TORONTO – Though some may doubt whether or not the Bashar al-Asaad regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons during a bombing in Syria on Aug. 21, there is no doubt that the country possesses deadly chemical weapons.
Following the bombing of an eastern suburb of Damascus, the Internet was flooded with photos and videos of people struggling to breathe, their pupils constricted, bodies rigid or twitching – all signs pointing to a release of a chemical toxin. More than 1,400 people died in the bombing, 400 of which were children.
It is believed that Syria possesses more than 1000 tons of chemical weapons, most of which consists of sarin.
AP Photo/Local Committee of Arbeen
With the American government claiming that there will be “no boots on the ground,” and warships gathering in the Mediterranean Sea, tensions are rising. Military action by the United States seems imminent.
So how do you safely rid a country of its chemical weapons?
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Bomb the chemical weapons or neutralize them?
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There are a few ways to dispose of chemical weapons.
Chrystiane Roy, a spokesperson with Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, said, “Large-scale chemical weapons destruction technologies…can be divided into two main groups: high temperature destruction technologies like incineration and low-temperature destruction technologies like hydrolysis or neutralisation followed by post-treatment of the generated reaction masses.”
Dr. Walter Dorin, a professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College, explained.
“You either incinerated it, so you burn it at a very high temperatures in an incinerator, so that decomposes the chemicals into their basic atoms and smaller molecules and it gives you carbon dioxide and water, or you neutralize it chemically,” he said. “You take another substance, an acid or a base and you mix it so that you cause a chemical reaction and you change the chemicals to lose their toxicity.”
More: Full coverage of the crisis in Syria
Large-scale chemical incinerators would be needed. Though Dorn believes that it’s likely Syria has some sort of disposal facility, in order to dispose of any that has lost its toxicity – as sarin would do over time – it would have to meet certain standards.
Another option would be to bomb the storage facilities. Over the past few weeks, its been speculated that the U.S. possesses this type of weaponry. The United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been developing warheads for years that would essentially create the intense heat needed. However, if this course of action were undertaken, the bombing would have to been extremely accurate, something that can not be assured 100 percent.
And if the United States has inaccurate intelligence, which Dorn believes is unlikely, as the U.S. has been tracking Syria’s chemical weapons closely for several years, it runs the risk of bombing a chemical weapons store. And that would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster.
“Of course, that is a danger that if they were to bomb a site that had chemical weapons that it could release the chemical weapons and cause the very effect that they’re trying to avoid,” Dorn said.
“Anything that sarin touches, if you are exposed to it, then you are affected by it,” Dorn said. It could be weeks or months before it was out of the environment. And that would include any clothing or material it touched.
As for disposing of the weapons using “boots on the ground,” Dorn said that it’s unlikely that would happen. The more likely scenario would be the U.S. teaching Syrians how to dispose of the weapons themselves.
Canada has a history of destroying chemical weapons.
In the early 1990s, Canada destroyed its own arsenal of chemical weapons after almost 50 years of chemical warfare research, conducted in Suffield, Alberta.
In 1992, Canada sent four representatives to participate in the destruction of chemical weapons in Iraq.
According to Roy, most recently, Canada has provided $6 million to “secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction and related materials, such as chemical weapons.” Canada has also provided $200 million of equipment and infrastructure to two chemical weapons destruction facilities in Russia.
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