Syria's neighbors braced for chemical threat!

[Christians4LessGvt]

Syria's neighbors braced for chemical threat.
Assad warns Turkey on Stingers

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 17, 2012


Syrian CBW ordnance

The US and its allies are discussing a worst-case scenario that could require up to 60,000 ground troops to go into Syria to secure chemical and biological weapons sites following the fall of the Assad government, an unnamed American source said Thursday night, Aug.16.

This scenario postulates the disintegration of his security forces, he said, leaving chemical and biological weapons sites vulnerable to pillaging. It assumes the sites could not be destroyed by aerial bombings in view of health and environmental hazards.

"There is no imminent plan to deploy ground forces," the source insisted. This is just a worst-case scenario.

debkafile's military sources find in this disclosure a bid to psychologically prepare the world for the prospect of chemical warfare, as the dialogue between Bashar Assad and his neighbors gains in violence.

The American special forces deployed on the Jordanian-Syrian border and in bases in Israel and Turkey clearly perceive a chemical-biological weapon threat. Military and medical preparations are being quietly put in place. Reconnaissance teams from potentially targeted countries have infiltrated Syria. They are on the lookout for any chemical missiles being moved into firing positions, although it is taken into account that Assad may be shifting decoys and that not all the real launchings can be stopped.

The Syrian ruler may also decide to transfer chemical explosives to Hizballah in Lebanon. Israel is on record as warning it would prevent this.

Medical preparations are also in place. The US and France are flying special military hospital facilities trained in the treatment of chemical weapon injuries to Turkey and Jordan.

Israeli hospitals are on war alert and have begun opening fortified emergency wards and making them ready for patients.
Tuesday, Aug. 14, IDF Home Front Command units embarked on a series of chemical attack drills in the towns of the northern district down to Afula, which is 52 kilometers east of Haifa and 110 kilometers north of Tel Aviv. The soldiers taking part those drills wore new anti-contamination suits.

In Tel Aviv, city hall announced underground parking spaces would be available in an emergency as bomb shelters for up to 850,000 people.

Wednesday, August 15, Bashar Assad?s violence again broke new ground:
Syrian air force bombers struck Azaz not far from the Turkish border, for the first time with the aim of razing a complete Syrian town. More than 80 people were killed and 150 wounded. He was telling the Free Syrian Army rebels who had been using Azaz as their command post and logistical hub for the Aleppo battle that the gloves were off and the same punishment would be meted out to any urban areas hosting them.

The Syrian ruler also warned Ankara through back channels that if any more Turkish FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles were supplied to the FSA, he would arm the 2,500 Turkish rebel PKK Kurdish fighters allowed to deploy on the Syrian-Turkish border with Russian SA-8 anti-air missiles for use against Turkey. Ankara shot back: That will be war.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that Assad is resolved more than ever to stand fast after the shot in the arm he received last week from Tehran.

Iran?s National Security Adviser Saeed Jalili visited Damascus Aug. 6-7 to ascertain that Syria would strike Israel and US military targets in the region with all its might if they attacked Iran.

Assad was ready to offer this pledge, but demanded in return that Tehran guarantee to exercise all its military capabilities to save him from any military or covert attempts to end his rule - whenever it was requested.

Jalili promised him that guarantee. He also held a similar conversation with HIzballah's Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.

http://www.debka.com/article/22285/Syria?s-neighbors-braced-for-chemical-threat-Assad-warns-Turkey-on-Stingers

[Plane]

Man that would be miserable duty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOPP

[Xavier_Onassis]

I do not see how Syria using poison gas could help its position, and doubt they would do it. Syria is in no position to attack Israel with all that is going on.

More Debkafiles nonsense.

[Christians4LessGvt]

I do not see how Syria using poison gas could help its position,
and doubt they would do it. More Debkafiles nonsense.

US Secretary of State thought it important enough to warn of
Syria's possible use of chemical weapons, but of course it's all
good when Hillary talks about it, but bullshit if Debka does!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/aug/11/hillary-clinton-syria-chemical-weapons-video

[Plane]

I do not see how Syria using poison gas could help its position, and doubt they would do it. Syria is in no position to attack Israel with all that is going on.

I agree with your Logic, but I have little confidence that the administration on Syria is as logical as this.

Why maintain a stock of chemical wepons?

Just because there is a stockpile one must suppose that some authority in the government had imagined a use .

[Xavier_Onassis]

Syria probably has poison gas weapons because Iraq had them. Also, they may have acquired them because they believe that Israel has them and they want to keep up. Losing the Golan Heights to Israel was a  great humiliation for Syria. The US has all manner of weapons and continues to develop more, whether there is a real threat or not.

The main problem with gas weapons is that their successful use depends on something that no government can really control: the wind. In WWI, both sides inadvertently ended up gassing its own troops. All poison gas has to be heavier than air to be effective. I am sure they know a lot more about deployment of this nasty stuff, but there is still the problem that no government can really control the weather. If Syria were to gas its own troops, or even if Syrians believed that it had done this, then many of  the relatives of the gassed soldiers would lose their allegiance to Assad. Much of his support comes from those who fear Assad's enemies: the Christians, the Druzes, all the Alawites, the Shiites and many other minorities that Assad protected from religious conflicts.

[Plane]

By use of artillery or aircraft poison can be placed right near targets that are a safe distance from friendlys.

If you are not worried about colateral damage gas becomes a very effective wepon.

[Xavier_Onassis]

If you are fighting a civil war, collateral damage is something to take seriously. Killing your own troops and sympathizers is not advisable. I will be quite surprised if Syria deploys gas, and predict that it will bring dire consequences if it does. There are surely a number of secretly delivered threats th Assad about what he can expect if he uses such weapons.

[Christians4LessGvt]

I will be quite surprised if Syria deploys gas, and predict that it will bring dire consequences if it does.

Didn't Saddam Hussein deploy gas during battles within his own country?

[sirs]

That would be a "yes", and dire consequences did eventually befall Saddam & Iraq...courtesy of the U.S. and its allies.  Let's see if Syria learned from Iraq's grave mistake

[Xavier_Onassis]

Saddam was told that something unimaginably awful would happen if he used chemical, germ or poison gas against the US and as a result, he did not do so.

The US COULD have been bluffing,=.
\
Since the chemicals used for Iraq's poison gas weapons were purchased from the US and Germany, Saddam probably thought it was okay to use them. He probably also thought that the US had used some truly toxic weapons in Vietnam. The US armed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, after all.
\
His use of poison gas against the Kurds did not become a Truly Bad Thing until after he invaded Kuwait.

[sirs]

Let's see if Syria learned from Iraq's grave mistake

[Xavier_Onassis]

We have been reading this Debkafiles drivel for years and none of their dire predictions has ever come true. Assad knows that he cannot possibly defeat Turkey and will not provoke a fight.

[sirs]

Let's see if Syria learned from Iraq's grave mistake

[Plane]

If you are fighting a civil war, collateral damage is something to take seriously. Killing your own troops and sympathizers is not advisable. I will be quite surprised if Syria deploys gas, and predict that it will bring dire consequences if it does. There are surely a number of secretly delivered threats th Assad about what he can expect if he uses such weapons.

Killing what you intend to kill is not colateral damage.
If you shell a down town you will kill a lot of townsfolk with no colateral damnage at all , because the entire town is target.
This is already happening in Syria, the government of Syria owns poison and seems to be struggling for a right to exist and for its members to live and prosper as in the past.
I can imagine two ways for the poison to be used, as a last ditch effort of a desppriate government , or as a desperation move by revolutionarys who capture some and are ignorant and angry enough to not think beyond the moment .