U.S. Army team of 64 set for CW demolition mission at sea near Syria

U.S. Army team of 64 set for CW demolition mission at sea near Syria 

GeoStrategy direct w/e 22-Jan-14 

At least 700 tons of mustard gas and a component of sarin were expected to be neutralized aboard the U.S.-flagged Cape Ray in the eastern Mediterranean. 

The United States has been organizing a team to destroy Syria's chemical weapons arsenal in Syria. 

The U.S. military has assigned 64 specialists in CW to travel to Syria in late January to acquire and destroy tons of lethal agents surrendered by the regime of President Bashar Assad. At least 700 tons of mustard gas and a component of sarin were expected to be neutralized aboard the U.S.-flagged Cape Ray in the eastern Mediterranean. 

"It's going to be a slow start," Adam Baker, a representative of the Army's Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, said. "We're going to go very deliberately and safely." 

Officials said Cape Ray, a former merchant vessel, was expected to leave the United States for Syria around Jan. 20. They said the Army team, in the first CW destruction at sea by the United States, would employ two new field deployable hydrolysis systems to neutralize the CW agents. 

"This has not been done on this platform, not been done at sea," Baker said. "But it is taking the established operations we've done at several land sites domestically and internationally and is applying them here." 

In a briefing on Jan. 2, Baker said Cape Ray contained the capacity to neutralize up to 50 tons of CW per day. He said the mission, in which CW agents would be neutralized by bleach, water or sodium hydroxide, was expected to take up to 90 days. 

"There is a ramp-up period," Baker said. 

The administration of President Barack Obama ordered preparations for a CW destruction mission as early as December 2012. Over the last year, the army oversaw the assembly of systems to neutralize CW through hydrolysis, with the first prototype ready in June 2013. On Jan. 7, the first consignment of CW left the Syrian port of Latakia on a Danish cargo vessel. 

Safety first: Capt. Rick Jordan (second from left) stands with Chemical Engineer Adam Baker (second from right) and Environmental Engineer Rob Malone (left) on the MV Cape Ray on Thursday in Portsmouth, Virginia. | AFP-JIJI  Japan Times 

"We could have waited to see what happened and then reacted to that, or we could have moved out ahead of time and then prepared for what might happen or was likely to happen," Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall recalled. "Fortunately, we took the latter course." 

The U.S. mission could coincide with plans to convene talks in Geneva, Switzerland to end the nearly three-year civil war in Syria. On Jan. 5, Secretary of State John Kerry said Iran, the leading military supplier to Assad, could be invited to the Geneva talks, scheduled to begin on Jan. 24. 

"Now, could they contribute from the sidelines?" Kerry asked. "Are there ways for them conceivably to weigh in? It may be that that could happen, but that has to be determined by the [United Nations] secretary general. It has to be determined by Iranian intentions themselves." 

Meanwhile, the United States has signaled its readiness to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power. 

A former U.S. intelligence chief has suggested that Assad's continued rule marked the most feasible outcome of the civil war in Syria. Michael Hayden, who headed the CIA until 2009, addressed a strategic conference on options to end the nearly three-year Sunni revolt. 

"Option three is Assad wins," Hayden told the annual Jamestown Foundation conference of counter-insurgency experts. "And I must tell you at the moment, as ugly as it sounds, I'm kind of trending toward option three as the best out of three very, very ugly possible outcomes." 

In an address to the Jamestown Foundation on Dec. 12, Hayden was believed to be reflecting the view of the U.S. intelligence community. Hayden said the other two options were the continued revolt and the dismantling of Syria, the borders of which were defined by the British-French Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916. 

"I greatly fear the dissolution of the state, a de facto dissolution of Sykes-Picot," Hayden said. "And now we have a new ungoverned space, at the crossroads of the civilization." 

Congressional sources said Hayden's address reflected the view of the U.S. intelligence community. They said the CIA and other agencies, backed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has consistently opposed a U.S. strike on Assad, even in wake of a chemical weapons attack on rebel communities in Damascus in August 2013. 

Hayden said the Assad regime, despite massive aid from Iran and Russia, failed to quell the Syrian revolt. He did not rule out continued rebel control of much out of the country. 

"The dominant story going on in Syria is a Sunni fundamentalist takeover of a significant part of the Middle East geography, the explosion of the Syrian state and of the Levant as we know it," Hayden said.