WASHINGTON - Syria’s top leaders amassed one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to U.S. diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records.
While an expanding group of nations banded together in the 1980s to try to block the Syrian effort, prohibiting the sale of goods that would bolster the growing chemical-weapons stockpile, the archives show that Syria’s governing Assad family exploited large loopholes, lax enforcement and a far greater international emphasis on limiting the spread of nuclear arms.
Now, as President Barack Obama confronts difficulties in rallying a reluctant Congress and a skeptical world to punish the Syrian government with a military strike over what is said to be its apparent use of deadly nerve agents last month, he appears to be facing a similar challenge to the one that allowed the Assads to accumulate their stockpile. While countries around the world condemned Syria for adding to its arsenal as most nations were eliminating their own, few challenged the buildup, and some were eager to profit from it.
“It was frustrating,” Juan Zarate, a former deputy national-security adviser for combating terrorism in the George W. Bush administration, recalled Friday.
“People tried. There were always other understandably urgent priorities - Iran’s nuclear program, North Korea,” said Zarate, who has written a book about American efforts to crack down on illegal financing for terrorist groups and states, including Syria, Iran and North Korea.
“It was an issue that was always there, but never rose to the top of the world’s agenda.”
Proliferation experts said President Bashar Assad and his father before him, former President Hafez Assad, were greatly helped in their chemical-weapons ambitions by a basic underlying fact: often innocuous, legally exportable materials are also the precursors to manufacturing deadly chemical weapons.
Soon after Obama reached office, newly installed officials grew increasingly alarmed by the ease with which Assad was using a network of front companies to import the precursors needed to make VX and sarin, deadly chemical poisons that are internationally banned, according to leaked diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group.
Sarin gas has been identified by the United States as the agent loaded atop small rockets on Aug. 21 and shot into the densely populated suburbs of Damascus, killing more than 1,400 people, according to administration officials.
The growth of Syria’s ability was the subject of a sharply worded secret cable transmitted by the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name in the fall of 2009. It instructed diplomats to “emphasize that failure to halt the flow” of chemicals and equipment into Syria, Iran and North Korea could render irrelevant a group of anti-proliferation countries that organized to stop that flow. The cable was included in a trove of State Department messages leaked to WikiLeaks in 2010.
Another leaked State Department cable on the Syrians asserted that “part of their modus operandi is to hide procurement under the guise of legitimate pharmaceutical or other transactions.”
The diplomatic cables and other intelligence documents show that, over time, the two generations of Assads built up a huge stockpile by creating companies with the appearance of legitimacy, importing chemicals that had many legitimate uses.
But even with such a large stockpile of weapons on hand, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, reported to Congress earlier this year that Syria “remains dependent on foreign sources for key elements” of its program.
In a few instances, American companies became players in Syria’s efforts to add to the sophistication of its stores.
One of the best-known cases in the United States involved a Waterville, Maine, company once known as Maine Biological Laboratories. The company and several top executives were found guilty of allowing a series of shipments to Syria in 2001, including restricted biological agents.
THE CALL TO ARMS
In Europe and back home, the U.S. tried to rally support Saturday for a military strike against Syria, running into resistance from the American public and skeptics in Congress, and from European allies bent on awaiting a U.N. report about a chemical attack they acknowledge strongly points to the Assad government.
Obama plans to blanket the nation’s airwaves in coming days to make his case to a skeptical public. Aides say he will tape interviews Monday with the news anchors at CBS, NBC and ABC, the three major broadcast networks, as well as with PBS, CNN and Fox News. He also will address the nation Tuesday from the Oval Office, the night before the full Senate is expected to vote.
Obama, who has refused to say if he would order an attack if Congress votes against it, gave a preview of his argument in his weekly radio address Saturday.
“Failing to respond to this outrageous attack would increase the risk that chemical weapons could be used again, that they would fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us, and it would send a horrible signal to other nations that there would be no consequences for their use of these weapons,” he said.
Two U.S. officials who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the campaign said the Pentagon is preparing for a longer bombardment of Syria than it originally had planned, with a heavy barrage of missile strikes followed soon after by more attacks against targets that the opening salvos missed or failed to destroy.
The planning for intense attacks over a three-day period reflects the growing belief in the White House and the Pentagon that the U.S. needs more firepower to inflict even minimal damage on Assad’s forces, which have been widely dispersed in the past two weeks, the officials said.
“There will be several volleys and an assessment after each volley, but all within 72 hours and a clear indication when we are done,” said one officer familiar with the planning.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who met Saturday with more than two dozen European foreign ministers, insisted that international backing to take strong action against Assad’s regime was growing, not receding.
