How a network of UK intel-linked operatives helped sell every alleged Syrian chemical weapons attack
While Western media covers up their credibility issues, these pseudo-experts and spooks have helped drive the dirty war on Syria.
by Kit Klarenberg
Part 5 - ‘They Could’ve Escaped’
On April 10th, long-time chemical weapons researcher Alastair Hay, then-member of the OPCW’s Education and Outreach board, and recipient of the organization’s Hague Award in 2015, forcefully dismissed the notion that corpses featured in the White Helmets-supplied footage could have been afflicted by chlorine, as their symptoms were “much, much more consistent with nerve-agent-type exposure.”
“It’s just bodies piled up…There’s a young child with foam at the nose and a boy with foam on its [sic] mouth. Chlorine victims usually manage to get out to somewhere they can get treatment,” he said. “Nerve agent kills pretty instantly…People have pretty much died where they were when they inhaled the agent. They’ve just dropped dead.”
A consequent Washington Post article reinforced Hay’s analysis, reporting that “outside experts” had concluded “the speed with which the victims died suggested that a nerve agent was used,” as “chlorine usually takes longer to work.” That same day though, de Bretton-Gordon appeared in the Financial Times peddling a novel theory.
A consequent Washington Post article reinforced Hay’s analysis, reporting that “outside experts” had concluded “the speed with which the victims died suggested that a nerve agent was used,” as “chlorine usually takes longer to work.” That same day though, de Bretton-Gordon appeared in the Financial Times peddling a novel theory.
“The big question is whether it was chlorine or sarin. I am favoring a mix of the two,” he hypothesized. De Bretton-Gordon then argued that if Washington subsequently launched airstrikes on Damascus – which happened three days later – it would be “an indication of irrefutable evidence” of Syrian government culpability for the attack.
On April 16th, he reiterated this view to the Daily Mail. The same article also quoted a White Helmet operative’s firm dismissal of chlorine as the agent responsible.
“Sarin you breathe and it kills you. There were many who died on the stairs. If it was chlorine, they could’ve escaped. But they died after just taking a few steps,” they said.
On April 16th, he reiterated this view to the Daily Mail. The same article also quoted a White Helmet operative’s firm dismissal of chlorine as the agent responsible.
“Sarin you breathe and it kills you. There were many who died on the stairs. If it was chlorine, they could’ve escaped. But they died after just taking a few steps,” they said.
Chemically, a combination of chlorine and sarin makes no sense as a weapon, as chlorine compounds would simply decompose the nerve agent outright in the event they were successfully stored in the same container.
Of course, de Bretton-Gordon may have spoken out of pure ignorance. He has an extensive history of issuing headline-grabbing, unscientific claims, including warning of the potential threat of jihadists returning to the UK from Syria using components from household fridges to construct IEDs. There was also the time he claimed the Russian military could employ novichok hand grenades on battlefields.
Of course, de Bretton-Gordon may have spoken out of pure ignorance. He has an extensive history of issuing headline-grabbing, unscientific claims, including warning of the potential threat of jihadists returning to the UK from Syria using components from household fridges to construct IEDs. There was also the time he claimed the Russian military could employ novichok hand grenades on battlefields.
Another interpretation may be that de Bretton-Gordon was attempting to explain away the looming, irresolvable disconnect between symptoms exhibited by victims of the alleged strike and the FFM’s actual chemical findings. Given the inevitable paradox created by that massive discrepancy, resolving this quandary was surely of supreme concern to all invested in the event’s staging.
Alternatively, there’s the question of whether de Bretton-Gordon himself had been concocting samples containing chlorine and sarin. The findings of an OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) probe into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Saraqib in February 2018 made clear someone was cooking up evidence in this manner.
Alternatively, there’s the question of whether de Bretton-Gordon himself had been concocting samples containing chlorine and sarin. The findings of an OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) probe into an alleged chemical attack in the Syrian city of Saraqib in February 2018 made clear someone was cooking up evidence in this manner.
The inquiry, which ruled the Syrian government had dropped “at least” one cylinder containing chlorine on the city, depended entirely on a May 2018 OPCW FFM investigation of the incident, which arrived at the same conclusion.
FFM staffers didn’t actually visit the site of the purported strike, and all samples reviewed were provided by the White Helmets. The IIT report claims that they contained both chlorine- and sarin-related chemicals.
Strikingly, the IIT recorded that it would be “difficult” to fill a cylinder with both chemicals, so it explored the question of whether “cross-contamination” may have occurred during the sampling process, “or at a later stage in the handling of the samples themselves.”
FFM staffers didn’t actually visit the site of the purported strike, and all samples reviewed were provided by the White Helmets. The IIT report claims that they contained both chlorine- and sarin-related chemicals.
Strikingly, the IIT recorded that it would be “difficult” to fill a cylinder with both chemicals, so it explored the question of whether “cross-contamination” may have occurred during the sampling process, “or at a later stage in the handling of the samples themselves.”
Its findings left open the possibility that “contamination occurred before sampling or after the samples were taken, but before they were secured by the OPCW in sealed packaging.” Still, “since the FFM did not make findings related to the use of sarin in Saraqib…the IIT refrained from pursuing this aspect of the incident further [emphasis added].”
By any objective measure, the IIT’s failure to explore that tantalizing lead was an absolutely staggering dereliction of its investigative duties, amounting to willful blindness in legal terms.
By any objective measure, the IIT’s failure to explore that tantalizing lead was an absolutely staggering dereliction of its investigative duties, amounting to willful blindness in legal terms.
Other areas of the report similarly underline the inspectors’ determination to hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil. One of the cylinders reportedly involved in the strike was excluded from the IIT’s consideration, despite “consistent” witness accounts indicating both were dropped by a single Syrian Arab Army helicopter, due to a “lack of certainty” over whether it was moved to a location “further away” from the crater it supposedly created “with no clear explanation.”
Nonetheless, the IIT contended this glaring incongruity in no way implied the incident was staged, reasoning that if it had been orchestrated by opposition actors, it was “hard to comprehend” why the cylinder was placed and video-recorded so far away from its accompanying crater, “thus creating uncertainties as to its significance for this incident.”
Nonetheless, the IIT contended this glaring incongruity in no way implied the incident was staged, reasoning that if it had been orchestrated by opposition actors, it was “hard to comprehend” why the cylinder was placed and video-recorded so far away from its accompanying crater, “thus creating uncertainties as to its significance for this incident.”
In other words, if this was a false flag, those choreographing it would surely have done a better job. Inspectors’ reliance on ‘evidence’ gathered by the White Helmets is all the more questionable given longstanding OPCW protocol stating that a chain of custody for all physical evidence is “100% critical”.
“The OPCW would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors don’t gather in the field, because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity,” an OPCW spokesperson said in April 2013.
“The OPCW would never get involved in testing samples that our own inspectors don’t gather in the field, because we need to maintain chain of custody of samples from the field to the lab to ensure their integrity,” an OPCW spokesperson said in April 2013.
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