Reality Check: No Sarin Gas Used by Assad in Syria? (VIDEO)

By Ben Swann, Truth in Media | 

It was a stunning announcement, stunning because of what was said and maybe equally as stunning because it was honest.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis says there is no evidence that the Syrian government used sarin gas on the its own people.

It is a narrative we have been pushing back on for years. So what does this mean for U.S. policy in Syria? And will President Trump continue to push for war in Syria, or will he return to the positions of candidate Trump who said the U.S. should stay out of it?

Let’s give it a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.

Youtube

The statement is getting very little media coverage but it is a very big deal.

According to Defense Secretary James Mattis, there is no evidence that the Syrian government has used sarin gas on its own people.

Here is exactly what Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon:



“We have other reports from the battlefield from people who claim it’s been used.”

“We do not have evidence of it.”

“We’re looking for evidence of it, since clearly we are dealing with the Assad regime that has used denial and deceit to hide their outlaw actions.”

Mattis insists that he wasn’t refuting the claims. But in a sense, he did.

According to Newsweek, in 2017 a White House memorandum was quickly produced and then declassified to justify an American Tomahawk missile strike against the Shayrat airbase in Syria.

The justification used was that Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people. Then President Trump himself insisted that there was no doubt that Syrian President Assad had killed his own people with banned chemical weapons.

But Mattis also didn’t qualify the statement to just the Syrian airbase strike. That means that the 2013 gas attack in Ghouta also was not proven to be Assad.

At that time, President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were demanding congress approve use of force against Assad. Obama said this from the rose garden as he said American destroyers armed with Tomahawk missiles were on standby in the Mediterranean Sea.

“I’m prepared to give that order, but having made my decision as commander in chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests, I’m also mindful that I’m the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.”

Congress did not approve that use of force, but then applauded Trump for his use.

For his part, in this latest statement, Mattis says that “aid groups and others” had provided evidence of the Syrian government using sarin.

But as I have extensively reported over the past few years, there is much evidence that the so called Syrian freedom fighters are actually ISIS and Al Qaeda fighters. And there is evidence that they have used chemical weapons.

Other problems with the claims of Assad using sarin: in the 2013 Ghouta event, the sarin came from home-made rockets, which were favored by insurgents.

Also, according to Newsweek:

“In the 2013 event, the White House memorandum seemed to rely heavily on testimony from the Syrian white helmets who were filmed at the scene having contact with supposed sarin-tainted casualties and not suffering any ill effects.

“Carla del Ponte was unable to fulfill her U.N. joint investigative mechanism mandate in Syria and withdrew in protest over the United States refusing to fully investigate allegations of chemical weapons use by ‘rebels’ who are actually jihadis, allied with the American effort to oust President Assad (including the use of sarin by anti-Assad rebels).”

According to the Times of London:



“Carla del Ponte, head of the independent UN commission investigating reports of chemical weapons use in Syria, told a Swiss-Italian television station that UN investigators gleaned testimony from victims of Syria’s civil war and medical staff which indicated that rebel forces used sarin gas – a deadly nerve agent.

“‘Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,’ del Ponte said in the interview, translated by Reuters.

‘This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities,’ she added.”

It was the involvement of those jihadis posing as Syrian rebels that made then-candidate Trump state emphatically that he wouldn’t intervene and help oust Assad as Hillary Clinton wanted to do.

Candidate Trump pushed back heavily against intervention. He warned that ISIS was likely to take over Syria if Assad were ousted, just as they have in Iraq and Libya.

And yet the U.S. is only escalating fighting.

Four Russian nationals, and perhaps dozens more, were killed in fighting between pro-government forces in eastern Syria and members of the United States-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, according to Russian and Syrian officials—that according to the New York Times.

Russia says that no members of the Russian armed forces were killed and that any Russians fighting alongside the Syrians were mercenaries.

So what you need to know is that candidate Trump was clear when he pointed to the bush policy in Iraq and the Obama/Clinton policies in Libya and Syria that have only strengthened the creation and spread of ISIS and jihadism.

Candidate Trump rightly pointed out that these policies had failed and that it was insanity to keep pursuing those policies and expecting a different outcome.

So why is President Trump now embracing those insane policies that if continued will undoubtedly leave another power vacuum in the Middle East which will be filled with jihadis?

The post Reality Check: No Sarin Gas Used by Assad in Syria? (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.

