[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

Wait, so you mean to tell me that we're actually checking to see if they really are in compliance? I would have assumed once Kerry left this was a done issue.

Can't get anything by these days.

-spence

quite the opposite

follow the bouncing ball


Speaking at an impromptu news conference at the White House, Obama noted that he has not authorized military operations against Syria. But he said that any effort by President Bashar al-Assad to use chemical weapons would have significant consequences.

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus,” Obama said. “That would change my equation. . . . We’re monitoring that situation very carefully. We have put together a range of contingency plans.”

The president’s remarks represented his strongest language to date on how the United States might respond to contain Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. In July, he warned that Assad would be “held accountable by the international community” if he made the “tragic mistake” of deploying chemical munitions.


WHITEHOUSE.gov(conference call)
We go on to reaffirm that the President has set a clear red line as it relates to the United States that the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups is a red line that is not acceptable to us, nor should it be to the international community. It's precisely because we take this red line so seriously that we believe there is an obligation to fully investigate any and all evidence of chemical weapons use within Syria.

And the people in Syria and the Assad regime should know that the President means what he says when he set that red line. And keep in mind, he is the one who laid down that marker. He's the one who directed that we provide this information to the public. And he's the one who directed that we do everything we can to further investigate this information so that we can establish in credible, corroborated, factual basis what exactly took place.

OBAMA "First of all, I didn't set a red line," said Obama. "The world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world's population said the use of chemical weapons are [inaudble] and passed a treaty forbidding their use, even when countries are engaged in war. Congress set a red line when it ratified that treaty. Congress set a red line when it indicated that in a piece of legislation entitled the Syria Accountability Act that some of the horrendous things happening on the ground there need to be answered for. So, when I said in a press conference that my calculus about what's happening in Syria would be altered by the use of chemical weapons, which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong, that wasn't something I just kind of made up. I didn't pluck it out of thin air. There's a reason for it."
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AUG 25th

The Obama administration hardened its stance against Syria and stepped up plans for possible military action, dismissing as too late the regime's offer to let United Nations officials inspect areas where the U.S. believes Damascus used chemical weapons last week.
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August 28th

Damascus, Syria (CNN) -- The United States has concluded Syria carried out chemical weapons attacks against its people, President Barack Obama said Wednesday


"We do not believe that, given the delivery systems, using rockets, that the opposition could have carried out these attacks. We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out," Obama told "NewsHour."

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Sept 11th
Russian President Vladimir Putin could be about to offer missile systems and a second nuclear reactor to Iran by renewing an old deal.
The move will anger America and Israel who, in 2010, forced Russia's then-President Dimitry Medvedev to cancel the arms deal following heavy diplomatic pressure.
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The U.S. stopped threatening military action in response to the attack after the UN Security Council approved on Sept. 27 that all of Syria’s chemical weapons be eliminated.

Under the deal, Syria must provide a full catalog of its chemical arsenal within a week and allow United Nations inspectors to start working no later than November. The plan envisions the elimination of Syrian chemical weapons by mid-2014.
The U.S. and Russia struck a deal which would eliminate Syria's chemical weapon cache by 2014. Yet, both sides admit this is just the beginning. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

“There can be no games,” Kerry said. “No room for avoidance or anything less than full compliance.” or else!!
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September 20, 2013|By Shashank Bengali

WASHINGTON — The Syrian government submitted an "initial disclosure" of its chemical weapons to international inspectors, officials said Friday, the first step under an ambitious deal that aims to eliminate President Bashar Assad's illicit poison gas arsenal.

Experts at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague began translating the document from Arabic and reviewing its contents, but organization officials released few details.

It thus wasn't clear whether Syria's disclosure met the terms of last week's U.S.-Russian agreement, which called for Assad to submit by Saturday "a comprehensive listing, including names, types and quantities of its chemical weapons agents, types of munitions and location and form of storage, production and research and development facilities."

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Oct 11th

(CNN) -- The Nobel Peace Prize has turned the global spotlight back on the conflict in Syria.

The prize committee in Oslo, Norway, awarded it Friday to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international chemical weapons watchdog helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison gas.

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CNN)NOV 7th --
But while the inspection progresses, the United States is looking at new classified intelligence suggesting that Syria might not fully declare its chemical weapons stockpile, CNN has learned.

The intelligence is not definitive, but "there are various threads of information that would shake our confidence," one U.S. official said. "They have done things recently that suggest Syria is not ready to get rid of all their chemical weapons."

CNN has spoken to several U.S. officials with access to the latest intelligence on Syria, who confirmed the information.
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NOV 8th

Mr. Cairns now believes he witnessed – from a distance – the world’s worst chemical-weapons attack in a quarter-century.

While he qualifies every statement about Syria’s chemical weapons program with words like “declared” or “that were disclosed,” Mr. Cairns also says much of the credit for what had been achieved so far must go to the Syrian government. “We had very good relations with them. I think, the willingness to co-operate, the willingness to facilitate our activities, has to be recognized.”

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NOV 9th
Iran has launched the production line of high-precision surface-to-air (SAM) missiles which would be able to destroy cruise missiles, bombers, drones and helicopters at medium range.

Saturday’s announcement comes as Tehran and five world powers, including the US, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, are holding talks in Geneva on Iran’s nuclear program. The international community claims Iran is enriching uranium to create atomic weapons. However Tehran denies the claims stating that its nuclear program is being developed for civil purposes.

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NOV 11th

US Secretary of State John Kerry has said Iran backed out of a deal on its nuclear programme during talks with world powers in Geneva on Saturday.

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NOV 12
Exclusive: West scorns Assad 'shopping list' for chemical convoys


(Reuters) - Western powers will turn down a Syrian request for military transport equipment to ship out chemical weapons material, saying the armored trucks and other gear could be used to fight the revolt, diplomats told Reuters.

President Bashar al-Assad's administration presented what envoys from two Western governments called a "long shopping list" to fit out and protect road convoys from Damascus to the coast through the conflict zone. But, they said, the agency overseeing Syria's chemical disarmament would reject this on the grounds most items could aid Assad's army in the civil war.