Siuhin, Thanks again for articles like this.
I'm aghast at the number of Lefties who have pushed so hard to make people think Assad used Chemical weapons, before all the details can be gathered. I seriously thought it would only be the US Secretary of State, Obama and Britain who wanted this settled before a UN investigation can be completed, as China and Russian will veto any attacks before then, so they need to get in and get the dirty deeds done before any. It's incredible how much of this is similar to the US run ups for Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, and how much personally attacks come out of some lefties when I point these things out. Why the rush to enable the US to go kill people in Syria, and then complain about the US after legitimizing an attack, before the UN can finish an investigation? Scott > > > In Rush to Strike Syria, U.S. Tried to Derail U.N. Probe > > > Analysis by _Gareth Porter_ > (http://www.ipsnews.net/author/gareth-porter/) > > > http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/08/in-rush-to-strike-syria-u-s-tried-to-derail-u > -n-probe/ > > > > > WASHINGTON, Aug 27 2013 (IPS) - After initially insisting that Syria give > United Nations investigators unimpeded access to the site of an alleged > nerve gas attack, the administration of President Barack Obama reversed > its > position on Sunday and tried unsuccessfully to get the U.N. to call off > its > investigation. > The administrationâs reversal, which came within hours of the deal > reached > between Syria and the U.N., was reported by the Wall Street Journal > Monday > and effectively confirmed by a State Department spokesperson later that > day. > In his press appearance Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry, who > intervened with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to call off the > investigation, > dismissed the U.N. investigation as coming too late to obtain valid > evidence > on the attack that Syrian opposition sources claimed killed as many 1,300 > people. > The sudden reversal and overt hostility toward the U.N. investigation, > which coincides with indications that the administration is planning a > major > military strike against Syria in the coming days, suggests that the > administration sees the U.N. as hindering its plans for an attack. > Kerry asserted Monday that he had warned Syrian Foreign Minister Moallem > last Thursday that Syria had to give the U.N. team immediate access to > the > site and stop the shelling there, which he said was âsystematically > destroying evidenceâ. He called the Syria-U.N. deal to allow > investigators > unrestricted access âtoo late to be credibleâ. > After the deal was announced on Sunday, however, Kerry pushed Ban in a > phone call to call off the investigation completely. > The Wall Street Journal reported the pressure on Ban without mentioning > Kerry by name. It said unnamed âU.S. officialsâ had told the > secretary-general that it was âno longer safe for the inspectors to > remain in Syria and > that their mission was pointless.â > But Ban, who has generally been regarded as a pliable instrument of U.S. > policy, refused to withdraw the U.N. team and instead âstood firm on > principle > â, the Journal reported. He was said to have ordered the U.N. > inspectors > to âcontinue their workâ. > The Journal said âU.S. officialsâ also told the secretary-general that > the United States âdidnât think the inspectors would be able to > collect > viable evidence due to the passage of time and damage from subsequent > shelling.â > The State Department spokesperson, Marie Harf, confirmed to reporters that > Kerry had spoken with Ban over the weekend. She also confirmed the gist of > the U.S. position on the investigation. âWe believe that itâs been > too > long and thereâs been too much destruction of the area for the > investigation to > be credible,â she said. > That claim echoed a statement by an unnamed âsenior officialâ to the > Washington Post Sunday that the evidence had been âsignificantly > corruptedâ by > the regimeâs shelling of the area. > â[W]e donât at this point have confidence that the U.N. can conduct a > credible inquiry into what happened,â said Harf, âWe are concerned > that the > Syrian regime will use this as a delay tactic to continue shelling and > destroying evidence in the area.â > Harf did not explain, however, how the Syrian agreement to a ceasefire and > unimpeded access to the area of the alleged chemical weapons attack could > represent a continuation in âshelling and destroying evidenceâ. > Despite the U.S. effort to portray the Syrian government policy as one of > â > delayâ, the formal request from the United Nations for access to the > site > did not go to the Syrian government until Angela Kane, U.N. High > Representative for Disarmament Affairs, arrived in Damascus on Saturday, > as Banâs > spokesman, Farhan Haq, conceded in a briefing in New York Tuesday. > Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem said in a press conference > Tuesday > that Syria had not been asked by the United Nations for access to the > East > Ghouta area until Kane presented it on Saturday. Syria agreed to provide > access and to a ceasefire the following day. > Haq sharply disagreed with the argument made by Kerry and the State > Department that it was too late to obtain evidence of the nature of the > Aug. 21 > incident. > âSarin can be detected for up to months after its use,â he said. > Specialists on chemical weapons also suggested in interviews with IPS that > the U.N. investigating team, under a highly regarded Swedish specialist > Ake > Sellstom and including several experts borrowed from the Organisation for > the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, should be able to either confirm or > disprove the charge of an attack with nerve or another chemical weapon > within > a matter of days. > Ralph Trapp, a consultant on proliferation of chemical and biological > weapons, said he was âreasonably confidentâ that the U.N. team could > clarify > what had happened. > âThey can definitely answer the question [of] whether there was a > chemical > attack, and they can tell which chemical was used,â he said, by > collecting > samples from blood, urine and hair of victims. There was even âsome > chanceâ > of finding chemical residue from ammunition pieces or craters where they > landed. > Trapp said it would take âseveral daysâ to complete an analysis. > > Steve Johnson, who runs a programme in chemical, biological and > radiological weapons forensics at Cranfield University in the United > Kingdom, said > that by the end of the week the U.N. might be able to answer whether > âpeople > died of a nerve agent.â > Johnson said the team, if pushed, could produce âsome kind of viewâ on > that issue within 24 to 48 hours. > Dan Kastesza, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and a > former adviser to the White House on chemical and biological weapons > proliferation, told IPS the team will not be looking for traces of the > nerve gas sarin > in blood samples but rather chemicals produced when sarin degrades. > But Kastesza said that once samples arrive at laboratories, specialists > could make a determination âin a day or twoâ about whether a nerve > agent or > other chemical weapons had been used. > The real reason for the Obama administrationâs hostility toward the U.N. > investigation appears to be the fear that the Syrian governmentâs > decision to > allow the team access to the area indicates that it knows that U.N. > investigators will not find evidence of a nerve gas attack. > The administrationâs effort to discredit the investigation recalls the > George W. Bush administrationâs rejection of the position of U.N. > inspectors in > 2002 and 2003 after they found no evidence of any weapons of mass > destruction in Iraq and the administrationâs refusal to give inspectors > more time > to fully rule out the existence of an active Iraqi WMD programme. > In both cases, the administration had made up its mind to go to war and > wanted no information that could contradict that policy to arise. > > > > > > > ============================================================================ > == > Peace NO War Network_ http://www.PeaceNOWar.net_ > (http://www.peacenowar.net/) > War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate > Not in our Name! 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