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Experts Don’t Believe Syria Preparing to Use its Chemical Weapons
10 December 2012
Arms control experts in the U.S. and worldwide do not believe that Syria is preparing to use its chemical weapons, Matt Schofield exposes today in the McClatchey newspapers. As European leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented yesterday, not only experts, but even "the man on the street" is saying, "Hey, wait a second, we had that one already with Iraq!" Syria has bluntly denied any such plans, calling them "Suicide." U.S. and European experts on weapons monitoring say that parts of Syria’s chemical arsenal have been moved, but "that could be interpreted as reassuring, rather than alarming," writes Schofield, if the intention is to keep the weapons from extremists (like al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, whom even The New York Times admits today is leading the fighting against Assad). Schofield reports these views of experts: * Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington said, "I’m skeptical about sarin being prepared or artillery shells being filled. I’ve just seen too much in the past with satellite photography making assumptions about chemical weapons, most infamously in Iraq." Thielmann was an early skeptic of U.S. claims that Iraq was building an arsenal prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003. * Jean Pascal Zanders, a senior research fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies and one of the world’s leading chemical weapons experts, told McClatchy that he has "concern that the Syrian chemical weapons threat is being ratcheted up to justify military intervention in a not too distant future." * Gregory Koblentz, a CFR expert on chemical weapons in Washington, said that with battle lines fluid, and supporters and enemies occupying almost the same space, deploying chemical weapons runs the risk of a disastrous backfire if, say, the wind shifts, or an engine misfires. "They have a limited utility. And they can mess up your own operations." * Leonard Spector and Egle Murauskaite, of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, warned that "The political reasons behind the recent rebel rhetoric on chemical weapons must be acknowledged." Schofield states, "Experts agreed that the greatest threat regarding Syria’s chemical weapons comes not from the Assad regime, but from the Islamist radicals, including some with alleged links to al Qaeda, who are at the forefront of the rebel fighting force." (emphasis added) |