U.S. Military Officials: There Was NO Chemical Weapons Attack In Syria … Trump Bombed Syria DESPITE Advice From Military and Intelligence Chiefs

[image: AP]A top U.S. missile and chemical weapons expert has documented for months that the Syrian government did not carry out a chemical weapons attack against civilians, and that contrary claims by the Trump White House, French intelligence services, the New York Times, CNN and other “mainstream” sources are wrong … and worthless propaganda.

Former top military and intelligence officials  – including many who warned against the faulty Iraq intelligence in advance of the Iraq war – have long said that the claims that Assad carried out the chemical weapons attacks was bunkum.

Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh – who broke the stories of the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Iraq prison torture scandals, which rightfully disgraced the Nixon and Bush administrations’ war-fighting tactics – reported yesterday in the large German publication Weld that U.S. military officials tried to tell Trump that a chemical weapons attack never occurred at all: 

On April 6, United States President Donald Trump authorized an early morning Tomahawk missile strike on Shayrat Air Base in central Syria in retaliation for what he said was a deadly nerve agent attack carried out by the Syrian government two days earlier in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Trump issued the order despite having been warned by the U.S. intelligence community that it had found no evidence that the Syrians had used a chemical weapon.

The available intelligence made clear that the Syrians had targeted a jihadist meeting site on April 4 using a Russian-supplied guided bomb equipped with conventional explosives. Details of the attack,  including information on its so-called high-value targets, had been provided by the Russians days in advance to American and allied military officials in Doha, whose mission is to coordinate all U.S., allied, Syrian and Russian Air Force operations in the region.

Some American military and intelligence officials were especially distressed by the president’s determination to ignore the evidence. “None of this makes any sense,” one officer told colleagues upon learning of the decision to bomb. “We KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious. Claiming we have the real intel and know the truth … I guess it didn’t matter whether we elected Clinton or Trump.“

***

In a series of interviews, I learned of the total disconnect between the president and many of his military advisers and intelligence officials, as well as officers on the ground in the region who had an entirely different understanding of the nature of Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun. I was provided with evidence of that disconnect, in the form of transcripts of real-time communications, immediately following the Syrian attack on April 4 [Here’s one of the transcripts]. In an important pre-strike process known as deconfliction, U.S. and Russian officers routinely supply one another with advance details of planned flight paths and target coordinates, to ensure that there is no risk of collision or accidental encounter (the Russians speak on behalf of the Syrian military). This information is supplied daily to the American AWACS surveillance planes that monitor the flights once airborne. Deconfliction’s success and importance can be measured by the fact that there has yet to be one collision, or even a near miss, among the high-powered supersonic American, Allied, Russian and Syrian fighter bombers.

Russian and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the carefully planned flight path to and from Khan Shiekhoun on April 4 directly, in English, to the deconfliction monitors aboard the AWACS plane, which was on patrol near the Turkish border, 60 miles or more to the north.

***

A high-level meeting of jihadist leaders was to take place in the building …. Russian intelligence depicted the cinder-block building as a command and control center ….

***

A senior adviser to the American intelligence community, who has served in senior positions in the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency, told me [that] the basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons and ammunition, as well as … chlorine-based decontaminants for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial. The meeting place – a regional headquarters – was on the floor above.

***

One reason for the Russian message to Washington about the intended target was to ensure that any CIA asset or informant who had managed to work his way into the jihadist leadership was forewarned not to attend the meeting. I was told that the Russians passed the warning directly to the CIA. “They were playing the game right,” the senior adviser said. The Russian guidance noted that the jihadist meeting was coming at a time of acute pressure for the insurgents: Presumably Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham were desperately seeking a path forward in the new political climate.

***

Russian and Syrian intelligence officials, who coordinate operations closely with the American command posts, made it clear that the planned strike on Khan Sheikhoun was special because of the high-value target. “It was a red-hot change. The mission was out of the ordinary – scrub the sked,” the senior adviser told me. “Every operations officer in the region” – in the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, CIA and NSA – “had to know there was something going on. The Russians gave the Syrian Air Force a guided bomb and that was a rarity. They’re skimpy with their guided bombs and rarely share them with the Syrian Air Force. And the Syrians assigned their best pilot to the mission, with the best wingman.” The advance intelligence on the target, as supplied by the Russians, was given the highest possible score inside the American community.

