Thread: Syria and chem weapons

Syria has had a chemical weapons program for decades so, in that sense, it is old news. Frankly, if they did obtain some from outside sources, well, that is pretty irrelevant right now.

There were reports of truck convoys leaving Iraq for Syria just before our attack. I doubt they were carrying fine art treasures.

Originally Posted by OldmanDan

There were reports of truck convoys leaving Iraq for Syria just before our attack. I doubt they were carrying fine art treasures.

Hell, they were probably transporting that yellow cake uranium, wait, that never existed...

I would not trust your source on those convoys. Too many lies were told about Iraq.

Personally, I hope that when the neo nazis, the skin heads, the racists, the multitude of right wing militias start attacking the US gov't that we get plenty of support from various nations in the middle east. The folks that would help these groups wouldn't know who these groups were either, like we don't know who all if involved in trying to overthrow the syrian leader.

The way that I see it, is we should keep our noses and our opinions to ourselves and let these sovereign nations solve their own problems. What give you the right to butt in? Oh, we feel entitled!! We feel we have a right!

No sir, it seems as soon as the blood runs somewhere, in areas where there is money to be made by american business, the MNC, we get real thirsty for blood. And even many of the american people, being fed propaganda get all fired up and want america to go in and made some blood run in the streets ourselves! There are too many of us that are nothing more than nosy old men and women, who are not happy unless we are shoving our noses in the business of other nations,while we would not tolerate someone doing that to us!

Let these damn arabs kill themselves, because anyone who replaces the pres of syria will be as bad or worse as the one they replace. The arrogance of america makes me want to puke. And our stupidity is astounding, but I am sure there have been business plans already drawn up....

Originally Posted by Blue Doggy

Hell, they were probably transporting that yellow cake uranium, wait, that never existed...

I would not trust your source on those convoys. Too many lies were told about Iraq.

Lies all around.

But, the Bush administration was pounding the war drums on Iraq for a really damned long time. Towards the greater end of six to nine months, if I recall correctly. That was more than plenty of time for Saddam to recall his recent experience with our military, evaluate his odds against U.S. a second time, and decide to get rid of any weapons he didn't want to be found with. Perhaps he even thought Bush Jr. would repeat what Sr. did and just kick his regime's ass, but leave him standing. I would not want to use any WMD in that case, because then you could be sure I'd get knocked off. And then of course you'd really want to get rid of them, too.

And do you think we'd be able to track those weapons without controlling the ground over there? I mean, our intelligence offices don't exactly broadcast all of their capabilities, so I doubt any one outside the organizations themselves really knows. Saddam had some time to get rid of these weapons, but not a whole lot, and everyone knew he was under pressure. Who knows what he would do to unload these things.

Originally Posted by Blue Doggy

And our stupidity is astounding, but I am sure there have been business plans already drawn up....

Plan for the worst . . .

Originally Posted by lutherf

It's hard to miss the headlines that came out over the weekend regarding the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman who said that not only does Syria have chemical weapons but that those weapons will be used if Syria is attacked.
Syria could use chemical weapons if attacked

Strangely enough, though, I have yet to see any article that discusses how and when these weapons were obtained. I have read that Syria obtained a supply of Sarin as early as the 70's but it seems that as late as 2002 they were still in the market for more "hardcore" components of other material.
Chemical Weapons - Syria

For me this kind of begs the question of whether some of those reports from 2003 that Saddam was transferring stockpiles of Iraqi weapons to Syria prior to the US invasion. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that this question hasn't come up as a discussion on this forum or some of the other more right leaning sites I visit. I mean, if Saddam did have chemical weapons (and we know that he did) and/or supplies of precursors to weapons such as VX, Cycloserin, Phosgene, etc. and he did, in fact, transfer them to Syria wouldn't that be important?

