Prospects for a quick conclusion to a U.N. investigation of a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria will depend on cooperation from the warring parties and safety for investigators — problematic conditions in the chaos of the country's civil war, an expert on weapons control told NBC News on Thursday.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that he had agreed to conduct an investigation of allegations of an attack in the northern city of Aleppo. The government and the opposition have accused each other of carrying out that attack on Tuesday.

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Ralf Trapp, a German who works on disarmament and non-proliferation issues, specializing on chemical and biological weapons, said the first job of an inspection team would be safely getting to and operating at the site. He said then -- if the Syrian parties cooperated and the inspectors felt safe — they would:

 

• Interview victims and bystanders on what they felt, smelled, saw, etc.
• Search for remnants of any weapons used. That is often difficult and unproductive, but the earlier one gets to the scene, the better.
• Take samples at the site. Pieces of weapons are rarely found, Trapp said, but the chemical agent can be uncovered in soil, plants and, if in an urban environment, bricks and building materials. Beyond the agent, inspectors will look for chemicals left behind as the agents themselves deteriorate.
• Conduct medical tests on the victims, including taking tissue samples, blood samples and, if the teams arrive quickly enough, urine samples. Samples in some cases can be analyzed on the scene, but if the inspections are delayed, there are labs in Europe and the U.S. that can find evidence in DNA and proteins.

Trapp said a big question will be how soon the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – of which Trapp is a former official -- can get a team into Aleppo. He said the team would have to be large and varied, with security officers and medical officers as well as inspectors.

But each day lost will influence the speed with which the investigation can be concluded, he said, because as more time elapses before biological sampling occurs, more sophisticated DNA and other toxicological testing is required. 

With optimum cooperation and conditions on the ground, an investigation led by the OPCW could be under way in days, Trapp said. A determination, including the pinpointing of the agent, could be made within days after arrival, he said -- if there is good access to interviews and environmental and biological samples. He said his former organization has equipment at the ready and could move quickly.

But if the inspection is conducted by the kind of UN group that investigated the allegations against Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, with countries nominating experts and then gathering them, getting inspectors in could take weeks, he said. 

Considering that Aleppo is a war zone, optimum conditions are unlikely.

Trapp would not speculate on what agents were used, but he said that he has seen no reports of blistering, and without blistering, it is unlikely to have been mustard gas — although he said it’s possible that some victims might have only internal blistering.

Evidence of a nerve gas attack, for example, would be found in corpses. Victims would show certain telltale signs, like tiny pupils, saliva around the noses and eyes. There might be evidence of convulsions.

He did not dismiss the use of more common agents that are not on the proscribed list of chemical weapons. Victims said they smelled chlorine, and those felled in the attacks reported suffocating.  Chlorine, of course, is found throughout the industrial world and in large quantities can kill. Moreover, feelings of suffocation could be associated with a chlorine attack.

The chemical has a long history of use. It was the first chemical used as a weapon in World War I by German troops against French and French colonial forces. There are reports that insurgents in Iraq used chlorine in huge quantities in their attacks.

Similarly, tear gas, if used in large quantities in a confined space, can suffocate and kill.

Trapp was careful to note that even though chlorine or tear gas are not listed as prohibited weapons on the Chemical Weapons Convention, each could be considered a chemical weapon if used as a "method of warfare" rather than as being used for law enforcement or crowd control. The convention bars the use of chemicals in general as a "method of warfare." 

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The Obama administration has quietly arranged for thousands of chemical protective suits and related items to be sent to Jordan and Turkey and is pressing the military forces there to take principal responsibility for safeguarding Syrian chemical weapons sites if the country’s lethal nerve agents suddenly become vulnerable to theft and misuse, Western and Middle Eastern officials say.

As part of their preparations for such an event, Western governments have started training the Jordanians and Turks to use the chemical gear and detection equipment, so they have the capability to protect the Syrian nerve agent depots if needed – at least for a short time, U.S. and Western officials say.

Washington has decided moreover that the best course of action in the aftermath of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s fall would be to get the nerve agents out of the country as quickly as possible, and so it has begun discussions not only with Jordan and Turkey, but also with Iraq and Russia in an effort to chart the potential withdrawal of the arsenal and its destruction elsewhere.

