This Wasington Times
article asserts that the Russian military helped the Saddam Fedayeen remove the missing explosives from al QaQaa in the days before the U.S. invasion.
Russian special forces troops moved many of Saddam Hussein's weapons and related goods out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the March 2003 U.S. military operation, The Washington Times has learned.
John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said in an interview that he believes the Russian troops, working with Iraqi intelligence, "almost certainly" removed the high-explosive material that went missing from the Al-Qaqaa facility, south of Baghdad.
This is the Russia ruled by dear old "Vladamir", whose eyes are the doors of his soul, according to our compassionate CiC. If true (and there's plenty in this article which is questionable), then we have been betrayed by one of Dubya's few friends abroad. Putin, the former head of the KGB, is certainly no stranger to cloak-and-dagger operations, and no one should expect any less from him than the ability and even the need to play both sides, but this should have serious consequences for GWB, who apparently has very bad taste in allies. With friends like these...