Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil this week dismissed as mere election politics President Obama's implicit threat to intervene should the Syrian regime deploy its chemical weapons stockpile. (Andrey Smirnov, AFP/Getty Images / ) 
 
 WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has made contingency plans to send small teams of special operations troops into Syria if the White House decides it needs to secure chemical weapons depots now controlled by security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, senior U.S. officials said. 
 
 President Obama warned this week that any effort by Assad to move or use his arsenal of chemical munitions in the country's conflict would cross a "red line," implying it could prompt swift U.S. intervention. 
 
 But Pentagon planners are more focused on protecting or destroying any Syrian stockpiles that are left unguarded and at risk falling into the hands of rebel fighters or militias aligned with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or other militant groups. 
 
 Securing the sites would probably involve stealthy raids by special operations teams trained to handle such weapons, and precision airstrikes to incinerate the chemicals without dispersing them in the air, the officials said. U.S. satellites and drone aircraft already maintain partial surveillance of the sites. 
 
 U.S. intelligence agencies believe Syria has over the years produced or acquired hundreds of tons of sarin nerve agent and mustard gas, a blister agent, and has sought to develop VX, another powerful nerve gas. The toxicity of some chemical agents degrades significantly over time, so it is unclear how lethal the stockpiles are. 
 
 Experts say the chemical agents are stored in bunkers and other sites around the country. Four production facilities are near the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs, all tinderboxes in the 17-month uprising, as well as the coastal city of Latakia, an area considered a stronghold for Assad's Alawite religious sect. 
 
 An unclassified report by the director of national intelligence this year said Syria's chemical agents "can be delivered by aerial bombs, ballistic missiles and artillery rockets." But Syrian rockets, including Scud missiles procured from North Korea, are notoriously inaccurate, making them ineffective for delivering a heavy concentration of toxic chemicals to a specific target. 
 
 They can be very effective, however, at creating chaos. 
 
 "The actual killing may be less important than the panic they would induce," said Leonard Spector, who heads the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. 
 
 Although he did not make an explicit threat, Obama's comments at the White House on Monday were widely seen as a direct warning to Assad that the U.S. would take military action if necessary to stop the use of chemical weapons. But officials said later that no large-scale U.S. intervention is likely unless it is part of an international coalition. 
 
 "You shouldn't interpret what Obama said to mean that there would be automatic military action, but rather that we would respond as part of an international effort," said one senior official. 
 
 Officials said Obama could make a unilateral decision, however, to order special forces teams to stop weapons of mass destruction from falling into the wrong hands. 
 
 Pentagon officials and senior military officers said the Syrian stockpiles seem well guarded for now, and they stressed that the White House has not ordered detailed planning of operations aimed at securing the facilities. 
 
 "We have done contingency planning but we're not doing detailed planning — identifying numbers [of troops], units and platforms — until the White House tells us we need a specific plan for this," a senior officer said. 
 
 Although U.S. officials said they are closely monitoring the unconventional weapons sites, they also acknowledge the stockpiles are large enough that some materials, such as small artillery shells filled with chemical agents, could be relocated without their knowledge. 
 
 U.S. officials told reporters last month that they had evidence Syrian forces were moving some chemical arms, apparently to keep them away from areas of fighting. 
 
 Assad's government has said it will not use chemical munitions against the Syrian people, though it has implied they could be used if foreign troops sought to intervene in the war. 
 
 "Any chemical or bacterial weapon will never be used — and I repeat will never be used — during the crisis in Syria, regardless of the developments," Jihad Makdissi, a Syrian government spokesman, told reporters last month. "These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression." 
 
 Analysts say it's unclear how much of the chemical arsenal could be deployed, and they note that the agents, particularly VX and sarin, may have weakened if the regime isn't regularly refilling its stocks. U.S. intelligence officials have said that Syria, which is under international sanctions, relies heavily on foreign sources for chemicals and other key parts of its weapons program. 
 
 The VX stockpiles maintained by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government had a shelf life of about six months, and the sarin less than two years, the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium, a network of European think tanks, said in a report last month. 
 
