HERE’S SOMETHING FROM DAVID KAY that hasn’t gotten as much attention as other things he’s said:

David Kay, the former head of the coalition’s hunt for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein’s secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year’s war to overthrow Saddam.

“We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,” he said. “But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”

Dr Kay’s comments will intensify pressure on President Bashar Assad to clarify the extent of his co-operation with Saddam’s regime and details of Syria’s WMD programme. Mr Assad has said that Syria was entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own biological and chemical weapons arsenal.

Hmm. We’ve been hearing those reports from various sources of uncertain reliability (like Debka) since the war. But this is a bit more significant. Is Syria next?

UPDATE: Michael Ubaldi emails: “You know, when I read the Kay report it was a brief in Reuters and the first thought I had was, ‘Okay, what did Kay say that they didn’t report?’ Trouble is, the abbreviated version has had two days to sink in.” Yeah, you’d almost think somebody wants it that way.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on this here, from Blaster’s Blog.