dagblog - Comments for "Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What? "

Reporter Denies Writing

artappraiser — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 20:29:16 +0000

In reply to Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What?

Reporter Denies Writing Article That Linked Syrian Rebels to Chemical Attack
By Robert Mackey, The Lede @ nytimes.com, Sept. 21, 2013

Updated, 7:58 p.m. | Three weeks after an obscure Internet news service claimed that Syrian rebels had admitted responsibility for the deadly chemical attack outside Damascus in August, a veteran foreign correspondent whose name and reputation lent credibility to the story has denied writing the article.

The journalist, Dale Gavlak, is an American freelancer based in Jordan whose work has been published frequently by The Associated Press. In a statement sent first to the British blogger Eliot Higgins, who writes the highly-regarded Brown Moses blog, Ms. Gavlak insisted that her byline should never have been attached to the article, which was published on the Web site MintPress News on Aug. 29 under the headline, “Syrians in Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack.”

In a subsequent e-mail to The Lede, Ms. Gavlak said [....]

The dispute over the article has caused even some contributors to MintPress to ask questions about its mission and how it is financed. Steve Horn, an investigative reporter based in Madison, Wis., said in an e-mail that he has decided to cut ties to the news site as a result of Ms. Gavlak’s objections to how her name was used. “I departed because I feel I was misled about the credibility of the article — which I trusted largely because Dale’s name was on it — and because of that, I no longer feel it’s a credible outlet. Frankly, I’m not sure it ever was.” [....]

The Spies Inside

artappraiser — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 12:34:14 +0000

In reply to Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What?

The Spies Inside Damascus
The Mossad's secret war on the Syrian WMD machine.
By Ronen Bergman, ForeignPolicy.com, September 19, 2013

[....] On March 10, 2013, Israeli intelligence sources began reporting that the Syrian regime had made use of chemical weapons. A number of different and cross-checked sources produced this information. Among them: sources that eavesdropped on the Syrian army's tactical frequencies and surveillance satellites that monitored movement out of a bunker known to protect chemical weapons.

Israel shared its findings with the United States, but Washington would not acknowledge those findings' veracity. It was clear to the Israelis that the Americans saw those findings as a hot potato that the president was in no mood to hold. Without grasping the deep political significance of publicizing this material (or perhaps doing so intentionally to put pressure on Washington), Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of the Aman, the Israeli military intelligence corps' research division, stated clearly in an April 23 speech at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons on its citizens.

This utterance angered and embarrassed the U.S. administration. Washington stuttered for a few days and demanded clarifications from Israel. In the end, and following a report submitted to the United Nations by Britain and France, the Obama administration had to admit that the information was in fact correct. Since then, to avoid similar commotions, Aman officers are forbidden to appear in public conferences.

Either way, the intelligence coordination between Israel and the United States has not suffered and Israel continues to share the vast amounts of information that it has about Syria with the United States. Published reports credit Israel with giving the CIA, as the Wall Street Journal put it, "intelligence from inside an elite special Syrian unit that oversees Mr. Assad's chemical weapons" after the massive Aug. 21 sarin attack [....]

A Nun Lends a Voice of

artappraiser — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 22:58:44 +0000

In reply to Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What?

A Nun Lends a Voice of Deniability to Syria on the Use of Poison Gas
By Ben Hubbard, New York Times, September 21/22, 2013

ADONIS, Lebanon — When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, wanted to bolster his argument that rebels had carried out the poison gas attacks near Damascus on Aug. 21, he pointed to the work of a 61-year-old Lebanese-born nun who had concluded that the horrifying videos showing hundreds of dead and choking victims, including many children, had been fabricated ahead of time to provide a pretext for foreign intervention.

“Mr. Lavrov is an intelligent person,” said the nun, Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross, with a wide smile in a recent interview in this Lebanese mountain town. “He will never stick his name to someone who is saying stupidities.”

Mother Agnes, who had lived in Syria for years, has no expertise or training in chemical weapons forensics or filmmaking, and although she was in Damascus at the time of the attacks, she did not visit the sites or interview victims. Still, her assertions — she does not say which side made the videos — have significantly raised her once modest profile as the longtime superior of the Monastery of St. James the Mutilated, a Melkite Greek Catholic monastery in central Syria.

