Persian Gulf & Middle East Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

The U.S. Navy delivered two more 35-meter patrol boats (PB-310 and PB-311) to the Iraqi Navy at the Umm Qasr naval facility in Iraq, Feb. 17, after each craft successfully completed reactivation in Bahrain.

These are the 10th and 11th vessels in the 12-boat procurement which will assist in reconstituting Iraq's ability to enforce maritime sovereignty and security in the northern Arabian Gulf.

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Focus on Syria: Chemical weapons frightful, relatively inexpensive
By Laura Smith-Spark , CNN
March 22, 2013 -- Updated 1929 GMT (0329 HKT)
CNN.com
Were chemical weapons used in Syria?

(CNN) -- The specter of chemical weapons has been hanging over war-torn Syria for months.

Although viewed with skepticism by U.S. officials, the latest claims and counterclaims by the Syrian government and opposition forces over their alleged use in Aleppo province and a Damascus suburb have intensified concerns and prompted the United Nations to promise an investigation.

Syria's government insists it doesn't have chemical weapons, and wouldn't use them against its own people if it did, while the Syrian opposition says it neither has such munitions nor the means to make them.

Whatever the truth of the latest allegations, military analysts say they believe Syria may have one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world. Specifically, the supply could include sarin and VX gases -- both nerve agents -- and mustard gas, which are banned under international law.


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The prospect that these could potentially be deployed by an increasingly beleaguered regime has made many observers anxious -- and has been cited as a "red line" for robust action by the United States.

So why would Syria have such armaments?

Few munitions evoke as much fear as chemical weapons. And unlike nuclear weapons, they are relatively inexpensive to develop and stockpile.

This lends them a disproportionate importance for Syria and the region, analysts say.

"In the Middle East, chemical weapons have been seen as a possible counter to Israel's nuclear weapons," said Dr. Susan B. Martin, of the Department of War Studies at King's College London.

"They are seen as a possible strategic deterrent," she said, "and they are cheaper and easier to have than nuclear weapons."

Several countries in the Middle East have refused to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention until Israel signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Dina Esfandiary, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says Syria in particular embraced a chemical weapons program as a way to bolster its strategic strength despite economic weaknesses, especially after Israel imposed a series of humiliating military defeats on the Arab world.

"The best way to operate asymmetrically was for Syria to have its chemical weapons program," she said.

The Syrians started working on research and development of such munitions in the 1970s and have continued to invest in the program since, said Esfandiary.

It's difficult to quantify how large its stockpiles are, but experts believe that Syria has the largest program in the Middle East and the fourth largest in the world.

"The important thing in terms of Syria is that it requires very little investment, very little technology and is very easy to conceal," said Esfandiary.

"It's like a 'wild card' -- it's the core of Syrian security policy because it prevents Israel doing anything too rash."

How have they been used in the past?

Unfortunately for mankind, chemical weapons are not a new threat.

Close to a century has passed since their devastating deployment by both sides on the battlefields of the First World War prompted widespread revulsion. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs estimates that nearly 100,000 deaths resulted from their use then.

Efforts have been made since 1918 to stamp them out -- through the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which bans their use, and the 1997 Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bans their use, development, production and transfer -- but still some nations stockpile them.

Much of the work in developing and manufacturing chemical weapons occurred during the Cold War period.

The UNODA estimates that by the 1970s and '80s, 25 states were developing chemical weapons capabilities, and that since the end of the First World War, such munitions have caused more than 1 million casualties globally.

Unlike much of the rest of the world, the Middle East has witnessed the use of such weapons in recent decades -- by Egypt against Yemen in 1963, as well as by Iraq against Iran and its own Kurds in the 1980s, Martin said.

Perhaps the most notorious instance is their use by Saddam Hussein's regime against civilians in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja.

More than 5,000 people died in only 20 minutes and another 10,000 were severely injured in the attack, according to the U.S. State Department.

One reason for the high toll was the way the Iraqi forces deployed their arms, said Patricia Lewis, a fellow at the UK-based think tank Chatham House.

They first used conventional weapons to blow out the windows and doors of the homes where civilians were taking shelter, often in cellars. When they then fired chemical weapons, the toxic gases seeped in and often pooled in the cellars, proving even more deadly, she said.

In the years since the attack, civilians who survived have suffered much higher rates of serious diseases because of the toxic chemicals in the weapons, the UNODA said.

Iraq used unconventional weapons despite it being party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

Currently, 188 nations, representing the vast bulk of the world's population, have signed up to the Convention on Chemical Weapons, which is overseen by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Syria is not one of them.

What impact could chemical weapons have if used now?

