Charles Duelfer | The Search For Truth In Iraq | Page 11

Syrian CW – “Funtional Destruction”

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

The OPCW-UN inspectors for Syria have “completed the functional destruction of critical equipment for all of its declared chemical weapons production facilities and mixing/filling plants, rendering them inoperable.” 

This is seven weeks after President Obama, in a dramatic prime time address to the nation announced that he was seeking Congressional concurrence for a circumscribed military attack on Syria intended to “degrade and deter.”  The turn of events is striking.

(I am setting aside the potential that Syria may have concealed some CW capacity because in any case would be greatly reduced even if it is not zero.)

How is it that a country that built up a large chemical weapons capacity to offset Israel’s nuclear capability suddenly in a matter of a few weeks, gives it up?   Maybe CW just wasn’t that useful.  Bashir al-Assad is clearly fighting for the survival of his regime.  Deterring Israel is not his biggest problem.  CW has not proved to be very effective in a civil war.  It brings down the wrath of the international community and is not very effective, even to break the morale of the opposition.  There are lots of other ways of killing people with “conventional” weapons.

It is also the case that Bashir al-Assad needs international standing and only the Russians are doing much to support him—and they seem to have made the case to him that his case would be materially improved if he gave up CW.  Lavrov certainly would not have suggested the idea of UN inspectors handling the Syrian CW case if he was not convinced that Syria would deliver and not do anything “stupid.”

What exactly did OPCW destroy?  They won’t say.  Unlike the Iraq case where destruction was detailed in reports to the UN Security Council, OPCW inspectors have made public no information about the specifics of what they destroyed.

Reportedly Syria has asked to retain some facilities that can be used in civil chemical industry.  Maybe that’s a good idea, maybe not.

We do not know what specific munitions have been declared or destroyed.  Did they destroy Scud missiles or just the warheads?

Did the Syrians declare munitions of the type that were used in the August 21 attack that was investigated by the separate UN team?   (I understand they did not.)  There are many details that would provide more confidence to the Security Council than the OPCW is revealing.  I suspect that when the UN Coordinator, Sigrid Kaag becomes more familiar with her brief, she may wish to provide more fulsome data to the Security Council…whether this is standard OPCW practice or not.  Syria is a special case, as the special resolution by the Security Council mandating this process (just last September 27th) makes clear.  It is not like the average party to the CWC.

Nevertheless, the achievement of the OPCW-UN team is remarkable.  One of the last remaining states with CW has now been removed from the list.  Remaining are Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan, and Angola.  (Israel and Burma have signed but not ratified the CWC convention.)  Egypt is now more prominent for its position.  If there weren’t so many other difficulties in and around Egypt, it might be expected to follow suit.

What is likely to become more evident is that CW in the hands of non-state actors will be a problem.  In Iraq after the removal of Saddam and during the insurgency, there were attempts by various actors to use rudimentary CW.

Moreover, it is still not clear that insurgents did not use CW in Syria.  The evidence points to Damascus for the major cases of use, but that does not mean the rebels have not indulged in CW as well.

This risk of non-state actors using CW underlines the value in getting the Syrian materials off the table.  This is a positive, if unplanned or predicted outcome.  Still, there are plenty of ways of killing people, and the prospects for an early end to the killing in and around Syria doesn’t seem any closer.

Finally, there remains the task of getting rid of the chemical agents and precursors.  These are extremely important and dangerous.  It remains to be agreed if they will be removed quickly from Syria to a country that can safely render them harmless.  Norway was a prime candidate but declined.  Apparently still mulling over the task are others including Belgium and Albania (not as odd as it sounds…its not far and they have had the experience of getting rid of their own CW inventory when they acceded to the CWC).

 

 

 

 

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Syrian CW – Major Progress Continues – Who’s Left with CW?

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

While US media fixated on the budget scrum in Washington, things have been moving ahead toward the goal of eliminating Syrian CW.

 

Status. On the ground, inspectors are continuing to inventory and verify Syrian facilities, equipment and munitions.  They are supervising and recording the destruction of the easy parts, i.e. the non-toxic parts, production/filling equipment, empty munitions and delivery mechanisms.  The UN Security Council gave them a deadline of November first. They are working towards that deadline with the constrained staff they have available.  Even if they are not able to meet that goal fully because of security or other reasons, they will have accomplished a big step.  There first report to the Security Council will be very interesting to see the list of material destroyed.

