Inside the U.N. chemical weapons report
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Syria findings "beyond doubt and beyond the pale," Ban says
NEW: U.S. to provide chemical protective gear to opposition, inspectors
NEW: Sarin report demands "a unified and decisive response," Syrian opposition says
NEW: Syria says helicopter was shot down after straying into Turkish airspace
(CNN) -- U.N. weapons inspectors returned
"overwhelming and indisputable" evidence of the use of nerve gas in
Syria, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday, calling the findings
"beyond doubt and beyond the pale."
The inspectors' 38-page
report was released after Ban briefed Security Council members on its
contents. The team found what it called "clear and convincing evidence"
that the nerve agent sarin was delivered by surface-to-surface rockets
"on a relatively large scale" in the suburbs of the Syrian capital
Damascus on August 21.
"It is the most
significant confirmed use of chemical weapons against civilians since
Saddam Hussein used them in Halabja in 1988, and the worst use of
weapons of mass destruction in the 21st century," Ban said. "The
international community has a responsibility to ensure that chemical
weapons never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare," he said.
Ban called the attack "a
war crime" and a violation of treaties banning the use of chemical
weapons that date back to 1925. But the inspectors' mandate did not
include assigning blame for the attack, and Ban would not speculate on
who launched the attack.
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The team did identify two
types or rockets it said were used to deliver the gas and their
trajectories, and international observers have said those weapons are not known to be in the hands of rebels battling the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Australian U.N.
Ambassador Gary Quinlan, who is currently serving as president of the
Security Council, said the report bolsters his country's stance. It
"confirms, in our view, that there is no remaining doubt that it was the
regime that used chemical weapons."
And Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador, said a preliminary review of the report points toward forces loyal to al-Assad.
"The regime possesses
sarin, and we have no evidence that the opposition possesses sarin,"
Power said. "It defies logic" to think members of the opposition would
have infiltrated a regime-controlled area to fire on
opposition-controlled areas.
Britain, France, and
NATO have also said al-Assad's regime was behind the attack. But Russia
is Syria's leading ally, and Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin
maintained Moscow's stance that Syrian rebels might be to blame.
Such suggestions "cannot
be simply shrugged off," Churkin said, and statements insisting that
the opposition could not have launched the attack "are not as scientific
and grounded in reality as the actual situation could be." He
questioned why rebel forces didn't report major losses in the August 21
chemical attack, which the United States says may have killed more than
1,400, including hundreds of civilians.
Samples examined
The August 21 attack led
to U.S. calls for military action against Syria, which denies its
forces unleashed chemical weapons and blamed rebel fighters for the
deaths. Syria has since agreed to join the 1993 Chemical Weapons
Convention and hand over its chemical arsenal to international
inspectors, with the United States and Russia laying out a fast-paced
framework for Damascus to follow.
Monday's report presents
a stark picture of the damage that can be inflicted by a nerve agent
like sarin, one of three types of poison gas Syria is believed to have stockpiled.
"Survivors reported that
following an attack with shelling, they quickly experienced a range of
symptoms, including shortness of breath, disorientation, eye irritation,
blurred vision, nausea, vomiting and general weakness," Ban said. "Many
eventually lost consciousness. First responders described seeing a
large number of individuals lying on the ground, many of them dead or
unconscious."
The weather made things
worse. Falling temperatures at the time of the attack meant the downward
movement of air, allowing the gas "to easily penetrate the basements
and lower levels of buildings and other structures where many people
were seeking shelter," Ban said.
Inspectors interviewed
survivors and first responders, collected hair, urine and blood samples
and took soil and environmental samples from the sites where the rockets
fell. The secretary-general said the team "adhered to the most
stringent protocols available for such an investigation, including to
ensure the chain of custody for all samples."
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More than 100,000 people
had already been killed in Syria before August 21, according to the
United Nations. Another 2 million have fled the country, most of them
taking refuge in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq.
It was not immediately
clear how the report would affect events on the ground. The opposition
Syrian National Coalition said the findings "demand a unified and
decisive response by the international community."
"If the world does not
act now, this war will continue, and thousands more will die," Najib
Ghadbian, the coalition's representative to the United Nations, said in a
written statement. "The people of Syria look to the U.N. Security
Council to do everything in its power to stop this conflict and hold the
Syrian regime responsible for its criminal actions."
In Washington, the White
House announced that President Barack Obama would waive restrictions on
exporting chemical protective gear to provide that equipment to the
opposition and train "select, vetted members" in its use. American
equipment will also be provided to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
the international body that monitors compliance with the Chemical
Weapons Convention. It will be OPCW inspectors who are likely to carry
out Syria's promised disarmament.
Also Monday, Turkish
fighter jets downed a Syrian helicopter near the border between the two
countries Monday, Turkey's semiofficial Anatolia News Agency reported,
citing Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc. Syria's state news agency
SANA said the helicopter was watching for "terrorists" crossing the
border and erroneously strayed into Turkish airspace, but was on its way
back across the border when shot down.
Russia slams U.S. remarks on agreement
Even as the world
awaited the U.N. inspectors' report Monday, Russia openly bickered with
the United States about the agreement they struck in Geneva over the
weekend.
The framework they laid
out calls for a U.N. resolution demanding that Syria's chemical weapons
be placed under international control. Security Council powers are now
trying to put that framework into a resolution. But Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday accused U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry "and his Western allies" of misunderstanding the deal, according
to Russia's state-run Itar-Tass news agency.
Lavrov said the deal
does not say the U.N. resolution will be under Chapter VII of the U.N.
charter, which potentially authorizes the use of force -- and comments
by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that the any resolution will need
to include the possibility of force "show unwillingness to read the
document" that Russia and the United States endorsed.
The agreement states
that if there is noncompliance "or any use of chemical weapons by anyone
in Syria, the U.N. Security Council should impose measures under
Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter." But it does not specifically state
that the resolution being sought now will be under that chapter.
Russia holds veto power
on the council. But Kerry told reporters Monday that "Should diplomacy
fail, the military option is still on the table."
"If the Assad regime believes that this is not enforceable, then they will play games," he said.
According to the plan,
Syria must submit a full list of its chemical weapons stockpile within a
week. International inspectors must be on the ground in the country by
November, and all production equipment must be destroyed by the end of
November.
By the middle of next
year, all chemical weapons material must be destroyed, according to the
agreement. But the process of securing and destroying Syria's cache of
chemical weapons -- in the middle of a civil war -- may be a logistical nightmare.
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