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Using allied forces from Syria’s periphery as the most likely “first-responders” to a weapons-of-mass-destruction emergency is regarded in Washington as a way to avoid putting substantial U.S. troops into the region if the special Syrian military forces now safeguarding the weapons leave their posts. A Syrian withdrawal might otherwise render the weapons vulnerable to capture and use by Hezbollah or other anti-U.S. or anti-Israeli militant groups, U.S. officials fear.

This article is based on conversations about international planning for the disposition of the Syrian stockpile with a half dozen U.S. and foreign officials who have direct knowledge of the matter but declined to be named due to the political and security sensitivities surrounding their work.

They said the Western planning, while not yet complete, is further along than officials have publicly disclosed.

But so far, the Turkish and Jordanian governments have not promised to take up the full role that Washington has sought to give them, U.S. and foreign officials said.

Asked for comment, Jordanian embassy spokeswoman, Dana Zureikat Daoud, said the training under way is “not mission-oriented,” meaning that Jordan does not have a fixed responsibility. But she added that the government is indeed concerned about the possibility of Syrian chemical armaments falling into extremist hands. “Our contingency plans … are discussed and elaborated with like-minded, concerned countries,” she said.

A spokesman at the Turkish Embassy declined comment. But James F. Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2008-2010, said that although Ankara is eager for the United States to play a larger role in resolving the Syrian crisis, the Turks are “usually reluctant to be our foot-soldiers.” He added: “When Americans come up with a plan to use country x’s soldiers, the plan is often self-fulfilling inside the Beltway,” but sometimes runs into trouble when it is broached in foreign capitals.

The prospect of lethal nerve agents at any Syrian sites suddenly becoming unprotected is one of many alarming developments that have been war-gamed at the Pentagon over the past year, as the conflict there deepens and president Assad’s grip over his deadly arsenal comes into greater question, U.S. officials say.

Private messages to Syrian commanders
Worries about the fate of the chemicals – in a stockpile estimated at 350 to 400 metric tons -- have become so great that Washington and its allies have recently passed messages to some of the Syrian commanders that oversee their security, offering safety and a continued role under a new government if the commanders act responsibly, two knowledgeable officials said on condition they not be named.

It is unclear what the results of that effort have been. But similar messages, urging restraint and good behavior in handling the chemicals, have also been passed in recent weeks to rebel forces inside the country, according to a Western official.

One of Washington’s concerns has been that Assad might order the chemicals used against his own citizens, a fear that spiked late last year when chemicals at one base were seen being loaded into artillery shells and bombs. Western and Russian officials issued stiff warnings, and those concerns abated somewhat, although Foreign Policy magazine reported Jan. 15 that some evidence exists that Syria used a generally nonlethal incapacitating gas against rebels in Homs last month.

“We found no credible evidence to corroborate or to confirm that chemical weapons were used” in that incident, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday.

The principal U.S. concern in a post-Assad period, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said at a press briefing on Jan. 10, is “how do we secure the CBW (chemical and biological weapons) sites?...And that is a discussion that we are having, not only with the Israelis, but with other countries in the region, to try to look at … what steps need to be taken in order to make sure that these sites are secured.”

“We’re not working on options that involve (U.S.) boots on the ground,” Panetta said.

At one extreme, officials said, special forces now in the region might have to intervene on short notice if it appears that weapons at one of the sites are about to fall into the wrong hands or to be employed on a large scale. They would be tasked with swiftly neutralizing both the agent and any hostile forces present and likely stay on the ground only for a few hours.

The Obama administration’s preference is to have other nations’ forces undertake such an intervention, and so the United States and Britain have been conducting joint planning and training operations with Jordanian and Turkish commandos for more than a year, to prepare for their possible emergency insertion into Syria, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the plans.

The protective suits, along with detection equipment and decontamination gear, began arriving in the late fall amid concern that the Syrian government might be considering using the weapons to halt rebel advances. Syria’s arsenal – which was developed for a potential conflict with Israel -- includes mustard gas, which burns and blisters the skin and lungs, More problematically, it also includes sarin and VX, liquids that interfere with the nervous system and produce swift death by paralysis after minute, drop-size exposures, U.S. officials say.

Syria devised its nerve weapons as binary agents, in which two less toxic chemicals are routinely stored in large, separated canisters and then loaded into separate compartments inside a bomb. For example, sarin uses a formulation of alcohol, plus another chemical. The agents combine to pose their most lethal threat only when launched or during flight, making them relatively easy to handle or transport before then – by the Syrian military or by terrorists and militant groups.