 

There will also be key decisions to be made about particular pieces of equipment and munitions to be destroyed.  Some equipment could be used for civil purposes and Syria could argue to retain some.  There may also be disputes over which munitions need to be destroyed.  For example, should just the CW specific warheads be destroyed or the missiles that launch them as well?  Look for discussion of these matters in the first report of the team.

 

Secretary Ban Ki Moon named the head for this activity just a few days ago.  The new Coordinator is Sigrid Kaag, who has solid UN experience and speaks Arabic.  She is not an expert in disarmament, but should be able to navigate the UN Security Council. She could use a good technical deputy.   I would note that the individual who headed the UNSCOM destruction group that destroyed an inventory probably bigger than Syria’s from 1992-1994 was a Dutch Army Colonel Chemical Weapons expert named Cees Wolterbeek.  He had a PhD in chemistry and did an extraordinary job with a team from Russia, US, Germany, France, and UK. He was great.

 

Norway–A player?  For less than the cost of one F-35, a major boost to international security?  

Behind the scenes now are discussions to find a country or countries that will accept for destruction some of the component chemicals of Syrian nerve agent.  There may also be some amount of mustard agent.  Norway is one potential participant.  This action would be a huge way to contribute to disarmament.  (Certainly the Norwegian Nobel committee–which is chosen by the Norwegian parlement would seem to agree. The five members decided to give the OPCW this year’s peace prize.) Wild statements about cost have been made, often by drawing comparison with the bills the Pentagon has run up to destroy the US inventory–$35 billion and counting.  If the Pentagon could find a more expensive way of doing it, they would have.

At the opposite end of the scale, I would note that UNSCOM eliminated the Iraqi inventory (albeit in Iraq and under different circumstances) for under $10 million.  My guess is that eliminating the Syrian inventory would cost Norway much less than a single F-35 aircraft—about half the price probably.  And the contribution to international security will be far greater.  Norway’s new government can make a real difference that would help both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.  

 

CW going the way of Small Pox.  It is important to recognize that the chemicals that are likely to be removed from Syria are the precursors to the nerve agent.  Syria’s nerve agent inventory was kept as a “binary” agent, meaning that for storage, the two components of the agent or “precursors” were kept separate, mixed only just prior to use—like epoxy glue.  One component is a type of alcohol and likely will be destroyed in Syria…its simple.  The other component, while toxic, is not a lethal agent itself.  This and some relatively small amount of Mustard agent may be removed from Syria for destruction.  It will be take careful planning to move the material to a port.  This seems the quickest and most secure way of destroying the inventory.

 

It is worth keeping in mind that the Syrian inventory is the last big chunk of known CW inventory in the world.  US and Russia are continuing their destruction efforts but their stockpiles are long since unusable.  Removing Syria’s inventory leaves only a few countries with likely, limited stockpiles.  We are very close to getting rid of a class of weapons—it reminds me of eliminating small pox.  Sure there are lots of ways of killing people left, but a particularly indiscriminate and ugly one is close to eradication.  One small bright spot in a region notably lacking in such things.

 

The countries outside of the CWC are:  Egypt, North Korea, Southern Sudan, and Angola.  Israel and Burma have signed but not ratified the CWC and do not participate in the OPCW inspections.

 

Therefore, the bulk of what remains are the undeclared inventories of non-CWC countries, most notably Egypt (and North Korea). Speculation about Israeli CW is weak.  Israeli nuclear deterrent would seem to remove their need for CW.  And there is the Israeli historical repulsion to chemical weapons from the Nazi era.

Assessments about Egypt’s inventory are more consistent.  Like Syria, Egypt has long had the military objective of countering Israeli nuclear potential (and North Korea off-setting the US and South Korea according to whatever logic applies in their thinking).  Egypt is the one country that now sticks out in the world as a CW outlier.  Given Egyptian internal uncertainties, it is unlikely they will act on this issue any time soon.

 

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UN Security Council Resolution on Syrian CW–Good, But Who’s in Charge?

Posted on September 29, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

The UN process took a good step forward with the approval of UNSCR 2118 (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2013/sc11135.doc.htm).

