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Tag: chemical weapons
United States Completes Task Of Destroying Syria’s Chemical Agents

United States Completes Task Of Destroying Syria’s Chemical Agents

By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Monday that it has finished destroying the lethal chemical agents that were removed from Syria after President Bashar Assad’s forces were accused of using poison gas against civilians a year ago this week.

In a statement, President Barack Obama hailed the joint civilian and military effort, which destroyed more than 600 tons of sarin and mustard agents, as “an important achievement in our ongoing effort to counter the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”

“Going forward, we will watch closely to see that Syria fulfills its commitment to destroy its remaining declared chemical weapons production facilities,” Obama said.

After nerve gas killed more than 1,000 people in rebel-held suburbs of east Damascus last Aug. 21, according to U.S. estimates, Assad agreed to surrender his poison gas arsenal and production equipment to international chemical weapons inspectors and thus avoid a threatened retaliatory attack by the U.S. military.

The deal was brokered by Russia, an ally of Assad, to help prevent U.S. airstrikes. But no country agreed to eliminate the dangerous materials on U.S. land. Ultimately, authorities decided to destroy them in international waters.

As Syria’s civil war continued to rage, the warheads were collected at several sites, trucked to a Syrian port and hauled aboard the Cape Ray, a 647-foot U.S. cargo ship. It was outfitted with two specially developed hydrolysis machines that use water or bleach to neutralize the chemicals that produce nerve gases.

Once at sea, the machines eliminate 99.9 percent of the chemical agents, creating a liquid byproduct that is considered hazardous waste but has a low level of toxicity, according to U.S. officials.

“In record time, even amid a civil war, we removed and have now destroyed the most dangerous chemicals in the regime’s declared stockpiles,” Secretary of State John F. Kerry said in a statement.

The Pentagon said the material destroyed consisted of about 600 tons of methylphosphonyl difluoride, usually called DF, the main precursor of sarin and other nerve agents, and 20 tons of mustard, a blister agent.

The administration said it completed the work several weeks ahead of a schedule established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based group that worked with the United Nations to carry out the disarmament.

The operation is one of the few positive developments since the Syrian conflict erupted more than three years ago. The war has left more than 100,000 people dead — some estimates are far higher — and forced millions from their homes.

Kerry indicated that the administration has questions about discrepancies and omissions related to Syria’s declaration of its chemical weapons stockpiles and production facilities, as well as reports of systematic use of chlorine gas in opposition-held areas.

“Each and every one of these issues must be fully resolved,” Kerry said.

AFP Photo

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Supreme Court: Wife’s Toxin Use On Spouse’s Lover No ‘Chemical Weapons’ Plot

Supreme Court: Wife’s Toxin Use On Spouse’s Lover No ‘Chemical Weapons’ Plot

By David G. Savage, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Putting a toxic chemical on a neighbor’s mailbox is not the same as deploying a “chemical weapon,” the Supreme Court said Monday, throwing out a federal prosecution over what Chief Justice John Roberts called a “two-bit local assault.”

The justices decided to end the “curious case” of a jealous Pennsylvania woman who secretly inflicted a “minor chemical burn” on her husband’s lover and instead found herself convicted of violating the Chemical Weapons Treaty.

It was the second time the high court ruled for Carol Bond.

The case began in 2006 when Bond learned that one of her best friends was pregnant and that her husband was the child’s father.

A microbiologist, Bond obtained two toxic chemicals and spread them on the other woman’s car door, mailbox and door knob. The victim suffered a “minor chemical burn on her thumb” and called police after Bond was caught on surveillance cameras.

But in a surprising twist, prosecutors decided “literally to make a federal case out of it,” Roberts said. They charged her with two counts of using a chemical weapon. This was a federal crime under the terms of the 1998 law that implements the international treaty.

Bond was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. She appealed on the grounds that using the federal law to prosecute a state crime violated the 10th Amendment, the provision that says some matters are “reserved to the states.”

She lost when a judge and the 3th Circuit Court in Philadelphia ruled that because she was an individual, not a state, she had no right to make such a claim. The Supreme Court disagreed in 2011.

But she lost again in the lower courts, which upheld her conviction.

In Monday’s opinion in Bond v. United States, the chief justice faulted the prosecutors and judges for ignoring common sense and misreading the federal law.

“An educated user of English would not describe Bond’s crime as involving a ‘chemical weapon,”’ Roberts said. Moreover, such a broad interpretation of the law would turn ordinary kitchen cleaning products into chemical weapons.

