some of Syria's deadliest chemical weapons in
international waters aboard a nearly 700-foot,
U.S. government-owned ship, U.S. officials told
The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The plan, still subject to final approval, would
involve destroying the weapons, likely aboard
the MV Cape Ray in the Mediterranean Sea, with
U.S. Navy warships patrolling nearby.
This approach would avoid the vexing
diplomatic, environmental and security
problems posed by disposing of the materials on
any nation's soil.
The Obama administration has used
international oceans in other sensitive cases
where land-based options were precluded. The
U.S. Navy buried Al-Qaida leader Osama bin
Laden at sea to avoid his tomb becoming an
attraction for extremists. The government has
been questioning terror suspects for as long as it
takes aboard Navy ships since the CIA closed its
secret prisons overseas and President Barack
Obama has refused to send more prisoners to
the detention center at the U.S. base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The decision to proceed with the chemical
disposal plan would be made by the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons, a global chemical weapons watchdog
agency with 190 member states.
In a statement Wednesday in the Netherlands,
the watchdog agency said the effort to ship
Syria's chemical arsenal out of the country
"continues to pose challenges due to the security
situation on the ground."
No country has committed to disposing of the
chemical weapons on its own soil, which is why
the U.S. offer to destroy the deadliest of the
chemical components at sea is seen as a likely
option.
The U.S. officials who disclosed aspects of the
U.S. portion of the plan spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to
talk about it by name.
Jonathan Lalley, a spokesman for the president's
National Security Council, stressed that no
decisions had been made regarding destroying
chemicals outside of Syria.
"We and our international partners are
pursuing alternative means of destruction, and
we will continue discussing with other countries
how they might best contribute to that effort,"
Lalley said in a statement. "We remain confident
that we will complete elimination of the
program within the milestones agreed upon."
The MV Cape Ray is a Virginia-based ship owned
by the Transportation Department. It would host
the destruction of some of the deadliest of
Syria's chemical materials using a process
developed by the Pentagon but never employed
in an actual operation.
The U.S. would use what it calls a mobile Field
Deployable Hydrolysis System to neutralize the
chemical material, making it unusable as
weapons. The system was developed by the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is an
arm of the Pentagon. The titanium reactor uses
heated water and other chemicals to make the
chemical warfare material inert.
According to several U.S. officials, two of the
hydrolysis units would be mounted on the Cape
Ray. It will take some time to retrofit the ship
and conduct training to insure that the process
can be done successfully at sea.
Once the mission is finalized and the Cape Ray is
ready, it would be transferred to control of the
Defense Department's Military Sealift Command.
The ship is owned by the Transportation
Department's Maritime Administration and is
currently based in Portsmouth, Va. It would
have a civilian crew.
U.S. officials said they expect to use U.S. Navy
ships to provide an escort and security for the
operation. There are already a number of Navy
warships in the Mediterranean.
As of Wednesday, U.S. officials said they are still
trying to determine how the chemical warfare
materials would be moved from Syria to the U.S.
ship. They said they expect that another country
will provide a ship for that part of the task.
Officials said they expect a final decision soon
and the operation would begin by the end of the
year.
source:bbc news
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