Tag Archives: OPCW

OPCW investigator testifies at UN that no chemical attack took place in Douma, Syria, by Ben Norton

Posted on January 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

The Douma chemical-attack lie should be taken off taken off life support and allowed to die. From Ben Norton at thegrayzone.com:

In testimony before the United Nations Security Council, former OPCW inspection team leader and engineering expert Ian Henderson stated that their investigation in Douma, Syria suggested no chemical attack took place. But their findings were suppressed.

Video and a transcript of former OPCW engineer and dissenter Ian Henderson’s UN testimony appears at the end of this report.

A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

The dissenter, Ian Henderson, worked for 12 years at the international watchdog organization, serving as an inspection team leader and engineering expert. Among his most consequential jobs was assisting the international body’s fact-finding mission (FFM) on the ground in Douma.

He told a UN Security Council session convened on January 20 by Russia’s delegation that OPCW management had rejected his group’s scientific research, dismissed the team, and produced another report that totally contradicted their initial findings.

“We had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred,” Henderson said, referring to the FFM team in Douma.

The former OPCW inspector added that he had compiled evidence through months of research that “provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.”

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Why Western Media Ignore OPCW Scandal, by the Strategic Culture Editorial Board

Posted on December 21, 2019 | Leave a comment

Western mainstream media ignore the OPCW scandal because it is controlled by the military-industrial-intelligence complex and its puppet government. From the Strategic Culture Editorial Board at strategic-culture.org:

The credibility of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is on the line after a series of devastating leaks from whistleblowers has shown that the UN body distorted an alleged CW incident in Syria in 2018. The distortion by the OPCW of the incident suggests that senior directors at the organization were pressured into doing so by Western governments.

This has grave implications because the United States, Britain and France launched over 100 air strikes against Syria following the CW incident near Damascus in April 2018. The Western powers rushed to blame the Syrian government forces, alleging the use of banned weapons against civilians. This was in spite of objections by Russia at the time and in spite of evidence from independent investigators that the CW incident was a provocation staged by anti-government militants.

Subsequent reports by the OPCW later in 2018 and 2019 distort the incident in such a way as to indict the Syrian government and retrospectively exculpate the Western powers over their “retaliatory” strikes.

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OPCW Manipulation Of Its Douma Report Requires A Fresh Look At The Skripal ‘Novichok’ Case, by Moon of Alabama

Posted on December 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

If we can’t trust the OPCW on its Douma findings, we certainly can’t trust them on the Skripal case. From Moon of Alabama at moonofalabama.org:

With regards to the revelations about the OPCW management manipulation of its staff reports the former UN weapon inspector Scott Ritter makes a very valid point:

Thanks to an explosive internal memo, there is no reason to believe the claims put forward by the Syrian opposition that President Bashar al-Assad’s government used chemical weapons against innocent civilians in Douma back in April. This is a scenario I have questioned from the beginning. It also calls into question all the other conclusions and reports by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was assigned in 2014 “to establish facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals, reportedly chlorine, for hostile purposes in the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Besides its activities around dubious ‘chemical’ incident in Syria there is another rather famous case in which the OPCW got involved: The alleged ‘Novichok’ attack on Sergei and Julia Skripal in Salisbury, Britain.

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Tucker Carlson is the Only Mainstream Pundit Properly Covering OPCW Bombshell, by Alan Macleod

Posted on December 1, 2019 | Leave a comment

From the get-go Tucker Carlson was suspicious of the official Douma story. It turns out he was right to be so. From Alan Macleod at mintpressnews.com:

That Tucker Carlson is one of the few pundits willing to report on a bombshell revelation about a chemical attack in Syria, may say more about the state of the corporate press than it does about Carlson’s character.

Dozens of people were found dead in the Syrian city of Douma in April 2018 in what appeared to be a chemical weapons attack. The United States and its NATO allies immediately pointed the finger at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accusing him of crimes against humanity. Almost immediately, NATO forces began a retaliatory bombing campaign, with many others calling for an invasion to protect civilians from a massacre.

Mainstream media, often presenting themselves as the home of the resistance to the dangerous madman Donald Trump, were fully behind the bombings. A survey by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that not one of the top 100 U.S. newspapers by circulation opposed the airstrikes.

A report from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) gave some credence to Washington’s assertions. While far from conclusive, OPCW’s report on the incidentdid suggest that it was “likely” that there was indeed some form of chemical weapons used, possibly an air attack that involved dropping chlorine canisters on the city. Although the OPCW refused to speculate on who was responsible, the suggestion of an aerial strike indicated Syrian government forces, the most equipped for such an attack, were to blame.

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Narrative Managers Faceplant In Hilarious OPCW Scandal Spin Job, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 28, 2019 | Leave a comment

To borrow Caitlin Johnstone’s description of Bellingcat: “Imperialist propaganda firm.” Johnstone dissects its latest spin management and narrative control at medium.com:

Imperialist propaganda firm Bellingcat has published a response to the ever-expanding OPCW scandal, and it’s got to be seen to be believed.

Before we begin I should highlight that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which according to its own cofounder was set up to do overtly what the CIA had previously been doing covertly, namely orchestrating narrative management geared toward the elimination of governments which refuse to comply with US interests. NED is funded directly by the US government, which means that Bellingcat is funded by the US government via an organization set up to promote imperialist regime change agendas. Bellingcat is also funded by Open Society Foundations, another imperialist narrative management operation.

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New OPCW Leak Further Vindicates Skeptics Of Establishment Syria Narrative, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

Like so many official storylines, the official Douma storyline is bogus. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

On the sixth of July last year, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released its interim report on its findings regarding an alleged poison gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018. The incident, which resulted in dozens of civilian casualties, was blamed on the Syrian government by the US, UK and France, who launched retaliatory airstrikes on multiple targets in that nation.

