Panetta says Syria chemical threat no longer escalating

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Syrian government seems to have slowed preparations for the possible use of chemical weapons against rebel targets, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday, Dec 11, The Associated Press reported.

Last week, U.S. officials said there was evidence that Syrian forces had begun preparing sarin, a nerve agent, for possible use in bombs.

Speaking to reporters flying with him from Washington to Kuwait, Panetta suggested the threat was no longer escalating, although he was not specific about any Syrian military preparations.

"At this point the intelligence has really kind of leveled off," he said. "We haven't seen anything new indicating any aggressive steps to move forward in that way."

Panetta was in Kuwait to visit U.S. troops at the start of a four-day trip. The U.S. has about 13,500 troops in this country; they are a remnant of the 1991 Gulf War in which a U.S.-led coalition force evicted Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.

Asked whether he believed Syrian President Bashar Assad was heeding Western warnings against using chemical weapons, Panetta said: "I like to believe he's got the message. We've made it pretty clear. Others have as well."

He noted that the Assad regime is coming under increasing pressure from rebel forces.

"Our concern is that if they feel like the regime is threatened with collapse, they might resort to these kinds of weapons," he said.

Syria is believed to have a formidable arsenal of chemical weapons, including sarin and mustard gas, although its exact dimensions are not known. Syria is not a signatory to the 1997 Convention on Chemical Weapons and thus is not obliged to permit international inspection.