 "To keep those sorts of quantities replenished, you have to have a very robust program," said Charles P. Blair, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based group. 
 
 In response to a reporter's question Monday, Obama mentioned Syria's biological weapons program. But that appears a minor concern at this point. 
 
 In 2008, Army Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before Congress that Syria had "a program to develop select biological agents as weapons" and that the program was "in the research and development stage." 
 
 U.S. officials no longer appear to believe that Syria is actively pursuing a biological weapons program. The unclassified U.S. intelligence report this year said only that Syria had the infrastructure to support the development of biological weapons. 
 
 david.cloud@latimes.com 
 
 sbengali@latimes.com ||||| MC1(AW) Nathanael Miller / U.S. Navy The destroyer USS Barry, currently steaming in the Mediterranean Sea awaiting possible orders to attack Syria with Tomahawk cruise missiles, launches one against Libya on Mar. 19, 2011. 
 
 Taking out Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile isn’t easy – and is fraught with perils, including creating plumes of deadly vapors that could kill civilians downwind of such attacks. 
 
 That’s why Pentagon officials suggest that any U.S. and allied military strike against Syria will tilt toward military, and command and control, targets —including artillery and missile units that could be used to launch chemical weapons — instead of the bunkers believed to contain them. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry made clear Monday that military action is all but inevitable in the coming days. “We know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets,” he said. “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.” 
 
 But targeting the weapons themselves may not make the most military sense. 
 
 For starters, neither the U.S. nor its allies know where Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is keeping his cache of hundreds of tons of sarin, mustard gas and other chemical agents. That means that any military strike to take them out will surely leave some untouched. 
 
 (MORE: The Two Big Reasons Obama Might Strike Syria) 
 
 After more than two years of civil war, the Syrian military has distributed many of its chemical arms beyond the original 15 or so major storage sites where Western intelligence agencies believe they were housed when the conflict began. “Dispersing the stuff would make [attacking it] more difficult,” says Eliot Cohen, a former Pentagon official now at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Blowing up storage sites, he warns, also could “leave the facilities so shattered that people can come in and pick the stuff up that you don’t want them to pick up.” 
 
 Secondly, the Obama Administration and its allies aren’t considering deploying troops to seize and secure such weapons. The Pentagon has estimated that mission could take 75,000 troops. 
 
 Last month, Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, detailed for Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the armed services committee, the difficulties associated with using military force to seize control of Syria’s chemical stockpile. 
 
 “We do this by destroying portions of Syria’s massive stockpile, interdicting its movement and delivery, or by seizing and securing program components,” he said in his July 19 letter assessing U.S. military options in Syria. “At a minimum, this option would call for a no-fly zone as well as air and missile strikes involving hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers. Thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites.” 
 
 Neither the nation—nor President Obama—has any desire for U.S. combat boots on Syrian soil. So U.S. defense officials are weighing air strikes to punish Assad’s government for their suspected use of chemical weapons. But because the Pentagon doesn’t want to put primarily U.S. pilots at risk of being shot down and held hostage by Damascus, it’s leaning toward the use of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles—TLAMs—against Syrian targets. 
 
 (MORE: Assad Taunts U.S. Over Iraq, Vietnam) 
 
 Unfortunately for U.S. war planners, Tomahawk cruise missiles pack a relatively puny 1,000-pound warhead. That’s unlikely to punch through buried chemical-weapons bunkers and generate the intense, sustained heat needed to incinerate sarin or other chemical weapons inside. 
 
 “Doing this with Tomahawks is going to be a challenge,” says Amy Smithson, a chemical-weapons expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington. “You may get half of them with Tomahawks, but I have plume concerns—anybody in the neighborhood is going to be in big, bad trouble” if the poisonous agents drift their way. 
 
 Bulk chemicals not already loaded into individual shells are especially vulnerable to being spread by bombing. That’s why Smithson believes that Western governments should provide those near targeted chemical-storage sites with protective gear before launching any attacks. “Syrian civilians and rebel forces,” she says, “could benefit greatly from gas masks.” 
 
 Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sketched out a likely U.S. military response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in that July letter to Levin. He termed it Conduct Limited Stand-off Strikes: 
 
 This option uses lethal force to strike targets that enable the regime to conduct military operations, proliferate advanced weapons, and defend itself. Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes. Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing. 
 
 Cohen is leery of a tit-for-tat strike that he fears the Obama Administration is considering. The apparent indiscriminate use of deadly agents against civilians, he argues, requires a disproportionate response by the U.S. to convince other states from doing the same. 
 
 “You want people to understand that, if you do this, you lose your war,” Cohen says. The Obama Administration should consider destroying Syria’s air force, its air defenses, and many of its airfields to retaliate if Syria’s use of chemical weapons is confirmed. “The objective,” he argues, “should be crippling the regime.” 
 
 MORE: Obama Can Strike Syria Unilaterally ||||| Anwar Amro/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images A fighter allied to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ran across a street in Damascus following fighting with rebel forces on Thursday. 
 
 A secretive Syrian military unit at the center of the Assad regime's chemical weapons program has been moving stocks of poison gases and munitions to as many as 50 sites to make them harder for the U.S. to track, according to American and Middle Eastern officials. 
 
 The movements of chemical weapons by Syria's elite Unit 450 could complicate any U.S. bombing campaign in Syria over its alleged chemical attacks, officials said. It also raises questions about implementation of a Russian proposal that calls for the regime to surrender control of its stockpile, they said. 
 
 U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies still believe they know where most of the Syrian regime's chemical weapons are located, but with less confidence than six months ago, U.S. officials said. 
 
 Secretary of State John Kerry met Thursday in Geneva with his Russian counterpart to discuss a road map for ending the weapons program. The challenges are immense, Mr. Kerry said. 
 
 WSJ Exclusive: A secret Syrian military unit is spreading stockpiles of poisonous gas and munitions to make tracking by the U.S. harder. WSJ Pentagon correspondent Julian Barnes explains. Photo: AP. 
 
 The U.S. alleges a chemical-weapons attack by the Syrian government on Aug. 21 killed more than 1,400 people, including at least 400 children. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday again denied any involvement in a chemical attack, but he said his government was prepared to sign an agreement banning the use of chemical weapons. Syrian officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the weapons. 
 
 Unit 450—a branch of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center that manages the regime's overall chemicals weapons program—has been moving the stocks around for months, officials and lawmakers briefed on the intelligence said. 
 
 Movements occurred as recently as last week, the officials said, after Mr. Obama said he was preparing to launch strikes. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Reuters A man affected by what activists say was nerve gas received assistance in the Damascus suburbs last month. 
 
 The unit is in charge of mixing and deploying chemical munitions, and it provides security at chemical sites, according to U.S. and European intelligence agencies. It is composed of officers from Mr. Assad's Alawite sect. One diplomat briefed on the unit said it was Alawite from "janitor to commander." 
 
 U.S. military officials have looked into the possibility of gaining influence over members of Unit 450 through inducements or threats. "In a perfect world, you would actually like to co-opt that unit. Who cares who pays them as long as they sit on the chemical weapons," said a senior U.S. military official. 
 
 Although the option remains on the table, government experts say the unit is so close-knit that they doubt any member could break ranks without being exposed and killed. 
 
 The U.S. estimates the regime has 1,000 metric tons of chemical and biological agents. "That is what we know about. There might be more," said one senior U.S. official. 
 
 The regime traditionally kept most of its chemical and biological weapons at a few large sites in western Syria, U.S. officials said. But beginning about a year ago, the Syrians started dispersing the arsenal to nearly two dozen major sites. 
 
 Unit 450 also started using dozens of smaller sites. The U.S. now believes Mr. Assad's chemical arsenal has been scattered to as many as 50 locations in the west, north and south, as well as new sites in the east, officials said. 
 
