Experts skeptical Syria is preparing to use its chemical arsenal

[Newsjock]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

With concern over the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons stockpile reaching a fever pitch this week, international experts are cautioning against alarmism, saying there’s no confirmation that the Syrians are mixing weapons components or loading them into delivery systems, as some U.S. news organizations have reported.

Experts in the United States and Europe who monitor unconventional weapons said that President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime certainly has moved parts of his nation’s vast, acknowledged chemical arsenal. But that movement could be interpreted as reassuring rather than alarming, the experts said, if the intention is to keep the weapons from extremists in the anti-Assad movement who are at the forefront of recent rebel advances.

... “I’m skeptical about sarin being prepared or artillery shells being filled. I’ve just seen too much in the past with satellite photography making assumptions about chemical weapons, most infamously in Iraq,” said Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association in Washington and an early skeptic of U.S. claims that Iraq had built up a chemical weapons arsenal prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003. At the time, Thielmann was acting director for the State Department office responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat. No such weapons were found once U.S. troops had vanquished Iraqi forces.

... But many who study the topic worry that the hysteria has gone well beyond what the facts warrant, and there are concerns that the intelligence hasn’t really shown much change in recent months.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/07/176799/experts-skeptical-syria-is-preparing.html

[jsr]

1. Bashar Assad is not a stupid or suicidal man

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. No, he's just a despot whose time is up and has nothing to lose.

I bet he's seen pictures of Mussolini and his wife hanging from a streetlamp. He's a dead man. His family... Dead. His friends... Dead. A bullet in the head ain't happening for any of them. More like a red hot poker up the ass followed by blunt trauma to the head and shoulders. Syrians Will die by the tens of thousands before he's done.

[Arctic Dave]

2. But DU's resident experts will tell them different

Amazing how many PNAC douchebags infest this place.

[redgreenandblue]

5. PNAC is ok as long as a Democrat is in charge....

[Suich]

3. Don't tell that to Sean Hannity because

he KNOWS Syria has chemical weapons!

[Victor_c3]

6. I'm starting to say this louder and louder

Sadam's supposed large chemical weapons stockpile and his use of chemical weapons on his own people in the past were part of the justification used for invading Iraq in 2003. Anyone eager to use force in Syria to stop chemical weapons from being used should really take a look at Iraq and see how well things have worked out there for the last decade.