PUBLIC LAW 108–175—DEC. 12, 2003
117 STAT. 2485
extent authorized by other relevant resolutions, but this pledge was never fulfilled. (26) Syria’s illegal imports and transshipments of Iraqi oil during Saddam Hussein’s regime earned Syria $50,000,000 or more per month as Syria continued to sell its own Syrian oil at market prices. (27) Syria’s illegal imports and transshipments of Iraqi oil earned Saddam Hussein’s regime $2,000,000 per day. (28) On March 28, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld warned: ‘‘[W]e have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night-vision goggles * * * These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts, and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments.’’. (29) According to Article 23(1) of the United Nations Charter, members of the United Nations are elected as nonpermanent members of the United Nations Security Council with ‘‘due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to other purposes of the Organization’’. (30) Despite Article 23(1) of the United Nations Charter, Syria was elected on October 8, 2001, to a 2-year term as a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council beginning January 1, 2002, and served as President of the Security Council during June 2002 and August 2003. (31) On March 31, 2003, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Farouq al-Sharra, made the Syrian regime’s intentions clear when he explicitly stated that ‘‘Syria’s interest is to see the invaders defeated in Iraq’’. (32) On April 13, 2003, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld charged that ‘‘busloads’’ of Syrian fighters entered Iraq with ‘‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’’ and leaflets offering rewards for dead American soldiers. (33) On September 16, 2003, the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, John Bolton, appeared before the Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia of the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives, and underscored Syria’s ‘‘hostile actions’’ toward coalition forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Under Secretary Bolton added that: ‘‘Syria allowed military equipment to flow into Iraq on the eve of and during the war. Syria permitted volunteers to pass into Iraq to attack and kill our service members during the war, and is still doing so * * * [Syria’s] behavior during Operation Iraqi Freedom underscores the importance of taking seriously reports and information on Syria’s WMD capabilities.’’. (34) During his appearance before the Committee on International Relations of the House of Representatives on September 25, 2003, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, III, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, stated that out of the 278 third-country nationals who were captured by coalition forces in Iraq, the ‘‘single largest group are Syrians’’.
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