A Glimmer Of Hope? Russia, US Officials Revive Dialogue On Arms Control

Authored by Andrei Akulov via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The New Start Treaty was in focus of the talks held in Helsinki between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon on September 11-12. The parties agreed that the treaty should be implemented without exception. It was revealed that expert consultations on the future of the agreement had begun. A meeting of the US-Russian bilateral commission on implementing the New START would take place in the near future so that the two sides could continue their discussion of the technical aspects of implementation.

In force since 2011, New START foresees the reduction of both countries" nuclear arsenals to 1,550 warheads and 700 operationally deployed launch systems by 2018. The treaty also obliges Moscow and Washington to exchange information about their nuclear weapon stockpiles. It is one of the few nuclear agreements still being honored amid the current strained relations between Washington and Moscow. The treaty is set to expire in 2021 and stipulates that the parties may agree to extend it for a period of no more than five years.

With no negotiations in sight on a new strategic arms reduction agreement, it would be prudent to extend the treaty till 2026. True, it would be even more beneficial to have a new treaty, if possible, but there are obstacles on the way. At this level of reductions, other nuclear powers should join. This prospect is hardly feasible at present, and yet step-by-step progress toward constructive consultations on nuclear arms reductions and transparency measures is possible. The US program of creating a global missile defense is also a hindrance. There is also a problem of mistrust against the background of the relationship at its lowest ebb.

An agreement to extend the landmark treaty is the way to stabilize the ties and prevent a competition. It would revive the hopes for saving the arms control regime, which is being eroded, to put the world back to the brink of nuclear war where it had been before the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963. The mutual limits and the robust verification and compliance regime, including satellites, on-site inspections, required notifications, and data exchanges enhance stability and reduce incentives for engaging in an arms race. With no verification procedures in place, the leaderships of both countries would lose a critical source of intelligence, hampering policymakers’ ability to make informed decisions. By extending New START, the parties could add stability at the time of increasing tensions.

In February, President Trump decried the New START Treaty. He said it was one-sided and «Just another bad deal that the country made, whether it"s START, whether it"s the Iran deal ... We"re going to start making good deals», he said in an interview with Reuters. He also responded negatively to Russian President Putin’s suggestion to extend that treaty in a January phone call.

The military leaders appear to have a different view. Gen. John Hyten, the head of US Strategic Command, told Congress in March that he is a “big supporter” of the treaty. According to him, “bilateral, verifiable arms control agreements are essential to our ability to provide an effective deterrent.” Secretaries of Defense and State, support New START. The Federation of American Scientists supports the treaty. European allies also back the idea of keeping New START in force. According to Federica Mogherini, European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, “The right path is the one marked by the New START Treaty and its implementation. This is the kind of cooperation between Russia and the United States that we Europeans like to see.”

The United States is currently pursuing a near-complete overhaul of all elements of its strategic nuclear potential. Over the next 30 years, it plans to have a new ICBM, a new strategic submarine, a new bomber, and a new nuclear cruise missile. However, none of the plans are inhibited by New START. Russia is going through modernization of its nuclear triad. It’s absolutely important to keep the limitations and verification procedures in place to ensure adequate planning.

Extending New START could help create a positive atmosphere for improving the US-Russia relationship.

It would help head off unconstrained nuclear arms race and global security. Failing to pursue an extension would be a major missed opportunity.

Nobody expects spectacular breakthroughs, but it’s good news the issue of strategic stability was at last addressed during a high level Russia-US meeting. It was abnormal that the nuclear arms reductions were not part of the bilateral agenda for such a long period of time. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the fact that the dialogue is revived at the time when the entire arms control and non-proliferation regime is unraveling. Looks like at last a glimmer of light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

No, the “New” CNN Video of the Chemical Incident Does NOT Prove that the Syrian Government Did It

Background.

The Sun claims that CNN has released new footage of last month’s Syrian chemical incident … and strongly implies that the Syrian government was responsible.

Washington’s Blog asked MIT rocket scientist and chemical weapons expert Theodore Postol^* what he thought of the footage.

Postol replied:

I agree that the footage is harrowing. However none of it is new and none of it proves that the Syrian government was the perpetrator of a nerve agent attack.

As such, this article merely falls into the category of propaganda.

The kindest alternative description of the article is that it might instead be yet another example of bad reporting that mixes ill-considered assumptions with facts that may or may not be relevant to its conclusions.

This kind of reporting could actually be encouraging such attacks.

If there was a false flag nerve agent attack, this tells the perpetrators that when they engage in the murder of children they can build a stronger false case against the Syrian government and thereby increase their chances of creating political pressure on the US Government to intervene militarily on their behalf.

If people are sickened by the inhumanity of these events, they might want to consider alternative explanations of who might be responsible for the immoralities we are seeing.

* Postol is  professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT.  Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT.  Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory.  He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.

MIT Scientist FURTHER Debunks False Flag: "The Nerve Agent Attack that Did Not Occur"

By Theodore A. Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT.  Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT.  Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory.  He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.

