© REUTERS / Yves Herman
Editor's note: On April 8, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons released a
report by its newly formed Investigation and Identification Team, a unit ostensibly established to identify alleged perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The IIT investigation examined three alleged incidents in the Syrian town of Ltamenah in March 2017. It concluded "that there are reasonable grounds to believe" that the Syrian army committed a sarin attack in two of the incidents, and a chlorine attack in the third.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
praised the IIT probe, calling it "the latest in a large and growing body of evidence that the Assad regime uses chemical weapons attacks in Syria as part of a deliberate campaign of violence against the Syrian people. The United States shares the OPCW's conclusions."
But missing from Pompeo's remarks and the ensuing U.S. media coverage across the spectrum is the crisis of credibility consuming the OPCW and its senior leadership. The IIT report's tenuous conclusion "that there are reasonable grounds to believe" the official version of events closely resembles the conclusion of an earlier OPCW report that is now the subject of major controversy and derision. A
series of leaks show that OPCW leaders suppressed the findings of inspectors who probed another much more consequential alleged Syrian chemical attack, in the city of Douma in April 2018, which triggered US airstrikes.
The evidence collected in Douma undermined allegations of Syrian government guilt and strongly suggested a staged event by the armed opposition. Leaked internal OPCW emails and documents show that the Douma investigators protested the censorship of their findings, setting off an unfolding cover-up scandal that has called the OPCW's impartiality into question.
The Grayzone has
published a series of leaks from the OPCW's Douma scandal, and plans to reveal new material that further undermines the official story.
The article below reveals how the dissension within the OPCW ranks extends well beyond the Douma investigation.Here, OPCW insiders offer a withering critique of the IIT report, blasting it as another hyper-politicized piece of bunk.
The Grayzone can verify that the authors represent the view of, at minimum, a small group of current and former OPCW officials who took part in its drafting and review.- Max Blumenthal and Aaron Matรฉ, The Grayzone
Comment: Their strategy seems to be: make an example of prominent and popular writers/journalists to frighten all others into silence or submission. First they came for Assange, now they're 'spreading their wings' to target dissenters of all stripes.
While internal British issues like 'Brexit' and Scottish secession may have motivated the prosecution of Murray, it strikes us that it's more likely Murray came on the Clinton gang's radar for his hints that he has evidence concerning who and how exactly the Podesta and DNC emails were sent to Wikileaks in 2016...