Syria regime 'reeling, armed to the teeth' with chemical weapons

But the separation of the basic components also opens the door to at least a partial elimination of the threat onsite, since the alcohol used in sarin could simply be drained onto the ground and allowed to evaporate.

Jordan and Turkey initially agreed to undertake Western training in dealing with chemical weapons because they might have to deal with panicked refugees and victims if Assad’s forces use such arms against the rebels; some risk also exists in that circumstance of clouds of dangerous gas wafting onto their own territory from Syrian cities near their border. Even medical workers would be at grave risk in dealing with those who became contaminated; as a result, they are being trained now by Western powers, according to foreign officials.

“Their primary concern is a spillover of these things into their territory,” one U.S. official said. The salience of this worry was demonstrated when a Syrian mortar round crashed into a Turkish field near a refugee camp on Jan. 14. As Daoud, the Jordanian spokeswoman, said, “Naturally, we will do everything that needs to be done to defend our people and our borders.”

Seeking Assad exit strategy
Partly because of worries about the stockpile’s security, Washington and its allies still hope that Assad might be persuaded to leave in exchange for a guarantee of his personal security elsewhere. In such a negotiated transition, Western powers would seek to keep the existing Syrian military units responsible for safeguarding the chemical weapons sites in place, officials said.

“The people in Assad’s regime responsible for security at the chemical sites are among the very best soldiers,” a U.S. official said. “If one could keep those forces in place … that would be the best and probably the cheapest and most efficient outcome.”

But Assad, in a defiant address on Jan. 6, said he had no intention of stepping aside or negotiating with the rebels engaged in a bitter struggle for national control that so far has claimed at least 60,000 lives.

“We’re engaged in planning to develop options against alternative futures … (including) collaboration or cooperation, permissiveness, non-permissive, hostile, all of which would have different requirements,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said at the Jan. 10 briefing.

“The options are not good in any scenario,” said another senior official, adding that Washington is as worried about the chemicals falling into the hands of rebel forces that may seize power, either locally or nationally, as it is about their misuse by terrorists or by rogue Syrian military units and commanders. At least one of the major Syrian rebel groups, Jabhat al-Nasra, has been designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.

Also, U.S. intelligence agencies have warned policymakers that once Assad is gone, the country’s turmoil will increase, with rival groups potentially seeking to brandish possession of the chemical weapons as symbols of their power. Officials said that as a result, they have pressed the Syrian National Coalition, a rebel group recognized by Western countries, to appoint a coordinator now for all chemical weapons-related policymaking and negotiations.

Simply blowing up the chemicals inside Syria with bombs or other weapons is not an option, as Panetta made clear in a briefing for reporters during a December visit to Turkey: He said the plumes from such explosions would cause “exactly the kind of damage” that would result from the weapons’ deliberate use.

Incinerating the chemicals inside Syria would be logistically challenging and pose high security risks, since Western countries have only a few portable destruction kits for chemical weapons, developed primarily to deal with single, leaking shells, not large stocks.

As a result, U.S. officials said they would likely seek to transport the chemicals out of Syria as quickly as possible once a new government can be formed, preferably under the supervision of the United Nations-affiliated Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, with the new government’s formal approval.

“We maintain regular communication with States Parties as well as the United Nations on developments in Syria and continue our efforts to prepare for various scenarios which could potentially involve the OPCW in that situation,” said OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan.

Under one scenario now under discussion between Washington and its allies, the chemicals would be moved to secure military bases in Jordan, Turkey or Iraq, where the United States and others would erect chemical incinerators over a six- to 12-month period that could destroy the bulk agent in a year or so after that. Using similar incinerators to destroy a small stockpile of chemical weapons in Albania more than five years ago cost $48 million.

But even this task would be logistically awkward, not to mention politically controversial in those states. Undertaking it would first require further consolidation of the stocks inside Syria and then their transport outside the country in hundreds of truckloads.

Russia said to offer help
Another option, which officials said has tentatively been explored with senior Russian officials, is to truck the chemical agents to the Syrian port of Tartus, where the Russian Navy keeps a small presence, so that the arsenal could be placed on a ship for transport to Russia, where multiple chemical weapons destruction plants have been constructed with Western help.