For background on Dr. Postol’s previous essays on this issue, see:

 

THE NERVE AGENT ATTACK THAT DID NOT OCCUR:
ANALYSIS OF THE TIMES AND LOCATIONS OF CRITICAL EVENTS IN THE ALLEGED NERVE AGENT ATTACK AT 7 AM ON APRIL 4, 2017 IN KHAN SHEIKHOUN, SYRIA

Introduction

This analysis contains a detailed description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria – assuming that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged sarin release site.

Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged nerve agent release. The hamlet is separated from the alleged release site (a crater) by an open field. The winds at the time of the release would have initially taken the sarin across the open field. Beyond the hamlet there is a substantial amount of open space and the sarin cloud would have had to travel long additional distance for it to have dissipated before reaching any other population center.

Video taken on April 4 shows that the location where the victims were supposedly being treated from sarin exposure is incompatible with the only open space in the hamlet that could have been used for mass treatment of victims. This indicates that the video scenes where mass casualties (dead and dying) were laid on the ground randomly was not at the hamlet. If the location where the bodies were on the ground was instead a site where the injured and dead were taken for processing, then it is hard to understand why bodies were left randomly strewn on the ground and in mud as shown in the videos.

The conclusion of this summary of data is obvious – the nerve agent attack described in the WHR did not occur as claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR.

The findings of this analysis can serve two important purposes:

1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity. In particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from the nerve agent attack lived, it will further confirm that the findings reported by the WHR are not compatible with the data it cites as evidence for its conclusions.


2. It also establishes that the WHR did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis procedures to determine its conclusions.

This raises troubling questions about how the US political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the US government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and to a standard of high confidence.

Methodology Used in This Analysis

The construction of the time of day at which particular video frames were generated is determined by simply using the planetary geometry of the sun angle during the day on April 4. The illustration below of the sun-angle geometry shows the Day/Night Sun Terminator at the location of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4. The angle of the sun relative to local horizontal is summarized in the table that follows the image of the planetary geometry along with the temperature during the day between 6:30 AM and 6 PM.

The next set of two side-by-side images shows the shadows at a location where a large number of poison victims are being treated in what appears to be the aftermath of a poisoning event. The shadows indicate that this event occurred at about 7:30 AM. This is consistent with the possibility of a nerve agent attack at 7 AM on the morning of April 4 and it is also consistent with the allegation in the WHR that an attack occurred at 6:55 AM on that day.

The timing sequence of the attack is important for determining the consistency of the timelines with the allegations of a sarin release at the crater identified in the WHR.

Assuming there was an enough sarin released from the crater identified by the WHR to cause mass casualties at significant downwind distances, the sarin would have drifted downwind at a speed of 1 to 2 m/s and for several minutes before encountering the only location where mass casualties could have occurred from this particular release. The location where these mass casualties would have had to occur will be identified and described in the next section. If there was a sarin release elsewhere, mass casualties would have not occurred at this location but would have occurred somewhere else in the city.

Assuming the victims of the attack were exposed to the plume, the symptoms of sarin poisoning would have express themselves almost immediately. As such, the scene at 7:30 AM on April 4 is absolutely consistent with the possibility of a mass poisoning downwind of the sarin-release crater.

The next figure shows the earliest photograph we have been able to find of an individual standing by the sarin-release crater where the alleged release occurred. The photo was posted on April 4 and the shadow indicates the time of day was around 10:50 AM. Thus the individual was standing by the crater roughly 4 hours after the dispersal event.

If the dispersal event was from this crater, the area where this unprotected individual is standing would be toxic and this individual would be subjected to the severe and possibly fatal effects of sarin poisoning. As a result, this throws substantial suspicion on the possibility that the crater identified by WHR would be the source of the sarin release.

At the time of the sarin release, the temperature of the air was about 60°F and the sun was at an angle of only 8° relative to local horizontal. This means that liquid sarin left on the ground from the dispersal event would remain mostly unevaporated. By 11 AM, the temperature of the air had risen to 75° and the angle of the sun relative to horizontal was at 66°. Thus, one would expect that the combination of the rise in air temperature and the sun on the crater would lead to significant evaporation of liquid sarin left behind from the initial dispersal event. The air temperature and sun angle are such that the area around the crater should have been quite dangerous for anybody without protection to operate.

This is therefore an important indication that the crater was probably not a dispersal site of the sarin.

The final set of three photographs shows arriving victims seeking treatment at a hospital at some location in Khan Sheikhoun. The arrivals at the hospital are at between 9 and 10:30 AM on the day of the attack. This is perhaps late since victims were seriously exposed by 7:30 AM, but victims could have been trailing in after the initial arrival of severely affected victims. This time is considerably earlier than the time at which WHR alleges that a hospital was attacked while treating victims of the poisoning attack.

In the next section we discuss the location where mass casualties should have occurred if the sarin release occurred at the location alleged by the WHR.