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 The U.S. is using satellites to track vehicles employed by Unit 450 to disperse the chemical-weapons stocks. But the imagery doesn't always show what is being put on the trucks. "We know a lot less than we did six months ago about where the chemical weapons are," one official said. 
 
 The movements, activities and base locations of Unit 450 are so sensitive that the U.S. won't share information with even trusted allies in the opposition for fear the unit would be overrun by rebels, said current and former U.S. officials. 
 
 The U.S. wants any military strikes in Syria to send a message to the heads of Unit 450 that there is a steep price for following orders to use chemical weapons, U.S. officials said. 
 
 At the same time, the U.S. doesn't want any strike to destabilize the unit so much that it loses control of its chemical weapons, giving rebels a chance to seize the arsenal. 
 
 "Attacking Unit 450, assuming we have any idea where they actually are, would be a pretty tricky affair because…if you attack them you may reduce the security of their weapons, which is something we certainly don't want," said Jeffrey White, a veteran of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a defense fellow at The Washington Institute. 
 
 Within Syria, little is known about Unit 450 or the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center. One of the buildings is in a sprawling complex on the outskirts of Damascus. 
 
 Even high-ranking defectors from the Syrian military that form the core of the rebel insurgency—including those who served in units trained to handle chemical attacks—said they hadn't heard of Unit 450. 
 
 The Pentagon has prepared multiple target lists for possible strikes, some of which include commanders of Unit 450. 
 
 But a senior U.S. official said no decision has been made to target them, reflecting the challenge of sending a message to Unit 450 without destabilizing it. 
 
 In some respects, officials said, the hands-on role that Unit 450 plays in safeguarding the regime's chemical weapons secrets makes it too valuable for the U.S. to eliminate, even though the U.S. believes the unit is directly responsible for the alleged chemical weapons abuses. 
 
 The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center answers only to Mr. Assad and the most senior members of his clan, according to U.S. and European officials. Attack orders are forwarded to a commanding officer within Unit 450. 
 
 If the Russians clinch a deal for Mr. Assad to give up his chemical weapons, any prospective United Nations-led force to protect inspectors and secure storage sites would likely need to work closely with Unit 450 and the research center, current and former administration officials said. 
 
 Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that President Barack Obama directed him to plan for "a militarily significant strike" that would deter the Assad regime's further use of chemical weapons and degrade the regime's military capability to employ chemical weapons in the future. 
 
 But officials said the U.S. doesn't plan to bomb chemical weapons sites directly because of concerns any attack would disperse poison agents and put civilians at risk. 
 
 In addition to satellites, the U.S. also relies on Israeli spies for on-the-ground intelligence about the unit, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. 
 
 Though small in size, Unit 450 controls a vast infrastructure that makes it easier for the U.S. and Israel to track its movements. Chemical weapons storage depots are guarded by the unit within larger compounds to provide multiple layers of security, U.S. officials said. 
 
 Whenever chemical munitions are deployed in the field, Unit 450 has to pre-deploy heavy equipment to chemical mixing areas, which the U.S. and Israel can track. 
 
 Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com, Julian E. Barnes at julian.barnes@wsj.com and Nour Malas at nour.malas@dowjones.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared September 13, 2013, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Elite Syrian Unit Scatters Chemical Arms Stockpile.
– If the Syrian regime falls, the US plans to deploy troops to stop its chemical weapons from becoming a first-come, first-served bonanza for insurgent groups, senior officials say. Plans are in place to secure the sites if necessary, a move that would probably involve teams of special forces operatives entering the country to guard sites as well as precision airstrikes to incinerate other locations without releasing poisons into the air, the Los Angeles Times reports. The Pentagon fears that stockpiles left unguarded could fall into the hands of rebels linked to al-Qaeda or other Islamic extremists. American satellites and drones are already watching the sites, which are believed to hold hundreds of tons of sarin gas and other nerve agents. Earlier this week, President Obama warned Bashar al-Assad's regime that the US considers the using or moving of chemical weapons a "red line" beyond which military force could be used. Activists say hundreds of people have been killed in continued fighting this week, including many civilians in army shelling of southern Damascus, Reuters reports.