In the
wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria has begun to answer questions about its chemical
weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don’t have the
mandate to ask is where those weapons came from
in the first place. But evidence already out there suggests Syria got crucial help
from Moscow and Western European companies.

When Secretary
of Defense Chuck Hagel was asked recently about the origins of
Syria’s chemical weapons, he said, “Well, the Russians supply
them.“ Hagel’s spokesman George Little quickly walked back that statement,
saying Hagel was simply referring to Syria’s conventional weapons. Syria’s  chemical weapons program, Little
explained, is “largely indigenous.”

But
declassified intelligence documents suggest Hagel, while mistakenly suggesting
the support was ongoing, was at least pointing his finger in the right
direction.

A Special National Intelligence Estimate dated Sept. 15, 1983, lists Syria as a “major
recipient of Soviet CW [Chemical Weapons] assistance.” Both “Czechoslovakia and
the Soviet Union provided the chemical agents, delivery systems, and training
that flowed to Syria.” “As long as this support is forthcoming,” the 1983
document continues,” there is no need for Syria to develop an indigenous capability
to produce CW agents or materiel, and none has been identified.”

Soviet
support was also mentioned, though with less details, in another intelligence estimate dated Feb.
2, 1982. That report muses about the U.S.S.R.’s motivation for exporting
chemical weapons to Syria and other countries. The Kremlin saw gas as useful
for allies fighting against insurgencies: For the countries that had actually
used it in combat – Kampuchea, Laos, Afghanistan and Yemen – the authors
conclude that the Soviet Union saw it as a way of “breaking the will and
resistance of stubborn guerrilla forces operating from relatively inaccessible
protected sanctuaries.”

The 1982 report
goes on to say: “The Soviets probably reasoned that attainment of these
objectives – as quickly and cheap as possible – justified use of
chemical weapons and outweighed a small risk of exposure and international
condemnation.” Last week, German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that
intelligence sources in the country are convinced blueprints for four of the five
Syrian poison gas plants came from Moscow.

Evidence gathered
from what we now know was a sarin attack last month is also suggestive. According
to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, one of the weapons used in the
attack was “a Soviet-produced 140mm rocket.” Meanwhile, the UN’s own report shows a picture of Cyrillic
letters on the remnants of the rocket.

It’s
impossible to know the exact extent of Soviet and Russian help. U.S. intelligence was not particularly focused
on the Syrian program, says Gary Crocker, a proliferation specialist at the
State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in
the 1970s and 1980s. Most analysts did not know much about its program:
“Detailed information on the Syrian program was only accessible to very high
level intelligence officials,” Crocker said.

There are also
indications that the Soviets grew increasingly uneasy with Syria’s ability to
deliver the deadly gas by long-range missile. Concerned
about Syria’s buildup, the head of the Soviet chemical warfare corps, General Vladimir Pikalov,flew to Syria in 1988. According
to reports from the time, he decided against supplying the country with SS-23
missiles, which would have been able to deliver poison gas deep into Israel.

But the Soviets don’t appear to be the only
ones who provided some help.

“Soviets provided the initial setup, then the
Syrians became quite proficient at it. Later, German companies came in,” Crocker
said.

As then- CIA director
William Webster said in Senate testimony back in 1989: “West European firms
were instrumental in supplying the required precursor chemicals and equipment.”
Asked why the companies did it, Webster answered: “Some, of course, are
unwitting of the ultimate destination of the products they supply, others
are not. In the latter case, I can only surmise that greed is the explanation.”

Indeed, Syria received
precursor chemicals from the West until well into the last decade. Last week,
the German government acknowledged that between 2002 and 2006, it
had approved  the export to Syria of
more than 100 tons of so-called dual-use chemicals. Among the substances were
hydrogen fluoride, which can be used to make Teflon,  and also sarin.
The exports were allowed under the condition that Syria
would only use them for civilian purposes. The British government also recently acknowledged exports of dual-use chemicals to
Syria.

Both the British and German governments said there’s no evidence the chemicals
were used to make weapons.

It’s not the first time
Germany may have turned a blind eye to potentially dangerous trade. In the
1980s, for instance, German and French
companies were crucial in building poison gas plants in Iraq and Libya .
Stricter export controls in Europe were only installed after a web of companies
that supplied the chemical weapons programs in the Middle East was exposed in
the late 1980s. The New York Times embarrassed the German government by revealing the connection between German
company Imhausen-Chemie and a Libyan poison gas plant in Rabta. (Times
columnist William Safire German later called the plant “ Auschwitz-in-the-sand.”)

In the following years,
German authorities indicted more than 150 managers of companies involved in
Saddam Hussein’s program, which he had used to kill thousands of Kurds. According
to one report, from the late ‘90s, more than half of the
proceedings were stopped. Most of those that went to trial were acquitted or
paid fines, a handful received jail time.

Just how deeply were German
companies involved in Syria’s program? We may never know.  A long-ago proposal by the German
Green party to install a fact-finding commission to comprehensively investigate
the web of German companies supplying Middle Eastern states – and
government knowledge of these exports – was voted down by all other parties in
parliament.