Shawn Helton
21st Century Wire
It’s been almost two weeks since Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor Theodore Postol directly disputed claims concerning the official US report regarding the alleged chemical weapons attack out of Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib province of Syria. Postol’s initial analysis, along with its addendum, appeared to echo aspects of what MIT research affiliate and former US Congressional staffer Subrata Ghoshroy observed in the aftermath of the Syrian chemical incident in East Ghouta, Damascus in 2013.
‘WMD LIE REDUX?’ – Are the latest sarin gas claims out of Ilib false? (Photo Illustration 21WIRE’s Shawn Helton)
MIT Disputes Washington
In fact, Postol and Ghoshroy have both questioned various facts surrounding the Damascus chemical incident of 2013 and now more recently, Postol weighed in on the alleged chemical attack in Idlib. Both apparent attacks were claimed through the presentation of dubious video imagery and suspicious photographs as a main source of evidence. Despite the absence of any real forensic investigation, the western media proclaimed ‘certainty’ over images and videos largely supplied by the US-UK funded ‘NGO’ known as the ‘White Helmets,’ a so-called ‘first responder’ group with a history of producing western-oriented war propaganda.
Below is another look at a passage from an article published at 21WIRE entitled “MIT Researcher: Syria WMD ‘Facts’ Were Manufactured to Fit U.S. Conclusion for Ghouta in 2013.” In that piece, 21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen had the opportunity to interview Ghoshroy regarding the questionable 2013 chemical weapons claims in Syria on the SUNDAY WIRE radio show:
“Back in December 2016, 21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen interviewed MIT research affiliate and a former US Congressional staffer, Subrata Ghoshroy, to discuss his Analysis of the UN Report on Syria’s Chemical Weapons Incident in 2013 in East Ghouta, Damascus, and he also explains how unqualified persons posing as ‘experts’ were delivering bogus evidence to the UN at the time, which resulted in fraudulent conclusions in the UN report – which were then used to justify US and British calls for bombing in Syria. Ghoshroy also explains how the gathering information and data from a war zone continues to be serious problem fuelling Western media and political misinformation campaigns regarding the Syrian war in 2017.”
The following is the Ghoshroy interview segment from Episode #165 of SUNDAY WIRE recorded in December 2016. Listen:
The award winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh noted the following in the aftermath of the chemical claims of 2013 in a published piece entitled “Who’s Sarin?,” featured in the London Review of Books:
“The UN resolution, which was adopted on 27 September by the Security Council, dealt indirectly with the notion that rebel forces such as al-Nusra would also be obliged to disarm: ‘no party in Syria should use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer [chemical] weapons.’ The resolution also calls for the immediate notification of the Security Council in the event that any ‘non-state actors’ acquire chemical weapons. No group was cited by name. While the Syrian regime continues the process of eliminating its chemical arsenal, the irony is that, after Assad’s stockpile of precursor agents is destroyed, al-Nusra and its Islamist allies could end up as the only faction inside Syria with access to the ingredients that can create sarin, a strategic weapon that would be unlike any other in the war zone. There may be more to negotiate.”
Flash forward to 2017, and it appears that the world could once again be at the precipice of a chemical weapons fabrication…
‘BIG QUESTIONS’ – The US government maintains that the highly toxic nerve agent Sarin was used in Syria. However, any skin exposure to the chemical compound would pose severe heath risks – even death. ( Image Source: eclinik.files.wordpress)
Blocking the Investigation?
Those in Washington, along with other Western functionaries, have seemingly had a hand in stifling a probe into the forensically debated chemical attack out of Khan Shaykhun, Syria. Over the past couple of days reports now state that the Organisation For The Prohibition Of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) rejected a ‘proposal’ for a probe into the suspected chemical incident. Here’s Spuntnik news with the following developments:
“The Organisation For The Prohibition Of Chemical Weapons has rejected Russia and Iran’s proposal for a new team to probe the suspected chemical attack earlier this month in Syria. Moscow’s pushing for a wider investigation, because it believes the OPCW cannot properly confirm anything until it’s actually visited the site.
The blocking of the Russian proposal at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on investigating the alleged chemical weapon use in Syria’s Idlib province aims to direct attention to the idea of regime change in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.”
RT International reported on the Syrian government’s request to have UN send experts investigate the alleged chemical attack site in Khan Shaykhun:
“The Syrian government has asked the UN to send experts to investigate the alleged chemical attack in Idlib province, but the request remains unanswered due to pressure from US and other Western countries, Syrian president Bashar Assad told Sputnik in an exclusive interview.”
“We formally sent a letter to the United Nations, we asked them in that letter to send a delegation in order to investigate what happened in Khan Shaykhun,” Assad said. “Of course till this moment they didn’t send (the experts), because the West and the US blocked any delegation from coming,” he added.”
The OPCW now states that there is “incontrovertible” evidence of sarin gas or sarin-like substance, which in itself appears to be a contradictory statement that doesn’t completely make sense. Due to its devastating effects, either sarin was used or it wasn’t and if it wasn’t then what really happened?
Furthermore, why are Western countries blocking the Syrian government’s request for a UN inquiry into the alleged chemical attack in Idlib?
Recently, former US Congressman Dennis Kucinich joined former US Congressman Ron Paul in condemning US missile strikes in Syria without clear evidence. Strikes that saw a spike in defense contractor profits after the 59 Tomahawk missiles were launched on April 7th.
On April 4th, the Syrian Air Force struck a warehouse in Idlib where chemical weapons were said to have been produced and stockpiled by militants prior to being shipped to Iraq. Ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern also confirmed through military sources that the Syrian government’s strike on Idlib hit had hit a weapons cache in a rebel-held area, where a nearby chemical facility was damaged in the airstrike releasing a cloud of chemicals in the village.
