US forces in the region, Israel, Turkey and Jordan were all braced Monday
night, Dec. 3 for action against Syria in case Syrian President Bashar Assad
ordered his army’s chemical warfare units to go into action against rebel and
civilian targets his own country. None of the Middle East capitals are talking
openly about this eventuality to avoiding causing panic.
However, oblique
references to the peril and preparations for action came from US officials
during Monday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “We have an increased
concern about the possibility of the regime taking the desperate act of using
its chemical weapons.” Such a move “would cross a red line for the United
States.”
Without going into specifics, Carney added: “We think it is important to
prepare for all scenarios. Contingency planning is the responsible thing to
do.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Prague was slightly more
specific: Syrian action on chemical weapons remains a “red line” for the Obama
administration, she said, and “would prompt action from the United States.”
Regarding contingencies, debkafile’s military sources report that the American force in
Jordan and Jordanian units, who have been training for two months in tactics
against Syrian chemical warfare units, are on a high state of preparedness. So,
too, are the three special US command centers set up in Turkey, Jordan and
Israel for coordinating such operations.
An American official “with knowledge of the situation” told Wired Magazine
that “engineers working for the Assad regime in Syria have begun combining the
two chemical precursors needed to weaponize sarin gas.”
Anchored opposite the Syrian shore is the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious
Ready Group with 2,500 Marines. Facing it is the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s naval
task force which too has hundreds of marines on its decks.
debkafile’s sources quote
high-ranking officers in the Israel Defense Forces’ Northern Command as saying:
“The coming hours and days are extremely critical for Syria. The situation on
our northern front could blow up any moment.” They did not elaborate.
Later Monday, as the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for
Syria, Radhouane Nouicer announced the pullout of nonessential international
staff “because of the security situation,” Secretary Clinton flew into Brussels
from Prague to discuss with NATO foreign ministers the deployment of Patriot
anti-missile batteries at 10 points on the Turkish-Syrian border - a massive
number.
NATO sources took note of the Syrian Foreign Ministry’s reply to the
spreading reports. He said that the government “would not use chemical weapons,
if it had them, against its own people under any circumstances.” This statement
carried no promise about using such weapons against external forces, whether
American, Turkish, Jordanian or Israeli.
In Istanbul, meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters at
the end of his one-day visit: “What we are concerned about is Syria’s future. We
don’t want the same mistakes to be repeated in the near future.” He went on to
say: “We shall remember how some regimes supported the militants in Libya and
how the situation ended with the killing of the American ambassador in
Libya.”
This was meant by the Russian president as a warning to the US not to
get involved in the Syrian crisis as it did in Libya.
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