Khan Shaykhun Sun Angles
Relative to Local Horizontal on April 4, 2017

Local Time of Day in Khan ShayKhun on April 4, 2017	Surface Temperature in Degrees Fahrenheit	Sun Angle in Degrees Relative to Local Horizontal
6:30	58.16	1.20
7.00	60.24	8.40
7:30	62.39	15.60
8.00	64.55	22.80
8:30	66.68	30.00
9.00	68.74	37.20
9:30	70.69	44.40
10.00	72.51	51.60
10:30	74.15	58.80
11.00	75.59	66.00
11:30	76.81	73.20
12.00	77.80	80.40
12:30	78.53	87.60
13.00	79.01	94.80
13:30	79.24	102.00
14.00	79.22	109.20
14:30	78.96	116.40
15.00	78.48	123.60
15:30	77.81	130.80
16.00	76.99	138.00
16:30	76.04	145.20
17.00	75.03	152.40
17:30	74.01	159.60
18.00	73.05	166.80

Identification of the Location of the Mass Casualties

The figure on the next page shows the direction of the toxic sarin plume based on the assumption that the alleged release point was the crater identified by WHR. The wind conditions at the time of the release, which would have been at about 7 AM on April 4, would have carried the plume across an empty field to an isolated Hamlet roughly 300 m downwind from the crater.

Although there were some walls and structures that would have somewhat attenuated and inhibited the movement of the aerosol cloud from the release point, the open field would be an ideal stable wind environment to transmit the remaining sarin cloud with minimal distortion and dispersal. As such, it is plausible that the sarin cloud could with the weather conditions at that time have led to mass casualties at the Hamlet.

The sarin dosage level that results in 50% of exposed victims dying is known as the LD50. The LD50 for sarin is about 100 mg^lmin/m³.

The dose quantity mg^lmin/m³ can be understood simply.

An exposure of about 100 mg^lmin/m³ simply means that a victim is within an environment for one full minute when there is 100 mg/m³ of sarin in the air. If the victim is instead in an environment for 10 minutes where there is a density of sarin of 10 mg/m³, they will also receive a lethal dose of 100 mg^lmin/m³.

Assuming 5 to 10 liters were aerosolized at the crater as alleged by the WHR, this would have resulted in an average sarin exposure at the Hamlet at 300 m range of about 10 to 20 mg^lmin/m³, assuming wind and temperature conditions that are near ideal for lethal exposures downwind. This estimate assumes that an individual would be outside and exposed to the sarin as the gas cloud passes by.

Since a cloud of sarin would not be uniformly mixed, there will be regions in the cloud that have much higher and lower doses than the average. In addition, as the cloud passes, sarin entering into open windows of aboveground and basement rooms would tend to become trapped inside these rooms creating a significantly longer exposure to the nerve agent, certainly leading to lethal levels if residents did not evacuate the rooms immediately. Also, since the nerve agent cloud would be passing through an area that has buildings, it will tend to flow around, over buildings, and down into open basement windows, resulting in buildups of sarin in some locations and diminished levels of sarin at other locations.

As such, the Hamlet could well have been within lethal range of the sarin exposure. However, areas further downwind from the Hamlet would be sufficiently far away that the sarin will have dispersed sufficiently that it would not be capable of causing deaths.

Thus, the Hamlet area 300 m downwind of the crater is the only area where mass casualties could  occur if there had been a sarin release at the crater as alleged by the WHR!

The selected video frames collected on the next two pages show three important sets of data that indicate the following:

1. Unprotected civilians with clothing that have logos of the Idlib Health Directorate are tampering with the contents of the crater crater that the WHR alleges was the source of the sarin release. All of the indicators point to a ruptured tube that could have contained no more than 8 to 10 liters of sarin. This is the only container shown in any videos from this scene.


2. The next collection of video frames shows panoramic views of the target area taken from a drone equipped with a video camera. As can be seen in the video frames, a goat that was allegedly killed from the sarin dispersal is close to downwind of the alleged dispersal site.

However, the Hamlet that should have experienced major casualties if the alleged dispersal site had been correctly identified is only 300 m down range, and easily reachable by simply walking over to the site.

Yet none of the video journalists refer in any way to a mass casualty site nearby. They simply focus on a dead goat and present out of context images of a few dead birds. It is remarkable that no video journalists of the many who reported from this crater area referred in any way to the mass casualties that could only have occurred 300 m away if the attack had been executed from this crater.

3. The last collection of 18 video frames is from the area where mass casualties were piled on the ground haphazardly dead or dying. Among these casualties were infants as well as men and women. This scene clearly could not have been at the location of the Hamlet as one can see that the walls surrounding the area are carved out of rock. Thus, this scene could not possibly have been at the Hamlet.

These video frames were generated by reviewing hundreds of videos posted on YouTube plus additional videos and video frames found on Twitter.

Among the hundreds of videos reviewed there seems to be no more than 50 to 60 seconds of actual original scenes like those laid out in the collection of 18 videos below. The vast majority of time in the videos contains the same repeated sequences of the same dead and injured infants and adults that could all be collected into less than a couple of minutes of independent scenes.

