Options for Syrian arsenal few
BEIRUT— TheU. S. and regional allies are closelymonitoring Syria’s chemicalweapons— caught in the midst of a raging civilwar— but options for securing the toxic agents stuffed into shells, bombs and missiles are fraught with risk.
President BasharAssad’s regime is believed to have one of the largest chemicalweapons stockpiles in theworld. 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- Qaidainspired militants among the rebels.
For now, the storage and production sites are considered secure. However, some say the civilwar poses one of the gravest risks of losing control over nonconventionalweapons since the breakup of the SovietUnion.
Syria’s suspected arsenal is scattered across a number of locations, mainly in the north and west, where fighting betweenAssad’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 theweapons locked up.
The price of military action against the arsenal is prohibitively high, Bucci and others say.
Airstrikes on chemicalweapons depots could release toxic clouds or expose them to looters. A ground operationwould require thousands of troops, and theU. S. administration has pushed back on any suggestion of direct military action in Syria. Pinpoint operations by special forces could easily gowrong.
The issue has been a topic in theU. S. presidential campaign. Republican nomineeMitt Romney has said hewould sendU. S. troops into Syria if needed to prevent the spread of chemicalweapons, while President Barack Obama has said thatmovement or use of chemicalweapons would have “enormous consequences.”
Details uncertain
Syria’s secrecy compounds the problem. Damascus hasn’t signed nonproliferation agreements, long denying it has chemicalweapons. Syria “is a black hole for us,” saidMichael 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 onU. S. intelligence reports.
Syria is believed to have hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of chemical agents, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the JamesMartin Center for Nonproliferation Studies inMonterey, Calif. This includesmustard gas, a blistering agent and the more lethal nerve agents sarin and VX, he said.
The agents are believed to be designed for use in artillery shells, aerial bombs and ballistic missiles, said Scott Stewart of theU. S. security think tank Stratfor.
It is not known towhat extent the chemical agents have already been placed inmunitions. 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.
Training in Jordan
On Thursday, Jordanian officials confirmed that U. S. special operations forces and their Jordanian counterparts have been training at a compound some 50 miles from the Syrian border on how to protect civilians from possible chemical attacks.
“With chemical weapons, it starts to get so beyond the pale,” Bucci said. “It scares the heck out of everybody, rightfully.”