Comparing Syria s and Iraq s use of Chemical Weapons
Abstract
Executive Summary: Bashar al-Assad’s horrific use of chemical weapons against domestic enemies and civilians highlights the paucity of knowledge about the conditions under which countries will gas their own people, the extent to which the United States can dissuade such use, and the broader repercussions of American action and inaction. This project will produce one monograph contrasting Iraq’s chemical weapon decision-making in 1988 with Syria’s recent chemical use, drawing insights from Iraq applicable to understanding Syria’s chemical atrocities. The unparalleled documentation on Iraq’s chemical weapon decision-making in 1988 makes Iraq’s use of chemical agents during this period a uniquely rich case study. The few existing studies on this topic were written too long ago to incorporate insights from mountains of recently released data. This study will make use of captured Iraqi records available at the Conflict Records Research Center, Hoover Institution archives, and University of Colorado Boulder archives, recently declassified interrogation reports of Iraqi principals, records and testimony released in conjunction with Iraqi war crimes trials, documents in the Reagan Presidential Library, and other sources. As the American public weighs in regarding U.S. policy options in Syria, it would benefit from better informed analysis. No publicly available analysis exists on Iraqi decisionmaking about chemical weapon use in the 1980s that makes use of treasure troves of newly available documentation from the bowels of Ba’athist Iraq. Nor, for that matter, can one find analysis that looks to previous Iraqi behavior for clues regarding Syrian perceptions and decision-making. The proposed research will provide the American public, academics, and policymakers with timely and informed analysis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 21, 2016
- Source ID
- N002441610007
Entities
People
- Lawrence Rubin
Organizations
- Georgia Tech Research Corporation
- United States Navy