Well, Assad and Saddam were not exactly best buddies, and therefore it is highly questionable that Saddam ( who had run out of arab allies anyway) was sending weapons to Syria of all cases. It is also out of the question that Assad needed Saddam to obtain chemical weapons when already his dad was working on them and recieved certain deliveries for example from his soviet allies as far back as the 70s/80s.
What is remarkable in the language of the syrian governement spokesman is not officially admitting having chemical weapons (something that noone has doubted anyway), but that they will be used "in case Syria is attacked". Which means the syrian regime is trying to regionalize the conflict by blaming outside involvement, and to paint rebel fighters as foreign proxy armies ( which is not completely wrong, since for example the Gulf Emirates and the Saudis are certainly lending more than a hand, but also only partially right, since Assad recieves outside support as well, for example from Iran).
The regime is on the other hand trying to avoid the impression that it is considering using chemical weapons against its own people. Which means they might be getting sort of desperate, since aside from these weapons and the apparently still largely loyal airforce Assad doesn´t have many trump cards left.

Originally Posted by Voland

Well, Assad and Saddam were not exactly best buddies, and therefore it is highly questionable that Saddam ( who had run out of arab allies anyway) was sending weapons to Syria of all cases. It is also out of the question that Assad needed Saddam to obtain chemical weapons when already his dad was working on them and recieved certain deliveries for example from his soviet allies as far back as the 70s/80s.
What is remarkable in the language of the syrian governement spokesman is not officially admitting having chemical weapons (something that noone has doubted anyway), but that they will be used "in case Syria is attacked". Which means the syrian regime is trying to regionalize the conflict by blaming outside involvement, and to paint rebel fighters as foreign proxy armies ( which is not completely wrong, since for example the Gulf Emirates and the Saudis are certainly lending more than a hand, but also only partially right, since Assad recieves outside support as well, for example from Iran).
The regime is on the other hand trying to avoid the impression that it is considering using chemical weapons against its own people. Which means they might be getting sort of desperate, since aside from these weapons and the apparently still largely loyal airforce Assad doesn´t have many trump cards left.

While it's true about Assad and Saddam it's also true that Saddam was at least somewhat comfortable with friendships of convenience..."the enemy of my enemy is my friend" so to speak. If you remember, at the close of the first gulf war he sent a significant portion of what remained of his air force to Iran.
Teheran to Seize the Planes Iraq Sent to Iran for Safety - NYTimes.com

There is, in certain factions of the middle east, a kind of tacit understanding that no matter what else happens the ability to fend off the unclean hoards must be preserved.

Chemical Weapons - Syria

Who knows if its accurate. We simply cant get good intel out of the middle east because of its closed society, and what we do have is probably classified and we wont know for 100 years the truth.

Originally Posted by lutherf

It's hard to miss the headlines that came out over the weekend regarding the Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman who said that not only does Syria have chemical weapons but that those weapons will be used if Syria is attacked.
Syria could use chemical weapons if attacked

Strangely enough, though, I have yet to see any article that discusses how and when these weapons were obtained. I have read that Syria obtained a supply of Sarin as early as the 70's but it seems that as late as 2002 they were still in the market for more "hardcore" components of other material.
Chemical Weapons - Syria

For me this kind of begs the question of whether some of those reports from 2003 that Saddam was transferring stockpiles of Iraqi weapons to Syria prior to the US invasion. Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that this question hasn't come up as a discussion on this forum or some of the other more right leaning sites I visit. I mean, if Saddam did have chemical weapons (and we know that he did) and/or supplies of precursors to weapons such as VX, Cycloserin, Phosgene, etc. and he did, in fact, transfer them to Syria wouldn't that be important?

The best accounting of Iraq's chemical weapons shows they were destroyed to comply with UN demands, in order to get sanctions lifted.
The accounting is not perfect, large amounts of the weapons were destroyed in the first Gulf War, so the amounts will never tally perfectly.
Syria has no need for Iraqi weapons, Syria has it's own production capability, it's not a signatory to any Chemical Arms treaties so it's all quite legal.

