U.S. Slams Syria for Failing to Meet Chemical Weapons Commitments

The Obama administration today slammed Syria for failing to fulfill its pledges to surrender its chemical weapons for destruction and voiced concern that the entire project could now be in jeopardy. U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Robert P. Mikulak accused Syria of “open-ended delaying” of the disarmament process in an attempt to renegotiate the deal it agreed to last fall. (LATimes, 30 January)

“Syria’s open-ended delaying of the removal operation could ultimately jeopardize the carefully timed and coordinated multistate removal and destruction effort,” Ambassador Mikulak added.

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, in Warsaw today for a visit, said the Syrians “need to fix this.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad agreed to surrender his chemical arsenal to deflect President Obama’s threat to launch punitive missile strikes last summer in response to use of chemical weapons in the civil war in Syria.

Under a disarmament plan proposed by the Syrians, Damascus was to deliver 700 tons of its most dangerous chemicals by next Wednesday to the port of Latakia, where the material would be loaded onto ships and destroyed at sea. But officials say it has delivered only about 32 tons, in two shipments on 7 and 27 January.

Mikulak also accused Syria of violating its pledge to destroy chemical weapons production facilities. Instead of following through on promises to destroy seven hardened aircraft hangars and five underground facilities, Syria is proposing to make the facilities “inactivated” by welding doors shut and erecting interior obstacles.

Photo credit: A member of the Norwegian armed forces aboard the frigate Helge Ingstad as the first load of chemical agents was transported out of Syria this month. (Lars Magne Hovtun/Norwegian Armed Forces/European Pressphoto Agency/LA Times)

U.S. Ship Preps for Syria Chemical Weapons Mission

The MV Cape Ray, the U.S. ship that will serve as the lynchpin for the destruction of Syria's most toxic chemical weapons, is preparing to leave Virginia in about two weeks for what will be an unprecedented, complex mission, AP reported today. The ship is currently pierside in Portsmouth.

“The fitting out of the Cape Ray is progressing apace and the ship is due to depart early next year,” said Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby. (AP, 20 December)

The chemicals from 12 storage sites in Syria need to be first transported to the port of Latakia. The most highly toxic chemicals, including materials used to make mustard gas and sarin, will then be transferred from the trucks onto cargo ships by 31 December, which will carry the cargo to an Italian port, where it will be loaded onto the Cape Ray.

The 700-foot Cape Ray, which is owned by the Transportation Department's Maritime Administration, will be turned over to the U.S. Navy's Sealift Command once it leaves Virginia. It will need about 10 days to get to Italy.

The special machines aboard the ship, called Field Deployable Hydrolysis Systems, will make the chemical warfare material inert.

Photo credit: Workers unload equipment from the MV Cape Ray Portsmouth, Va., December 19, 2013. (Steve Helber/AP)

Syria Preparing to Surrender Chemical-Weapons Stockpile

Syria appears to be moving its chemical weapons to a small number of central locations in a sign that the regime is preparing to cooperate with an international effort to rapidly destroy its entire arsenal of deadly toxins, the Washington Post quoted U.S. officials as saying.

“The movement of chemicals and equipment in recent days — which initially spurred fears that Syrian officials were trying to hide parts of their stockpile — suggests instead that the weapons are being consolidated ahead of a first visit by inspection teams that arrived in the country last week,” administration officials said. (Washington Post, 6 October)

“There are encouraging signals, but we are really in the first weeks of the process,” said a senior State Department official.

Photo credit: UN vehicles transport a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Damascus, October 5, 2013. (Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters/WashPost)

U.S. and Russia Reach Agreement on Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons

The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria’s arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014. Under the agreement, Syria must submit a “comprehensive listing” of its chemical weapons stockpiles within a week, and international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November. (The New York Times, 14 September)

Secretary of State John Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov announced the agreement today at a news conference in Geneva.

The four-page agreement is entitled “Framework For Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons.” The agreement, which outlines procedures for “expeditious destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons program and stringent verification,” says that the United States and Russia will submit a plan in the next several days to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which oversees compliance with the chemical weapons accord.

The two sides also reached a consensus on the size of Syria’s stockpile, an essential prerequisite to any international plan to control and dismantle the weapons.

“If fully implemented,” Kerry said, “this framework can provide greater protection and security to the world.” (NYT, 14 September)

Any violations of the agreement by the Syrian government would then be taken up under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes punitive action.

Photo credit: Secretary of State John Kerry and Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Geneva on Saturday. (Phillipe Desmazes/AFP-Getty Images/NYT)

DM Dehqan also claims Iran provided U.S. with intel of Syrian rebel access to Sarin

 

IRI Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan 

According to PressTV:

Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan says Tehran had given the US information about the import of a chemical nerve agent to Syria by militants eight months ago.

