Chemical Weapons
Western non-governmental organizations have stated they believe Syria has an active chemical weapons program. Syria is not a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, though it denied that it had chemical weapons until admitting it possessed such weapons in 2012. Syria is one of six states that have not signed and eight that have not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. Syria reportedly manufactures Sarin, Tabun, VX, and mustard gas types of chemical weapons. Independent assessments indicate that Syrian production could be up to a combined total of a few hundred tons of chemical agent per year. (To provide context for this estimate, 190,000 tons were manufactured by World War I participants.)
Read more about this topic: Syria And Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Famous quotes containing the words chemical and/or weapons:
“If Thought is capable of being classed with Electricity, or Will with chemical affinity, as a mode of motion, it seems necessary to fall at once under the second law of thermodynamics as one of the energies which most easily degrades itself, and, if not carefully guarded, returns bodily to the cheaper form called Heat. Of all possible theories, this is likely to prove the most fatal to Professors of History.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“When it comes to my own turn to lay my weapons down, I shall do so with thankfulness and fatigue, and whatever be my destiny afterward, I shall be glad to lie down with my fathers in honour. It is human at least, if not divine.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)