Now, she is lauded by supporters of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, for championing narratives that resemble his own, and vilified by opposition activists who suspect the government supports her work as an unofficial ambassador.

International rights groups see Mr. Lavrov’s reference to the work of an untrained nun as a sign of desperation.

“The fact that the Russian government is relying on this woman’s assessment of what happened just shows the lack of evidence for their case,” said Lama Fakih, a Syria researcher for Human Rights Watch. “She is not a military expert.”

There are other shadows around Mother Agnes. She has helped foreign journalists obtain visas, suggesting trust by the government. The widow and two colleagues of Gilles Jacquier, a French journalist killed in Homs last year, published a book in which they suggest that she conspired in a lethal trap set by the government.

She has sued them for libel, denied any link to the government and has not spoken out in support of Mr. Assad himself. She criticized Syria for its occupation of Lebanon that ended in 2005 and said that government helicopters had struck near the St. James monastery three times, causing damage. Her only interest, she said, was what is best for Syrians — she said that would be for outside powers not to interfere so that Syrians can solve their problems.

“It is not politics,” she said. “This is humanitarian.”

She refused to say who she thought had made the videos she called fakes, or who she thought had carried out the attacks [....]

Cross-link: Iran's Rouhani

artappraiser — Fri, 20 Sep 2013 04:07:46 +0000

In reply to Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What?

Cross-link: Iran's Rouhani offers to "help facilitate dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition," in a WaPo op-ed.

Syrian government says war

artappraiser — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 22:40:39 +0000

In reply to Yes, it was Sarin, UN Report Says. Now What?

Syrian government says war has reached stalemate
Exclusive: Deputy PM says neither side is strong enough to win and government may call for ceasefire at Geneva talks
By Jonathan Steele in Damascus, The Guardian, 19 September 2013 14.07 EDT

The Syrian conflict has reached a stalemate and President Bashar al-Assad's government will call for a ceasefire at a long-delayed conference in Geneva on the state's future, the country's deputy prime minister has said in an interview with the Guardian.

Speaking on behalf of the government, Qadri Jamil said that neither side was strong enough to win the conflict, which has lasted two years and caused the death of more than 100,000 people. Jamil, who is in charge of country's finances, also said that the Syrian economy had suffered catastrophic losses.

"Neither the armed opposition nor the regime is capable of defeating the other side," he said. "This zero balance of forces will not change for a while."

Meanwhile, he said, the Syrian economy had lost about $100bn (£62bn), equivalent to two years of normal production, during the war.

If accepted by the armed opposition, a ceasefire would have to be kept "under international observation", which could be provided by monitors or UN peace-keepers – as long as they came from neutral or friendly countries, he said.

Leaders of Syria's armed opposition have repeatedly refused to go to what is called Geneva Two unless Assad first resigns [....]

This is why Russia is fighting to keep him from being labeled a war criminal. I still do not see a whole lot of logic in that, though, because keeping him and his circle in power will be a flashpoint for terrorist attacks by groups outside of a ceasefire, would be worse than Iraq is now. I don't see how keeping him or his circle around could work out well, unless it would be within a heavily walled ghetto for Alawites.

This has more detail on the

artappraiser — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 17:30:31 +0000

In reply to Details buried in a United

This has more detail on the inspectors' calculations:

U.N. calculations of poison rockets’ paths implicate Syrian guard unit
By Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff

Ok, this is starting to sound

artappraiser — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 21:14:28 +0000

In reply to Seems to me that the Russians

Ok, this is starting to sound kinda like attorney Saul Goodman from Breaking Bad. Lavrov says he is going to present evidence from Syrian officials that the rebels did it, evidence that he himself hasn't seen yet:

Russia to provide evidence 'implicating Syrian rebels in chemical attacks'
Sergei Lavrov says he will give evidence to United Nations security council, and describes UN report as biased
the guardian.com, 18 Sept., 2013

The Russian foreign minister has said he will give the United Nations security council evidence that implicates Syrian rebels in a chemical attack.

