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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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28Apr13
Syria: we must not rush to judge on chemical arms
War is a terrible thing. Weapons systems are designed to kill and maim in horrible ways with different levels of discrimination.
The laws of war, while setting limits for behaviour, not least prohibiting the intentional targeting of civilians and proportionality, barely mitigate the awfulness of conflict.
Some weapons, however, have come to be regarded as more terrible than others. The use of nuclear and chemical weapons is seen as far beyond the pale. Despite the fact that an estimated 70,000 people have lost their lives in the Syrian war so far, the overwhelming majority to conventional weapons, the alleged limited use of chemical agents, including the nerve agent sarin, has come to be seen as a defining moment for the international community.
Few would argue that the widespread use of chemical and biological agents against civilians in Syria by the regime, or, indeed, by the opposition forces, would not change attitudes towards intervention in the conflict. The crucial question is: have we reached that point?
The reality is that the considerations are complex. The bar for proof should be set very high. What is known at this juncture is that samples that appear to have tested positive for sarin have been provided to at least three western intelligence agencies. Although it was at first suggested that these samples were gathered by national intelligence agencies, French officials have said that they have "no national evidence", while sources in the US have told media outlets that blood samples seen there were provided by opposition sources. The UK has not made clear the source of its samples.
That sourcing, as Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has made clear, is problematic. It is evidence that it would not be regarded as sufficient for the UN's own investigating team. The White House too, in its letter to senators confirming suspicions of chemical weapons "exposure", has made clear that it has similar doubts, suggesting both differences of opinion in US intelligence over what has been found thus far and a split at policy level between "intelligence assessments" and "corroborated facts".
While the tests for sarin on physiological samples are more straightforward, environmental samples can be a more complicated issue, with known examples of false positives from contamination by agricultural chemicals.
Evidence of exposure is one thing, but proving that it was regime forces that fired chemical weapons requires a far more complex casework, requiring not simply identifying traces of toxins, but establishing by whom, when and where the weapons were deployed. That would involve ruling out both the possibility that the agents were released accidentally - for example in a fire - or inadvertently by forces unaware a shell was chemical. There are precedents for both.
Another crucial issue is intention. While much reporting of the intelligence claims has focused on the samples as proof that the "Assad regime" used chemical weapons as opposed to regime forces - a crucial distinction - that is far from clear. Even if it can be established that a certain unit fired a chemical munition on a certain day at a specified target, the very limited use of chemical weapons means that does not amount to proof of a policy of use.
Indeed, as several high-profile cases involving senior officials involved in the wars in the Balkans have demonstrated, proving chain-of-command responsibility can be extremely difficult. In this case, it would be necessary to establish with a high level of probability that Assad or members of his inner circle ordered chemical weapons use or had permitted individual commanders to make that decision. And unlike Saddam's use of chemical weapons to kill 5,000 Kurds at Halabja, in Syria, there is as yet no clear pattern of use from which it might be surmised that targeting with chemical weapons has become regime policy.
Indeed, even if it were established that chemical weapons have been used on a very limited scale by regime forces - the most likely explanation for the samples - it remains unclear to many what benefit such a discrete use of a weapon of last resort might confer on the regime.
That is not to say there does not exist a possible explanation for such a limited use, argued most clearly by Jon Lee Anderson in a column for the New Yorker last week. In it, he points to Assad's history during the Syrian war of "gradualist escalation" - seeing what he can get away with at each stage through the initially limited use of paramilitaries, helicopters and jets to target the opposition, expanding the use of each when he has realised he can get away with it. The limited use of sarin - to test the reaction of the international community - would fit this logic.
The problem of determining how the exposure took place is overshadowed by an issue that has never gone away during the course of the conflict in Syria: what options are open to the international community if it determined that a threshold has been reached?
The failure of the interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the first launched on concocted intelligence, has left an understandable reluctance, not least in Washington, to be dragged into foreign adventures lacking clear outcomes.
All options are fraught with difficulties, not least arming an opposition in which al-Qaida-allied jihadists are prominently represented. While it would be possible to enforce a no-fly zone - as happened in Libya - the experience in that conflict, which has left behind a deeply fragile state lacking central authority, has raised fears over what a post-Assad Syria might look like if the regime were suddenly to collapse.
If there is one glimmer of hope on the horizon, it is in the evidence that on the issue of chemical weapons at least, the US and Russia are in agreement, with Moscow having warned Damascus in private in terms similar to President Barack Obama's public warnings.
Although in the past Russia has hardly been an honest broker in the conflict, in this case its concerns seem genuine, opening an avenue of pressure on the regime to allow UN inspectors to visit sites of suspected use.
What is most important now is the integrity and transparency of any investigation that requires governments that claim they have evidence of use to explain precisely what they know as a fact and the limits of their knowledge.
At this critical juncture, anything less than a frank and honest assessment would be as shameful as trying to sweep the claims under the carpet.
[Source: The Observer, Editorial, London, 28Apr13]
 | This document has been published on 29Apr13 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |