Syria Completes Destruction of Chemical Weapon Producing Equipment 97
rtoz writes "Chemical weapons watchdog OPCW has declared that Syria has rendered inoperable chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants. This operation has been completed just one day before the deadline (1 November 2013) set by the OPCW Executive Council.
The Joint OPCW-UN Mission has inspected 21 of the 23 sites declared by Syria, and 39 of the 41 facilities located at those sites. The two remaining sites were not visited due to safety and security concerns. But Syria declared those sites as abandoned and that the chemical weapons program items they contained were moved to other declared sites, which were inspected."
But how much do they have stockpiled? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the real question. It's great that can't make any more of the stuff, but I'll bet they have enough to kill just about everyone in the country left hidden.
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Assad does not need chemical weapons to kill the uprising. He gives away the chemicals because it distracts countries from the civil war and they get the feeling that they can achieve something by completing the destruction of chemical weapons.
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Assad does not need chemical weapons to kill the uprising.
Are you sure? He seems to be making a bit of a chore out of it so far.
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And (this is speculation, not my speculation, but speculation nonetheless) because the weapons were apparently used without Assad's consent by a general in his armed forces. He's worried that the civil war will be breeding grounds for a coup, and ditching the WMDs actually consolidates his power to an extent.
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No, the real question is "how many production facilities are still operational?"
What is carefully ignored in TFS and most other headlines is that Syria has "destroyed or rendered inoperative all of the DECLARED chemical weapon production facilities."
Note the difference between "all" and "all declared".
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Jesus, you people will just believe any old kayfabe that gets shoved in front of you, won't you? "Oh, Obama was trying to start a war and the brave Republicans in Congress were stopping him and then that swiftboater Kerry made some slipup in a press conference and Putin called him on it!" Ugh, you idiots.
Look, when Obama wants to start blowing shit up somewhere, he doesn't bring it in front of our dysfunctional craptastic Congress first, he just fucking does it, and tells the public afterward if at all. See
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How long do you think a major chemicals weapons plant could operate secretly? If you mean some small project to produce small quantities: those things are really dangerous to the people who make them and try and store them. Syria having had a large industrial program knows that.
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Well, in the case of the Aleppo 4 site, the answer was until the Israelis bomb the fuck out of it. Also, note that 2 sites were not visited out of "security concerns" and at the sites that were visited neither were 2 of the facilities. Yet on faith we're supposed to assume they are also shut down.
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I think you could avoid operating it until people find something else to get excited about, then turn it back on full-bore, if you've refrained from destroying the plant by the expedient of not declaring it.
Starting over from scratch is also possible, but way more expensive....
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Syria is always going to have the capacity to openly start massive chemical weapons production. That's not a question. They have the capacity. But there will be satellites and intelligence in Syria for the foreseeable future. Syria isn't permanently giving up the weapons by more than treaty.
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If properly deployed, it doesn't take much more than a grocery store's stock on hand to really screw a lot of people up and kill some of them, especially in a confined space.
The biggest danger of chemical weapons is not the harm they cause, but the cruel way in which they do it and the simplicity with which one can produce and use them.
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This is just the 1st phase complete. As TFA clearly states, the next phase is to address the destruction of the existing stockpile.
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As far as i know, Israel only bombs syria when it appears that arms are moving to terrorist factions hell bent on attacking Israel. I don't neccesarily agree wiyh the idea that all arms are going to hezbolah but the missiles destroyed in the attack you cited could be used to prevent israel ftom stopping arms going to hezbolah. It definatly is different then you tried to present it which might be why the west propaganda machine baffles you.
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They were bombing anti-aircraft missiles in transit. They were in transit to Hezbollah. As far as I know those facts aren't in dispute.
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The brutal dictator is in a state of declared war with Israel. People bomb each other during wars.
Like North Korea (Score:4, Interesting)
So is this like North Korea over the years where they declare a nuclear enrichment facility deactivated, but then a month later we hear that facility is back in operation?
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Japan doesn't give the first fuck about the Norks invading South Korea. I don't know if you noticed, but they've still got a bit of a grudge both ways about the whole WWII thing.
Japan would probably cheer if the two Koreas started to wipe each other out, true. But they'd still not want China to take over the carcasses.