The overwhelming evidence is that these videos repeat nothing more than redundant scenes that suggest one terrible event might have occurred. Almost none of the scenes contain any different information from the others. This raises a serious question about how much real data has been supplied that would indicate an actual significant nerve agent attack.

What is absolutely clear from the videos is that the location of the sarin dispersal site alleged by WHR and the mass casualty site that would have had to be generated if the sarin dispersal actually occurred, are not in any way related to the scenes of victims shown in the other videos. The conclusion is obvious, the alleged attack described in WHR never occurred.

         

Final Comments

This abbreviated summary of the facts has been constructed entirely from basic physics, video evidence, and absolutely solid analytical methods. It demonstrates without doubt that the sarin dispersal site alleged as the source of the April 4, 2017 sarin attack in Khan Sheikhoun was not a nerve agent attack site.

It also shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only mass casualty site that could have resulted from this mass attack is not in any way related to the sites that are shown in video following a poisoning event of some kind at Khan Sheikhoun.

This means that the allegedly “high confidence” White House intelligence assessment ssued on April 11 that led to the conclusion that the Syrian government was responsible for the attack is not correct. For such a report to be so egregiously in error, it could not possibly have followed the most simple and proven intelligence methodologies to determine the veracity of its findings.

Since the United States justified attacking a Syrian airfield on April 7, four days before the flawed National Security Council intelligence report was released to the Congress and the public, the conclusion that follows is that the United States took military actions without the intelligence to support its decision.

Furthermore, it is clear that the WHR was not an intelligence report.

No competent intelligence professional would have made so many false claims that are totally inconsistent with the evidence. No competent intelligence professional would have accepted the findings in the WHR analysis after reviewing the data presented herein. No competent intelligence professionals would have evaluated the crater that was tampered with in terms described in the WHR.

Although it is impossible to know from a technical assessment to determine the reasons for such an egregiously amateurish report, it cannot be ruled out that the WHR was fabricated to conceal critical information from the Congress and the public.

Appendix

Resource Materials Used To DetermineLocalWeather Conditions andSun Angles
Needed to Verify the above Analysis

Khan Shaykhun, Idlib Historical Weather, Syria

The past date should be after 1st July, 2008 onwards
Tue 04th Apr, 2017

Time Weather Temp Feels Like Rain Wind Gust Rain? Cloud Humidity Pressure
	00:00	03:00	06:00	09:00	12:00	15:00	18:00	21:00
	10 °c	10 °c	13 °c	21 °c	25 °c	26 °c	23 °c	20 °c
	10 °c	10 °c	13 °c	21 °c	24 °c	24 °c	24 °c	20 °c
	0.0 mm        0.0 mm       0.0 mm      0.0 mm       0.0 mm      0.0 mm       0.0 mm      0.0 mm
	4 mph SSW	3 mph S	2 mph SE	4 mph E	7 mph ENE	10 mph ENE	11 mph ENE	10 mph ENE
	8 mph	6 mph	4 mph	4 mph	8 mph	12 mph	17 mph	20 mph
	0%                  0%            0%             0%           0% 7%                  2%            1%             1%           6% 94%                91%          76%            40%         19%					0%            0%             0%
						20%	25%	21%
						17%           25%          33%
	1022 mb	1022 mb	1023 mb	1023 mb	1022 mb	1021 mb	1021 mb	1021 mb

Khan Shaykhun Past weather on 04th April

2mph = 0.9 m/sec
3mph = 1.3 m/sec
4mph = 1.8 m/sec

3 to 4 Minutes from Crater to Residences

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/syria/damascus
April 2017 — Sun in Damascus

Month:

2017 Apr

Sunrise/Sunset Sunrise                             Sunset

Length

Daylength Difference

Astronomical Twilight Start                          End

Nautical Twilight Start                  End

Civil Twilight Start                     End

Solar Noon Time                              Mil. mi

1

6:22 am t (84°)

6:55 pm t (276°)

12:32:44

+2:03

4:58 am

8:19 pm

5:28 am

7:49 pm

5:57 am

7:20 pm

12:38 pm (61.2°)

92.896

2

6:21 am t (83°)

6:55 pm t (277°)

12:34:48

+2:03

4:56 am

8:20 pm

5:26 am

7:50 pm

5:56 am

7:21 pm

12:38 pm (61.6°)

92.922

3

6:19 am t (83°)

6:56 pm t (277°)

12:36:51

+2:03

4:55 am

8:21 pm

5:25 am

7:51 pm

5:54 am

7:21 pm

12:37 pm (61.9°)

92.948

4

6:18 am t (83°)

6:57 pm t (278°)

12:38:54

+2:03

4:53 am

8:22 pm

5:23 am

7:52 pm

5:53 am

7:22 pm

12:37 pm (62.3°)

92.974

5

6:17 am t (82°)

6:58 pm t (278°)

12:40:58

+2:03

4:52 am

8:23 pm

5:22 am

7:53 pm

5:52 am

7:23 pm

12:37 pm (62.7°)

93.000

6

6:15 am t (82°)

6:58 pm t (279°)