By the accounts of several officials, Russia has expressed some desire to help. And Western officials emphasized that in their view, the country has a special responsibility to do so, because of reports that the head of its chemical weapons program helped Syria obtain key VX components in the early 1990s.

No final policy choice has been made about these options, senior officials said. And bringing a large weapons stockpile into Turkey or Russia – which are signatories of an international treaty barring use or possession of chemical arms – might require a waiver of the treaty’s rules against importing even the components of such weapons.

Some consolidation of the Syrian arsenal has already occurred on Assad’s orders, and the bulk of it is now at fewer than a dozen sites, according to a U.S. official familiar with intelligence estimates.

But U.S. military planners are unsure precisely how many sites might hold deadly chemicals at the point that a foreign intervention would be necessary or feasible. If Assad disperses the arsenal beforehand to the 40 or so military bases with aircraft or missiles that can drop or launch the weapons, as many as 75,000 foreign troops could be needed to contain the threat (several thousand troops at each base, according to this worst-case estimate). A smaller number would be needed if the intervention preceded such a dispersal.

The shipment of protective gear to Syria’s periphery from U.S. and British stockpiles was an acknowledgement of the enormity of the problem, several officials said. They described thousands of pieces of chemical-protection gear -- from masks and suits to detectors and decontamination kits -- being pre-positioned in Jordan alone.

Asked for comment, Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Scott McIlnay responded that “we have always said that contingency planning is the responsible thing to do, and we are actively consulting with friends, allies and the opposition. But I am not going to get into the specifics of our contingency plans.” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he could only say that “we are working with our partners in the region and the broader international community to monitor the situation and discussing contingencies.” 

The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit independent investigative news outlet. To read more of its stories on this topic go to publicintegrity.org

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This summer, as the Syrian economy began to unravel and the military pressed hard against an armed rebellion, a Syrian government plane ferried what flight records describe as more than 200 tons of “bank notes” from Moscow.

The records of overflight requests were obtained by ProPublica. The flights occurred during a period of escalating violence in a conflict that has left tens of thousands of people dead since fighting broke out in March 2011.

The regime of Bashar al-Assad is increasingly in need of cash to stay afloat and continue financing the military’s efforts to crush the uprising. U.S. and European sanctions, including a ban on minting Syrian currency, have damaged the country’s economy. As a result, Syria lost access to an Austrian bank that had printed its bank notes.

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“Having currency that you can put into circulation is certainly something that is important in terms of running an economy and more so in an economy that is become more cash-based as things deteriorate,” said Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes.  “It is certainly something the Syrian government wants to do, to pay soldiers or pay anybody anything."

According to the flight records, eight round-trip flights between Damascus International Airport and Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport each carried 30 tons of bank notes back to Syria. There are records relating to the flights in Arabic and English as well as copies of over-flight requests sent to Iran, which are in Farsi.

Syrian and Russian officials did not respond to ProPublica's questions about the authenticity and accuracy of the flight records. It is not possible to know whether the logs accurately described the cargo or what else might have been on board the flights. Nor do the logs specify the type of currency.

But ProPublica confirmed nearly all of the flights took place through international plane-tracking services, photos by aviation enthusiasts and air traffic control recordings.

Each time the manifest listed “Bank Notes” as its cargo, the plane traveled a circuitous route. Instead of flying directly over Turkish airspace, as civilian planes have, the Ilyushin-76 cargo plane, operated by the Syrian Air Force, avoided Turkey and flew over Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan.

The flight path between Syria and Russia described in the manifests.

Tensions have been rising  between Syria and Turkey since the spring. Last month, Turkey forced down a Syrian passenger plane traveling from Moscow. Turkey suspected the flight of carrying military cargo but officials have not said what, if anything, was confiscated.

If the flight manifests are accurate, a total of 240 tons of bank notes moved from Moscow to Damascus over a 10-week period beginning July 9 and ending on Sept. 15.

U.S. officials interviewed said evidence of monetary assistance, like military cooperation, point to a pattern of Russian support for Assad that extends from concrete aid to protecting Syria from U.N. sanctions.

In September 2011, six months into the violence, the European Union imposed sanctions that prohibited its members from minting or supplying new Syrian coinage or banknotes. In a statement, the EU said the sanctions aimed “to obstruct those who are leading the crackdown in Syria and to restrict the funding being used to perpetrate violence against the Syrian people.” At the time, Syria’s currency was being minted by Oesterreichische Banknoten- und Sicherheitsdruck GmbH, a subsidiary of Austria’s Central Bank.