Originally Posted by lutherf

While it's true about Assad and Saddam it's also true that Saddam was at least somewhat comfortable with friendships of convenience..."the enemy of my enemy is my friend" so to speak. If you remember, at the close of the first gulf war he sent a significant portion of what remained of his air force to Iran.
Teheran to Seize the Planes Iraq Sent to Iran for Safety - NYTimes.com

There is, in certain factions of the middle east, a kind of tacit understanding that no matter what else happens the ability to fend off the unclean hoards must be preserved.

And yet, in the absence of concrete evidence (also from the US), that has to be considered speculation. And most likely it is irrelevant as well. Assad definitely has/had his own stockpile of dangerous stuff with or without Saddam trying to hide things in his country ( even if true).
The concern with these chemical weapons is actually less what Assad might do with them ( since not even the Israelis consider him suicidal or irrational. Actually they rather liked him, as a predictable and rational enemy. There could be worse things), but who gets his/their hands on these things if the Assad dynasty crumbles further, and/or even exits and a new round of fighting along sectarian lines opens. Since even the Russians and Chinese have warned him publicly that they would not back their use, Assad is not likely to actually consider that option aside from deterrence.
It is not clear however how much power Baschar still has outside his palace and who else is pulling the strings. The dictator himself might even use this last trump card to negotiate an orderly exit and a comfortable exile in a country where the ICC doesn´t get him (Russia ?). The plans that others, struggling for power in the country may have, could be much more sinister though.
In any case, it is not that easy to smuggle stuff like chemical warheads, and also to actually use them for terrorist operations requires technological skills and capabilities ( missiles probably) that may make them rather useless for Osama offspring. It is quite probable that ordinary Syrians in a probably upcoming civil war are much more in danger from them. That syrian chemical weapons would be a serious danger to countries armed till the teeth like Turkey or Israel I´d consider much more wildly speculative than that.

Do we want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud? Let's just dethrone the Syrian leader and install our own leadership. That never gets old.

I find it tough to believe that in the near decade since the ground invasion of Iraq nobody has come forward and said that he was involved in the effort to move chemical weapons from Iraq to Syria.

No former Baath Party officials who turned a new leaf and are giving it a run as politicians in the "new" Iraq, none of the military officers who would have ordered and/or overseen the move, none of the factory/warehouse workers would would have seen or been involved in the weapons being loaded on trucks, none of the logisticians who planned the movement, none of the cats who drove the trucks, nobody.

Given the amount of CIA and USSOCOM that flooded Iraq between 2003 and 2010-ish you'd have to think that if there were folks out there with intimate knowledge of these weapons movements (and they wouldn't all have been hardcore, idiological, Baath Party loyalists), there would have been at least a handful of guys willing to sell out the deposed regime in exchange for a few hundred thousand US$.

Hell, they were selling each other, and their mothers, out for a whole hell of a lot less.

Originally Posted by soot

I find it tough to believe that in the near decade since the ground invasion of Iraq nobody has come forward and said that he was involved in the effort to move chemical weapons from Iraq to Syria.

No former Baath Party officials who turned a new leaf and are giving it a run as politicians in the "new" Iraq, none of the military officers who would have ordered and/or overseen the move, none of the factory/warehouse workers would would have seen or been involved in the weapons being loaded on trucks, none of the logisticians who planned the movement, none of the cats who drove the trucks, nobody.

Given the amount of CIA and USSOCOM that flooded Iraq between 2003 and 2010-ish you'd have to think that if there were folks out there with intimate knowledge of these weapons movements (and they wouldn't all have been hardcore, idiological, Baath Party loyalists), there would have been at least a handful of guys willing to sell out the deposed regime in exchange for a few hundred thousand US$.

Hell, they were selling each other, and their mothers, out for a whole hell of a lot less.

Maybe they did, in secret.

Originally Posted by jviehe

Maybe they did, in secret.

Maybe.

Or maybe they got the information telepathically, or through witchcraft, and can't divulge it for fear of outing their supernatural capabilities.

Either that or the whole "Iraq has WMDs" premise was a clusterfuck in the first place.