What is most disturbing, is that many in US-UK leadership seem desperate for the public to buy into any WMD claims without concrete proof and in the process, they’ve deliberately pushed heavily propagandized imagery presented on social media as proof of the as of yet forensically unproven sarin gas attack.
The Duran expands on the matter, in a report that openly acknowledges some of the more forensically questionable elements in the alleged attack in Idlib. Two of the most troubling aspects of the investigation stemmed from chemical samples over the course of hours, not weeks, which dovetailed a blind acceptance concerning shock and awe propaganda videos and images produced by the Western backed-NGO, the White Helmets:
“The OPCW is not willing to properly probe the alleged chemical attack in Idlib. This is very odd.
What does a proper investigation entail?
How about the OPCW actually visit the site of the alleged attack, instead of rely on samples sent by White Helmets, or Al Qaeda, or anyone else for that matter.
How was the OPCW able to analyze the samples so quickly? Usually such lab work requires weeks, not hours.”
Additionally, former CIA case officer and US Army intelligence officer Phil Giraldi stated that “The White House assumption that only the Syrian government could have used chemical weapons is false.”
There are some in Western media who have noted the wag the dog aspect that has apparently ensnared the White House over the Idlib chemical attack claims. Scott Ritter published an article for Huffington Post acknowledging what most Western outlets have largely failed to mention or question. Here’s an insightful passage of that article below:
“Sarin, however, is an odorless, colorless material, dispersed as either a liquid or vapor; eyewitnesses speak of a “pungent odor” and “blue-yellow” clouds, more indicative of chlorine gas. And while American media outlets, such as CNN, have spoken of munitions “filled to the brim” with Sarin nerve agent being used at Khan Sheikhoun, there is simply no evidence cited by any source that can sustain such an account.”
Here’s RT’s Nadira Tudor discussing the alleged sarin gas claims out of Syria. Below the RT interview, Moon of Alabama analyzes the latest Postol report about the alleged attack in Idlib…
The Nerve Agent Attack that Did Not Occur – Khan Sheikhun Summary Report by Prof. Postol
Moon of Alabama
MIT Professor Theodore Postol, a well known missile expert and former scientific advisor to the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, analyzed the available evidence of the alleged April 4 Sarin attack on Khan Sheikhun in Syria. He comes to the conclusion that the White House allegations and its report are false. The White House report was not created or vetted by knowledgeable intelligence analysts. This confirms our own analysis published earlier on Moon of Alabama.
Here is Prof. Postol’s summary report: The Nerve Agent Attack that Did Not Occur, April 19 (pdf, 18 pages).
Previously three preliminary versions of Prof. Postol’s analysis were released by him:
- Quick Turnaround Assessment, April 11 (pdf, 14 pgs)
- ADDENDUM to Quick Turnaround …, April 13 (pdf, 6 pgs)
- Video Evidence …, April 14 (pdf, 8 pgs)
Pic: NOT the site of a Sarin missile impact as claimed by the White House
source – bigger
Prof. Postol sent the following covering letter with his summary report:
The Nerve Agent Attack that Did Not Occur – Summary of FindingsThis analysis contains a detailed description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria – assuming that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged sarin release site.
Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged nerve agent release. Video data of suffocating and dead victims lying on the ground shows a different location from the predicted sarin dispersal site if it had been correctly identified by the White House.
The conclusion is that the nerve agent attack described in the White House Intelligence Report did not occur as claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR.
The findings of this expanded analysis can serve two important purposes:
1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity.
In particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from the nerve agent attack lived, it will confirm that the findings reported by the White House Report are incompatible with its own cited data.
2. It also establishes that the White House Report did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis procedures to determine its conclusions.
This raises troubling questions about how the US political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is particularly of concern that the White House Report presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the US government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and executed to a standard of high confidence.
Theodore A. Postol
Professor Emeritus of Science,
Technology, and National Security Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The “Sarin Attack on Khan Sheikhun”, which the White House and its Ambassador to the UN blamed on the Syrian government, did not happen – at least not in the way that was claimed. They Syrian government had no motive at all to mount such an attack. It was in the mid of a winning streak. The incident benefited al-Qaeda in Syria which dominates the area in question but was losing on the battle field. In “response” to the claimed attack the U.S. bombed the Syrian military airport Al Syairat. This was the main air base for the Syrian airforce involved in fighting the Islamic State in eastern-Syria. The attack amounted to U.S. air support on request of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Trump administration initiated these events for domestic purpose. They let Trump to look sufficient belligerent and presidential and dispelled false allegations of association with Russia by the Democrats and the media. To justify the attack the White House released a report written by the National Security Council, not by intelligence services. The report was full of holes and ridiculous assertions.
Read more from the Moon of Alabama report here…
SEE ALSO: ALEPPO: After Devastation, The Rehabilitation (Part One)
SEE ALSO: DAMASCUS: Easter Week in a City Under Fire
SEE ALSO: WAR THEATER: Was the Syrian Chemical Attack Staged?
SEE ALSO: Reviving the ‘Chemical Weapons’ Lie: New US-UK Calls for Regime Change, Military Attack Against Syria
SEE ALSO: FRAMING SYRIA? Chemical Attack Evidence Lacking, Putin Warns Of ‘False Flags’ – MIT Professor Says Report Not Correct
SEE ALSO: WITHOUT PROOF: Washington’s ‘Gaslighting’ Over Syrian Chemical Attack Propels US Missile Strikes
READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files
READ MORE WHITE HELMET NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire White Helmet Files
SUPPORT 21WIRE – SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV