Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has offered to remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile.

The administration of President Barack Obama has drafted plans to remove the CW stockpile of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Officials said the Defense Department has offered a technical solution to transfer the CW from war-torn Syria by 2014.

“Last winter, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter directed Undersecretary Frank Kendall to chair a senior integration group to look at technologies that could be applied to the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile because we knew at some point the international community would need capabilities to destroy the stockpile,” a senior official said.

In a briefing in early December, the Pentagon official said the plan has been submitted to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, assigned to remove Assad’s CW stockpile, declared at 1,300 tons. He said the Pentagon has
overseen the deployment of a Field-Deployable Hydrolysis System, which uses
heat, water and bleach-like chemicals to turn CW components, including
mustard gas, sarin and VX, into low-level hazardous waste.

The U.S. plan was meant to overcome the refusal by the international community to accept Syria’s CW stockpile. So far, only Denmark, Norway and the United States offered ships to transfer the 150 containers of CW from Syria.

OPCW has determined that most of Syria’s CW stockpile was in the form of
bulk liquid rather than artillery shells or munitions. The official said the
Pentagon, based on programs that helped destroy CW in Albania, Libya and
Russia, analyzed methods that included incineration and decided on a
technology used over the last decade.

“We’ve used this proven technology, but then designed it in a way that
it would be transportable,” the official said. “The heart of the
field-deployable hydrolysis system fits within two standard shipping
containers.”

The official said the neutralization of Assad’s CW stockpile could take
place aboard a U.S. ship. He said the Pentagon has acquired three
field-deployable hydrolysis system units, two of them already fitted on a
vessel. The U.S. platform was not meant to dock in Syria.

Training of up to 100 personnel has also begun to destroy the stockpile
in as few as 45 days. The United Nations Security Council has set a deadline
of June 30, 2014 for the elimination of the CW.

“Nothing will be dumped at sea,” the official said. “The inert byproduct
[of the neutralization process] will be treated to reduce its acidity and
then stored in international-standards-organization approved containers and
kept on the ship until their eventual disposition at a commercial
waste-treatment facility.”

  Ash Carter, Bashar Assad, Field-Deployable Hydrolysis System, Frank Kendall, mustard gas, OPCW, sarin, U.S. ‘proven’ tech could convert Syria’s chemical weapons into ‘transportable’ hazardous waste, VX