http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/10/us-defense-contractors-training-syrian-rebels-to-handle-chemical-weapons/

US Defense Contractors Training Syrian Rebels to Handle Chemical Weapons

The US-funded training supposedly aimed at teaching rebels to secure chemical weapons stockpiles

by John Glaser, December 10, 2012

The US and some of its European allies “are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria,” according to “a senior US official and several senior diplomats,” CNN reports.

The US-funded training is going on inside Syria, as well as in neighboring Turkey and Jordan and “involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials,” according to CNN.

Last week, Washington began warning about the possibility that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might use his chemical weapons stockpiles against the armed rebellion trying to overthrow his regime.

But top Syrian officials vehemently denied this would ever happen, and it appeared obvious that US officials were less concerned with Assad’s unleashing the chemical weapons, and more concerned with the possibility that Islamic jihadists fighting on behalf of the Syrian opposition might get their hands on them.

Islamic extremists make up the great bulk of Syria’s rebel fighters, and this is widely acknowledged by official Washington. Indeed, the State Department recently designated Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the most prominent Syrian rebel factions, as a Global Terrorist organization.

The US decision to hire unaccountable defense contractors to train Syrian rebels to handle stockpiles of chemical weapons seems dangerously irresponsible in the extreme, especially considering how inept Washington has so far been at making sure only trustworthy, secular rebels – to the extent they exist – receive their aid and the weapons that allies in the Gulf Arab states have been providing.

It also feeds accusations that the Syrian Foreign Ministry recently made that the US is working to frame the Syrian regime as having used or prepared for chemical warfare.

“The U.S. administration has consistently worked over the past year to launch a campaign of allegations on the possibility that Syria could use chemical weapons during the current crisis,” the Syrian Foreign Ministry wrote in letters to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

“What raises concerns about this news circulated by the media is our serious fear that some of the countries backing terrorism and terrorists might provide the armed terrorist groups with chemical weapons and claim that it was the Syrian government that used the weapons,” the letters said.

http://www.sott.net/article/254545-Syria-ground-invasion-preparation-3000-US-troops-secretly-return-to-Iraq-via-Kuwait

( While the article sourcing is from Press Tv , the source would be Iraq - who is an ally of Iran ..... so fwiw , it could be accurate... )

Syria ground invasion preparation? 3,000 U.S. troops secretly return to Iraq via Kuwait

Press TV
Sun, 09 Dec 2012 16:20 CST

Over 3,000 US troops have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait for missions pertaining to the recent developments in Syria and northern Iraq, Press TV reports.

According to our correspondent, the US troops have secretly entered Iraq in multiple stages and are mostly stationed at Balad military garrison in Salahuddin province and al-Asad air base in al-Anbar province.

Reports say the troops include US Army officers and almost 17,000 more are set to secretly return to Iraq via the same route.

All US troops left Iraq by the end of 2011, after nine years of occupation, as required by a 2008 bilateral security agreement between the two countries. The troops left Iraq for the neighboring Kuwait.

Washington decided to pull out all its troops from Iraq after Baghdad refused to grant legal immunity to the remaining US soldiers.

Washington claims that the only US military presence left in Iraq now is 157 soldiers responsible for training at the US Embassy, as well as a small contingent of marines protecting the diplomatic mission.

US-led forces attacked Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein on the pretext of possessing weapons of mass destruction. But no WMD was ever discovered in Iraq. At the peak of the US-led military operation in Iraq, there were 170,000 US troops and more than 500 bases in Iraq. More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

and.....

http://www.infowars.com/syria-government-usa-may-be-trying-to-frame-us-over-chemical-weapons/

Syria Government: USA May Be Trying To Frame Us Over Chemical Weapons

Regime pens letter warning that false flag could be used to pave way for NATO attack

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Dec 10, 2012

The Syrian regime has written to the UN, warning that it believes the US may attempt to frame it by alleging that it has used chemical weapons on so called “rebels”, as well as innocent civilians.

“The U.S. administration has consistently worked over the past year to launch a campaign of allegations on the possibility that Syria could use chemical weapons during the current crisis,” a letter penned to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by the Syrian Foreign Ministry states.