It is important to remember that this will be the mechanism for eliminating the Syrian CW. The other UN activity–headed by Ake Sellstrom and presently in Syria–has the task of investigating the use of CW. These are two separate missions and sets of people–easily confused.

Timing and coordination of the new resolution was tricky since the it had to subsume/bless the action of the Executive Council of the OPCW which drafted its own mandate for implementing an accelerated Syrian CW destruction program (as desired by the UNSC). Both required negotiation between Russia, US and others. The UN Security Council resolution could not be passed until the OPCW piece was agreed and it is a formal annex to the UNSCR 2118.

Still unclear is the simple question of who will be in charge? The relationship between the Director General of OPCW and the Security Council seems still murky. The Director General is a Turkish diplomat, Ambassador Ahmet Üzümcü. The Syrian task is not the usual sort of matter that OPCW takes up. It may require the full-time attention of a very senior and seasoned individual. The prescriptions for reporting in the new resolution (Operative Paragraph 8) have the DG of OPCW reporting to the Secretary General who reports to the Security Council. This leaves open the possibility for the Secretary General to name a special representative for that function. In operational paragraph 8, the Council requests the Secretary General to submit to it, within 10 days “recommendations regarding the role of the United Nations in eliminating the Syrian Arab Republic’s chemical weapons program.” Stay tuned on this.

A couple of essential points in the resolution include:

The authorization of member states to “acquire, control, transport, transfer, and destroy chemical weapons identified by the Director General of the OPCW…” This is needed to allow CW agent and munitions to be removed from Syria for destruction. Under the CWC, this is otherwise prohibited.

The Security Council resolution states that Syria must provide unfettered access to all inspectors. Under OPCW procedures, an inspected country may refuse admission of certain inspectors (e.g. inspectors from hostile countries) if they choose. This removes that choice from Syria.

In Annex 1, which is the document approved by the Executive Council of the OPCW, there are a couple of key points related to timing. First, Syria must provide much more information on their program infrastructure–within 7 days. This will form the basis for inspectors to plan their work program.

Syria is also required to destroy CW production equipment (under the supervision of inspectors) by the end of October. During the same period, inspectors are mandated to complete their survey inspections of all sites provided in the Syrian declarations. They are mandated to start by October 1, this Tuesday.

Getting this done will require more people than OPCW has on hand. My rough estimate is a team of about 75 in-country. You need some basic support people for whatever base location they establish in Damascus–communications, motor pool, expeditors, linguists, etc. Maybe this is 15 people. To go through 40-50 sites in a month and do direct the follow-on destruction activities (and record in detail) I would guess 4 teams of 15 people each. Each team will need maybe five SUVs. The teams will have communications, an operations officer, safety officer, CW experts, etc. Some sites will be easy to inspect, but imagine going into a bunker with dozens or hundreds of munitions which have to be counted and recorded. Imagine making a detailed record of containers of bulk CW agents and precursor chemicals. It can be done, but it will take time and a pool of experienced inspectors. OPCW notes it needs more people and the authority to hire them in its Executive Council Decisions (para 2 e).

There will be many issues ahead. For example, who decides which munitions get destroyed and according to what criteria? In the case of UNSCOM and Iraq, we destroyed munitions that had been used to deliver prohibited agent and/or had a prohibited (long) range. In the Syrian case, will inspectors destroy all Syria’s Scuds if they can prove (likely) that Syria has produced CW warheads for the Scuds (in addition to the usual high explosive warhead)? Or, will they only destroy the CW warheads for the Scuds? There may be many such cases for other types of missiles and rockets.

I discussed these issues and others at a seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Center Friday 27 September which can be viewed at C-span:

http://www.c-span.org/Events/Fmr-UN-Official-Discusses-Syria-Chemical-Weapons/10737441729-1/

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The Syrian CW Declaration…So far, so good

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

Syria has taken the first critical step in the process laid out by Lavrov and Kerry last week in Geneva. Damascus made its initial declaration of its chemical weapons inventory and infrastructure to the technical secretariat of the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Initial leaks are that it is in line with expectations. Recall that one very remarkable element of the Lavrov-Kerry meeting was that they agreed on a general assessment of the Syrian inventory. How often do US and Russian intelligence assessments agree?

