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Western Intel: Assad may have secret ChemWar stockpile
Concerns are growing among Western intelligence services that Syria still has a significant and undeclared arsenal of chemical weapons, including crude chlorine-filled bombs, secret stockpiles of sophisticated nerve gasses or their componentsâand the scientific know-how to rebuild a larger-scale, higher-grade chemical weapons effort once the Bashar al-Assad regime has escaped the international spotlight. But itâs not the only worry. Within the U.S. intelligence community, thereâs also lingering unease about the Assad regimeâs biological weapons program that has never been the focus of international inspections and that American officials confess they just donât have the resources to track down.Such allegations inevitably evoke comparisons with the bogus intelligence used to justify the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. There is the critical difference that in this case the U.S. administration is not looking for a pretext to go to war. Indeed, far from it. But the issue of remaining Syrian WMD raises the question once again of whether the United States regards these weapons as a âred lineâ justifying armed intervention or not. Washingtonâs relations with Moscow, severely strained by the Ukraine crisis, are another complicating factor. Russia played a key role in brokering the deal that was supposed to eliminate Assadâs chemical weapons capability once and for all, and helped avert an American bombing campaign last fall. But some of the biggest concerns in the American intelligence community arenât about what individual chemicals or germs that the Assad regime might have squirreled away. Theyâre about Syriaâs biologists, chemists and engineersâthe people who helped build up Assadâs massive unconventional weapons program, and could do so again, given the proper resources and time. Posted by: Pappy 2014-05-06 |
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