“Threats of a military strike under the pretext of using chemical weapons in Syria come as [the US] ignored Iran’s warnings about Sarin gas being taken to Syria eight months ago and [thereby] practically paved the way for chemical attacks in Syria,” Dehqan said on Monday

“Therefore, [the US] wants [to launch] limited strikes in order to rebuild the shattered morale of terrorists [in Syria], weaken the operational capability of the Syrian armed forces and change the balance of operation in the favor of Takfiris,” he added.

This claim has previously been made public in an interview of IRI Foreign Minister Zarif, which was picked up by BBC Persian and reported HERE at Uskowi on Iran.

Iran further claims there was no response to the shared intel, and there's not been a U.S. response to the claim itself being made public. If the Iranian claim is true, it would have happened late in President Ahmadinejad's term while Salehi was foreign minister.

Iran informed U.S. of Sarin transfer to 'extremist' rebels in Syria - FM Zarif

 

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister [ISNA] 

BBC Persian reports that Iranian intelligence became aware of "homemade" Sarin making its way to "extremist" rebels in Syria, and that 9 months ago Iran's foreign ministry took the extraordinary step of conveying the intel to the U.S. through the United States Interest Section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran. The claim is made by Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif in an interview with Asman Magazine. Zarif further states the U.S. offered no response to the shared intelligence.

Claimed rebel chemical weapon attack, reported by Iranian journalist inside Syria - Video

Amended: 8/29/13 Above IRIB reporter inside Syria apparently embedded with Syrian Army reports on claimed Syrian rebel chemical weapon attack.

Below: video provided by Syrian rebels claiming to portray Syrian Army troops (in RG appearing gear) firing a chemical weapon munition. It is obviously not an Iranian Fajr-5. Over at Roque Adventurer blog, observer notes similarity to an Iranian Falaq-2 launcher

Chemical weapons attack responses: 1983 and 2013

U.S. response to Iraq's CW use against Iran in 1983; Russia's on Syria in 2013

 

Left: Iranian military KIAs from Iraqi chemical weapons attack in 1988. Right: Syrian chemical weapons casualties in 2013. 

Below: CIA document acknowledging Iraq's use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war. At the United Nations, the United States effectively shielded its ally Iraq, diplomatically, for its use of chemical weapons during the course of the war. The U.S. also accused Iran of using chemical weapons during the conflict; it's widely understood that Iran did not reciprocate with chemical weapons of its own. For additional reading on the subject click HERE.

 

Below: Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said last Wednesday's alleged chemical attack in Syria, which U.N. chemical weapons experts began investigating on Monday, was probably the work of rebels who wanted to derail plans by Washington and Moscow to hold talks on Syria's future.

Kerry’s Statement on Syrian Crisis

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry today made an important statement on the recent chemical attack in Syria, indicating the administration is holding the Syrian government responsible for the attack and is in close consultations with its Arab and Western partners to formulate an appropriate response. The U.S. is expected to lead a coalition of regional countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Jordan, as well as Western countries, such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada, in any military action against Syria.

Due to critical situation in Syria, we are posting the transcript of Secretary Kerry’s statement made in a news conference in Washington on Monday. The text was provided by Federal News Service. The video is posted on You Tube. The transcript:

“For the last several days President Obama and his entire national security team have been reviewing the situation in Syria.

“What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear. The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.

“The meaning of this attack goes beyond the conflict on Syria itself. And that conflict has already brought so much terrible suffering. This is about the large-scale indiscriminate use of weapons that the civilized world long ago decided must never be used at all, a conviction shared even by countries that agree on little else.

“What is before us today is real, and it is compelling… So I also want to underscore that while investigators are gathering additional evidence on the ground, our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts, informed by conscience and guided by common sense. The reported number of victims, the reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured, the firsthand accounts from humanitarian organizations on the ground, like Doctors Without Borders and the Syria Human Rights Commission -- these all strongly indicate that everything these images are already screaming at us is real, that chemical weapons were used in Syria.

“Moreover, we know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets. We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses.

“We have additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners, and we will provide that information in the days ahead.

“I spoke on Thursday with Syrian Foreign Minister Muallem, and I made it very clear to him that if the regime, as he argued, had nothing to hide, then their response should be immediate: immediate transparency, immediate access, not shelling. Their response needed to be unrestricted and immediate access. Failure to permit that, I told him, would tell its own story.

“Instead, for five days the Syrian regime refused to allow the U.N. investigators access to the site of the attack that would allegedly exonerate them. Instead, it attacked the area further, shelling it and systematically destroying evidence. That is not the behavior of a government that has nothing to hide. That is not the action of a regime eager to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons. In fact, the regime’s belated decision to allow access is too late and is too late to be credible.

“Today’s reports of an attack on the U.N. investigators, together with the continued shelling of these very neighborhoods, only further weakens the regime’s credibility. At President Obama’s direction, I’ve spent many hours over the last few days on the phone with foreign ministers and other leaders. The administration is actively consulting with members of Congress, and we will continue to have these conversations in the days ahead. President Obama has also been in close touch with the leaders of our key allies, and the president will be making an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons.

“But make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”