The fact that Syria’s submission is not surprising. Lavrov is too shrewd to push this process this far and not be pretty confident that Bashar al-Assad would make good on private commitments to Russia about delivering a decent declaration. I suspect that Russia will keep the pressure on Assad as a way of building international legitimacy not only for Assad but for Russia’s defense of Assad.

The declaration will go to 41 countries tomorrow and naturally it will leak. Here are a couple things to look for:

Has Syria declared current stocks only, or have they detailed stocks they may have had but destroyed. Syria’s program is decades old. Agent manufactured in the 1970’s would likely be beyond is “best if used by” date. Probably they did not just toss their old mustard agent in the Mediterranean (though some countries, like Egypt were rumored to have done just that). In other words Syria probably has some CW destruction capability that it will declare. It will be interesting to see if that can be configured for destruction of their current stocks and mitigate the international problem of getting rid of the stuff. (Also, accounting for the production and disposition of decades of agent production will be very challenging, but it will be far easier if Syria has good accounting.)

Also, look for the designated locations. According to reports, Syria has been moving this stuff around pretty regularly. It will be interesting to see if they declare just the fixed permanent sites or whether there were other sites…perhaps taken over by rebels…that they declare. This could contribute to the Russian contention that rebels could have obtained Syrian CW. That would require some real scrutiny by inspectors because any such claim could be real difficult to verify. It could provide a “balancing entry” for discrepancies in inventory.

When looking at the list, also think about how you could phase the destruction activities. There are parts of any CW infrastructure that are vital and relatively easy to destroy such as key precursor chemicals (alcohol) and specialized production equipment (e.g. glass-lined reactor vessels). Getting the vital parts done quickly will presumably be a priority.

Ironically, but not surprisingly, the immediate problems ahead have less to do with Syria than the UN and the Security Council. The roles and missions of the OPCW, the Security Council and individual members have yet to be ironed out. The OPCW Executive Committee was to meet last week, but the proposal for beefing up the inspection procedures for Syria was not yet agreed by Russia and the US. This week will be a jam of OPCW, the UN Security Council, and the UN General Assembly (Pity the Obama speechwriters who 14 days ago were drafting text justifying a military strike on Syria against the UN wishes. Now, they have a completely different story.)

A key disagreement is between the US and Russia over whether a UN resolution on Syrian CW disbarment would be passed under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter or not. For Russia, passage under Chapter 7 means there is an explicit threat of military action for non-compliance. They hate that in general and with regard to Syrian in particular. The US has already said they are prepared to conduct a military strike unilaterally.

However, the US seems to think they need a Chapter 7 resolution to accommodate the more vigorous goals for Syria that go beyond the normal OPCW procedures for countries signing up for the CWC. For example, the CWC prohibits transferring CW to another country, but that’s one of the most likely avenues to get rid of Syrian CW, for example shipping to Russia or another European country for destruction.

Another example is that under the CWC, an inspected country can decline to admit inspectors it does not want…such as Americans. To make the inspection process more vigorous, Washington wants a Chapter 7 resolution irrespective of the use of force issue. This is a solvable problem, but it will take scribes time to work out language.

One big step that would help is naming a senior seasoned diplomat to run the special functions of Syrian disarmament. The right person can do a lot. In the end, decisions on the ground between the inspectors and the Syrians will drive progress and confidence. Probably this will mean someone who will report to both the UN Security Council and less importantly, to the Director General of OPCW. Watch the debate and agreement between the US and Russia on a chairman and his/her reporting arrangements.

Also, watch for other countries offering to participate in this effort. Multiple countries could assist in CW destruction. Getting the CW to fixed points and then to a secure site on the coast (perhaps a Russian base?) is not insurmountable.

It is still remarkable what Bashar al-Assad has undertaken. I doubt any American analyst would have predicted that step. Consider the internal debates in Syria. Bashar is ordering his civilian and military powers to give up their strongest deterrent against Israel among others. It is a big step that will crush the interests of many in the Syrian system, possibly creating severe internal dissent. What US president would order getting rid of nuclear weapons? Under what pressure? American leaders find it impossible to cancel any major weapons development program (no matter how expensive or impractical). This is a big deal for Bashar. He may be strengthened by it internationally, but also weakened by it internally. It will be interesting to watch.