12:43:00

+2:02

4:50 am

8:24 pm

5:21 am

7:53 pm

5:50 am

7:24 pm

12:37 pm (63.1°)

93.026

7

6:14 am t (81°)

6:59 pm t (279°)

12:45:02

+2:02

4:49 am

8:25 pm

5:19 am

7:54 pm

5:49 am

7:24 pm

12:36 pm (63.5°)

93.052

8

6:13 am t (81°)

7:00 pm t (279°)

12:47:04

+2:01

4:47 am

8:26 pm

5:18 am

7:55 pm

5:48 am

7:25 pm

12:36 pm (63.8°)

93.079

9

6:12 am t (80°)

7:01 pm t (280°)

12:49:05

+2:01

4:46 am

8:27 pm

5:16 am

7:56 pm

5:46 am

7:26 pm

12:36 pm (64.2°)

93.105

10

6:10 am t (80°)

7:01 pm t (280°)

12:51:07

+2:01

4:44 am

8:28 pm

5:15 am

7:57 pm

5:45 am

7:27 pm

12:36 pm (64.6°)

93.131

11

6:09 am t (79°)

7:02 pm t (281°)

12:53:07

+2:00

4:43 am

8:29 pm

5:14 am

7:58 pm

5:44 am

7:28 pm

12:35 pm (64.9°)

93.158

12

6:08 am t (79°)

7:03 pm t (281°)

12:55:07

+2:00

4:41 am

8:29 pm

5:12 am

7:58 pm

5:42 am

7:28 pm

12:35 pm (65.3°)

93.184

13

6:06 am t (79°)

7:04 pm t (282°)

12:57:07

+1:59

4:40 am

8:30 pm

5:11 am

7:59 pm

5:41 am

7:29 pm

12:35 pm (65.7°)

93.210

14

6:05 am t (78°)

7:04 pm t (282°)

12:59:06

+1:59

4:38 am

8:31 pm

5:10 am

8:00 pm

5:40 am

7:30 pm

12:34 pm (66.0°)

93.237

15

6:04 am t (78°)

7:05 pm t (283°)

13:01:05

+1:58

4:37 am

8:32 pm

5:08 am

8:01 pm

5:38 am

7:31 pm

12:34 pm (66.4°)

93.263

16

6:03 am t (77°)

7:06 pm t (283°)

13:03:03

+1:58

4:35 am

8:33 pm

5:07 am

8:02 pm

5:37 am

7:31 pm

12:34 pm (66.7°)

93.290

17

6:02 am t (77°)

7:07 pm t (283°)

13:05:01

+1:57

4:34 am

8:34 pm

5:05 am

8:03 pm

5:36 am

7:32 pm

12:34 pm (67.1°)

93.316

18

6:00 am t (76°)

7:07 pm t (284°)

13:06:58

+1:56

4:33 am

8:35 pm

5:04 am

8:04 pm

5:35 am

7:33 pm

12:34 pm (67.4°)

93.343

19

5:59 am t (76°)

7:08 pm t (284°)

13:08:54

+1:56

4:31 am

8:36 pm

5:03 am

8:05 pm

5:33 am

7:34 pm

12:33 pm (67.8°)

93.369

20

5:58 am t (76°)

7:09 pm t (285°)

13:10:50

+1:55

4:30 am

8:37 pm

5:01 am

8:05 pm

5:32 am

7:35 pm

12:33 pm (68.1°)

93.395

21

5:57 am t (75°)

7:10 pm t (285°)

13:12:44

+1:54

4:28 am

8:38 pm

5:00 am

8:06 pm

5:31 am

7:36 pm

12:33 pm (68.5°)

93.421

22

5:56 am t (75°)

7:10 pm t (286°)

13:14:39

+1:54

4:27 am

8:39 pm

4:59 am

8:07 pm

5:30 am

7:36 pm

12:33 pm (68.8°)

93.447

23

5:55 am t (74°)

7:11 pm t (286°)

13:16:32

+1:53

4:25 am

8:41 pm

4:58 am

8:08 pm

5:29 am

7:37 pm

12:33 pm (69.1°)

93.472

24

5:53 am t (74°)

7:12 pm t (286°)

13:18:25

+1:52

4:24 am

8:42 pm

4:56 am

8:09 pm

5:27 am

7:38 pm

12:32 pm (69.5°)

93.498

25

5:52 am t (74°)

7:13 pm t (287°)

13:20:17

+1:52

4:23 am

8:43 pm

4:55 am

8:10 pm

5:26 am

7:39 pm

12:32 pm (69.8°)

93.523

26

5:51 am t (73°)

7:13 pm t (287°)

13:22:08

+1:51

4:21 am

8:44 pm

4:54 am

8:11 pm

5:25 am

7:40 pm

12:32 pm (70.1°)

93.547

27

5:50 am t (73°)

7:14 pm t (287°)

13:23:58

+1:50

4:20 am

8:45 pm

4:53 am

8:12 pm

5:24 am

7:40 pm

12:32 pm (70.4°)

93.572

28

5:49 am t (72°)

