US intelligence wrong about nerve agent use in Syria in April, says Fact Finding Mission of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

And yet we're supposed to believe US intelligence is always right, for example, about WMD in Iraq and most recently about Russian hacking of DNC servers.

'A Western NGO received patients suffering from a variety of symptoms, including constricted pupils, coughing, vomiting, and abnormally slow breathing. Some public videos referred to “nerve gas” or an “organophosphate,” which would be consistent with the victims’ accounts of constricted pupils. Social media and the press estimated varying numbers of casualties, including 19 fatalities and 37 injuries',

the White House maintained on April 13th.

Crock of shit that is.

From the OPCW press release twelve days ago, here:

'OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.'

SECDEF Mattis has called the joint missile strike on Syria a "single shot", not an opening salvo in a war

Reported here:

Mattis said the strike was a “single shot” aimed to deter the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons. Whether the United States and its allies will pursue further action in Syria would “depend on Mr. Assad should he decided to use more chemical weapons in the future," the secretary said. 

Critics will no doubt say the April 2017 missile attack was a one-off, too. How many one-offs does it take before we're at war?

US, France and Great Britain attack Syrian chemical facilities after 6th Russian veto at the UN on Tuesday

From the veto story here:

Washington (CNN) -- Russia vetoed a US draft resolution at the UN Security Council Tuesday that would have established an independent investigation into the suspected use of chemical weapons in Syria. ... In November, Russia blocked the renewal of the independent panel investigating chemical weapons in Syria, and British Ambassador Karen Pierce reminded the council that Tuesday's vote marked Russia's sixth veto related to chemical weapons in Syria. Seven nations -- including the US -- voted against a Russian resolution that would have set up an investigation overseen by the Security Council. According to Haley, that draft was designed to give Russia a chance to approve the investigators who were chosen for the task and allow the Security Council to assess the findings of the investigation before any report was released. A second Russian resolution that only supported the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons fact-finding mission in Syria also failed to pass. The organization is made up of an international team of investigators but it cannot on its own determine who was responsible for the attack.

Former British Ambassador to Syria says first responders to gas attacks on which the West relies are themselves Islamic fanatics who beheaded their enemies

Watch here.

He says the video evidence is unverified and probably staged and that the West should get inspectors in there.

Hm, ISIS launches gas attack in western Mosul against Iraqi units with Australian and US advisers

You don't suppose ISIS could do that in Syria? No, Bashar al-Assad did that. Right.

Story here.

Wikipedia vindicates Sean Spicer: "The Nazis did not extensively use chemical weapons in combat"

Here.

Researchers doubted US intelligence conclusions about 2013 "Syrian" gas attack, say rebels could have done it

McClatchy reported here in early 2014:

“I honestly have no idea what happened,” Postol said. “My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct.”

Lloyd, who has spent the past half-year studying the weapons and capabilities in the Syrian conflict, disputed the assumption that the rebels are less capable of making rockets than the Syrian military.

“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”

Both said they were not making a case that the rebels were behind the attack, just that a case for military action was made without even a basic understanding of what might have happened.

That Red Line In Syria, Somebody Else Drew That

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

President Obama, quoted here:

“I didn’t set a red line, the world set a red line,” Obama said. “My credibility’s not on the line. The international community’s credibility is on the line. And America and Congress’s credibility’s on the line."

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When everyone's responsible, no one is.