Rocket engine depicted in UN report.
The United Nations mission to investigate allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria has released its report on the mass deaths in Ghouta on August 21, and it presents compelling evidence that the killings resulted from a deliberate attack with the nerve gas sarin. While the report explicitly declines to attribute responsibility for what it describes as a war crime, the details it provides of the quality of the sarin, the munitions used to deliver it and the trajectory of the projectiles used point to the Syrian regime as the likely perpetrator.
FAIR criticized US media for insufficient skepticism in its coverage of the US government report on Ghouta released on August 30 by Secretary of State John Kerry (FAIR Blog, 9/1/13), which explicitly blamed the Syrian government for the attack. The contrast between the two reports is striking: While Kerry’s report avoided providing specific details to back up its claims—”in order to protect sources and methods,” Kerry said—the UN report strove for maximum transparency, describing, for example, where samples were taken, how they were handled to avoid contamination, how they were tested and what results were obtained.
The UN does have the advantage in not being actively engaged in covert operations to overthrow the Syrian government, which allows it to collect evidence with a minimum of subterfuge. But the US government clearly could have shared much more information than it did (Washington Post, 9/2/13), and chose not to; this seems to reflect the priorities of the intelligence community, where secrecy is paramount. It refers to “classified assessments” based on “a substantial body of information,” but what the specifics of that information are we don’t have a need to know.
The UN report, on the other hand, appears designed to provide information to facilitate a public discussion. It provides detailed information to bolster its conclusions that can be both understood by laypeople and evaluated by experts. In short, it treats the global public as citizens, with a right to be informed about global events—while the US government treats its citizens as passive consumers of a predigested message.
US is only worried about Israel’s security. Only one concern: what will happen to the chemical weapoms stock if Assad falls. Finally they made a deal with Assad: give us the chemical and continu slaughtering women and children. Assad The Chemical is now a partner with US and Russia. Chemical not allowed but you can kill civilians with jet fighters, tanks, napalm etc
I look forward to level-headed UN assessments of Israel’s nuclear stockpiles, and of U.S. compliance with international norms and conventions regarding chemical and other WMDs.
Since the Syria crisis seems to be abating, I’m sure that U.S. media will focus on these other major humanitarian concerns.
Looking over the UN report, its clear that while the rocket recovered at Zamalka (carrying 50+ litres of sarin) was clearly a CW munition, it was not an industrially manufactured weapon but an improvised product of backyard ndustry, ie the sort of weapon that the SAA does not use but that the rebels would be able to produce.
Conversely, while the Moadamiyah rocket booster is clearly a Russian-made artillery rocket, the rocket was clearly old (shows signs of rust) and the CW canister was not found and other then at the immediate impact site, the area tested negative for sarin (unlike Zamalka where the evidence was overwhelming). This is consistent with rebels capturing artillery rockets from a SAA stockpile and modifying to carry an improvised CW warhead.
Finally, while the UN report gives details of evidence of rocket trajectories, it is scant and incomplete. USGov and its lackies claim the trajectories prove rockets were launched from government held areas, but I have heard at one source saying the launch points were in CONTESTED areas.
Despite the predictable war agitprop from the US/UK/France and Arab League warmongers, I would judge that the UN report supports Syrian/Russian version of events, ie a false-flag attack by the rebels timed to cooincide with a upsurge in fighting to make it look as though the attack originated from the Syrian government forces.
I think Gazza is on to something. Here’s the letter I emailed to the NYT yesterday (9/19/13). I wonder if they’ll publish it, because it undermines their (and Human Rights Watch’s) pet theory about 2 intersecting trajectories:
To the Editor of the New York Times:
A September 17 news article by C.J. Chivers stated, “Details buried in the United Nations report on the Syrian chemical weapons attack point directly at elite military formations loyal to President Bashar al-Assad…”
However, the UN report contains little evidence that a chemical weapons attack occurred at all in the neighborhood of Muadamiya, southwest of Damascus. No sarin was found in any of the environmental samples taken from Muadamiya.
Only four detailed interviews were conducted with symptomatic people in Muadamiya (24 in Ain Tarma). Only one person in Muadamiya underwent a detailed interview about what occurred there on August 21. Several sarin-exposed people could have been transported to Muadamiya before the UN team began taking biomedical samples.
If there was only one flight path, the attack on Ain Tarma could have originated in disputed territory near the Old City. The rebels could have done it.
I too was curious after hearing a program with a mit “authority”. It lead to the pictures and discussion at brown-moses at blogspot. The real question was what form of dispersal method the rocket used. Rather than just spray it out, it explosively ripped the nose positioned canister. The result should be that any resultant angle of the landed spent rocket should be useless in determining the direction from which it came (although a crater would indicate the impact direction). For the most honest representation the UN should have made a map of ALL the found rockets and clearly shown how many were indeterminate, and then shown those with an overlay of probable areas of launch for those of which a crater or malfunctioned rocket could be used to infer trajectory. The suspicion is that very very few occurrences of discernible evidence has been used to mask the fact that most of the found material is indeterminate.
Well I think what you are trying to say is that the US intel was probably right all along(though you thought it was not).I think this is the best FAIR can do in the way of an apology.You are saying yes you were wrong ,but it was the fault of the prez for not sharing all his top secret intel with you(because unlike the honest abe UN) the US is ALWAYS up to nefarious intent.Ummmm ok.Apology excepted.I think.