And FWIW, the grudge between Japanese and Koreans goes back quite a bit longer than WWII.
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Nah. Syria was having problems secuting the sites from the rebels so this id likely more of a freed up troops are more valuable thing.
Syria doesn't need chemical weapons like iraq did or even N.Korea. Russia has pretty much dhown they are willing to either defend syria or supply it with anything it might be lacking in irs defense. N.K. in the otherhad has very large neighbors who only seem willing to defend them because they don't want whoever will replace them right next door.
In other words, china doesn't.
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Well, i don't disagree with your assesment but by stronger, i didn't mean as a nation on the whole. Their defense from the US or Russia or any other country will be aided by china and they ( at least in the past) can usually get concessions of some sort by shaking things up.
I agree that if the threat of the US disapeared, china might just get rid of k itself, but this shows how they are stronger with conflict. Without it, they stand a good chance of becoming china.
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Did North Korea ever cooperate on this level with UN inspection teams?
Of course it's all gone! (Score:2)
Syria: As you can see, we've gotten rid off all the chemical weapons.
UN: Great stuff, and I see you've redecorated this building too.
Syria: Yes, we decided the old place could do with a lick of paint or two.
UN: That curtain's new...
Syria: Oh erm, we had someone come do some Feng shui to allow the Chi to flow better...
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Paid for by the Iranians.
how thorough (Score:1)
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23 sites with 41 facilities. Each site has at least 1 facility, some sites have 2 or more.
On 2 of these sites a total of 2 of the facilities have not been tested.
So it's not 4, it's still just 2.
2 facilities, one each in 2 sites.
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How's that unemployment rate doing? Hey, the workforce participation rate has dropped to a 50-year low.
If only Obama's Jobs bill had passed...oh wait, it hadn't. All we got was a useless number of tax breaks whose only impact was to increase the national debt.
Yeah, that Stimulus? Most of it was tax breaks. We've still had austerity and deprivation, as we starve our way to prosperity, rather than any New Deal type policies.
Patriot Act repealed yet? Nope.
Gitmo closed yet?
My word, I wonder who opposed both of those things. And yet they're treating it as a defeat for Obama, rather than saying "Thank you, Mr. President for respecting our concerns!"
Can't wi
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So in other words, your guy has run a higher deficit in every single one of his five years than the last guy ran in any of his eight years. Yeah, that's real progress.
As you correctly say, facts. Just keepin' it real, sans the rose colored glasses.
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How many civilians has the US gassed lately?
I'll be happy to see all N/B/C weapons disposed of, just as soon as someone figures out a way to verify that it has actually been done, and to detect when new ones are created. In any case, the US advantage in the apparently acceptable variety of turn-the-other-guy-into-pink-mist weapons is such that only small third-world countries have the slightest chance of doing this. Which leaves the "icky" N/B/C stuff around, and therefore requires at least some capabilitie
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So you only believe half the lies you are being told? Well, that's a nice start. Keep going.
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to show how commited (or honest) are in the push against chemical weapons, must destroy its own chemical (and biological, and so on) weapons factories and stockpiles. And of course, private owned companies in US should do the same.
The US has a shitload of back-stock, and the operation in charge of incinerating it into safety seems to have outbreaks of competence deficiency from time to time; but if the US is party to ongoing flouting of the ICWC, they sure are quiet about it. Their nukes, of course, will be streamlined a bit for cost reasons; but you'll have to pry the remainder out of their cold, dead, hands. Chemical and biological, though, haven't been major programs in some decades.
Re:US turn already happened (Score:4, Informative)
The US did destroy about 90% of their stockpile. The remainder which we haven't destroyed are out of commission and at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado and Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky. Both of which are disposal facilities. We are doing it and have been for decades.
Syria is going to ship their stable stuff to Russia for destruction and if they have unstable / weird stuff everyone is going to have to figure out what to do.
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Your facts have no impact on the "waahh..the US sucks" faction here.
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Honest question, no rhetoric, I don't know the answer: why couldn't the US have spent 11% more effort and money and destroyed ALL the stockpiles? What is taking so long? Is the last 10% more difficult to deal with or something?