According to Esfandiary, chemical weapons' utility is "quite limited," as they are more of a deterrent than a real battlefield or tactical weapon.

"If you shoot a missile at a a population center, you can be fairly certain that anyone it hits will die," she said. "Chemical weapons use is not as clear cut as that -- it depends on topography, weather, how you deliver the chemical weapons, and you can't always be clear it will cause maximum casualty."

Their real value is in their psychological power, she said. "It's a fantastic weapon of fear."

They can cause economic damage too if their use contaminates agricultural areas or water, making them also "a good weapon of disruption," she said.

Martin, of King's College London, points out that the threat of chemical weapons being deployed against foreign forces by Hussein did not stop international intervention in Iraq in 1991 or 2003.

The Iraqi army had experience in targeting and using such weapons in war, she added, making it a greater threat in this respect than Syrian forces today.

But Esfandiary argues that although Syrian forces are not believed to have used chemical weapons, they are "very much present in Syria's military doctrine."

She added: "The Syrian military has been very well trained in their use and deployment, so if anyone was to use them and use them successfully, it's Syria."

Modern armies are equipped to cope with such threats. Civilians, or ill-equipped rebel forces, are not.

If such weapons are fired in confined spaces, such as buildings, their effects are far more deadly than in the open air, said Lewis, of Chatham House.

An added danger is that chemical weapons have a long shelf life. Even if not usable as munitions, the chemicals can still present a threat decades on.

"One of the issues which is still being dealt with is munitions that are left over from the Second World War," said Martin.

How can you tell if chemical weapons have been used?

It's difficult to determine if chemical weapons have been deployed, unless you can recover a munition that still has traces of agent on it, said Martin.

Some conventional weapons or legal crowd control can also release smoke that causes respiratory problems, a common symptom of chemical weapons exposure.

This seems to have been the case in Homs last December, where the Syrian government was accused of using chemical weapons against civilians.

A U.S. State Department investigation subsequently concluded that the Syrian army did not use chemical munitions but apparently misused a riot-control gas in the attack, which Syrian doctors and activists said killed six people and left dozens suffering from respiratory, nerve and gastrointestinal ailments.

In order to be sure of what happened, it's key to get people on the ground quickly who can speak to any alleged attack victims, study medical records and analyze samples before they decompose, said Lewis.

The United Nations investigation team will be sent to Syria "as soon as practically possible," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, but it's a complex mission that will not happen overnight.

U.S. officials remain to be convinced that the claims of chemical weapons use either in Khan al-Asal or in the rural Damascus suburb of Ateibeh are credible.

U.S. President Barack Obama and other American officials have said they are "deeply skeptical" of Syrian government claims that the opposition used chemical weapons.

Analysts are also "leaning hard away" from the notion that Syria used chemical weapons against its own people, a U.S. military official directly familiar with the preliminary analysis told CNN.

Pictures of the supposed victims of the chemical weapons attacks do not show the signs of burns or other symptoms that one might expect to see as a result of sarin, mustard gas or VX use, Esfandiary said.

What's to stop Syria from using its reputed arsenal?

The use of chemical weapons could be the final straw that pushes the international community to intervene directly in the two-year-long conflict.

After the latest claims, Obama reiterated his warning to Syria's government that it would be held accountable for the use of chemical weapons "or their transfer to terrorists."

He first warned last August that any sign of chemical weapons being moved around in large quantities or utilized would be "a red line for us."

The Russians, who have been staunch allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have indicated that the use of chemical weapons would be a step too far.

Ban also set out the U.N. position clearly, saying his announcement of a U.N. investigation "should serve as an unequivocal reminder that the use of chemical weapons is a crime against humanity."

The relative success of the Chemical Weapons Convention has put their possession and use well outside the norm, experts say. This stigma makes it easier for the United States and others to pressure al-Assad on this point.

However, the muted international response when his forces have used a variety of conventional weapons against his people may have emboldened him, said Esfandiary.

"The best way the West can react is to continue to make their 'red lines' absolutely clear," she said. "The danger is if you get to a situation where Assad really has got nothing to lose, then he really won't care. To put it simply, he won't use them until the very, very last minute."

Lewis, the Chatham House fellow, agrees that the stakes are too high for al-Assad's forces to use chemical weapons lightly, which adds to her skepticism of the rebels' latest claims that they were used near Damascus.

Could they fall into the wrong hands?

Reports have repeatedly surfaced in recent months of Syrian forces moving some of the chemical weapons inventories, possibly because of deteriorating security in the country.

