HERE’S A LINK to the L.A. Times article on the Iraq / Syria WMD connection that I mentioned earlier. It’s interesting, but Captain Ed accuses the LAT of spinning a bit:

Note that the Times is careful to inject the issues of nuclear and biological weapon searches, in order to protect the UN inspection process, but the inspectors were supposed to be looking for all violations of UN resolutions. Iraq was not supposed to be purchasing any of these items, and Syria was not supposed to be shipping them across the border. Why didn’t the inspectors find these documents? Because the inspections process was useless, and this episode proves it.

Interesting. It’s certainly true that WMDs are only part of the “material breach” picture.

UPDATE: Several readers note that among the things Iraq was looking for were “nerve agent antidotes.” As Jonathan Adler observes, that’s a funny thing to want if you don’t have nerve gas.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Drezner has more, including this observation:

What is mildly shocking — from someone who knows a thing or two about economic sanctions — is that companies from stalwart U.S. allies — Poland and South Korea — were also complicit in the sanctions-busting.

Read it all.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A summary, and a lot of interesting observations, on the LAT story, from American Thinker.