SALON

Saturday, Oct 13, 2012 7:30 PM UTC

Few good options to secure Syria chemical arsenal

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Few good options to secure Syria chemical arsenalFILE - In this Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012 file photo, a general view of hangars at a desert military training facility where U.S. forces _ and a handful of British allies _ are training Jordanian commandos in Russeifeh, Jordan, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. The U.S. and regional allies are closely monitoring Syria's chemical weapons but seem to have few good options other for securing the toxic agents stuffed into shells, bombs and missiles that have been caught in the midst of a raging civil war. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon, File)(Credit: AP)

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. and regional allies are closely monitoring Syria’s chemical weapons — caught in the midst of a raging civil war — but options for securing the toxic agents stuffed into shells, bombs and missiles are fraught with risk.

President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime is believed to have one of the largest chemical weapons stockpiles in the world. Fears have risen that a cornered Assad might use them or that they could fall into the hands of extremists, whether the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, an Assad ally, or al-Qaida-linked militants among the rebels.

For now, the main storage and productions sites are considered secure. However, some suggest the civil war poses one of the gravest risks of losing control over non-conventional weapons since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago.

Syria’s suspected arsenal is scattered across a number of locations, mainly in the north and west, where fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels seeking to oust him has been heaviest.

“We need to be up front that this is not something very easy to do,” Steven Bucci, a former senior Defense Department official, said of attempts to keep the weapons locked up.

The price of military action against the arsenal is prohibitively high, Bucci and others say.

Airstrikes on chemical weapons depots could inadvertently release toxic clouds or expose them to looters. A ground operation would require thousands of troops, and the U.S. administration has pushed back on any suggestion of direct military action in Syria. Pinpoint operations by special forces could easily go wrong.

The issue has been a topic in the U.S. presidential campaign. Republican nominee Mitt Romney has said he would send U.S. troops into Syria if needed to prevent the spread of chemical weapons, while President Barack Obama has said that movement or use of chemical weapons would have “enormous consequences.”

Syria’s secrecy compounds the problem. Damascus hasn’t signed non-proliferation agreements, long denying it has chemical weapons. Syria “is a black hole for us,” said Michael Luhan of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, declining to give an estimate of the size of the arsenal because foreign inspectors are barred.

Other experts acknowledge there is no firm data and say they base their estimates largely on U.S. intelligence reports.

Syria is believed to have hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of chemical agents, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. This includes mustard gas, a blistering agent, and the more lethal nerve agents sarin and VX, he said.

The chemical agents are believed to be designed for use in artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missiles, said Scott Stewart of the U.S. security think tank Stratfor.

It is not known to what extent the chemical agents have already placed in munitions. Bucci, of The Heritage Foundation, said he believed “most of it” has been put into artillery shells and rockets.

Bucci and Stewart estimate some 50 sites are associated with the program.

A map by the Monterey think tank shows four production sites: one 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a major battleground, and three outside the cities of Hama, Homs and Latakia. Storage sites have been identified near Hama, Homs and the capital Damascus, which also has a research and development facility. Three sites are marked as having dual use infrastructure, for both civilian and military purposes.

Anxiety rose over the summer after the regime warned it might use chemical weapons against foreign attackers. Obama warned Assad that the threat of chemical warfare is a “red line” for the U.S. Even key Assad ally Russia told him to stand down.

Syria has not used chemical weapons, unlike Iraq’s former leader Saddam Hussein. Analysts say the bigger threat is that the weapons fall into the wrong hands.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said late last month that Washington believes the main sites are secure but the regime apparently moved some chemical weapons to protect them. Panetta acknowledged that the U.S. doesn’t know what happened to some of the weapons.

Spector told Congress this summer that the regime could lose control over chemical weapons sites, even as it holds on to Syria’s urban centers. The rebels control stretches of countryside in the north and the west, close to where the main production facilities are believed to be, said Spector, a former senior U.S. arms control official. With front lines shifting, such sites could fall behind rebel lines or its regime guards could abandon them.

Hezbollah fighters, meanwhile, could take advantage of the chaos and try to loot installations. Israel, which fought a war with Hezbollah in 2006, has warned it would act, presumably by striking suspicious Hezbollah convoys.

However, the possibilities for military action are limited because of the size and decentralization of Syria’s arsenal. Bucci and Stewart said airstrikes carry too much risk of harming civilians, while targeted operations would not be able to secure all sites simultaneously.

Using special forces “would necessitate putting troops in harm’s way, without overwhelming support,” said Stewart, a former anti-terrorism investigator at the U.S. State Department. “The only way to secure all the sites in a comprehensive manner is through a large ground force, which is politically untenable at this point.”

Technical and political restraints could decrease the risks of militants obtaining and using chemical weapons.

Militant groups may lack the proper gear, training and logistics to move chemical weapons, said Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Some chemicals are stored in heavy bulk containers, while so-called binary munitions for missile warheads require separate components that are likely stored separately, he noted.

Smaller munitions, such as an artillery shell filled with chemical agents, would be easy to move, Bucci said. Militants could “fit it in a suitcase, carry it around and use it by hooking it up to other munitions,” he said.

Hezbollah could be deterred by the threat of Israeli retaliation, said Stewart. Such payback would jeopardize Hezbollah’s standing as a key military and political force in Lebanon.

“The largest concern is jihadist actors getting their hands on chemical weapons munitions and using them in the region,” such as firing rockets at Israel or targeting Western diplomatic missions in the area, he said.

For now, the West’s best options are deterrence and containment, analysts said.

This includes warning the regime and the rebels of the dire consequences of using or losing control of chemical weapons and working with Syria’s neighbors, particularly Jordan and Turkey, to prevent chemical weapons from being smuggled out of Syria.

On Thursday, Jordanian officials confirmed that U.S. special operations forces and their Jordanian counterparts have been training at a compound some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Syrian border how to protect civilians from possible chemical attacks.

“With chemical weapons, it starts to get so beyond the pale,” Bucci said of the potential threat. “It scares the heck out of everybody, rightfully.”

More Karin Laub.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
135 points136 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
121 points122 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
97 points98 points | 82 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
98 points99 points | 23 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
71 points72 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations