Who Used Chemical Weapons in Syria?

Washington insists Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave the order to use chemical weapons against Syrian rebels. Moscow insists the attack was made by the insurgents as a provocation intended to compel direct intervention from the United States in the civil war which is devastating the Mediterranean country. The U.N. sent a task force to Syria to verify the extent of the attack which took place in the Damascus suburbs on Aug. 21; it was an attack that caused the death of hundreds of civilians, particularly children. President Barack Obama immediately declared that the findings of the task force leaves “no doubt” regarding Assad’s guilt.* However, the 38 page report is limited to verifying that there was an attack and does not claim to prove who unleashed it.

The members of the United Nations task force investigating the accusations of use of chemical weapons in Syria state in their report that they relied on the rebel forces to inspect the area. The U.N. task force detected the unequivocal use of sarin gas and, at the same time, that there were signs that certain evidence appeared to have been “moved” and “possibly manipulated.”

This admission is telling, but not enough [to prove rebel guilt]. Moreover, the inevitable political ramifications if the rebels are indeed responsible are not evident in the discussion on the issue between the U.S. and Russia. Neither of the two powers has presented definitive evidence for its position at present. The conclusion that the gas used was actually sarin is little help: the Syrian government has confirmed that it possesses a chemical weapons arsenal, and some rebel groups have bragged of their capacity to produce sarin in videos uploaded to YouTube.

The organization of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sent Obama a memo in which they stated: “We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21 and that British intelligence officials also know this.”

VIPS is made up of twelve former high-level U.S. intelligence agents. Among those who signed the document are Thomas Drake, who was a high-level official in the National Security Agency (NSA), retired CIA agent Larry Johnson and W. Patrick Lang, a former high-level official in the Department of Defense.

VIPS sent a similar memo to President George W. Bush when his Secretary of State, Colin Powell, justified the war in Iraq with a speech to the U.N., presenting information that turned out to be false. The document sent to Obama addresses their report to the former president: “Then, also, we chose to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt, thinking he was being misled — or, at the least, very poorly advised.” VIPS accuses CIA Director John Brennan of “perpetrating a pre-Iraq War-type fraud on members of Congress, the media, the public — and perhaps even you [Obama].”

According to the CIA agents observing the Syrian issue, the VIPS memo adds, it is evident that the events of Aug. 21 were “not the result of an attack by the Syrian army using military-grade chemical weapons from its arsenal.”

“In addition,” the memo continues, “we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started [to] advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge.” VIPS deems that these events account for a “preplanned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters,” who were awaiting the immediate intervention of the U.S. to be announced later by Obama.

The leader of the U.S. continues with his search for domestic and international support for his wish to attack Syria, but his European partners are not fully responding to his call. Prime Minister David Cameron suffered no small humiliation when the House of Commons rejected his proposal for Great Britain to join the U.S. intervention. The socialist French president, Francois Hollande, lost support of public opinion which was in agreement with the invasion of Mali. In the U.S., the majority rejects attacking Syria: The New York Times indicates that U.S. citizens are “exhausted by nearly a dozen years of war and fearful of tripping into another one.”

The annual Transatlantic Trends Survey, a group which registers the prevailing opinions in Europe and the U.S., revealed that 62 percent of Americans and 72 percent of Europeans, including Turkey, opposed their governments becoming involved in the Syrian civil war. It appears that the time isn’t right for war.

*Translator’s Note: While attributed to Obama, this quote appears to have been stated by Joe Biden or other administration representatives.