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Evidence Indicates that Syrian
Government Did Not Launch a Chemical Weapon Attack Against Its People
Global
Research, August 24, 2013
Url
of this article:
The last time the U.S. blamed the
Syrian government for a chemical weapons attack, that claim was was debunked.
But is the claim that the Syrian
government used chemical weapons against its people true this time?
It’s not surprising that Syria’s
close ally – Russia – is expressing doubt.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) notes:
Russia, which has
previously said it has proof of chemical weapons use by the rebels, expressed
deep scepticism about the opposition’s claims.
The foreign ministry said
the timing of the allegations as UN inspectors began their work “makes us think
that we are once again dealing with a premeditated provocation.”
But Russia isn’t the only doubter.
“At the moment, I am not
totally convinced because the people that are helping them are without any
protective clothing and without any respirators,” said Paula Vanninen, director
of Verifin, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention.
“In a real case, they
would also be contaminated and would also be having symptoms.”
John Hart, head of the
Chemical and Biological Security Project at Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute said he had not seen the telltale evidence in the eyes of
the victims that would be compelling evidence of chemical weapons use.
“Of the videos that I’ve
seen for the last few hours, none of them show pinpoint pupils... this would
indicate exposure to organophosphorus nerve agents,” he said.
Gwyn Winfield, editor of
CBRNe World magazine, which specialises in chemical weapons issues, said the
evidence did not suggest that the chemicals used were of the weapons-grade that
the Syrian army possesses in its stockpiles.
“We’re not seeing reports
that doctors and nurses... are becoming fatalities, so that would suggest that
the toxicity of it isn’t what we would consider military sarin. It may well be
that it is a lower-grade,” Winfield told AFP.
Western experts on
chemical warfare who have examined at least part of the footage are skeptical
that weapons-grade chemical substances were used, although they all emphasize
that serious conclusions cannot be reached without thorough on-site examination.
Dan Kaszeta, a former
officer of the U.S. Army’s Chemical Corps and a leading private consultant,
pointed out a number of details absent from the footage so far: “None of the
people treating the casualties or photographing them are wearing any sort of
chemical-warfare protective gear,” he says, “and despite that, none of them
seem to be harmed.” This would seem to rule out most types of military-grade
chemical weapons, including the vast majority of nerve gases, since these
substances would not evaporate immediately, especially if they were used in
sufficient quantities to kill hundreds of people, but rather leave a level of
contamination on clothes and bodies which would harm anyone coming in
unprotected contact with them in the hours after an attack. In addition, he
says that “there are none of the other signs you would expect to see in the
aftermath of a chemical attack, such as intermediate levels of casualties,
severe visual problems, vomiting and loss of bowel control.”
Steve Johnson, a leading
researcher on the effects of hazardous material exposure at England’s Cranfield
University who has worked with Britain’s Ministry of Defense on chemical
warfare issues, agrees that “from the details we have seen so far, a large
number of casualties over a wide area would mean quite a pervasive dispersal.
With that level of chemical agent, you would expect to see a lot of
contamination on the casualties coming in, and it would affect those treating
them who are not properly protected. We are not seeing that here.”
Additional questions also
remain unanswered, especially regarding the timing of the attack, being that it
occurred on the exact same day that a team of UN inspectors was in Damascus to
investigate earlier claims of chemical weapons use. It is also unclear what
tactical goal the Syrian army would have been trying to achieve, when over the
last few weeks it has managed to push back the rebels who were encroaching on
central areas of the capital. But if this was not a chemical weapons attack,
what then caused the deaths of so many people without any external signs of
trauma?
***
The Syrian rebels (and
perhaps other players in the region) have a clear interest in presenting this
as the largest chemical attack by the army loyal to Syrian President Bashar
Assad to date, even if the cause was otherwise, especially while the UN
inspectors are in the country. It is also in their interest to do so whilst
U.S. President Barack Obama remains reluctant to commit any military support to
the rebels, when only the crossing of a “red line” could convince him to change
his policy.
The rebels and the doctors
on the scene may indeed believe that chemical weapons were used, since they
fear such an attack, but they may not have the necessary knowledge and means to
make such a diagnosis. The European Union demanded Wednesday that the UN
inspectors be granted access to the new sites of alleged chemical attacks, but
since this is not within the team’s mandate, it is unlikely that the Syrian
government will do so.
Stephen Johnson, an expert in
weapons and chemical explosives at Cranfield Forensic Institute, said that the
video footage looked suspect:
There are, within some of the
videos, examples which seem a little hyper-real, and almost as if they’ve been
set up. Which is not to say that they are fake but it does cause some concern.
Some of the people with foaming, the foam seems to be too white, too pure, and
not consistent with the sort of internal injury you might expect to see, which
you’d expect to be bloodier or yellower.
I’m deliberately not using
the term chemical weapons here,” he said, adding that the use of “industrial
toxicants” was a more likely explanation.
1. Why would Syria’s Assad
invite United Nations chemical weapons inspectors to Syria, then launch a
chemical weapons attack against women and children on the very day they arrive,
just miles from where they are staying?
2. If Assad were going to
use chemical weapons, wouldn’t he use them against the hired mercenary army
trying to oust him? What does he gain attacking women and children? Nothing!
The gain is all on the side of the US Government desperate to get the war
agenda going again.
As I type these words, US
trained and equipped forces are already across the border into Syria, and US
naval forces are sailing into position to launch a massive cruise missile
attack into Syria that will surely kill more Syrians than were claimed to have
died in the chemical attack.
Of course, we don’t know
who carried out the attack, or what weapon was used.
But given the
well-documented fact that the U.S. has been planning regime change in Syria for
20 years straight – and
planned to use false ploys for 50 years – it
is worth being skeptical until all of the evidence is in.
Indeed, many are asking
whether this is Iraq War 2.0. For example, the Independent writes:
Pictures showing that the
Syrian army used chemical weapons against rebel-held Eastern Ghouta just east
of Damascus are ... likely to be viewed sceptically because the claims so much
resemble those made about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs) before the US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003.
***
Like the Iraqi opposition
to Saddam, who provided most of the evidence of WMDs, the Syrian opposition has
every incentive to show the Syrian government deploying chemical weapons in
order to trigger foreign intervention.
***
But the obvious fact that
for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons would be much against their
own interests does not prove it did not happen. Governments and armies do
stupid things. But it is difficult to imagine any compelling reason why they
should do so since they have plenty of other means of killing people in Eastern
Ghouta, such as heavy artillery or small arms, which they regularly use.
***
The evidence so far for
the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian army is second-hand and comes from a
biased source.
Copyright
© 2013 Global Research
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