Re: Syria
Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 8:23 am
Don't cheat. Cite your sources properly.Bandit72 wrote:Great article.
I wonder how easy they are for a nation to stockpile but not use? Would the west use it to their advantage, again (Iraq WMD's), to cause conflict? To paraphrase the late Bill Hicks :Of 188 signatory nations to the CWC, state parties listed below have also declared stockpiles, agreed to monitored disposal, and verification, and in some cases, used CW in conflict. Both military targets and civilian populations have been affected—the affected populations were not always damaged collaterally, but rather at times, the target of the attack. As of 2012, only four nations are confirmed as having chemical weapons: the United States, Russia, North Korea and Syria.
"Syria? Incredible Weapons...Chemical weapons."
"Well, How do we know that?"
"...ahem...er...we (the french) looked at the receipt."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapon
That [10] links to this: http://usiraq.procon.org/view.resource. ... eID=000678Wikipedia wrote:As of 2012, only four nations are confirmed as having chemical weapons: the United States, Russia, North Korea and Syria.[10][contradictory]
Which cites this as the source for the data: http://usiraq.procon.org/sourcefiles/CRS_2-20-08.pdf
(Go to pp. 16-17 of the pdf...)
What it actually says is this:
So ... uh...Under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which went into effect in 1997, member countries are to have destroyed their stockpiles by April 2007. In July 2007, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that Albania had become the first country to have destroyed its declared CWs. Five other states — India, Libya, Russia, South Korea, and the United States — have declared possession of such weapons. All have stated that they will destroy their weapons by the Convention’s April 29, 2012, deadline. However, observers have expressed doubts that all will be able to do so, owing to technical and legal challenges. Twelve countries also reported facilities for the production of CW and have pledged to destroy them or convert them to civilian uses. All of the member states’ declared CW production facilities have been destroyed, according to the OPCW.
Plus, that same article also links to this for its source: See CRS Report RL33865, Arms Control and Nonproliferation: A Catalog of Treaties and
Agreements, by Amy F. Woolf, Paul K. Kerr, and Mary Beth Nicotine, p.46.
Which is here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33865.pdf
Which is odd, because pg. 46 is about nukes... so I searched for "CW" or "Chemical Weapon". It claims that five nations have not signed the CWC: "Angola, Egypt, North Korea, Somalia, and Syria." (n. 41 on p. 49)
Pg. 50:
Syria
Syria is not a party to the chemical weapons convention, and it retains significant stocks of
chemical weapons. Concerns about the security and status of these weapons grew in 2012,
following months of instability and conflict. The Syrian case may be the first time the
international community has faced a civil war in a state with a known stockpile of chemical
weapons. This contingency raises two major policy concerns: whether the Asad regime would use
chemical weapons, and whether it could lose control over these weapons. U.S. officials have
expressed confidence that chemical weapons stocks in Syria are secured by the Asad regime,
which dispatched elite Special Forces for that purpose. At the same time, due to the urgency of
preventing access to these weapons by unauthorized groups including terrorists, the United States
government has been preparing for scenarios to secure the weapons in the event of the Asad
regime’s loss of control.
The United States
The United States has also encountered difficulties in destroying its Category One chemical
weapons stockpile; Washington has already destroyed all of its Category Three stockpile and has
declared no Category Two weapons. In April 2006, the United States submitted its formal request
to the OPCW Chairman and Director-General to extend the United States’ final chemical
weapons destruction deadline from April 2007 to April 29, 2012, the latest possible date allowed
under the CWC.53 However, Ambassador Eric Javits, then-U.S. Permanent Representative to the
OPCW, added that “we do not expect to be able to meet that deadline” because Washington had
encountered “delays and difficulties” in destroying its stockpile.54 These delays have generally
resulted from the need to meet state and federal environmental requirements and from both local
and congressional concerns over the means of destruction.
Reinforcing Javits’ statement, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld notified Congress in
April 2006 that destruction of the U.S. stockpile by the April 2012 deadline “was in doubt based
on the current schedules, but that the Department of Defense [DOD] would continue requesting
resources needed to complete destruction as close to the 2012 deadline as practicable.”
The OPCW stated March 4, 2011, that the United States has destroyed over 84% of its Category
One stockpile.55 Washington projects that its three operating destruction facilities56 will have
destroyed 90% of the total U.S. stockpile by 2012.57 Two other facilities under construction will
destroy the remaining chemical agents stockpiles located at Pueblo, CO, and Lexington, KY.
According to a 2010 DOD estimate, these stockpiles would be destroyed by 2017 and 2021,
respectively.58
However, the 2008 Defense Appropriations Act (P.L. 110-116) required the Defense Department
to “complete work on the destruction” of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile by the 2012
deadline “and in no circumstances later than December 31, 2017.” Additionally, the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (P.L. 110-181) required that the Secretary of
Defense submit a report to Congress that included a
description of the options and alternatives for accelerating the completion of chemical
weapons destruction at each such facility, particularly in time to meet the [CWC] destruction
deadline of April 29, 2012 ... and by December 31, 2017.
That report, submitted in June 2008, compared three options for accelerating stockpile
destruction, noting that “[t]here are no options to achieve 100 percent destruction of the national
stockpile by 2012.”59 The three options were:
• Provide schedule incentives authorized by Congress60 to ensure that the operating
sites complete the destruction of their stockpiles by 2012.
• Transport portions of the remaining stockpile to destruction facilities which are
already operating.
• Accelerate the destruction schedule for the Colorado and Kentucky sites.
According to a September 2010 DOD report to Congress, the department is “on pace to achieve
destruction of 90 percent of its stockpile by April 2012, 98 percent destruction by 2017, and 100
percent destruction by 2021.” The department “will continue to look for opportunities to
eliminate the remaining chemical weapons stockpile ahead of current schedules without
sacrificing safety and security,” the report adds.61