“Bond’s crime could hardly be more unlike the uses of mustard gas on the Western Front or nerve agents in the Iran-Iraq war that form the core concerns of that treaty,” he said. “The global need to prevent chemical warfare does not require the federal government to reach into the kitchen cupboard or treat a local assault with a chemical irritant as the deployment of a chemical weapons.”

All nine justices agreed on the outcome, but three would have gone further.

Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. would have ruled that it was unconstitutional to enforce a federal treaty in a way that tramples on a state’s authority.

AFP Photo/Karen Bleier

Removal Of Syrian Chemical Weapons Almost 90 Percent Complete, Monitor Says

Removal Of Syrian Chemical Weapons Almost 90 Percent Complete, Monitor Says

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times

BEIRUT — The Syrian government has shipped out almost 90 percent of its chemical weapons material, raising hopes that the war-ravaged nation can meet a Sunday deadline to comply with a disarmament accord, an international regulator said Tuesday.

The latest shipment on Tuesday to the Mediterranean port of Latakia means that 86.5 percent of the weapons material has been removed, according to a statement from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which is overseeing destruction of Syria’s toxic chemical stockpile.

That amount includes 88.7 percent of the 700 metric tons of the most toxic, “priority 1” chemicals, among them mustard gas and precursor materials for the nerve agents sarin and VX.

“This latest consignment is encouraging,” Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the OPCW, said in a statement. “We hope that the remaining two or three consignments are delivered quickly.”

Upon arrival in Latakia, the chemicals are placed on cargo ships for removal, said Michael Luhan, an OPCW spokesman.

In a deal approved by the United Nations, Syrian President Bashar Assad agreed last year to surrender his nation’s decades-old chemical weapons arsenal to avert U.S. airstrikes, which had been threatened in response to poison gas attacks outside Damascus.

Washington and its allies blamed Assad’s forces for the Aug. 21, 2013, chemical strikes. Assad and Russia alleged that U.S.-backed rebels mounted the lethal assault in a covert bid to frame Damascus and spur U.S. strikes.

A U.N. investigation confirmed mass casualties from sarin gas but did not assign blame.

After Syria missed two earlier deadlines to turn over its toxic stockpiles, Washington accused Damascus of stalling.

Syria blamed the delay in part on rebel attacks targeting chemical convoys. Rebel rocket strikes on Latakia were meant to disrupt the process, the Syrian government charged.

Under a revised plan, Syria has promised to remove all of its chemical weapons material by April 27. In the last two weeks, Syria has shipped out six batches, “marking a significant acceleration in the pace of deliveries,” the OPCW said. Russia provided armored vehicles and other equipment to assist the chemical convoys, which sometimes traversed roads near contested zones where rebels were present.

The U.N. set June 30 as a deadline for destruction of the chemicals. But getting the toxic materials out of Syria amid a raging civil war has been a considerable obstacle.

“We continue to say that if the Syrians meet their deadline of April 27, that keeps us within striking distance of completing the destruction of the chemicals by mid-year,” Luhan, spokesman for the Hague-based OPCW, said in a telephone interview.

Various nations are participating in the complex effort to ship the chemical materials from Latakia for disposal outside of Syria. The most hazardous agents are to be neutralized at sea aboard a specially equipped U.S. ship, the MV Cape Ray.

Photo via AFP

Obama: Russia Must Make Syria Comply With Chemical Arms Deal

Obama: Russia Must Make Syria Comply With Chemical Arms Deal

Washington (AFP) – U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Russia had a “responsibility” to ensure that Syria complies with a deal to hand over its chemical weapons.

Washington has said only limited shipments of chemicals have left the Syrian port of Latakia so far — far less than the 700 tonnes the country was supposed to dispose of by the end of 2013, under a U.S.-Russia brokered agreement.

“Syria must meet its commitments and Russia has a responsibility to ensure that Syria complies,” Obama said in a press conference with French President Francois Hollande.

Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said last week that despite rising U.S. reservations, things were “moving along” with the chemical weapons deal.

The UN Security Council last year backed the U.S.-Russian deal to destroy Syria’s vast chemical arsenal as a way to avert US strikes threatened after chemical attacks near Damascus that Washington blamed on the regime.

Under the agreement, Syria’s entire chemical arsenal is due to be eliminated by June 30.

Western powers accuse President Bashar al-Assad’s regime of purposefully delaying the operations, while Syria stresses the challenges it faces in meeting its commitments during a time of war.

AFP Photo/Mandel Ngan