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The Syrian Framework Agreement

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

The Framework agreement and its two annexes get many things right. The burden of proof and all the heavy lifting are on Syria. The UN weapons inspectors are meant to verify Syrian declarations, direct the aggregation and ultimate disposal of the CW inventory and infrastructure. There is a timeline that is short, but possible.

Very interesting is the statement that Russian and American intelligence assessments of Syrian CW are now similar. That means once Syria declares their inventory (in days), there US and Russia will be able to judge if Damascus is being forthcoming.

Muddying the waters are two things. One is the question of who is in charge of the inspections. The Framework agreement is unclear (to put it mildly) on the roles of: a) the Organization for the Prevention fo Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which implements the Chemical Weapons Convention; b) a special Syrian specific UN group (not defined), and c) direct roles for US and Russian experts. While the timelines for Syria actions are tight, a problem may emerge if the UN cannot clearly define who is doing what on the inspector side. Who will be in charge? The Russians probably are arguing to make this as similar to a normal CWC party accession as possible. However, the US probably wants a special group. If for no other reason than it distinguishes it from the Israel position.

This points to another potential problem. Secretary Kerry went to Israel for consultations immediately after this Syrian agreement. That will have the effect of highlighting the fact that Israel has not ratified the CWC and will potentially open the opportunity for Bashir al-Assad to divert attention from himself to Israel and its WMD position. This could muddy the waters considerably. What had been a narrowly defined clear objective of addressing Syrian CW could turn into a mess of competing objectives. This could rear foot the White House again. Especially, if the Syrians start dragging their feet and the prospect of a unilateral military strike becomes imminent. Prominently bringing Israel into this issue now will make everything–especially for the White House, much harder.

Nevertheless, the prospects for achieving CW disarmament of Syrian are better than they were a week ago.

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Lavrov-Kerry Agreement on Syria-Now What?

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

Sometimes things work out. This may be one of those occasions. It appears the US has agreed with the general Lavrov proposition that an arrangement similar to what was imposed upon Saddam in the 1990’s be applied to Syria. This is a good thing. It can work and if it does not, it will be apparent quickly.

The agreement as issued today by the US State Department describes a hybrid arrangement making use of the existing secretariat and technical staff created for the Chemical Weapons Convention in the Hague, supplemented by additional measures. The role of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Executive Committee in directing the inspections is not precise. Moreover, it would seem that what is still missing is a chairman for the Syrian disarmament case.

The rough mechanism follows a well understood (at least by alumni of the Iraq disarmament experience and the OPCW technical group) process whereby the weapons inspectors verify what Syria declares. The burden of proof, security, access to sites, access to information, all the heavy lifting, is on Syria. The inspectors direct, supervise, and evaluate the process, providing reports to the UN Security Council.

The next key step is to select a leader of the UN team. This is a job that is both technical but also requires political/diplomatic skills. It has to be someone trusted by a range of participants. Usually, an ambassador or senior official from a country viewed as neutral in the circumstances is picked. In this case, the Norwegian Ambassador to the UN, Geir Pedersen could be a good choice.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry created and extensive manual on how to create and implement a weapons inspection regime–drawing upon the experiences of a broad range of former weapons inspectors and diplomats. They are a major contributor to the UN and have experience in disarmament matters. Ambassador Pedersen knows this and the UN system in New York.

Whoever is selected will have to act fast, assembling a team of experts and, critically, establishing the procedures and modalities to be implemented on the ground in Syria. They need to have clear rights of immediate access to information, sites, people, etc. They must have the full and rapid support of Syria. My guess is a team of perhaps 50 may be needed between inspectors on the ground and support staff. It looks like the OPCW technical group is geared up and can provide the bulk of expertise needed.

On the Syrian side, they need to appoint a counterpart who will be cooperative and authoritative in dealing with the inspectors. It needs to be someone who can make and implement decisions in response to the UN inspectors requests. This, too, is critical. At some level, there either will be trust or not between the head of the UN team and the Syrian counterpart. On the ground, there are inevitably problems of implementation. They have to be worked out on the ground. The Syrians and UN inspectors have to be able to do this without going back to the UN Security Council regularly. If they can’t, the agreement will not work.