Sergei Lavrov described a UN report that concluded that the nerve agent sarin was used on the outskirts of Damascus on 21 August as one-sided and biased.

He said he will give the security council the evidence, which is being supplied by Syrian officials but which he has not seen as yet.

The UN report on the chemical attack did not specifically blame either side in the country's bitter civil war but led to conclusions from the international community that forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad were responsible.

Following the criticism from Russia, the UN said the findings of the report are "indisputable".

Lavrov said there was plenty of evidence that pointed to rebel involvement in chemical attacks.

"We will discuss all this in the security council, together with the report which was submitted by UN experts and which confirms that chemical weapons were used. We will have to find out who did it," he said [....]

That Assad could survive as

artappraiser — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 19:59:35 +0000

In reply to Seems to me that the Russians

That Assad could survive as head of a smaller country supported in part by Russia is also in current Israeli analysis.

Again from the NYTimes' "Crisis in Syria" feed, this time from Reuters @ 12:30 pm:

Israeli Sees Little Threat From a Weakened Assad

Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could cling to power for years despite having lost overall control of his country, according to Israel’s top commander on the frontier with Syria.

“He will stay on for years,” General Golan said. “I don’t see any force toppling him tomorrow morning — though he deserves to pass from this world, and the quicker that happens, the better.” [....]

General Golan, who leads the military’s northern command, forecast that the Syrian leader would weather his military and territorial deadlock with the rebels. Israel says Mr. Assad has lost control over 60 percent of the country but can hold off the rebels thanks to his superior, Russian-supplied army [.....]

Seems to me that the Russians

artappraiser — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 19:43:28 +0000

In reply to Appears that Russia is going

Seems to me that the Russians are clearly taking on the role of a defense attorney sowing reasonable doubt wherever they can, working against smoking guns to the point of illogic, trying to avoid any prosecution of Assad, much less any eventual punishment of him:

In Syria, Russian Official Questions U.N. Findings

By Steven Lee Myers, Crisis in Syria updates @ nytimes.com, Sept. 18, 2013, 11:43 a.m.

MOSCOW — Russian officials continue to question intelligence reports by Western governments and the United Nations report on a chemical attack on the outskirts of Damascus last month, according to Russian news reports, even though they helped create a plan to disarm Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei A. Ryabkov, said in Damascus on Wednesday that Syria’s government had provided its own evidence that rebels had used chemical weapons on several occasions. He also challenged the legitimacy of the findings issued in a United Nations report on Monday that detailed chemical attacks that took place on Aug. 21. The forensic details implicated government forces, though the report itself did not assign blame.

Mr. Ryabkov spoke after meeting with Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and its foreign minister, Walid al-Mouallem, but he did not disclose any new information or allegations, saying the Russians would now analyze it. He said the United Nations report was selective and biased and failed to investigate other suspected uses for which the Syrians and Russians have blamed rebel fighters.

“We are unhappy about this report,” Mr. Ryabkov said in remarks broadcast by the state television network, RT. “We think that the report was distorted. It was one-sided. The basis of information upon which it is built is insufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of Aug. 21.”

His remarks came a day after Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, also questioned the United Nations report [....]

What's not clear is their end game. It would be highly unlikely that the Russians wish all those refugees never to return. So are they crazily thinking Assad can slaughter enough of the active rebels that remain, and stop the international jihadi flow and then maintain a country with an iron fist against terror attacks, and a lot of the refugees will come back and live under such a regime? Can the Russians be that crazy? I don't think so. I am thinking they are thinking an end game of splitting up Syria somehow. Two state solution-like Pakistan and India, enemies living side by side after the slaughter. More Balkanization of that area. Makes some sense if you look at the current state of Lebanon and Iraq trying to hold things together as nation states of mixed ethnic/ religious groups.

Chivers @ the NYT does a good

artappraiser — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 19:40:56 +0000

In reply to Though UN's object was not to

Chivers @ the NYT does a good job of clearly explaining exactly how the U.N. report manages to implicate the Assad forces without coming right out and doing that, see my comment downthread.

(BTW, the implicating info. in the U.N. report was also one of the main points of the French intel report.)