7:15 pm t (288°)

13:25:48

+1:49

4:19 am

8:46 pm

4:51 am

8:13 pm

5:23 am

7:41 pm

12:32 pm (70.8°)

93.596

29

5:48 am t (72°)

7:16 pm t (288°)

13:27:36

+1:48

4:17 am

8:47 pm

4:50 am

8:14 pm

5:22 am

7:42 pm

12:32 pm (71.1°)

93.619

30

5:47 am t (72°)

7:16 pm t (289°)

13:29:23

+1:47

4:16 am

8:48 pm

4:49 am

8:15 pm

5:21 am

7:43 pm

12:31 pm (71.4°)

93.643

* All times are local time for Damascus. Time is adjusted for DST when applicable. Dates are based on the Gregorian calendar. Today is highlighted.

Time Determined by Planetary Analysis

Sunrise ~ 6:25 AM

Sunset ~ 6:56 PM

Postscript: Here is the .pdf version, with the best layout:

The Nerve Agent Attack that Did Not Occur__Analysis of the Alleged Nerve Agent Attack at 7 AM on April 4_2017 in Khan Sheikhoun_Syrian_(April18,2017)_Optimized_

In a cover letter to his report, Dr. Postol also sent us the following Summary of Findings:

This analysis contains a detailed description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria – assuming that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged sarin release site.

Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged nerve agent release.  Video data of suffocating and dead victims lying on the ground shows a different location from the predicted sarin dispersal site if it had been correctly identified by the White House.

The conclusion is that the nerve agent attack described in the White House Intelligence Report did not occur as claimed. 

There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR.

The findings of this expanded analysis can serve two important purposes:

1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity.

In particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from the nerve agent attack lived, it will confirm that the findings reported by the White House Report are incompatible with its own cited data.

2. It also establishes that the White House Report did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis procedures to determine its conclusions.

This raises troubling questions about how the US political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack.  It is particularly of concern that the White House Report presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the US government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and executed to a standard of high confidence.

Video Shows Tampering with "Evidence" of Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack

Preface: We spoke for quite a while with Dr. Postol by phone, and find him to be an ethical, honest, patriotic American man. He"s made some interesting discoveries debunking the Syrian chemical weapons propaganda, and so we"re helping to spread his findings.

By Theodore A. Postol, professor emeritus of science, technology, and national security policy at MIT.  Postol’s main expertise is in ballistic missiles. He has a substantial background in air dispersal, including how toxic plumes move in the air. Postol has taught courses on weapons of mass destruction – including chemical and biological threats – at MIT.  Before joining MIT, Postol worked as an analyst at the Office of Technology Assessment, as a science and policy adviser to the chief of naval operations, and as a researcher at Argonne National Laboratory.  He also helped build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study weapons technology in relation to defense and arms control policy. Postol is a highly-decorated scientist, receiving the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society, the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Richard L. Garwin Award from the Federation of American Scientists.

This is my third report assessing the White House intelligence Report of April 11, 2017.  My first report was titled A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017 about the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria and my second report was an Addendum to the first report.

This report provides unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) of April 11, 2017 contains false and misleading claims that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review by impartial intelligence experts.  The WHR was produced by the National Security Council under the oversight of the National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster.

This image was extracted from a video of a worker during midday (note shadows) on April 5, 2017 next to the crater where sarin was allegedly released according to the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued of April 11, 2017. 

The WHR asserts that it reviewed commercial video evidence and concluded that sarin came from the crater next to a man.  Other video frames show unprotected workers in the crater showing no evidence of sarin poisoning at the same time the dead birds are being packaged.  The URLs to this and a related video are contained in this report.

The evidence presented herein is from two selected videos which are part of a larger cache of videos that are available on YouTube.  These videos were uploaded to YouTube in the time period between April 5, 2017 and April 7, 2017.  Analysis of the videos shows that all of the scenes taken at the site where the WHR claims was the location of a sarin release indicate significant tampering with the site.  Since these videos were available roughly one week before the White House report was issued on April 11, this indicates that the office of the WHR made no attempt to utilize the professional intelligence community to obtain accurate data in support of the findings in the report.

The video evidence shows workers at the site roughly 30 hours after the alleged attack that were wearing clothing with the logo “Idlib Health Directorate.”  These individuals were photographed putting dead birds from a birdcage into plastic bags.  The implication of these actions was that the birds had died after being placed in the alleged sarin crater.  However, the video also shows the same workers inside and around the same crater with no protection of any kind against sarin poisoning.

These individuals were wearing honeycomb face masks and medical exam gloves.  They were otherwise dressed in normal streetwear and had no protective clothing of any kind.

The honeycomb face masks would provide absolutely no protection against either sarin vapors or sarin aerosols.  The masks are only designed to filter small particles from the air.  If there were sarin vapor, it would be inhaled without attenuation by these individuals.  If the sarin were in an aerosol form, the aerosol would have condensed into the pours in the masks, and would have evaporated into a highly lethal gas as the individuals inhaled through the mask.  It is difficult to believe that such health workers, if they were health workers, would be so ignorant of these basic facts.

