components for the saran gas. and now that that is done, saran has a shelf life of 60 days. use it or lose it and the senior u.s. military official says it looks like the syrians have placed the gas in breakable canisters that they could then drop from an aircraft. those canisters would then release the saran as a mist of deadly droplets that could potentially kill thousands of innocent civilian notice area. killing innocent people would be nothing new for this assad. ache atactivists estimate at let 40,000 people have died in the uprising that began early last year. this would mark a bloody new territory for even that dictator. >> we want to be very clear. we want to be very clear to the syrian government as its situation deteriorates, they must not think about deploying these things. they must not deploy them. >> shepard: reports suggest syria produces and stores its chemical weapons in five