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Yes. We started with the massive quantity stuff and then had to go to the more specialized stuff. From what I understand the easy stuff we could just heat up 2100F and it was ruined. The harder stuff you have to carefully add neutralizing chemicals to which makes it into only standard toxic waste. Figuring out the right process + mixture + manufacturing the chemicals +.... is about $.5b / year job. It is more like the 80/20 rule the last 20% is more difficult than the first 80% several times over.
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Thank you. I don't suppose the fools behind the policy of generating all this stuff will ever face any sanctions for necessitating this cleanup effort.
Still, if I could pursue this just a bit more... If we spent $0.5 billion a year to get 90% of the work done, and keeping in mind the 80-20 rule, could we not have spent several billion instead and got it all done by now? I mean that is really chicken feed. And it sounds like the money has to be spent anyway; we're just spreading out the timespan so the rubes
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By letting it take longer, we avoid the additional cost of building more disposal facilities that won't have any use once the job is complete. Meanwhile, the weapons are no risk in war since, due to aging, they cannot be transported safely much less actually used in combat.
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Yes, it is a total quantity thing. I suspect if we were spending 4x as much per year we could have been done during the Clinton administration, and I imagine the total cost would have been close to the same under that expedited process. The level we choose is indicative of the priority which is we want this to be a smallish line item that doesn't squeeze other priorities but we want progress. Plus there may be a defensive purpose. Because of the cleanup teams, we have large numbers of people skilled i
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Environmental requirements and NIMBY. The Utah Tooele facility was heavily opposed by NIMBY and environmental groups and sued more than a dozen times. They only reason it made it through courts and continued operation is because the Army was able to successfully argue the risk of allowing the decaying munitions to remain undestroyed was higher than the risk of a leak during the destruction process. It should be noted that the Army estimated about 10% of the stores were actively leaking at the time of destru
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Correction, I was wrong about the pacific stockpiles, apparently the incineration facility was constructed and all pacific stockpiles eliminated before Tooele completed. They built the incinerator on Johnson Atoll rather than Guam.
See: http://leavitt.li.suu.edu/leavitt/?p=626 [suu.edu]
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Umm, U.S. chemical weapons factories have been eliminated already. Destruction of our remaining stockpiles is set to start in Fiscal Year 2015. They would be gone already, but the Environmental Protection Agency makes it damn near impossible to get the approvals.
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Wow, playing the antisemite card to deflect any attention from Israel's actions. Has this been done before? Now, if you can move past your wolf-crying shitweaselry, why should Israel get away with it's confirmed use of chemical weapons - the dumping of phosphorous on Gaza in Cast Lead - after threatening to bomb Syria for it's alleged chemical weapons use?
Just how long do right wing Israelis get to get away with what
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When has Israel ever used WMDs? Plain fact about the Middle East - if the Arabs disarm, peace would still exist, and they would still exist. If Israel disarms, they'd cease to exist. Just look @ Lebanon - most Christians are fleeing, or have fled. Same story as in Iraq, and now Syria.
Given that you have Muslim Brotherhood types now running Egypt and possibly Syria, Israel would be reckless if they didn't have nukes.
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Israel doesn't want peace. It wants land, specifically the primary territory from some kingdom they had 3,000 years ago. That's why Zionist terrorists engaged in bombings [wikipedia.org] and assassinations [wikipedia.org] and the odd massacre [wikipedia.org] before 1950. After 1950, they engaged in false flag operations [wikipedia.org] and finally enacted their own Manifest Destiny when they started the 1967 War with a sneak attack on Egypt. If Israel gave a shit about peace, it would go back
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Like they're going to do it all at once. Then the veil would finally be lifted, and not even Daddy Amurika could keep covering for Israel's ass at the U.N. That of course hasn't stopped prominent Israelis from openly talking about wanting to engage in ethnic cleansing and murder [truthdig.com] to achieve a truly jewish Israel. And while you guys like to complain about the Hamas charter, the Likud charter lays claim to all of the West Bank.
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Israel doesn't want peace. It wants land, specifically the primary territory from some kingdom they had 3,000 years ago. That's why Zionist terrorists engaged in bombings [wikipedia.org] and assassinations [wikipedia.org] and the odd massacre [wikipedia.org] before 1950. After 1950, they engaged in false flag operations [wikipedia.org] and finally enacted their own Manifest Destiny when they started the 1967 War with a sneak attack on Egypt. If Israel gave a shit about peace, it would go back to the Green Line, not announce 1500 new settlements a quarter on the land they are illegally occupying. Peace would have gotten in the way of all of that.