The interim report claimed that “various chlorinated organic chemicals were found” in different locations on the scene, but strangely said nothing about the levels at which those chemicals were found. The Moon of Alabamablog highlighted this suspicious exclusion on the day the report came out, noting that levels are absolutely essential in determining chemical weapons use when you’re talking about compounds which are found virtually everywhere at some level in any industrialized region.

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The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It. By Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on November 18, 2019 | Leave a comment

If you poke holes in one establishment narrative, people might be skeptical, or outright not believe, other establishment narratives. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is now hemorrhaging evidence that the US and its allies deceived the world once again about yet another military intervention, which should be a front-page story all over the world. Yet if you looked at American news media headlines you’d think the only thing that matters right now is indulging the childish fantasy that Donald Trump might somehow magically be removed from office via supermajority consensus in a majority-Republican Senate.

CounterPunch has published an actual bombshell of a report by journalist Jonathan Steele containing many revelations about the OPCW scandal which were previously unknown to the public. Steele is an award-winning reporter who worked as a senior foreign correspondent for The Guardianback before that outlet was purged of all critical thinkers on western imperialism; he first waded into the OPCW controversy last month with a statement made on the BBC revealing the existence of a second whistleblower on the organisation’s investigation into an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria.

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Media Silent as Nobel Prize Winning OPCW Found “Fixing” its Own Findings on Syria, by Alan Macleod

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

Whenever something dastardly happens, or is alleged to have happened, and governments immediately assign culpability, even before they’ve had a chance to investigate, you can be pretty sure it’s some sort of false flag. From Alan Macleod at mintpressnews.com:

Douma, Syria, April 2018. Dozens of people die in a suspected chemical weapons attack in the eastern suburb of the capital Damascus. The United States and many European countries immediately identify President Bashar al-Assad as responsible for the attacks, and respond with deadly violence of their own, starting a bombing campaign against his forces. Yet new evidence leaked from whistleblowers suggests that not only is the Western story on shaky ground, but the report into the incident from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) deliberately suppressed evidence and testimony that contradicted the U.S. narrative.

The OPCW’s Fixed Report

Founded in 1997 to represent the collective position of its 193 member states, the OPCW oversees and verifies adherence to the strict rules that regulate the use of chemical weapons, which it hopes to eliminate.

After its fact-finding mission was complete, the OPCW issued a report on the alleged Douma attack. While far from conclusive or damning (it refused even to speculate on who was responsible for the attacks), it did suggest there was “likely” a chlorine attack carried out by dropping gas canisters from the air. This seems to contradict its interim findings that stated, “No organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties.” Nevertheless,some insinuated that the new report implicated government forces, the only groups likely to possess both the chemicals and the helicopters necessary to carry out such an attack.

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The USA’s History Of Controlling The OPCW To Promote Regime Change, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Leave a comment

It looks like the Douma gas attack story was a concoction by the US government, aided and abetted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

You wouldn’t know it from today’s news headlines, but there’s a major scandal unfolding with potentially far-reaching consequences for the entire international community. The political/media class has been dead silent about the fact that there are now twowhistleblowers whose revelations have cast serious doubts on a chemical weapons watchdog group that is widely regarded as authoritative, despite the fact that this same political/media class has been crowing all month about how important whistleblowers are and how they need to be protected ever since a CIA spook exposed some dirt on the Trump administration.

When the Courage Foundation and WikiLeaks published the findings of an interdisciplinary panel which received an extensive presentation from a whistleblower from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) investigation of an alleged 2018 chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, it was left unclear (perhaps intentionally) whether this was the same whistleblower who leaked a dissenting Engineering Assessment to the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media this past May or a different one. Subsequent comments from British journalist Jonathan Steele assert that there are indeed two separate whistleblowers from within the OPCW’s Douma investigation, both of whom claim that their investigative findings differed widely from the final OPCW Douma report and were suppressed from the public by the organization.

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What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria…And Does it Matter? by Ron Paul

Posted on April 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US will bomb when and where it wants, regardless of whether there is or is not conclusive evidence that “justifies” the bombing. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

Inspectors from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have finally arrived in Douma, Syria, to assess whether a gas attack took place earlier this month. It has taken a week for the inspectors to begin their work, as charges were thrown back and forth about who was causing the delay.

Proponents of the US and UK position that Assad used gas in Douma have argued that the Syrian and Russian governments are preventing the OPCW inspectors from doing their work. That, they claim, is all the evidence needed to demonstrate that Assad and Putin have something to hide. But it seems strange that if Syria and Russia wanted to prevent an OPCW inspection of the alleged sites they would have been the ones to request the inspection in the first place.

The dispute was solved just days ago, as the OPCW Director-General released a statement explaining that the delay was due to UN security office concerns for the safety of the inspectors.

We are told that even after the OPCW inspectors collect samples from the alleged attack sites, it will take weeks to determine whether there was any gas or other chemicals released. That means there is very little chance President Trump had “slam dunk” evidence that Assad used gas in Douma earlier this month when he decided to launch a military attack on Syria. To date, the US has presented no evidence of who was responsible or even whether an attack took place at all. Even right up to the US missile strike, Defense Secretary Mattis said he was still looking for evidence.

In a Tweet just days ago, Rep. Thomas Massie expressed frustration that in a briefing to Congress last week the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense “provided zero real evidence” that Assad carried out the attack. Either they have it and won’t share it with Congress, he wrote, or they have nothing. Either way, he added, it’s not good.

We should share Rep. Massie’s concerns.

To continue reading: What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria…And Does it Matter?

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