President Obama has issued five Executive Orders that prevent members of the Assad regime from entering the United States and accessing the U.S. financial system.

 “Increasingly, it is more difficult to finance the war machine and the cost of the war is becoming more expensive for the Assad regime,” said one U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Targeted sanctions on those leading the violence are working and start to bite into their pocket books.”

Russia appears to be helping Syria blunt the impact of the sanctions.

In June, Reuters reported  that Russia had begun printing new Syrian pounds and that an initial shipment of bank notes had already arrived.  The report was denied by the Syrian Central Bank, which claimed the only new money in circulation were bills that had replaced damaged or worn bank notes. Such a swap, the bank contended, would have no effect on the economy.

On Aug. 3, the official Syrian news agency SANA, reporting from a news conference in Moscow with Syrian and Russian economic officials, quoted Syrian officials acknowledging that Russia is printing money. Qadr Jamil, Syria’s deputy prime minister for Economic Affairs, was quoted by SANA as calling the deal with Russia a “triumph,” over sanctions.

Syrian Finance Minister Mohammad al-Jleilati said that Russia was providing both replacement notes and additional currency to, as SANA put it, “reflect the country’s changing GDP.” 

Al-Jleilati said the money would have no effect on inflation. Printing new notes beyond simply replacing old ones could undermine Syria’s already battered currency.

At the time of the meeting, at least 30 tons of currency had already been delivered, according to the flight records, and another 210 tons would be delivered in subsequent flights.

In its regional economic outlook released earlier this month, the International Monetary Fund noted that Syria’s currency has lost 44 percent of its value since March 2011, trading for about 70 Syrian pounds to the dollar compared with about 47 pounds when the conflict began.

Ibrahim Saif, a political economist based in Jordan and a resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center said 30 tons of bank notes twice a week is a significant amount for a country like Syria.

“I truly believe it’s not only that they’re exchanging old money for new notes. They are printing money because they need new notes,” Saif said.

“Most of the government revenue that comes from taxes, in terms of other services, it’s almost now dried up,” noted Saif. Yet, “They continue to pay salaries. They have not shown any signs of weakness in fulfilling their domestic obligations. The only way they can do this is to get some sort of cash in the market.”

Before the unrest broke out, Syria had about $17 billion in foreign currency reserves. Saif said he and other economists in the region estimate they now have about $6 billion to 8 billion in reserves, dwindling about $500 million a month for salaries and supplies to keep the government running.

In Moscow, the Syrian finance minister had said that his country required additional foreign currency reserves, which Russia may provide in the form of loans.

“It’s possible the Syrians are acquiring foreign currency reserves, either Euros or US dollars, which they would need to conduct any serious commerce,” said Juan Zarate, who served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes during the Bush administration.

Zarate noted that other countries, when faced with economic sanctions, have leaned on allies for foreign currency reserves. China supplied North Korea with such funds in the past and Venezuela agreed to sell reserves to Iran.

Syria’s currency is still traded on open markets, but there is limited on-the-ground information about the economy, including inflation.

Officials at the IMF “have not been able to get direct information about Syria for at least a year,” Masood Ahmed, director of the group’s Middle East and Central Asia department, told reporters at a conference in Tokyo last month.

Glaser, at Treasury, declined to put a figure on Syria’s current reserves, but said the Syrian economy is suffering in part from a lack of tourism and a ban on oil sales, both of which provided Damascus with foreign currency. “There is significant inflation in the country. It can be caused by adding new currency or not having foreign reserves to prop up the existing currency.”

Quinn Norton contributed to this story.

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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Like a three-card monte player, the Syrian government has been shifting its chemical weapons around the country in the midst of the country’s increasingly violent and chaotic civil war, leaving foreign intelligence agencies to guess where the outlawed weapons of mass destruction might end up – and under whose control.

U.S. and Israeli officials fear that the weapons and chemical agents, which typically are kept separately until they are ready for use, could fall into the hands of terrorists or be used against rebel forces by the ruling Alawites in a last-ditch stand.

Almost as frightening, experts say, would be if rebel forces seized some of the weapons.

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“No one but the Syrians knows the inventory, and if the rebels overrun one of these depots, there are worries about the physical control of the weapons,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank. “It may get down to individual Syrian soldiers making decisions.”

Syria acknowledges it has chemical weapons, will use them if attacked

The fluid situation on the ground and questions about the locations and quantities of the chemical weapons have intelligence analysts grasping at straws, said Rob Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former U.S. intelligence analyst on Syria.

“No scenario is too fanciful,” he said. “We are in such uncharted territory. The regime is reeling and armed to the teeth.”

Rebels fear Syria's 'ghost fighters,' the regime's hidden militia

But intelligence reports and U.S. and Israeli experts interviewed by NBC News say two things are certain: The Syrian government has the most developed chemical weapons program in the Third World and it has used them on its own people at least once before.

Heightening concern about the weapons, a Syrian military defector, Gen. Mustafa Sheikh, claimed in an interview with Reuters on Saturday that Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad were repositioning chemical weapons for possible use against the opposition in retaliation for the assassination of four top security officials. 

“We don't know why" they have begun moving chemical weapons from storage, a senior U.S. official said, confirming the movement. He refused to speculate whether the Assad regime could be preparing to use the weapons in an attempt to quell the continuing civilian uprising.

On Monday, Syria responded to the report by saying it would unleash its chemical and biological weapons only in the event of a foreign attack — the first time it has acknowledged that it possesses such weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The statement “backfired,” said Danin, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow. "All it did was heighten international concerns about the (chemical weapons) stockpile," he said. “If anything is going to trigger intervention, it’s this. It’s a potential causus belli” — “cause of war,” in Latin.

'Serious red line'
On Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little warned that if the Assad regime used chemical weapons on civilians, that would cross a “serious red line.”

"We would, of course, caution them strongly against any intention to use those weapons," he said. Little also reiterated that, at this point, the U.S. believes the chemicals are still secure.

U.S. officials have long believed that the Syrian government had stockpiled the banned chemical weapons.

Last year, in its most recent public report to Congress covering WMD developments, the CIA stated, “Syria has had a CW (chemical weapons) program for many years and has a stockpile of CW agents, which can be delivered by aerial bombs, ballistic missiles and artillery rockets.”

U.S. intelligence reports indicate that Syria possesses the nerve agents sarin and tabun as well as traditional chemical weapons like mustard gas and hydrogen cyanide. The CIA report also stated that Syria “is developing the more toxic and persistent nerve agent VX,” which is more persistent than sarin and tabun and capable of rendering an area – or a city – uninhabitable “for some days.”     

US official: Syrian regime seems to be readying for a massacre

Dani Shoham, a chemical weapons expert with the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said he believes Assad’s scientists already have done so.

“My assessment is that they successfully developed weaponized VX,” he said.

Syria is believed to have thousands of chemical weapons and hundreds of missiles and aircraft to deliver them. Israel has estimated that Syria has "several thousand" bombs that could be filled mostly with sarin and more than 100 warheads.

More significant is that Syria has a chemical weapons infrastructure, not just the weapons themselves. It is said to have vast stocks of  agents available for loading into munitions as well as the precursor chemicals. It is one of only seven nations in the world that has not ratified the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, the arms-control agreement that outlaws the production, stockpiling and use of such weapons.

In terms of delivery systems, Syria has a few dozen SS-21 ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 72 miles; 200 Scud-B's, with a maximum range of 180 miles; and 60 to 120 Scud-C's with a maximum range of 300 miles, all of which are mobile and capable of carrying chemical weapons, according U.S. intelligence officials.

Russia will be big loser if Assad falls, analysts say

Bombshells filled with chemicals also can be carried by Syrian Air Force fighter-bombers, in particular Sukhoi-22/20, MiG-23 and Sukhoi-24 aircraft. In addition, some reports indicate short-range unguided Frog-7 artillery rockets may be capable of carrying chemical payloads.

The weapons systems are -- or were -- in a number of sites close to Israel and near cities where Syrian security forces have fought rebels and shelled civilian areas. But the shifting of the weapons has disguised their current location and raised new concerns about what the Assad regime is planning to do with them.

Like Iraq and Egypt, Syria has employed chemical agents against its people, using hydrogen cyanide on insurgents in the early 1980s, according to congressional investigators.

Following violent demonstrations by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in January and February 1982, Syrian army units sealed off the city. According to a November 1990 Senate Foreign Relations Committee memo, the army units then went to every house suspected of hiding insurgents and pumped in cyanide gas, killing all the occupants. Later, the government broadcast a report saying security forces had taken fierce reprisals against the Brotherhood and its sympathizers, "which stopped them from breathing.”