Now, this is the point where some Zionist will come in and cry wolf again, or try to drag this down into whattaboutery, so here's a preemptive piss off. The roots of this conflict are based on 1) tiny minority [wikipedia.org] of the population bringing in settlers on land stolen from the native population and 2) Israel's land grabbing in the 1967 War, which they started by attacking Egypt's Air Force. And there's no counter-argument that isn't self-defeating. Case in point: if Israel was justified in starting the 1967 war because of a blockade of a shipping route, then every Qassam rocket in response to the total blockade of Gaza is justified.
Bold statements... wants land? Oh... you mean the land they conquered just like every goddamn nation out there before the 20th century? Get back to me after a history lesson... or 20. War is war, and if the didn't want to give it up they shouldn't have conspired to attack on all fronts. I've no sympathy for them now that history showed them to be the losers. Their loss was well deserved.
The bombing was a criminal act. You must have missed the heading that reads "aftermath." not too surprising.
Assassinatio
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Like I said, all the counter-arguments are self-defeating.
This is canard is full of holes, starting with the issue of what century was 1948 in, again? The world wasn't operating by the same rules as in 1448, and countries were no longer allowed to keep land won in aggressive wars of conquest. Other problems with your canard:
CNN.com now on Slashdot? (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember when Slashdot used to have articles on circuit boards, programming languages, cool games and hardware?
What's next Ben and Jen's new baby (or whoever the f#ck is the latest tabloid bait)
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Did you just compare a bloody civil war to celebrity gossip.
Things that matter, fuckwit.
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I'm going with the other AC that this is fuckwittery. Even if you're a total sociopath and think that the ongoing deaths don't matter, Al Qaeda is being armed with your tax dollars. Any bombs that the United States would drop if Decider II decides he's not happy with Assad would also be paid for with your tax dollars.
wow! (Score:2)
All part of the plan (Score:1, Troll)
From the looks of the comments, none of you have any clue whats really going on. This is all simply part of the run-up to the invasion of Iran. Timeline for the destruction of all chemical weapons in Syria is mid 2014, the same time the next phase our new missile defence system goes online in Israel (David's Sling). And by then Iran will be realling from a near 100% emargo on their oil exports --a bill currently making its way through Congress. Unless something very drastic changes, it looks like we will se
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OK, we have now heard from la-la land. Any invasion of Iran is a complete and utter fantasy on the face of it. Did you not learn anything from what happened in Iraq from 2003 until the invaders stuck their fingers in their ears, sang kumbaya and made a slow motion capitulation about a decade later? Iran has well over twice the population, and much more importantly is filled with forbidding, highly defensible terrain, not just a big indefensible desert.
The combined crushingly massive coalition forces that ex
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Nope. This country didn't learn a damned thing after the Iraq war. Then as now, we have no problems fostering sectarian civil wars, only now it's in Syria. Then as now, mass market media repeats claims from "unnamed senior officials" as fact. Then as now, obviously weak justifications are used to drum up support for an
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I understand. Not to mention the whole business of the US supporting Al Qaeda in Syria while ostensibly fighting it elsewhere.
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Well, it did make for a good use of the chin-scratching T-Rex meme, which of course my Google-fu isn't finding an actual link for at the moment:
'If Obama is arming Al Qaeda rebels in Syria
could be be detained under section 1021 of the NDAA?'
Maybe they'd thought no one would notice after jumping the shark with MEK. [salon.com]
Yay! (Score:2)
Now the genocide and holodomor [reuters.com] can safely continue indefinitely! Aren't we a nice species?
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Both sides are engaging in war crimes against civilian population, though rebels are more prone to specifically targeting groups based on their background (mostly religious, but then there are also Kurds), which is closer to the actual definition of genocide; the regime, on the other hand, just targets all political opposition.
So what's your suggestion on fixing it? With both sides having blood on their hands, the only way Syria could have something resembling peace right now is if an international coalitio
Declared by Syria... (Score:2)
And how many sites do they have that they didn't declare?