The letter was one of a series sent to the UN head according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency.

The letters also stated that the Syrian government opposes the use of chemical weapons against anyone, including the rebels, and that such weapons have never been used by the Syrian government against civilians.

The foreign ministry also cited recent reports that al qaeda affiliated militants are manufacturing chemical weapons at a laboratory near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, and that they have threatened to use them against Syrian civilians.

As we have noted, given that the only suggestion Assad’s government is preparing to use chemical weapons comes from western media reports and somewhat hysterical proclamations from the Obama administration, the weight of evidence indicates that it is the rebels themselves, who have repeatedly been caught committing atrocities, that are more likely to resort to such tactics.

Indeed, reports circulated 6 months ago that rebel fighters had been given gas masks and were willing to stage a chemical weapons attack which would then be blamed on the Assad regime and grease the skids for NATO military intervention.

A March 2012 Brookings Institution report entitled Saving Syria: Assessing Options For Regime Changeoutlined this very scenario – where a manufactured humanitarian crisis would be cited as justification for force.

Even mainstream sources including the New York Times are now openly reporting that the Syrian rebels front lines are manned by Al qaeda terrorists.

This past weekend, veteran London Independent reporter Robert Fisk penned a piece blasting western propaganda over Syria and chemical weapons. Fisk, who worked extensively in Syria for many years noted that while the Syrian regime is deplorable, it has never used chemical weapons. The journalist noted, however, that an “infantile new fairy tale has begun” in the western media, that Syria has previously used such weapons against its own people, much like Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s.

Fisk points out that Saddam, as an ally of the US, used chemical weapons supplied by the US, against Iranian soldiers. He also notes that the CIA was encouraged to blame Saddam’s use of chemical weapons in Halabja on Iran. When Saddam became an enemy of the US, this story was spun and hyped to drum up support for the eventual US led invasion of Iraq.

Fisk also notes that the only military regime to extensively use chemical weapons in the middle east is Britain.

Today, reports continue to appear suggesting that Syria has a history of using chemical weapons against its people, and that the British and American governments, along with NATO, have “evidence” that it may do so again.

Multiple reports this weekend also revealed that the Department of Defense is drafting plans for a full scale preemptive strike on targets within Syria. Reports last week noted that a NATO attack on Syria is imminent.

The propaganda is beginning to flow in EXACTLY the same form as it did in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Syria was identified long ago as a target for globalist elites, owing to it’s strategic location in the middle east, and it’s continued opposition to the interests of US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

http://www.debka.com/article/22600/Concern-that-Assad-may-have-passed-some-chemical-weapons-to-Hizballah

Concern that Assad may have passed some chemical weapons to Hizballah

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 10, 2012, 10:08 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Bashar Assad

chemical weapons

Hizballah

Al Qaeda

Chemical weapons

There is growing concern that some of the chemical weapons the Assad regime has been pushing out of the Damascus area in the last few days were sent across the border to Hizballah strongholds in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley to keep them out of rebel hands. Syrian army officers who recently defected report that containers were last week removed from Syrian bases at Jabal Kalamon and loaded on vehicles camouflaged as commercial trucks. On the Lebanese side, the consignment is thought to have been split up and hidden at different Hizballah bases to make them harder to attack.

Israel’s US Ambassador Michael Oren, asked by a FOX TV interviewer Saturday Dec. 8, if he could confirm this, said he could not, but warned that any evidence of chemical weapons being passed from the Assad regime to extremist groups like Hizballah would be a "game-changer," and a "red line" for Israel. "We have a very clear red line about those chemical weapons passing into the wrong hands. Can you imagine if Hizballah and its 70,000 rockets would get its hands on chemical weapons? That could kill thousands of people."
Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon on he other hand saw no indication Sunday that Syria was planning to use chemical weapons against Israel. He refrained from going into any of the three possible perils presented by the regime in Damascus as it finds itself in a knife-edge situation:

1. Syria’s chemical weapons are deployed in at least five air force bases, with evidence of preparations to use them, as confirmed by British Foreign Secretary William Hague Saturday, Dec. 8.

US military sources explained early Monday, Dec. 10, that the nerve gas sarin is effective up to 60 days after its precursor chemicals are mixed. Placing the weaponized material in close proximity to warplanes indicates an intention within that timeline to drop the poison gas bombs from the air. After that, sarin must be destroyed in controlled conditions lest its poisons escape into the environment. No one knows if the Syrians have the necessary scientific manpower to take responsibility for this process.2. The battle around Al Safira, site of Syria’s biggest chemical weapons store and Scud D missiles fitted with chemical warheads, is fierce and fluid: the base changes hands every few hours in heavy fighting between Syria army and rebel forces.

Saturday, the base’s capture by the rebels triggered a warning from the Assad regime against throwing chemical weapons into the battle. Sunday, Al Safira was recaptured, but the rebels are sweeping through the surrounding villages and closing in on three sides. For now, Syrian forces control the road connecting Al Safira to Aleppo, but the rebels have seized parts of Sheikh Suleiman, the biggest air base near that city, and are getting close to that highway. Its fall would snap shut the rebel siege on Al Safira.

Control of Al Safira would place the big chemical weapons stores in the hands of rebel forces in that sector, many of whom belong to Jabhat al-Nusra, the roof organization of the al Qaeda elements fighting in Syria against the Assad regime.

3. In the estimate of Western and Israeli intelligence agencies, Assad has already directed his troops fighting in and around Damascus to use chemical weapons if the rebels get near to seizing any part of Damascus international airport.

and.....

Karzai’s Pakistan Allegations May Foil Af-Pak Summit

Pakistan Invites Karzai to Provide Evidence on Assassination Claim

by Jason Ditz, December 09, 2012

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Last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai blamed the failed assassination of his spy chief Asadullah Khalid on conspirators in the Pakistani city of Quetta. He hinted that the Taliban attacker had help from the Pakistani government. The allegation has cast a grim shadow over the stormy ties between the two nations just days before a key summit.

The summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in Ankara, Turkey,was supposed to be a huge step forward in a relationship which has been troubled virtually from the moment Karzai was installed by NATO occupation forces.

Yet now a lot of the talks are liable to center around Karzai’s accusation, and the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, which initially offered to help investigate the incident, is now instead asking for evidence of the claims.

In many ways it is an old story, as Karzai has often responded to high profile incidents with a cursory blaming of Pakistan. The timing, however, couldn’t be worse, as the Afghan government has been seeking Pakistani help to kickstart peace negotiations and seems to have a problem avoiding incidents that ruin those negotiations.

and.....

Egypt Opposition Blasts Morsi for Withdrawing Edict

Leadership Calls for More Protests, Leaving Supporters Perplexed

by Jason Ditz, December 09, 2012

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With his profile soaring in the wake of a successful Gaza ceasefire, President Mohamed Morsi issued an edict declaring himself to have limitless power until a new constitution was put in place.

What followed were weeks of protests from a growing collection of opposition blocs, and a seemingly happy ending when Morsi yesterday withdrew the edict. Bizarrely, opposition leadership, apparently encouraged by their ability to draw a crowd, condemned Morsi for doing exactly what they have demanded, saying it was unacceptable, and calling for yet more protests.

At least they’re hoping for more protests. The average person on the street knew why “all-power president” was a bad thing. Wrapping their heads around the new claim that the withdrawal is also somehow bad is confusing many, leaving a lot of the opposition’s support unsure whether they’re protesting anymore, or why.

Opposition leaders say that withdrawing the edict is a trick attempted to distract from the “real goals,” and say the public needs to continue to protest against “a president who ignores his people.”

A lot of the opposition leaders are objecting to the referendum next weekend on the constitution, but there’s nowhere near unity on opposing it, and there seems a good bet the vote could pass. Some of them are hoping the protests could force a delay or cancellation of the vote, but this is at best peripherally related to the fight over Morsi in the first place, and with a lot of demonstrators not opposed to the referendum as such, keeping rallies in the streets is going to take some doing.

Catharsis Ours

Monday, December 10, 2012