Danin, the Council on Foreign Relations expert on Syria, said Syria’s statement on Monday acknowledging its chemical weapons was a thinly disguised threat to the rebel forces. “It was meant as a message to insurgents.”

Beyond their use against insurgents, U.S. and allied fears about the chemical weapons fall into three categories:

• That they could fall into the hands of Sunni jihadis aligned with al-Qaida;
• That the Assad regime could give them to Hezbollah, which is aligned with Iran and already has a significant arsenal of missiles and rockets;
• That they could be used to shield an enclave set up by Assad forces to protect Syria’s minority Alawites, from which most of the government elite is drawn.

Danin thinks all three scenarios are unlikely, but added that they can’t be completely discounted, especially if further movement of the weapons is detected.

“Any movement or potential movement raises the ante,” he said. “You can be agnostic about whether (Assad) stays or goes, but this is one area that that mobilizes the U.S. and Israel to move to preparatory steps. Both the threat and objective are clear and identifiable.”

What you need to know about the Syria crisis

Danin said that terrorists -- either Islamic jihadis fighting with the rebels or Hezbollah fighters – gaining control of such weapons would be the most dangerous scenario.

“Shifting them to Hezbollah would be dangerous, provocative and incendiary,” he said. That, he said, would be “a Doomsday scenario and it would prompt prevention measures.”

But Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Washington, D.C., office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said even a rebel seizure of chemical weaponry would be alarming, since they could conceivably be quickly be spirited away.

“Should the insurgents overrun one of the chemical weapons depots, the question is, if you walk into a room are there weapons you wheel out or do they require more attention?” he said. “Some are ‘ready to roll’ is my impression.”

'Threat is real indeed'
Indeed, while the location of the stockpiles is now in question, the areas where the weapons were believed to be stored all are near scenes of some of the worst violence since the uprising against Assad began 1 ½ years ago.

While some concerns have been raised that  Syria could use the weapons against Israel or Turkey, perhaps as a diversion, most experts see that possibility as far-fetched.

“In terms of the size, diversity, quality and operability of the CW arsenal, the threat is real indeed,” said Shoham, the Israeli expert. “In terms of likelihood that it would be employed, I would level it low against Israel and Turkey and appreciable against the insurgents.”

However, the general threat to Israel was noted by the CIA as far back as 2001, "Syria probably has weaponized sarin into aerial bombs and SCUD missile warheads, which gives Syria the capability to employ chemical agents against targets in Israel. ...While the SS-21s likely would be employed primarily against military bases and forces in northern Israel, the SCUD's longer range and larger warhead suggests that it could be used against Tel Aviv and other cities." 

Myth vs. truth in the Syrian conflict

Even if Syria’s chemical weapons are never used, they could play a role in ending the conflict.

Danin suggested that if the weapons remain in secure locations, they could serve as a deterrent against foreign intervention.

“I think it does play a role at the end of the day,” he said. “It provokes and deters at the same time. It makes a country like Turkey think twice about a limited military intervention and reinforces the notion that Syria has a very powerful military.”

But Spector, of the Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said the weapons would be a wildcard in a negotiated settlement that would see Assad relinquish power.

“The best outcome would be for those who guard the chemical stocks to remain in place during any transition of power, and to place the sites under international supervision so that the weapons would remain secure and a process could be developed to verifiably destroy them,” he said.

That would require some delicate conversations, Spector said, with whomever winds up in control of the weapons.

“You may have to persuade those in control to manage the weapons and not let them be purchased, have some understanding with them that they will be provided with supplies and their families safeguarded,” he said.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

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If Bashar Assad is dislodged from power in Syria, as seems increasingly likely, Russia stands to be the biggest loser in both international prestige and lost arms sales, U.S. analysts tell NBC News.

 “They are scrambling to hold on to the few allies they have,” Charles  Kupchan, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of “No Man’s World,” a book about a world order unanchored by superpowers, said of the Russians. “They’re in an extremely awkward position  --  supporting a regime that is considered beyond the pale by most of the world  -- and as a consequence are selling arms and vetoing  resolutions that are needed steps to stop the killing.”

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On Thursday, Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution threatening  sanctions against the Assad regime. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice called the actions, “dangerous and deplorable,” and argued  on the “Andrea Mitchell Report” on MSNBC that it runs against their “long-term interests.”

