he fears that Assad is about to go down like Jake Gyllenhallenhyllenhaal after not having a "fishing trip" for a full year, or perhaps he's next on the list of inconvenient people to "commit suicide" due to their suspected involvement in the killing.

posted by Ace at 04:26 PM

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