In addition, other people dressed as health workers were standing around the crater without any protection at all.

As noted in my earlier reports, the assumption in WHR that the site of the alleged sarin release had not been tampered with was totally unjustified and no competent intelligence analyst would have agreed that this assumption was valid.  The implication of this observation is clear – the WHR was not reviewed and released by any competent intelligence experts unless they were motivated by factors other than concerns about the accuracy of the report.

The WHR also makes claims about “communications intercepts” which supposedly provide high confidence that the Syrian government was the source of the attack.  There is no reason to believe that the veracity of this claim is any different from the now verified false claim that there was unambiguous evidence of a sarin release at the cited crater.

The relevant quotes from the WHR are collected below for purposes of reference:

The United States is confident that the Syrian regime conducted a chemical weapons attack, using the nerve agent sarin, against its own people in the town of Khan Shaykhun in southern Idlib Province on April 4, 2017.

We have confidence in our assessment because we have signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence, laboratory analysis of physiological samples collected from multiple victims, as well as a significant body of credible open source reporting

We cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods, but the following includes an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s analysis of this attack.

By 12:15 PM [April4, 2017] local time, broadcasted local videos included images of dead children of varying ages.

… at 1:10 PM [April4, 2017] local … follow-on videos showing the bombing of a nearby hospital …

Commercial satellite imagery from April 6 showed impact craters around the hospital that are consistent with open source reports of a conventional attack on the hospital after the chemical attack.

Moscow has since claimed that the release of chemicals was caused by a regime airstrike on a terrorist ammunition depot in the eastern suburbs of Khan Shaykhun.

An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed [Emphasis Added]—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, [Emphasis Added] after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.

Observed munition remnants at the crater and staining around the impact point are consistent with a munition that functioned, but structures nearest to the impact crater did not sustain damage that would be expected from a conventional high-explosive payload. Instead, the damage is more consistent with a chemical munition.

Russia’s allegations fit with a pattern of deflecting blame from the regime and attempting to undermine the credibility of its opponents.

Summary and Conclusions

It is now clear from video evidence that the WHR report was fabricated without input from the professional intelligence community.

The press reported on April 4 that a nerve agent attack had occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria during the early morning hours locally on that day.  On April 7, The United States carried out a cruise missile attack on Syria ordered by President Trump.  It now appears that the president ordered this cruise missile attack without any valid intelligence to support it.

In order to cover up the lack of intelligence to supporting the president’s action, the National Security Council produced a fraudulent intelligence report on April 11 four days later.  The individual responsible for this report was Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the National Security Advisor.  The McMaster report is completely undermined by a significant body of video evidence taken after the alleged sarin attack and before the US cruise missile attack that unambiguously shows the claims in the WHR could not possibly be true.  This cannot be explained as a simple error.

The National Security Council Intelligence Report clearly refers to evidence that it claims was obtained from commercial and open sources shortly after the alleged nerve agent attack (on April 5 and April 6).  If such a collection of commercial evidence was done, it would have surely found the videos contained herein.

This unambiguously indicates a dedicated attempt to manufacture a false claim that intelligence actually supported the president’s decision to attack Syria, and of far more importance, to accuse Russia of being either complicit or a participant in an alleged atrocity.

The attack on the Syrian government threatened to undermine the relationship between Russia and the United States.  Cooperation between Russia and the United States is critical to the defeat of the Islamic State.  In addition, the false accusation that Russia knowingly engaged in an atrocity raises the most serious questions about a willful attempt to do damage relations with Russia for domestic political purposes.

We repeat here a quote from the WHR:

An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun [Emphasis Added]. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.

The data provided in these videos make it clear that the WHR made no good-faith attempt to collect data that could have supported its “confident assessment.” that the Syrian government executed a sarin attack as indicated by the location and characteristics of the crater.

This very disturbing event is not a unique situation.  President George W. Bush argued that he was misinformed about unambiguous evidence that Iraq was hiding a substantial store of weapons of mass destruction.  This false intelligence led to a US attack on Iraq that started a process that ultimately led to the political disintegration in the Middle East, which through a series of unpredicted events then led to the rise of the Islamic State.

On August 30, 2013, the White House produced a similarly false report about the nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 in Damascus.  This report also contained numerous intelligence claims that could not be true.  An interview with President Obama published in The Atlantic in April 2016 indicates that Obama was initially told that there was solid intelligence that the Syrian government was responsible for the nerve agent attack of August 21, 2013 in Ghouta, Syria.  Obama reported that he was later told that the intelligence was not solid by the then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.

Equally serious questions are raised about the abuse of intelligence findings by the incident in 2013.  Questions that have not been answered about that incident is how the White House produced a false intelligence report with false claims that could obviously be identified by experts outside the White House and without access to classified information.  There also needs to be an explanation of why this 2013 false report was not corrected.  Secretary of State John Kerry emphatically testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee repeating information in this so-called un-equivocating report.