So far, what is presented about the Lavrov-Kerry agreement seems feasible. In any case, there will be very early indicators if it is going to work. Be prepared for problems along the way, but accounting for Syrian CW by this process stands a good chance of being more effective in meeting President Obama’s goals for a military strike, i.e. to deter and degrade Syrian CW capacity.

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Lavrov’s Plan

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has offered a plan that could provide a way out of the Obammá Syrian dilemma. Lavrov, who was Russian ambassador to the UN during the height of the Iraqi-UN weapons inspection activities, seems to have gotten Bashar al-Assad to agree to surrender his weapons to international weapons inspectors. This very close mirrors, on the surface, what we (UNSCOM, where I was the Deputy Executive Chairman) did in Iraq. I would point out that despite the international drama about our inspections–and there were many crises over access and deceptions by Iraq–it turned out we did a much better job disarming Iraq than anyone knew at the time.

It can work in Syria. However, there are critical elements that must be agreed in advance. First, there must be clear agreement that the burden of proof is on Syria. The inspectors must received declarations of CW inventory, production capacity, stocks of bulk chemical agent, munitions, etc. from the government. Then, they must have the authority to collect data to verify these data–interviews of individuals, access to sitea and documents. On access to sites, the inspectors must be able to go to sites they select as well as any the the government declares.

Other issues are the responsibility for security and movement of materials. That should be the reponsibilty of Damascus. Further, in Iraq, we ran a site (Muthana State Establishment) where we supervised the destruction of Iraqi mustard and sarin stocks using a hyudrolysis plant and an incinerator. Our international team (headed by a Dutch Army expert) operated for two years to safely (and inexpensively) destroy Iraq’s large inventory. This could also be done in Syria. Moving the weapons out of Syria would be extremely complicated, dangerous and expensive.

Interestingly the Norwegian government funded a guidebood laying out all the procedures and policy decisions requred for quickly establishing exactly this kind of system. (The Norwegian UN Ambassador’s office in New York will have this.) It is an unbiased manual that could inform the inevitable debate in the Security Council. I commend it highly (full disclosure: I consulted with the group preparing it based on my UN experience at UNSCOM)

One key point in the upcoming debate. Will the UN create this under Chapter 7 of the UN charter as France seems to favor? The is UN jargon for linking Syrian compliancde to the use of force. Russia has said that if Syria agrees, the use of force must be taken off the table. In the case of Iraq, there were two incentives to comply, one was the threat of military action, but the second was the existence of sanctions that would not be lifted until Iraq satisfied the weapons inspectors. What are the incentives for Syria? My guess is that wheterh or not the threat of force is explicit in whatever UN language is agreed, there will be an implicit threat based on the statements by the White House concering its unilateral interest in punishing Damascus for using CW. President Obama seems willing to suspend his sentence depending on Syrian good behavior as verified by UN inspectors acting as parole officers.

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At times like this, What would Saddam do?

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

Among the various rationales expressed for a military strike on Syria is that need to make Bashir al-Assad pay a price for using CW. But what does Bashir value?

We learned from debriefing Saddam that his value structure was much different than ours. For example, he did not think he “lost” the war in Kuwait. He had taken on the last superpower and survived. In his mind, that was an accomplishment. What other Arab leader had done that? Saddam saw value in struggle itself. Being attacked by the United States gave him internal support in some ways.

Among the many uncertainties about attacking Syria is that we don’t really know for sure what will hurt him.

In December 1998, President Clinton ordered a 4-day bombing campaign against Iraq to cause Saddam to pay a price for insufficient cooperation with UN weapons inspectors. He did this despite the fact that the UN Security Council did not agree on this action–and then Russian Ambassador (now Foreign Minister) Sergei Lavrov was particularly vociferous in denouncing it. The targets, which were a bunch of buildings loosely associated with possible WMD programs, were not seen by Iraq as particularly important.

After that operation, I spoke with the Iraqi ambassador to the UN with whom I had a long relationship with (as Deputy Head of the UN inspection team UNSCOM). He said, “If we had known that was all you were going to do, we would have ended cooperation with the weapons inspectors long ago.”

