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The debate surrounding a chemical attack in Syria last month shifted Monday to a proposal for the Assad regime to surrender its chemical weapons arsenal to avoid a U.S. military strike—but little has been said about its alleged possession of even-deadlier biological weapons. Syria has been suspected for decades of having an undeclared biological warfare (BW) program, although whether this includes actual stockpiles of munitions is unclear. Syria signed the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC), but has never ratified it. …

International pressure has been building for a military strike on Syria in the wake of an alleged chemical weapons attack in a Damascus suburb. The West has laid the blame at the feet of President Assad, as UN experts collected chemical samples on-site. Tuesday, September 10 19:14 GMT: The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Secretary of State John Kerry and Minister Sergey Lavrov have agreed on a possible bilateral meeting soon to discuss initiative on Syria’s chemical weapons. “The two have agreed to work together, including the possibility of holding a bilateral meeting in the coming days to discuss concrete...

Syria said on Tuesday it is ready to unveil and cease the production of chemical weapons, as Western powers prepared to discuss a Russian plan for the country to surrender its chemical arms. “We are ready to state where the chemical weapons are, to halt production of chemical weapons and show these installations to representatives of Russia, other countries and the U.N.,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said in a statement sent to Russia's Interfax news agency. Muallem made the announcement a day after he had welcomed in Moscow the Russian proposal for placing chemical weapons under international control.

After collecting eyewitness testimonies and analyzing the likely weapons systems that were used to facilitate a chemical-weapons attack that targeted rebel-controlled suburbs in Damascus last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Tuesday it believes it has enough evidence to prove that the Syrian government was responsible for the atrocity. HRW’s extensive investigation, which relied on expert analysis from chemical-weapons and arms specialists along with witnesses’ accounts, concluded that the surface-to-surface rocket systems used to carry out the attack, along with the large quantity of nerve agent that was deployed during the assault on Aug. 21, match up with equipment that...

The estimate shows that in 1983 the CIA had hard evidence that Israel possessed a chemical weapons stockpile of indeterminate size, including...almost certainly sarin. ...the CIA assessment suggests that the Israelis accelerated their research and development work on chemical weapons following the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. According to the report, U.S. intelligence detected "possible tests" of Israeli chemical weapons in January 1976, which, again, almost certainly took place somewhere in the Negev Desert. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer whom I interviewed recalled that at about this time, the National Security Agency captured communications showing that...

Syria on Tuesday said the government would take the deal proposed by Russia to turn over its chemical weapons cache to international control, the nation’s foreign minister said. “[Monday] we held a round of very fruitful negotiations with Russian Foreign Minister Serge[y] Lavrov and he put forward an initiative regarding chemical weapons. Already in the evening we accepted Russia’s initiative,” said Walid Muallem, the foreign minister, in a statement reported by Russian news and picked up by USA Today

(Headline only) Breaking News: Syria accepts Russian proposal to put chemical weapons under international control - Interfax

I’ve been thinking about this all night...It doesn’t make sense to me. Does anyone else feel the same way I do? Putin is very very quick, almost too quick, to offer the INternational control of weapons IMMEDIATELY after Kerry’s faux Paux. Why? I don't think in the least that he fears Obama, or even respects the man as his equal. So why would he make an offer that on the surface will ultimately make Obama look good esp in the eyes of the media, and make him looks like he caved to Obama's threats? Anyone over the age of 40...

Syria: As a Chinese warship joins Russian ships in the Mediterranean, we should remember a cruise missile attack on an Israeli warship. President Obama should understand that Syria and Hezbollah have missiles, too. As the Obama administration continues to deploy its comical weapons, with Secretary of State John Kerry promising America any attack on Syria will be "unbelievably small," a Chinese warship deploys off the Syrian coast, joining its Russian counterparts in what used to be an "American lake," the Mediterranean Sea. The People's Liberation Army has dispatched the amphibious dock landing ship Jinggangshan, a move that follows the announcement...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) exclusively told Breitbart News on Monday that he believes the plan from Russian to secure Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad’s chemical weapons—a plan Assad reportedly has agreed to—would be “a great step forward” if it actually happened. “I think it would be a great step forward if Assad were willing to do it and if Russia were willing to monitor it or an international authority with Russia,” Paul, an outspoken opponent of U.S. military strikes in Syria, said in a phone interview with Breitbart News on Monday. “I think part of diplomacy and getting things to work...