This has raised fears the stockpiles could fall into the hands of al Qaeda-linked groups working with the opposition, should al-Assad's government fall.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in December that Syria had consolidated its chemical weapons into one of two locations in the face of ongoing rebel gains.

Esfandiary says she believes it's unlikely that any unconventional munitions have fallen into rebel hands so far.

"Keep in mind that this is Assad's most prized possession. How likely is it that he's going to hand over such important stockpiles to his enemies?" she said.

One disturbing possibility, though -- raised by the opposition -- is that the Syrian government would accuse rebel forces of using them in order to justify then retaliating in kind.

What does Syria say?

Syria had always denied having chemical weapons. But last July, then-Foreign Minister Jihad Makdissi confirmed for the first time that Damascus has "unconventional" weapons, but vowed they "would never be used against civilians or against the Syrian people during this crisis at any circumstance."

"All the stocks of these weapons that the Syrian Arab Republic possesses are monitored and guarded by the Syrian army. These weapons are meant to be used only and strictly in the event of external aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic," Makdissi said. He has since fled to the United States as a refugee, according to the U.S. envoy to Syria, Robert Ford.

In a letter to the U.N. secretary-general in December, Syria said the United States falsely accused it of using chemical weapons.

"What raises concerns ... is our serious fear that some of the countries backing terrorism and terrorists might provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons and claim that it was the Syrian government that used the weapons," the state-run news agency SANA reported.

It was its formal request to the U.N. secretary-general that prompted the promise of an independent investigation into their alleged use.

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Iran's Hague embassy slams chemical weapons use in Syria
Sat Mar 23, 2013 9:17AM GMT Press TV
Iran's embassy in The Hague has strongly denounced the use of chemical weapons by the
foreign-backed militants in the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, urging an “impartial and
technical” investigation into the issue.
“The deployment of chemical weapons is a painful event and as the biggest victim of
the use of such weapons at the current era, the Islamic Republic of Iran strongly
condemns the use of chemical weapons by armed groups and reminds relevant
countries about their responsibility,” the Iranian embassy said in a statement.
It added that countries which are supporting armed groups in Syria are accountable for the
“inhumane measure” of deploying chemical weapons in the Arab state.
It called on all countries to condemn the “anti-humane crime” and fulfill their responsibility to
prevent the use of chemical weapons in the future.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly warned against the use of chemical weapons and
highlighted the significance of adopting “precautionary and preventive” measures by relevant
countries to prevent the access of the armed opposition groups in Syria to such arms, the
statement pointed out.
At least 25 people were killed and 86 others injured after militants fired missiles containing
poisonous gas into Aleppo’s Khan al-Assal village on March 19. Women and children were
among the victims.
The attack came after Syria’s opposition coalition, known as the Syrian National Coalition,
chose a Syrian-born American citizen, Ghassan Hitto, as the prime minister of what they call an
interim government.
The Syrian crisis began in mid-March 2011. Many people, including large numbers of security
personnel, have been killed in the violence, and several international human rights organizations
say the foreign-sponsored militants have committed war crimes.
The Syrian government says the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there
are reports that a very large number of the militants fighting the Syrian government are foreign
nationals.

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U.N. leader: Syrian civil war threatens cease-fire with Israel

By Colum Lynch, Published: March 21
Washington times

UNITED NATIONS — The Syrian civil war is threatening the 39-year-old cease-fire between Syria and Israel, as fighting along a separation line between the two countries is undermining the United Nations’ capacity to monitor the terms of the truce, according to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki moon.

The development poses the most serious challenge to date to the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement, which set the terms for a strained, but stable, stalemate between Israel and Syria following the Yom Kippur War. For decades, it has helped to guarantee relative calm between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights.

In recent months, Syrian armed forces, equipped with heavy weapons, have crossed into the U.N.-monitored demilitarized zone in pursuit of Syrian rebel groups that have used the area as a haven, Ban wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. He called the breach a “grave violation” of the cease-fire.

In the course of the fighting, the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force, which has more than 1,000 peacekeepers under its command, has seen them shot at, abducted, harassed during patrols and robbed. “Both Syrian armed forces and armed members of the opposition have interfered with the conduct” of U.N. patrols, Ban wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post.

The turmoil has forced some U.N. monitors to halt patrols and shutter observations posts. Some nations, including Croatia and Japan, have decided to pull their troops out of the Golan Heights, leaving those remaining without the means to complete their mission.

“The situation is deteriorating,” Ban warned in the letter, which is expected to be discussed by the U.N. Security Council next week. “The continued military activities in the area of separation have the potential to escalate tensions between Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic, and jeopardize the cease-fire between the two countries and the stability of the region.”

