Disarming Syria of chemical weapons exceedingly difficult, lengthy, uncertain process: experts

Second, foreign troops – a large number of them – would have to be allowed into Syria to guard the hundreds, if not thousands, of inspectors who would do the chemical auditing, and then take control of and guard the chemical stocks themselves.

“We’re talking boots on the ground,” said one former UN weapons inspector from Iraq, who spoke with the Times on the condition of anonymity. “We’re not talking about just putting someone at the gate. You have to have layers of security.”

Third, the destruction and deactivation of the chemical weapons could take years, with thousands of foreigners – inspectors, scientists, and the soldier who guard them and the stocks – being in Syria the whole time.

The Times notes that not only experts, but the Obama administration itself is skeptical about whether the Russian proposal can be effectively implemented. A senior administration official called securing chemical arms in a war zone “just the first nightmare of making this work.”

Last year, a Pentagon study concluded that verifiably disarming Syria of it chemical weapons would require more than 75,000 U.S. troops. Some questioned this estimate, and it should also be noted that the Pentagon was talking about doing so without Syria’s cooperation – in fact, n the face of possible Syrian opposition – but one official said that it gave “a sense of the magnitude of the task.”

Another problem is the fact that the disarmament effort, if it gets underway, will be conducted during a shooting war.

“I suspect some casualties would be unavoidable,” said Stephen Johnson, a former British Army chemical warfare expert who served two tours of duty in the Iraqi desert, told the Times. “The question you have to ask is whether the benefits would be worth that kind of pain.”

“Whichever country would be sent in there to try to get the accountability and do the security, and maybe eventually get to the destruction — they will be a target for someone, for one group or another,” the former UN weapons inspector said. “Because no matter who you are, you get mortared somewhere by one of the parties.”

The Times reports that the UN inspection unit — the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based in The Hague — has already verified the destruction in seven countries of millions of weapons holding thousands of tons of deadly agents. The OPCW would likely be tasked to perform the same role in Syria.

OPCW inspectors have paid visits to Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, France, India, Iran, Iraq, Japan, Libya, Russia, Serbia, Britain, and the United States to monitor the destruction and deactivation of chemical weapons plants and weapons stocks. The organization says that more than 80 percent of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles have been eliminated to date.

OPCW has disabled a total of seventy plants and facilities declared under the 1993 chemical weapons treaty, subject to what the organization calls “a verification regime of unprecedented stringency.”

Military experts fear, though, that Syria would be a more difficult case: the other countries volunteered to have their chemical weapons facilities inspected and disabled, while Syria is being forced to do so.

Raymond Zilinskas, a senior scientist at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a former UN weapons inspector, told the Times that under these circumstances, the inspectors might have to be chemical detectives in search of hidden arms.

“I worry about that,” he said. “How do you verify that all Syrian weapons are known and under control?”

Johnson, now a forensic expert at Cranfield University in Britain, told the newspaper: “After more than 20 years in Iraq, the job still isn’t finished. Syria could be worse.”