US offers to destroy Syria weapons

No country has committed to disposing of chemicals

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is offering to destroy someofSyria’s deadliest chemical weapons in international waters aboard a nearly 700-foot, U.S. government-owned ship, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The plan, still subject to final approval, would involve destroying the weapons, likely aboard the MV Cape Ray in the Mediterranean Sea, with U.S. Navy warships patrolling nearby.

This approach would avoid the vexing diplomatic, environmental and security problems posed by disposing of the materials on any nation’s soil.

The decision to proceed with the chemical disposal plan would be made by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, a global chemical weapons watchdog agency with 190 member states.

In a statement Wednesday in the Netherlands, the watchdog agency said the effort to ship Syria’s chemical arsenal out of the country “continues to pose challenges due to the security situation on the ground.”

Nocountry has committed to disposing of the chemical weapons on its own soil, which is why the U.S. offer to destroy the deadliest of the chemical components at sea is seen as a likely option.

The U.S. officials who disclosed aspects of the U.S. portion of the plan spoke on condition of anonymity.

Jonathan Lalley, a spokesman for the president’s National Security Council, stressed that no decisions had been made regarding destroying chemicals outside of Syria.

“We and our international partners are pursuing alternative means of destruction, and we will continue discussing with other countries how they might best contribute to that effort,” Lalley said in a statement. “We remain confident that we will complete elimination of the program within the milestones agreed upon.”

The MV Cape Ray is a Virginia-based ship owned by the Transportation Department. It would host the destruction of some of the deadliest of Syria’s chemical materials using a process developed by the Pentagon but never employed in an actual operation.

The U.S. would use what it calls a mobile Field Deployable Hydrolysis System to neutralize the chemical material, making it unusable as weapons. The system was developed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is an arm of the Pentagon. The titanium reactor uses heated water and other chemicals to make the chemical warfare material inert.

According to several U.S. officials, two of the hydrolysis units would be mounted on the Cape Ray. It will take some time to retrofit the ship and conduct training to insure that the process can be done successfully at sea.

Once the mission is finalized and the Cape Ray is ready, it would be transferred to control of the Defense Department’s