This week, the State Department released an annual report on compliance with the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The most notable findings in the report, which covers Russia, Iran, and Syria, not surprisingly relate to Syria. The report states unequivocally that the "United States assesses that Syria did not declare all the elements of its CW program ... and that Syria may retain CWs as defined by the CWC" just as the 2016 report stated, and despite the repeated assertions of the Obama administration to the contrary.

The "Compliance With the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction Condition 10(C)" report, which covers the calendar year 2016, is part of a larger report on compliance with arms control agreements and commitments. THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported earlier this month about the 2015 report, which acknowledged the "obvious gaps, discrepancies and omissions" in Syria's chemical weapons declarations. This admission is repeated and expanded upon in the current report as well:

Throughout 2015 and 2016, the United States remained vocal in its support of ongoing FFM and DAT activities and a November 2016 EC decision that condemned CW use by Syria and ISIS as reported by the JIM. This EC decision again expressed concern about identified gaps, inconsistencies, and discrepancies in Syria's initial declaration to the OPCW and demanded that the Syrian regime fully comply with its obligations under the Convention.

Despite the assertion that the U.S. "remained vocal in its support of ongoing" efforts to fill in the "gaps, inconsistencies, and discrepancies" in Syria's chemical weapons declarations, President Obama said as recently as December 2016 that the 2013 deal brokered by Russia "eliminated Syria's declared chemical weapons program," making no mention of the "obvious gaps, discrepancies and omissions" in those declarations.

The report also notes that "[s]imilar to challenges faced in 2014 and 2015, the DAT [Declaration Assessment Team] work in 2016 was hampered by the lack of access to original documentation on Syria's CW program." Asked about the report, Markus Binder, a senior researcher and project manager at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, told TWS:

[The] failure to obtain access to original Syrian records is probably highly significant. For instance, it was only by combing through the large quantities of Iraqi records, despite Iraqi efforts to hide or destroy records, that the details of the Iraqi VX program were exposed to inspectors following Iraq's 1991 defeat. The Syrians almost certainly withheld their records in order to minimize the risk that inspectors might discover a larger history of production, or hidden storage or production facilities.

The report also noted that three chemical weapons production facilities "remained to be destroyed as of December 31, 2016." However, Binder did not find this particularly concerning:

[The] fact that three facilities have not been destroyed as of the time of this report does not mean that they are currently in operation as production facilities. If the Syrians are still producing new binary components it will almost certainly be at a facility they have not already declared to the OPCW.

Though the report focused mainly on Syria, the State Department also noted that the U.S. cannot certify that Iran and Russia have met their obligations under the CWC either. Despite both countries' support of the Syrian regime, however, Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington D.C., does not believe that either country would directly supply chemical weapons to Syria:

"Neither Iran nor Russia have a strategic military or political reason to supply Syria with CW production material and doing so runs risks I suspect neither would be willing to take.The use of Sarin by Assad reflects poorly on Russia, which brokered and helped enforce the 2013 removal operation, and Iran is a very conspicuous victim of CW attacks from Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. "That said, Russia is complicit in Syria CW violation in the sense that it has denied Assad's responsibility and blocked efforts at the U.N. Security Council to fully investigate the April 4 attack and to hold the perpetrators of earlier barrel bomb attacks involving chlorine accountable."

The report notes that neither Iran nor Russia has been engaged in direct talks for years. In 2016 "the United States reiterated its proposal to hold expert-level consultations, but Russia has not yet agreed to renew such consultations and none were held during the reporting period." Regarding Iran, "[s]ince 2004 and through the end of the reporting period, there have been no CWC compliance discussions between the United States and Iran." This apparently includes the talks held by the Obama administration that led to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The State Department's publicly released CWC compliance report is an unclassified version of a more detailed report provided to Congress where "additional information is available." When asked by TWS about the classified version of the report Tuesday, a national security council official declined to discuss it.