U.N. leaders have said they are committed to maintaining the mission, but with a far more limited role, after a series of dangerous episodes.

Earlier this month, armed rebels in Syria abducted 21 Filipino monitors, saying they would be released only if the Syrian army withdrew its forces from a contested town it had been shelling. Following intensive negotiations, the insurgents released the monitors unharmed, although the four vehicles they were traveling in were never recovered.

In other incidents, armed factions have stolen U.N. rifles, ammunition and vehicles. Near the town of Khan Aishe, opposition fighters briefly abducted four peacekeepers at gunpoint.

In an effort to address the worsening situation, the United Nations opened an assessment of security for the monitors. But the more immediate challenge is stemming the withdrawal of several countries, including Austria, Croatia, India, Japan and the Philippines, that form the backbone of the mission.

Japan already withdrew its contingent of 46 monitors and support staff. In February, Croatia ordered its monitors to stop participating in patrols and plans to have them all withdrawn from the country. The remaining contingents, including Austria, are also said to have misgivings.

The lightly armed U.N. observation mission lacks the means to intervene in the Syrian civil war or to forcibly prevent either Syria or Israel from breaching the line of separation.

But the presence of an impartial force in a demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria has over the years made it easier for the two regional powerhouses to keep their distance, avoiding a miscalculation that could lead to fighting.

U.N. diplomats and peacekeeping officials fear that as the fighting draws the Syrian army closer to the Israelis, the prospects for clashes will increase.

Ban reported that though the cease-fire between Israel and Syria “generally was maintained,” Syrian armed forces continued to “carry out military activities and security operations” against Syrian insurgents in the demilitarized zone. His letter also cited “ a number of violations” by the Israel Defense Force, including a Jan. 18 incident in which three Israeli jets briefly flew across the cease-fire line and another incident two days later when eight Israeli soldiers briefly entered the demilitarized zone on foot.

Ban said the United Nations was not able to confirm reports that Israeli planes had conducted an airstrike inside Syria. U.S. officials have said the jets targeted a shipment of weapons and caused minor collateral damage to a nearby research center that deals with chemical weapons.

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The US's other dark legacy in Iraq
By Joy Gordon

When the United States, the United Kingdom, and the "coalition of the willing" attacked Iraq in March 2003, millions protested around the world. But the war of "shock and awe" was just the beginning. The subsequent occupation of Iraq by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) bankrupted the country and left its infrastructure in shambles.

It's not just a question of security. Although the breathtaking violence that attended Iraq's descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the 10-year-old war, what's often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.

It's not that Iraq was flourishing before the occupation. From 1990 to 2003, the UN Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq that were the harshest in the history of global governance. But along with the sanctions, at least, came an elaborate system of oversight and accountability that drew in the Security Council, nine UN agencies, and General Secretary himself.

The system was certainly imperfect, and the effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi people were devastating. But when the United States arrived, all semblance of international oversight vanished.

Under enormous pressure from Washington, in May 2003 the Security Council formally recognized the occupation of Iraq by the CPA in Resolution 1483. Among other things, this resolution gave the CPA complete control over all of Iraq's assets.

At the same time, the Council removed all the forms of monitoring and accountability that had been in place: there would be no reports on the humanitarian situation by UN agencies, and there would be no committee of the Security Council charged with monitoring the occupation. There would be a limited audit of funds, after they were spent, but no one from the UN would directly oversee oil sales. And no humanitarian agencies would ensure that Iraqi funds were being spent in ways that benefited the country.

Humanitarian concerns
In January 2003, the UN prepared a working plan anticipating the impact of a possible war. Even with only "medium impact" from the invasion, the UN expected that humanitarian conditions would be severely compromised.

Because the Iraqi population was so heavily reliant on the government's food distribution system (a consequence of international sanctions), the UN anticipated that overthrowing the Iraqi regime would also undermine food security. And because the population already suffered from extensive malnutrition, this disruption would be quite lethal, putting 30 percent of Iraqi children under five at risk of death. The UN noted that if water and sewage treatment plants were damaged in the war, or if the electrical system could not operate, Iraqis would lose access to potable water, which would likely precipitate epidemics of water-borne diseases. And if electricity, transportation, and medical equipment were compromised, then the medical system would be unable to respond effectively to these epidemics.

During the occupation, much of this came to pass. A June 2003 UN report noted that the postwar water and sewage systems for Baghdad and other central and southern governorates were "in crisis''. In Baghdad alone, the report estimated that 40% of the city's water distribution network was damaged, leading to a loss of up to half of the city's potable water through leaks and breaks in the system. And direr still, the UN reported that neither of Baghdad's two sewage treatment plants was functional, leading to a massive discharge of raw sewage into the Tigris River.

