Chemical Weapon Use
UN chief alarmed at “weakening taboo” after Syrian chemical weapons attacks
This is interesting...Remember about the time the current Administration actively supported the "Arab Spring" debacle in N. Africa and various countries within the ME, there was this much publicized event where Syria, over many months of negotiations, turned over ALL OF THEIR Chemical weapons for disposal? The US was instrumental in collecting and destroying much of this material. At the end of this deal, everyone claimed mission success with ALL Syrian chemical weapons (and then some) being supposedly accounted for and in addition, being destroyed. Everyone clapped themselves on the back, handed out awards to the non-participants and went home. End of story? Well, not quite.
With that being the case, how can there be chemical weapon attacks still going on in Syria? Every few weeks for over a year now, there have been articles about various chemical attacks coming from a country that by all accounts has no chemical weapons. Hmmm. How can this be?
We've mentioned it and there is plenty of written material citing numerous nodes of intelligence that spoke of how the various nations of the world came clean before Gulf War 1 to inform the coalition of the stocks of chemicals that they sold to Saddam. This even included, but not limited to, the Germans, the Austrians, the French, the Russians, the Chinese, and even US firms who provided precursors but not actual wpns. We also knew how much Iraq expended against the Iranians in the East (remember that Iraq was kinda/sorta our friend back then so they told us and we turned a blind eye as killing Iranians back then was...ok), we knew how much Iraq expended against the Kurds in the North (we watched them and wringed our hands...), and by using 1st grade math, we were able to conclude with little doubt that Iraq still had a significant amounts left over even with any "fudge factor" built in...Did Saddam have chemical weapons? Bet on it. When the Gulf War 1 was over, the UN tried to run observers into many of the sites suspected of chemical weapons research and storage. Inspectors would show up at a gate at some nondescript warehouse and be denied entry by heavily armed guards from the Iraqi military. By UN mandate based on the accords that ended Gulf War 1, the UN could not force their way into these warehouses. From there, they would be forced to park their UN vehicles across or down the street and then get to watch truck after truck pull into the yard and watch workers remove box after crate after pallet of materials out of the warehouse and into the trucks. Inspectors were not permitted to follow the trucks. After several days of this, an Iraqi guard would come over and tell the UN team they could go inspect now. Guess what they found? Yep, dust balls in the corners. Was Iraq in violation of the accords that ended Gulf War 1 especially IRT their remaining chemical weapons stocks, most assuredly. The harassment from the Iraqi military got so bad that teams from the US were even pulled out for a time.
Bush 2 is now in office and there is pressure to do something about Iraq. It wasn't long after 9/11 and everyone wanted blood. In the weeks before we reengaged militarily, the State Dept and other entities aligned with the State Dept applied pressure for Iraq to play ball or we would attack by "X" date. Tough talk, stupid tactic. Remember that? Everyone to include the Pentagon was dumbfounded that the State Dept would tip our hand on when we would attack. OPSEC?...What OPSEC? We then saw huge lines of Iraqi trucks lining up at the border of Syria. What was in those trucks? This traffic continued for weeks with the trucks only returning to Iraq to pick up yet another load. There can be no doubt now that much of the cargo in those trucks were remaining stocks of Iraqi chemical weapons along with other munitions and looted materials now controlled by Saddam and his family. During the Gulf War 2, US soldiers even captured a large truck filled to the brim with palletized US currency supposedly "belonging" to either Uday or his brother Qusay. Millions upon millions of US dollars in this one truck alone. Let's see..., how much can I fit into a Large Alice pack or my cargo pockets...?
Over the years, as classified info has been released, it turned out that significant numbers of US and Coalition forces were attacked with chemical weapons. This happened not only during Gulf War 1 but also during Gulf War 2. They tried to point out that these were random and very isolated attacks. Not so random or isolated if you were the victim though. Although remember, the stupidity that Iraq had no chemical wpns...Remember how that theme was played on politically to the chagrin of US and Allied soldiers who were treated and then having to sign non-disclosure statements to receive continued treatment. Some of these guys and gals have tried to get subsequent help through the US Veterans Administration with little to no success. However, remember, according to the politicos, there were no Chem wpns....tell that to the thousands of Iranians and Kurds who were gassed (dead and many others permanently disabled -ex. blinded) like cockroaches with the human version of 'Raid'. Facts that are conveniently ignored in these discussions. Of course one of the main reasons to hide all this was to not cause panic, to protect sources, and to cause as much political pain to the party in power as they knew they couldn't reveal the truth to defend themselves without passing classified information.
So where are we now? One has to wonder what exactly was destroyed coming out of Syria several years back. Were they older Iraqi munitions? Most likely, along with some outdated and leaky items that Syria had. That would explain why the world was amazed at the sheer quantities that a little country like Syria had that dwarfed all projections and expectations. It would also be smart money to suggest that Syria still has significant stocks available to them. It has been such a concern that there are fears that some of the more radical Islamic organizations fighting there will over run a Syrian controlled chem supply depot and abscond with these weapons. How can this be a fear when we have been told that there are no chemical weapons in Syria? From there, the nightmare scenario is that they would either employ them there or in some other AOR (can you say Israel or any major Western City?). Note the odd localized chem attacks that have occurred already that have been reported over this entire Syrian campaign. Syria blames the radical Islamic forces and the radical Islamic forces blame the Assad regime. How can this be if there are NO chemical weapons there???...regardless of who employed the weapon! There are even reports of attacks using chem agents occurring in Iraq by ISIS / AQ against the Iraqi populace and Iraqi Security forces. Yet there are still those with their heads in the sand suggesting that these folks must be twitching and dying due to a bad head cold and mishandling fertilizer. Really?
Bottom line is that Intel was basically spot on. The mobile wpns labs in Iraq were no doubt a stretch at this point (the item that got Colin Powell in hot water) but the basic premise about chemical weapons was accurate. Expect more reports like the one above to occur as forces getting desperate, employ these weapons. As the years go by, one will wonder if all these data websites out there will update their topic of chemical weapons in Syria, Iraq and other countries within the ME going back to Gulf War 1.
