"Iraq's border with Syria runs for hundreds of miles through barren land patrolled by a relative scattering of security forces. But despite claims about exiled Saddam Hussein loyalists sneaking across to disrupt Iraq's upcoming elections, the only evidence around one key outpost is faded slogans of Saddam's banned Baath Party painted on the wall of a decaying grain elevator.
Cigarette smugglers? Certainly. Foreign fighters? Sometimes.
But Iraqi and American security forces alike around the border town of Rabiya say they've neither seen nor heard of Baathists illegally crossing the border in recent months.
The claim has been raised with increasing force recently by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (who seem to be just about blaming everyone), who has blamed horrific bombings in Baghdad — including the ones Tuesday that killed at least 127 people — on an alliance of Sunni insurgents and Baathist loyalists who want to derail Iraq's elections planned for March....
"Nothing's been communicated to me about Baathists," Maj. Gen. Tony Cucolo, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said in an Associated Press interview this week. He added he has been informed "about foreign fighters and insurgents." "What we're seeing is some illegal smuggling, some contraband, smuggling of cigarettes — things like that," Cucolo said...."
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