Syria and Sarin

Interesting article from the British doctor who examined the samples from the chemical attack last week: http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/opinions/trump-right-syria-strike-opinion-de-bretton-gordon/

  1. It was Sarin
  2. Sarin used in East Ghouta in August 2013 (up to 1,500 killed)
  3. Chlorine used in Aleppo in December 2016
  4. In October 2013 the Syrian regime declared 1,300 tons of chemicals, but only 16 tons of Mustard gas.
    1. No Sarin was declared
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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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5 Comments

    • Assad is basically not in charge in Syria anymore. Furthermore those are Ex-Soviet stocks, Neither Iraq nor Syria have a matured chemical sector at least not to the level to make the substances pure enough to make those agents stable (British analysis).
      Lets go back to the chemical attacks on Ghouta August 21.Soviet 140mm rockets (M-14), factory 179, Novosibirsk, Chemical configuration, a warhead with 2.2kg of Sarin hit rebel occupied territory. There is also a 330mm rocket variant.
      Now, to obfuscate things, improvised mortar rounds are filled with Sarin, employed by “ISIS”.

      I believe we will see some kind of orchestration to blame western powers for chemical attacks, soon. I am pretty sure there will be prepped mortars with fake designations presented as propaganda material.

      • Well, the Soviet Union signed a treaty with the U.S. in 1990 reducing chemical and biological weapons, and then Russia signed and ratified the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention eliminating all of these, which I gather has mostly been done. The U.S. has had inspectors in Russian for the last 20 of so years ensuring that they are eliminated, have helped them with disposal facilities, and we have had high level defectors. I don’t know the current state of Russian chemical and biological programs, but I believe its now mostly eliminated. Doubt if Syria got its Sarin from Russia. This would be a step to far and could easily be traced. Of course, Assad gets most of his other weapons from Russia.

        • Authoritarian systems do not simply fullfill treaties. They have enough territory to hide everything, it is easier to move around in traditional Arab clothing on the streets of Washington without being noticed, than for a spy around Moscow.

          “Negotiating while fighting, used extensively in the Russian Civil War, would become a staple of communist diplomacy the world over. Given the lack of respect for diplomatic norms and the view that capitalist regimes were fundamentally illegitimate, communist regimes often dangled the prospect of peace while their militaries continued aggressive operations in an effort to weaken enemy resolve. This strategy would be used again by Stalin against Japan, by Mao in the Chinese Civil War, by Kim Il-Sung in North Korea, and most famously, by the North Vietnamese government during the Vietnam War.”

          Why should there be any significant difference, today?

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