How a US and Qatari regime change deception produced ‘Caesar’ sanctions driving Syria towards famine
Like the mysterious figure it is named for, the Caesar sanctions bill is the product of an elaborate deception by shadowy US- and Gulf-backed operatives. Instead of protecting Syrian civilians, the unilateral measures are driving them towards hunger and death.
by Max Blumenthal
Part 4 - Caesar’s Qatari connection
The Caesar files were first brought to the American public’s attention in a New York Times article published on January 21, 2014 – a PR stunt carefully timed to coincide with the opening of the UN-backed Geneva II Peace Conference on Syria.
The following acknowledgement was mentioned in passing in the Times article: “only a few photographs have actually been released by lawyers commissioned by the Qatari government, an avowed opponent of Mr. Assad, and the claims about their origins could not be independently verified.”
Sir Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor in the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, was quoted prominently by the Times. “It was like getting the keys to the Nazi archive,” Nice said of the Caesar file.
Nice, who had been charged with authenticating the photographic files, was listed at the time as “an advisor to Qatar in the possible Syria case to come.” Desmond De Silva, another British lawyer called in to authenticate the documents, was later described as part of a team of “high profile lawyers instructed by the Qatari government.”
The permanent monarchy of Qatar has bankrolled an array of Islamist militias across Syria over the years, including Al Qaeda’s ruthless affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Carter-Ruck, the law firm employing Nice and De Silva under a Qatari contract, had also been hired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another key sponsor of Syria’s insurgency and the destabilization campaign against Damascus.
Also quoted on the significance of the Caesar file in the New York Times article was David Crane, who was merely described by the newspaper as “an investigator involved in examining the photos, who previously indicted President Charles G. Taylor of Liberia.”
In fact, Crane was a veteran military-intelligence operative who previously held various positions inside the Pentagon, including at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Months before the Caesar file surfaced, he appeared on Capitol Hill to advocate for prosecuting Syrian government officials.
Crane stated in a 2014 interview that when his team began its investigation into the file, “We brought in what we named ‘Caesar,’ the individual who brought out these photographs, along with handler – his case officer – interviewing them separately.”
His case officer? Crane’s casual use of a term almost uniquely associated with CIA activity offered a strong suggestion that the Agency had played a role in grooming the mystery man known as “Caesar.”
The UK-based academic Tim Hayward outlined the US government’s role in supporting Crane’s various Syria regime change projects.
Crane “also leads the Syrian Accountability Project (SAP), which he founded some time prior to Caesar’s defection,” Hayward wrote. “SAP is said to be student-run and its clients include the Syrian National Council and US State Department. It also ‘works very closely with’ the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, which in turn is a conduit of US funding to CIJA.”
Crane authored the initial Qatar-sponsored report on Caesar’s trove, yet was merely described as “a war crimes prosecutor” in a Vanity Fair puff piece about the file.
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