***

“This was not a chemical weapons strike,” the adviser said. “That’s a fairy tale. If so, everyone involved in transferring, loading and arming the weapon – you’ve got to make it appear like a regular 500-pound conventional bomb – would be wearing Hazmat protective clothing in case of a leak. There would be very little chance of survival without such gear. Military grade sarin includes additives designed to increase toxicity and lethality. Every batch that comes out is maximized for death. That is why it is made. It is odorless and invisible and death can come within a minute. No cloud. Why produce a weapon that people can run away from?”

The target was struck at 6:55 a.m. on April 4, just before midnight in Washington. A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered  a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground. According to intelligence estimates, the senior adviser said, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders, and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92. A team from Médecins Sans Frontières, treating victims from Khan Sheikhoun at a clinic 60 miles to the north, reported that “eight patients showed symptoms – including constricted pupils, muscle spasms and involuntary defecation – which are consistent with exposure to a neurotoxic agent such as sarin gas or similar compounds.” MSF also visited other hospitals that had received victims and found that patients there “smelled of bleach, suggesting that they had been exposed to chlorine.” In other words, evidence suggested that there was more than one chemical responsible for the symptoms observed, which would not have been the case if the Syrian Air Force – as opposition activists insisted – had dropped a sarin bomb, which has no percussive or ignition power to trigger secondary explosions. The range of symptoms is, however, consistent with the release of a mixture of chemicals, including chlorine and the organophosphates used in many fertilizers, which can cause neurotoxic effects similar to those of sarin.

***

The adviser said … “Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

***

“What doesn’t occur to most Americans” the adviser said, “is if there had been a Syrian nerve gas attack authorized by Bashar, the Russians would be 10 times as upset as anyone in the West. Russia’s strategy against ISIS, which involves getting American cooperation, would have been destroyed and Bashar would be responsible for pissing off Russia, with unknown consequences for him. Bashar would do that? When he’s on the verge of winning the war? Are you kidding me?”

***

Within hours of viewing the photos, the adviser said, Trump instructed the national defense apparatus to plan for retaliation against Syria. “He did this before he talked to anybody about it. The planners then asked the CIA and DIA if there was any evidence that Syria had sarin stored at a nearby airport or somewhere in the area. Their military had to have it somewhere in the area in order to bomb with it.” “The answer was, ‘We have no evidence that Syria had sarin or used it,’” the adviser said. “The CIA also told them that there was no residual delivery for sarin at Sheyrat [the airfield from which the Syrian SU-24 bombers had taken off on April 4] and Assad had no motive to commit political suicide.” Everyone involved, except perhaps the president, also understood that a highly skilled United Nations team had spent more than a year in the aftermath of an alleged sarin attack in 2013 by Syria, removing what was said to be all chemical weapons from a dozen Syrian chemical weapons depots.

At this point, the adviser said, the president’s national security planners were more than a little rattled: “No one knew the provenance of the photographs. We didn’t know who the children were or how they got hurt. Sarin actually is very easy to detect because it penetrates paint, and all one would have to do is get a paint sample. We knew there was a cloud and we knew it hurt people. But you cannot jump from there to certainty that Assad had hidden sarin from the UN because he wanted to use it in Khan Sheikhoun.” The intelligence made clear that a Syrian Air Force SU-24 fighter bomber had used a conventional weapon to hit its target: There had been no chemical warhead.

Hersh than notes that Trump was determined to bomb Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack that never occurred.  America’s top military and intelligence officials steered into him a less destructive bombing run.

Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi confirms that American intelligence community insiders are furious that the Trump administration has twisted the intelligence so as to claim that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack. And see this.

Unfortunately, none of this is new …

The 2013 sarin attack in Syria, was also blamed by the U.S. on the Syrian government.

However, the United Nations’ report on the attack did NOT blame the government, and the U.N.’s human rights investigator accused the rebels – rather than the Syrian government – of carrying out the attack.

Moreover, high-level American and Turkish officials say that Turkey supplied Sarin gas to Syrian rebels in 2013 in order to frame the Syrian government … to provide an excuse for regime change.

And Seymour Hersh reported that high-level American sources tell him that the Turkish government carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government.

As Hersh noted: 

‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’

Indeed, it’s long been known that sarin was coming through Turkey.

And a tape recording of top Turkish officials planning a false flag attack to be blamed on Syria as a justification for war was leaked … and confirmed by Turkey as being authentic.

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

(image: Your News Wire)

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 WeatherTemp 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 mphE	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/SunsetSunrise                             Sunset

Length

DaylengthDifference

Astronomical TwilightStart                          End

Nautical TwilightStart                  End

Civil TwilightStart                     End

Solar NoonTime                              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.

As Trump Relishes in Establishment Praise, NYT Admits Assad Didn’t Do 2013 Sarin Gas Attack

How does President Trump – an unpopular, false candidate of “change” working on behalf of big money interests – make friends with a hostile corporate media? Bomb Middle Eastern countries.

Dropping more bombs in Yemen in one week than the annual total for any prior year, or loosening the standards for “acceptable” civilian casualties, wasn’t enough for the war machine. Trump had to carry out his “first major military action” in Syria — as media figures gleefully stated — to earn accolades from the Establishment and the Deep State.

Hillary Clinton most likely would have carried out her “first major military action” in Syria at this point, too. Clinton was ready to pursue the establishment of ‘safe zones’ which would be a likely path for direct conflict with Russia.

Perhaps ‘safe zones’ or ‘no-fly zones’ will be on Trump’s teleprompter soon. Considering his call for increasing the already bloated military budget and giving the Pentagon – who’s never had an audit – much more control over what transpires in the various theaters of war, Trump should be very willing to accommodate American imperialism.

There was no shortage of fawning admirers in the corporate press, spanning the political spectrum, after the strike on Syria. Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists joined hands in praise of Tomahawk missiles, with Brian Williams gushing about how “beautiful” the missile strikes were.

Media have simply repeated the government’s line – without question – that US spies witnessed a Syrian plane dropping chemical weapons on a Syrian town. The media’s constant skepticism of Trump, deserved or not, suddenly disappears when he lets the missiles fly on Syria.

Granted, the Assad regime is certainly guilty of brutality and crimes, just as the Bush, Obama, Trump and Putin regimes are. But the accusation of chemical weapon use must be subject to the most intense scrutiny, and the mainstream media have clearly abandoned that role.

READ MORE:  Woman Arrested For Posting Selfie With Gun on Facebook

We should care about the veracity of the claim that ‘Syria did it,’ especially since the corporate press portrayed a 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria as a “red line” that required US military attacks. However, thanks to independent media and Seymour Hersh, we now know that gas attack more likely came from Syrian rebels.

And apparently, the New York Times – an important voice in the interventionist cabal – is no longer pushing the line that Assad carried out that 2013 chemical attack.

Robert Parry at Consortium News reports:

“The New York Times, which has never heard an allegation against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that it hasn’t immediately believed, has compiled a list of his alleged atrocities with a surprising omission: the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus.

Why this omission is so surprising is that the sarin incident was the moment when the Western media and the Washington establishment piled on President Barack Obama for not enforcing his “red line” by launching military strikes against the Syrian government to retaliate for Assad “gassing his own people.”

The retaliation, which would have pummeled the Syrian military, was hotly desired by neoconservatives and liberal interventionists who were obsessed with achieving another Mideast “regime change” even if that risked turning Syria over to Al Qaeda and/or the Islamic State. The story of Obama’s supposed “red line” retreat has become a treasured groupthink of all the “important people” in D.C.”

While Saudi Arabia carries out war crimes in Yemen, bombing schools and hospitals in a proxy US ‘war on terror,’ the New York Times is intent on highlighting Assad’s bad behavior in Syria’s six-year civil war.

READ MORE:  17-Year-Old Girl Forcefully Taken From Her Parents By Govt Agents for Refusing Chemotherapy

The Times had previously reported “slam-dunk proof of Assad’s guilt” in the 2013 sarin attack, but Parry notes that they backed away as the case fell apart. Seymour Hersh later found that the chemicals came from Turkish intelligence. Perhaps most revealing was that the likely firing position of the 2013 sarin attack was in rebel-controlled territory.

The question must be asked: who stands to benefit from a chemical attack? Assad or the “rebels,” which includes al-Qaida and ISIS-linked fighters? It also must be noted the attack and predictable Western response came about just as peace talks were getting underway in Brussels.

If the hallowed New York Times admits the 2013 chemical weapon attack didn’t come from Assad, why are the media once again parroting the government line that ‘Assad did it’ without question?

The military-industrial complex always gets its way, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. Corporate media are jumping at the chance to beat the war drums once again.

Trump played his hand well, as the mainstream media will now do its duty as Praetorian Guard.