Did Great Britain Sell WMD’s To Syria? Maybe.

Claims and counterclaims have been swirling for the past several days over a report in the?The Daily Record?that licenses were given to British companies in January 2012 for the sale and export of chemicals used to make Sarin gas to Syria. ?BBC News?is stating that the government is denying that sale happened. ?The Record reports that The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in January of that year issued the chemical export licenses. Those licenses were revoked six months later after the European Union issued sanctions against the Assad regime. Members of Parliament were not happy.

Labour’s Thomas Docherty:

At best the government has been reckless and at worst negligent to permit the export of material that could have been used to create chemical weapons.

SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson:

This is utter hypocrisy from the UK government – deploring chemical weapons in public whilst approving the sale of items needed to make them.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills responded to The Record by saying:

An export license would not be granted where we assess there is a clear risk the goods might be used for internal repression, provoke or prolong conflict within a country, be used aggressively against another country or risk our national security. […] When circumstances change or new information comes to light, we can ? and do ? revoke licenses where the proposed export is no longer consistent with the criteria.

So the story seems to be that Great Britain was going to sell the Assad government chemicals that could be used to make Sarin and other chemical weapons. That sale did not occur, they claim, because the EU as a whole imposed trade sanctions on the regime. So for the government of Prime Minister David Cameron to somehow act as if the system is working when it did not is baffling.

According to the BBC a government representative when questioned about the chemical profiteering had this to say:

In January 2012, we issued licenses for sodium fluoride and potassium fluoride. The exporter and recipient company demonstrated that the chemicals were for a legitimate civilian end use – which was for metal finishing of aluminium profiles used in making aluminium showers and aluminium window frames. […] Before any of the chemicals were exported, the licenses were revoked following a revision to the sanctions regime which came into force on 17 June 2012.

Chemicals known to be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons were approved for sale to a country known to manufacture and possess chemical weapons. This sale would, or may have, gone through only to finally be stopped when the EU says those types of sales must stop.

No matter how you look at the situation it is either hypocrisy of the highest sort or incompetence of the worst sort. It seems fairly clear that those who approved this should resign and apologize.

Edited by MB