It was not clear then what the objective was for the bombing other than something had to be done as a consequence of Saddam not complying with the demands of the inspectors. Following that bombing inspectors were not allowed back in Iraq. Saddam was happy with the outcome. The US felt like it did something. And the Security Council attended to other matters.

This feels like a moment when there is no consensus on the primary objectives, but a general feeling that we (the US) should do something and that something usually means blowing something up. Hopefully it won’t make things worse. But know one can really predict.

Who knows how Bashir al-Assad will react to whatever set of targets the US comes up with.

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Obama’s Speech to the UNGA: Two very different Versions

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

On September 17, will President Obama be explaining to the UN General Assembly why the US acted alone to respond to Syrian atrocities when the UN would not, or will he be chastising the UN for a lack of action, once again, to defend helpless citizens of Syria?
President Obama confronts a dilemma in dealing with the UN. He appears committed to military action in response to the apparent use of CW by Damascus. But, the UN process will not explicitly validate a military action—certainly not in the Security Council where Russia and China have vetoes.

This stasis occurs despite a trend of UN standards and precedents of justifying outside intervention when a sovereign government assails or fails to protect, its own population.
US UN Ambassador Susan Rice (now national security advisor) carefully worked this “responsibility to protect” standard in Libya. UN Resolutions 1970 and 1974, which Russia supported, embodied this standard. The failure to protect was seen as sufficient for outside military intervention. Ambassador Rice and others (including Kofi Annan) have been trying to build a legal framework so the international community can, indeed, would be obligated to act in the face of genocides and other horrors like Rwanda, Kosova, Darfur, etc.
But now the UN is viewed in Washington as a roadblock or at least a speed bump—much the way George Bush viewed it in 2002. President Bush said on September 12, 2002, “All the world now faces a test, and the United Nations a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?“

Will President Obama allow the weapons inspection process play out? This could add weeks of waiting for the results of laboratory analysis of samples taken. Moreover, the outcome is not 100% certain. It could muddy the waters with conclusions that CW was used—possibly with victims showing exposure on both sides. If is quite possible that some samples taken from Syrian soldiers could show evidence of nerve agent exposure—Russia (especially FM Lavrov.
What if the preponderance of an attack was conducted by the regime, but there were isolated cases of rebel use of even small inefficient amounts of CW?
What if the US intelligence suggests that there was a confused command structure that was unclear about who ordered the use? Or that implied that Bashir did not know of the attacks?
When President Obama addresses the UN General Assembly in a couple weeks, does he want to be justifying a unilateral attack on Syria not premised on protecting US security, but on humanitarian grounds? And then the evidence goes wobbly? (Recall Secretary Colin Powell’s performance in the UN Security Council portraying the evidence of Saddam’s WMD programs which melted away afterwards.)
Or does President Obama want to be chastising the UN for once again not acting in the face of yet another horrendous act by a government against its own people?
Given the range of uncertainties, and the potential for the US intelligence to be wobbly (and of course leaking) on such questions, on the surface, there seems ample cause for caution, at least for a couple of weeks. The UK parliament, in spite of a strong intelligence assessment from their Joint Intelligence Committee asserting multiple uses of CW by Damascus, seems to have opted for waiting this out.

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Syria CW: How Can We Make it Worse?

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Charles Duelfer

Answer: The United States could destroy Bashir’s control over his chemical weapons.

ForeignPolicy.com and others report that communications intercepts suggest some confusion over the order to use CW. If you were to make a list of things to worry about, loss of control over the Syrian CW stocks would be at or near the top. One of the good things about Bashir to date has been that he at least controls these weapons.

If the United States feels compelled to attack Sryia, one popularly discussed target set is command and control. Well, that may be the last thing you want to do if you worry about CW getting dispersed among all sorts of bad actors. Even attacking possible CW sites with untried special munitions that could incinerate (hopefully) CW stocks (but risking dispersing agent and munitions in the process) MIGHT be better. Maybe just hitting airfields/aircraft, completely unrelated to CW is a better way of causing Bashir to pay a price.

Related note: If the Administration releases transcripts of communications, be advised that these can be deceptively convincing. Written words can convey meaning not intended when they are spoken…especially when translated. Also, context is lost. For example, in Iraq we thought the Iraqi term for chemical weapons was pretty clear, but it turned out that they used the same term for white phosphorus munitions.

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