Indeed,  those who have meet with members of the Syrian rebel army say no nation, not even Iran, Assad’s closest ally in the region, is as reviled as Russia, which has supplied the regime with many of the armaments used to attack the rebels and shell villages.

Kupchan says that Russia doesn’t seem to care because it’s dealing with what it considers larger issues of geopolitics.  “What’s driving  Russia’s position is Moscow’s deep discomfort at what happened in Libya and (its determination) that it not again sanction civilian protection as pretext for regime change,” he said.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who according to diplomatic officials felt personally betrayed by U.S. President Barack Obama after agreeing to U.N. resolutions permitting the use of force to protect Libyan civilians, only to see it used to overthrow their long-time ally, Moammar Gadhafi.

“Their second motivation, more explicit , is  to salvage influence. To put it mildly, their influence has waned in the Middle East and Central Asia ," added Kupchan. “So, they’re scrambling to hold on to the few allies they have.”

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William Hartung, an arms analyst for the Center for International Policy, says there may be another, more commercial reason for Russia’s support: Syria is one of Moscow’s biggest arms customers in the Middle East, and while purchases by other regional buyers  have declined , Damascus’ appetite for first Soviet and then Russian weaponry has never wavered.

“Syria is among a handful of big buyers left for Russia,” said Hartung, who notes that former customers like Saddam Hussein and Gadhafi have left the world stage. The U.S. and Europe also are making inroads with Russia’s biggest client, India, while China is manufacturing more of its own armaments. “How do you replace China, India, Iraq, Libya and now Syria?” Hartung asks.

In fact, Syrian arms purchases  from Russia have dramatically increased over the past several years, according to documentation  from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute  (SIPRI) and interviews with arms experts.

“Most of Russian exports to Syria over the 2001-2011 period were in the past three years,” said Hartung. “The data shows $187 million (in sales) in 2009;  $294 million in 2010; and $246 million in 2011.”  Over the past decade, Russia transferred weapons worth $857 million to Syria, about 70 percent of the total weapons Syria received in that period.  Other suppliers were Belarus ($196 million), Iran ($109 million), and North Korea ($40 million).

Major weapons sent by Russia to Assad’s government, according to SIPRI, included 2,000 anti-tank missiles, including 200 Igla-SA-18 "Grouse" models, which have been fired from vehicles, helicopters and  ships against rebel fighters; 868  surface-to-air missiles; 24 MiG fighter planes with 300 air-to-air missiles; 36 trainer/combat aircraft; as well as helicopters and artillery. Those numbers do not count the small arms the Syrian military and security forces receive from Russia.

Politically, it’s a symbiotic relationship, Hartung said of the Syrian purchases. “Some of this is about cementing  relationships,  hoping the Russians will bail them out in a pinch.”

There have been conflicting reports on Russia’s willingness to continue sales.  In early July, the deputy director of a body that supervises the country's arms trade was quoted as saying, Russia  would suspend arms sales to Syria.

“While the situation in Syria is unstable, there will be no new deliveries of arms there," Vyacheslav Dzirkaln told journalists at the Farnborough Airshow in Britain, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. But no one else in the Russian government would confirm the deputy minister’s comments, leaving open the possibility that Russia will continue to resupply Assad’s military and security forces.

'Strengthening Putin's hand'
Kupchan said continuing the arms sales might benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 “I do think that in the big scheme of things, the sale of arms is a drop in the bucket financially,” he said. “It matters more in domestic politics, within the decision-making process. Arms merchants and generals are weighing in. It’s not a decisive role but it helps Putin to have them in his camp.

“It’s all about strengthening Putin's hand by standing up to the West.”

But Hartung said that no matter what the end game in Syria, Russia will come out a loser. Either the client state will be in the hands of the anti-Russian rebels or remain in chaos for months, or even years.

 Still, Kupchan said, Russia may still play a positive role in ushering in the post-Assad era.

“It’s conceivable the Russians play a role in the end game,” he said. “They cannot be exceedingly pleased the way this is gone.  I can see the Russians facilitating Assad’s departure.  I just don’t see him winding up in a dacha or gated community outside Moscow.  Probably, more like somewhere in the Arab world or Africa.”

Wherever he goes, Russia’s influence in Syria is likely to go with him.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.