Kerry noted that the ministers, who held an informal meeting of the European Union in Vilnius, Lithuania, made powerful statements condemning the attack, and that increasingly there was a sense of conviction that Assad was to blame.
On Saturday, Germany joined the United States and 10 other members of the Group of 20 biggest economies in blaming the Syrian government for the chemical attack.
Germany had been the only European member of the G-20 not to co-sign a joint statement issued Friday at the end of the G-20 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The statement calls for a strong international response against the Assad regime but stops short of explicitly calling for military action.
The EU endorsed a “clear and strong response” to a chemical-weapons attack but members didn’t indicate what type of response they were backing. The EU also said that evidence strongly points to the Syrian government. Still, the EU urged the U.S. to delay possible military action until U.N. inspectors report their findings.
On Friday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told EU foreign ministers that there was no need to wait for the U.N. report because it would simply confirm what was already known - that the chemical-weapons attack had occurred - but would not say who was responsible.
Hollande indicated Saturday that the U.N. report could be ready in a matter of days, and he would then be prepared to make a decision on a French intervention.
“I said … that I wanted to wait for the inspectors’ report, which I know will be ready within a very reasonable time period, that is, not that far from the decision of the U.S. Congress,” he told French television after meeting with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in Nice, France. “So, at that moment, I’ll have all the necessary elements that will let me tell the French people the decision I have made for France.”
However, Martin Nesirky, chief U.N. spokesman, insisted that there would be no preliminary report.
The report on the attack will be given to the U.N. Security Council and other member states once the lab analysis is complete, Nesirky said.
“We are not saying when that will be, except as soon as feasible,” he told The Associated Press. “This is a scientific timeline, not a political timeline.”
The challenges Obama and other administration officials face were apparent Saturday. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said he would oppose military action, and dozens of people picketed outside the White House against Obama’s request.
Pryor said in a statement that the administration had not met his criteria for gaining his support: a compelling national-security interest, a clearly defined mission with a definitive end, and a coalition of allies.
“Unless there’s some new information or some new development or circumstance, I just don’t see me changing my vote at this point,” he told The Associated Press.
In Britain, an anti-regime monitor of the fighting in Syria says it has been compiling a list of the names of the dead from the Aug. 21 attack and that its toll has reached 502. The Obama administration reported 1,429 people died, including 426 children, citing intelligence reports. The Assad government blames opposition forces for the deaths.
In Vatican City, tens of thousands of people filled St. Peter’s Square for a four-hour Syria peace vigil late Saturday, answering Pope Francis’ call for a grass-roots cry for peace that was echoed by Christians and non-Christians alike in Syria and in vigils around the world.
The Vatican estimated about 100,000 took part in the Rome event, making it one of the largest rallies in the West against proposed U.S.-led military action against the Syrian regime.
Francis spent most of the vigil in silent prayer, but during his speech he issued a heartfelt plea for peace, denouncing those who are “captivated by the idols of dominion and power” and destroy God’s creation through war.
In Washington, anti-war protesters gathered Saturday outside the White House to voice their opposition to a strike in Syria, calling their picket line one that Congress shouldn’t cross as it prepares to vote on the issue.
At least 150 protesters picketed on the sidewalk in front of the White House and marched to Capitol Hill, chanting slogans like “They say more war; we say no war” and carrying signs that said a war on Syria would be “Built on a Lie.”
“There is a grass-roots uprising against the Democrats and the Republicans,” said Medea Benjamin, a founder of the anti-war group Code Pink. “We do not want another war,” she said, underscoring the broad public sentiment against U.S. military strikes on Syria.
The first Senate vote, expected Wednesday, was likely to be on a resolution authorizing the “limited and specified use” of U.S. armed forces against Syria for no more than 90 days and barring American ground troops from combat. A final vote in the 100-member chamber was expected at week’s end.
A House vote is likely the week of Sept. 16.
Asked about the American public’s uneasiness about getting involved in another conflict, Kerry reiterated his view that the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict was a threat to the U.S.
“This case has not yet been made to the American people for more than a few days and we will continue to make the case to the American people,” Kerry said in Paris. “This concerns every American’s security.” Information for this article was contributed by David E. Sanger, Andrew W. Lehren and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times; and by Deb Riechmann, Nicole Winÿeld, Darlene Superville, Raf Casert, Sarah DiLorenzo, Andrew DeMillo,Albert Aji and staff members of The Associated Press; and by David S. Cloud of Mc-Clatchy Newspapers.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/08/2013