On August 30, 2013 Secretary of State Kerry made the following statement from the Treaty Room in the State Department:

Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack [Emphasis added], and I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment. Accordingly, we have taken unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves.

It is now obvious that this incident produced by the WHR, while just as serious in terms of the dangers it created for US security, was a clumsy and outright fabrication of a report that was certainly not supported by the intelligence community.

In this case, the president, supported by his staff, made a decision to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.  This action was accompanied by serious risks of creating a confrontation with Russia, and also undermining cooperative efforts to win the war against the Islamic State.

I therefore conclude that there needs to be a comprehensive investigation of these events that have either misled people in the White House White House, or worse yet, been perpetrated by people to protect themselves from domestic political criticisms for uninformed and ill-considered actions.

Sincerely yours, Theodore A. Postol

Professor Emeritus of Science,
Technology, and National Security Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: postol@mit.edu

Video Evidence That Reveals the White House Intelligence Report
Issued on April 11, 2017 Contains Demonstrably False Claims about a Sarin Dispersal Crater Allegedly Created
in the April 4, 2017 Attack in Khan Sheikoun, Syria

VIDEO #1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeosawyrgyo

Dead Birds Video:

Note: Please see original .pdf uploaded here for more organized presentation of the screenshots.

VIDEO # 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFAl2gjZJQ

Idlib Health Directorate Tampering with Alleged Sarin Dispersal Site Video

Is This Why Snowden Had to Break the Law to Become an NSA Whistleblower?

Submitted by Nick Bernabe via TheAntiMedia.org,

National Security Agency (NSA) inspector general George Ellard, an outspoken critic of whistleblower Edward Snowden, personally retaliated against another NSA whistleblower, Adam Zagorin reported at the Project on Government Overreach (POGO) on Thursday.

An intelligence community panel earlier this year found that Ellard had retaliated against a whistleblower, Zagorin writes, in a judgment that has still not been made public.

The finding is remarkable because Ellard first made headlines two years ago when he publicly condemned Snowden for leaking information about the NSA’s mass surveillance of private citizens, wherein Ellard claimed that Snowden should have raised concerns through internal channels. The agency would have protected him from any retaliation, Ellard said at the time.

Politico reported on Ellard’s 2014 comments:

“‘We have surprising success in resolving the complaints that are brought to us,’ he said.

“In Snowden’s case, Ellard said a complaint would have prompted an independent assessment into the constitutionality of the law that allows for the bulk collection of Americans’ telephone metadata. But that review, he added, would have also shown the NSA was within the scope of the law.

“‘Perhaps it’s the case that we could have shown, we could have explained to Mr. Snowden his misperceptions, his lack of understanding of what we do,’ Ellard said.”

Yet documents confirmed earlier this year that Snowden had, indeed, reported concerns to several NSA officials—who took no action and discouraged him from continuing to voice concerns. Moreover, as Snowden told Vice News:

“I was not protected by U.S. whistleblower laws, and I would not have been protected from retaliation and legal sanction for revealing classified information about law breaking in accordance with the recommended process.”

Ellard’s 2014 criticism of Snowden appears particularly threadbare after he has been found personally guilty of whistleblower retaliation.

The judgment also came from an external panel of Ellard’s fellow intelligence agency watchdogs. Zagorin writes:

“[L]ast May, after eight months of inquiry and deliberation, a high-level Intelligence Community panel found that Ellard himself had previously retaliated against an NSA whistleblower, sources tell the Project On Government Oversight. Informed of that finding, NSA’s Director, Admiral Michael Rogers, promptly issued Ellard a notice of proposed termination, although Ellard apparently remains an agency employee while on administrative leave, pending a possible response to his appeal from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

 

“The closely held but unclassified finding against Ellard is not public. It was reached by following new whistleblower protections set forth by President Obama in an executive order, Presidential Policy Directive 19. (A President Trump could, in theory, eliminate the order.) Following PPD-19 procedures, a first-ever External Review Panel (ERP) composed of three of the most experienced watchdogs in the US government was convened to examine the issue. The trio—[Inspectors General (IGs)] of the Justice Department, Treasury, and CIA—overturned an earlier finding of the Department of Defense IG, which investigated Ellard but was unable to substantiate his alleged retaliation.”

 

“The finding against Ellard is extraordinary and unprecedented,” Stephen Aftergood, director of the Secrecy Program at the Federation of American Scientists, told Zagorin. “This is the first real test drive for a new process of protecting intelligence whistleblowers. Until now, they’ve been at the mercy of their own agencies, and dependent on the whims of their superiors. This process is supposed to provide them security and a procedural foothold.”

Ellard served as inspector general of the NSA for nine years, Zagorin notes.

The revelation about Ellard echoes other reports of retaliation against whistleblowers from the internal watchdogs meant to protect them, and further affirms Snowden’s repeated argument that he had no choice but to go public with his mass surveillance leaks.

“More generally,” observes Zagorin, “there are few if any incentives for intelligence whistleblowers to report problems through designated authorities when the IG of [the] NSA is found to have retaliated against such an individual.”