The Syrian government said Monday that it backed a Russian proposal calling for Damascus to hand over its arsenal of chemical weapons to international authorities in a bid to avoid a U.S. attack. “We, for the sake of protecting our people and children and country and due to our trust in the Russian efforts, will cooperate fully with Russia in this regard so as to take away the excuses of this aggression,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said in a statement. Russia has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. There was no immediate U.S. response to the...

<p>White House and State Department officials said they are open to Russia's proposal to place Syrian chemical weapons under international control and then destroy them, even though they are skeptical about the Syrians' sincerity.</p> <p>"We'd have to take a hard look. Any transfer of chemical weapons to international control would be a positive development," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told MSNBC on Monday. He quickly added, though, that the White House was "skeptical" of the seriousness of the offer.</p>

Was the Bush administration right all along? Could these indeed be the very same WMDs that intelligence agencies from around the world claimed were in Hussein’s possession which he then transferred over to Syria? The earliest account of Hussein having hidden his WMDs in Syria came in January of 2004. Nizar Nayouf, an award-winning Syrian journalist who was granted political asylum in France, said in a letter to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf not only that he knew Iraq’s WMDs were being hidden inside Syria, but that he could pinpoint precisely where they were being kept. According to Nayouf’s witness, described...

MOSCOW (AP) — In a surprise move, Russia promised Monday to push its ally Syria to place its chemical weapons under international control and then dismantle them quickly to avert U.S. strikes. The announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came a few hours after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syrian President Bashar Assad could resolve the crisis surrounding the alleged use of chemical weapons by his forces by surrendering control of "every single bit" of his arsenal to the international community by the end of the week.

The US secretary of state has said that President Bashar al-Assad has one week to hand over his entire stock of chemical weapons to avoid a military attack, but said he had no expectation that the Syrian leader would comply. John Kerry also said he had no doubt that Assad was responsible for the chemical weapons attack in east Damascus on 21 August, saying that only three people are responsible for the chemical weapons inside Syria – Assad himself, one of his brothers and a senior general. He said the entire US intelligence commnity was united in believing Assad was...

Obama is going on a whirlwind media blitz this week in an attempt to sell a very skeptical public on war with Syria. Yet the Washington Post notes: Obama’s top aide says the administration lacks “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” that skeptical Americans, including lawmakers who will start voting on military action this week, are seeking. Indeed, those who have seen the evidence say that it is incredibly weak. German intelligence also says that Assad didn’t order the attacks. Moreover, President Obama correctly noted in 2007: The President does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack...

German surveillance suggests chemical attack unauthorized, Assad also tells PBS's Charlie Rose that he did not gas his own people, as White House continues to press claim. Government forces in Syria may have launched the chemical weapons attack that reportedly killed more than a thousand civilians last month before receiving a go-ahead from President Bashar Assad. According to an article published on Sunday in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, a German spy ship intercepted repeated communications from forces loyal to Assad asking for permission to use chemical weapons; however, their requests were consistently denied. This latest report comes as...

Bild am Sonntag cites high-level German surveillance source suggesting Syrian president was not personally behind attacks President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources. The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said....

During World War II, the United States produced a series of propaganda films called “Why We Fight” explaining why we were fighting and what we were fighting for. They were propaganda, but it was the government keeping the public informed and supportive of the war effort at home and abroad. It was a time when communication was much slower and far more limited, but there was communication. Today, not so much. As we march off to a possible war with Syria, or a bombing, or a kinetic military action, or whatever the official White House “re-worders” pull from the thesaurus...

British companies sold chemicals to Syria that could have been used to produce the deadly nerve agent that killed 1,400 people, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today. Between July 2004 and May 2010 the Government issued five export licences to two companies, allowing them to sell Syria sodium fluoride, which is used to make sarin. The Government last night admitted for the first time that the chemical was delivered to Syria – a clear breach of international protocol on the trade of dangerous substances that has been condemned as ‘grossly irresponsible’. The sales were made at a time when...