The food situation was similar. The UN found that farming had collapsed due to "widespread insecurity and looting, the complete collapse of ministries and state agencies-the sole providers of essential farming inputs and services-together with significant damages to power supplies".

Likewise, the health system deteriorated dramatically. Less than 50% of the Iraqi population had access to medical care, due in part to the dangers associated with travel. Additionally, the report estimated that 75% of all health-care institutions were affected by the looting and chaos that occurred in the aftermath of the war. As of June 2003, the health system as a whole was functioning at 30-50% of its pre-war capacity. The impact was immediate. By early summer, acute malnutrition rates had doubled, dysentery was widespread, and little medical care was available. In August, when a power outage blacked out New York, the joke going around Baghdad was "I hope they're not waiting for the Americans to fix it."

The CPA gave responsibility for humanitarian relief to the US military-not to agencies with experience in humanitarian crises-and marginalized the UN's humanitarian relief agencies. Over the 14-month course of the CPA's administration, the humanitarian crisis worsened. Preventable diseases like dysentery and typhoid ran rampant. Malnutrition worsened, claiming the lives of ever more infants, mothers, and young children. All told, there was an estimated 100,000 "excess deaths" during the invasion and occupation-well above and beyond the mortality rate under Saddam Hussein, even under international sanctions.

The CPA's priorities were clear. After the invasion, during the widespread looting and robbery, occupation authorities did little to protect water and sewage treatment plants, or even pediatric hospitals. By contrast, they provided immediate protection for the oil ministry offices, hired a US company to put out oil field fires, and immediately provided protection for the oil fields as well.

Corruption
In addition, the US-led CPA was deeply corrupt. Much of Iraq's revenues, from oil sales or other sources, went to contracts with US companies. Of contracts for more than US$5 million, 74% went to US companies, with most of the remainder going to US allies. Only 2% went to Iraqi companies.

Over the course of the occupation, huge amounts of money simply disappeared. Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, received over 60% of all contracts paid for with Iraqi funds, although it was repeatedly criticized by auditors for issues of honesty and competence. In the last six weeks of the occupation, the United States shipped $5 billion of Iraqi funds, in cash, into the country, to be spent before the Iraqi-led government took over. Auditor reports indicated that Iraqi funds were systematically looted by the CPA officials: "One contractor received a $2 million payment in a duffel bag stuffed with shrink-wrapped bundles of currency," read one report. "One official was given $6.75 million in cash, and was ordered to spend it one week before the interim Iraqi government took control of Iraqi funds."

US officials were apparently unconcerned about the gross abuses of the funds with which they were entrusted. In one instance, the CPA transferred some $8.8 billion of Iraqi money without any documentation as to how the funds were spent. When questioned about how the money was spent, Admiral David Oliver, the principal deputy for financial matters in the CPA, replied that he had "no idea" and didn't think it was particularly important. "Billions of dollars of their money?" he asked his interlocutor. "What difference does it make?"

In the end, none of this should be terribly surprising - the corruption, the indifference to human needs, the singular concern with controlling Iraq's oil wealth. It was obvious from the moment that the Security Council, under enormous pressure from the United State, passed Resolution 1483.

By systematically removing nearly every form of oversight from their self-imposed administration of Iraq, the United States and its allies laid the foundation for the looting of an entire nation's wealth, abetted by their own wanton indifference to the needs and rights of Iraqis. Ten years after the start of the war, the CPA's disastrous governance of Iraq stands alongside the country's horrifying descent into violence as a dark legacy in its own right.

Joy Gordon is the author of Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions (Harvard University Press, 2010).

(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)

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navyreco said:

U.S. Navy Delivers two more 35-meter Swiftships Coastal Patrol Boats to Iraq

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Dolcevita said:

Probably would have cost a lot less if purchased from China. Who uses this patrol boat other than Iraq?

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David Cameron: 'to axe Trident would put us in danger'
David Cameron warns today that it would be “foolish” for Britain even to consider abandoning Trident because the country faces an increased threat of nuclear attack from regimes such as North Korea.

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delft said:

from:

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This sound like a full justification for Iran to own nuclear weapons in view of the nuclear armaments of Israel and the US.

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Franklin said:

For the UK nuclear weapons isn't about protecting Britain from countries like Russia, China, Pakistan, North Korea or Iran. The UK's standing as a world power stands on two legs, the UK is a permanent member of the UN security council with veto power and that the UK is one of the recognised nuclear weapons states. For this reason the nuclear arsenal of the UK is essential or the UK may loose even more of the little standing in the world that she has today.

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