The U.S. today began bombing targets inside Syria, in concert with its lovely and inspiring group of five allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan.
That means that Syria becomes the 7th predominantly Muslim country bombed by 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama—after Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq.
Damascus has officially asked the UN Security Council to prosecute Turkey and all countries that support the militants operating in Syria.
In a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that was released on Monday, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja’afari said that aiding the militants is a blatant violation of the resolutions of the international guiding bodies, including the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
“The Turkish authorities are systematically offering help in supplying arms to terrorists operating in a number of districts in Syria", he said.
“They support the groups which every day carry out terrorist attacks against the Syrian people, government buildings, and other infrastructure facilities,” the diplomat wrote.
Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian air defense base near the port city of Latakia on Thursday, an Obama administration official confirmed to CNN.
The US official said that the Israelis believed the base near Snobar Jableh, south of Latakia, had sensitive and sophisticated missile equipment that may have been transferred to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
The strikes targeted and destroyed an SA-8 surface-to-air missile shipment, Israeli media reported.
A former CIA gun runner revealed that the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in order to cover up the U.S. State Department’s direct arm shipments to al-Qaeda.
William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee started his career as a CIA contract pilot in the late 1950s, delivering guns and ammunition on behalf of the agency to Fidel Castro.
Plumlee confirmed that such arm deals are still common today, with the State Dept. shipping arms to al-Qaeda via the CIA.
During an interview with Alex Jones, Plumlee pointed out that Pat Smith, the mother of an information management officer also killed during the Benghazi attack, received little information from the Obama administration about her son’s murder.
Let’s Up the Ante by Demanding that the World’s Most Powerful Polities Hand Over Their Arsenals of Chemical Weapons Too
If little Syria is going to be made to hand over its government’s chemical weapons, why should not the aroused superpower of global public opinion demand the same of USA, Israel, Russia, France, UK, China, etc.?
As polities that have made ample use of chemical weapons, including Agent Orange, white phosphorous and depleted uranium, the US and Israeli governments are in especially duplicitous positions in making demands that the Assad regime rise to standards that the world’s most militarized polities do not themselves meet.
The black jihadist flag is flying over the Christian town of Maaloula in Syria as the Army’s battle with opposition militants continues to rage.
A dramatic report by RT’s Maria Finoshina illustrates that while there had been talk that the rebels had abandoned the ancient town, whose inhabitants still speak the language of Jesus, snipers still occupy high positions.
As the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen confirms, the opposition militants who first attacked the town when a suicide bomber killed himself at a nearby checkpoint are from the terrorist al-Nusra Front, which killed US troops in Iraq and swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda earlier this year. FSA militants are fighting alongside the al-Nusra insurgents.
The president and his coterie of humanitarian interventionist laptop bombers have been so desperate to push the US into another war in the Middle East they have resorted to cooking the US Intelligence Community books and cherry picking second-hand intercepts and other intelligence to a degree that would even have made President George W. Bush blush.
The “evidence” provided was nothing more than unsupported assertions masked by manufactured outrage and the suggestion that anyone who did not believe them was devoid of a moral compass and quite probably a supporter of Hitler.
So why all the drama? Why the desperation to focus our attention externally, to monsters abroad in need of slaying?
In light of recent investigations of chemical weapons attacks in Syria, it appears that the United States Government is involved in an Imperialistic pursuit of the resources of Iran.
Iran has an arms treaty with Syria, in which Iran has a commitment to defend Syria and vice versa in times of War.
The lack of a Central Bank in the country of Iran and the refusal of the Iranian government to become dependent on the Western World has kept the United States Government on a Mission to engage in War with Iran to topple the current Government.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent an open letter to Americans and what it says might make you look at him in an entirely different light.
In fact, in reading his letter, I can only wish that Barack Obama thought much the same way as him on the most pertinent issues. Why is it that Barack Obama is supporting these same Unholy, Unruly, Jihadi Muslims that Vladimir Putin is hoping to crush? In fact, Putin’s interview below is quite thought provoking, especially when he admits that his good friend and ally Bashar Al-Assad IS capable of possible launching such an attack upon his own people.
Putin also has called the US government ‘outlaws’ if they strike out at Syria as shared in the video at the bottom of the story. The first two sentences of Putin’s letter makes it plainly clear Putin is aiming much of his talk to the ‘sheeple’.
The United States of America stands exposed in the eyes of the entire world as the number-one terrorist threat to the future of humanity. Many have known this fact already, but now it is universally clear.
As the US prepares to launch an overt war on Syria (the covert war has been raging for 30 months), the vast majority of humanity can finally see through all its decades of pretense and conceit as the world’s model of democracy and international law. And what they see is the ugly opposite. The US is a terrorist state that holds international law, democracy and human rights in utter contempt. It is ready, as it always has been, to kill countless civilians for its selfish political ambitions. That is the conventional definition of “terrorism”.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad made a profound point recently when he said that his country has faced aggression for more than two years, but only now is the real enemy revealing itself – the US and its minions. But the US terrorist state is not just being called out over Syria. It is being revealed as the enemy to the entire world.
RT has hosted a panel of guests to discuss the possible scenarios that Syria is facing now that several Western countries are pushing for a military ‘response’, its effect on the region - and what Russia’s response to such an action might be.
RT’s guests were Sunni Hundai, author of the Liberal Conspiracy Theory, Marcus Papadopoulos, editor of Politics First, and Pavel Andreev, executive director of the Valdai Club Foundation.
There was a divergence of opinion among the panel’s guest about whether or not the US and its allies will attack.
Washington and its British and French puppet governments are poised to yet again reveal their criminality.
The image of the West as War Criminal is not a propaganda image created by the West’s enemies, but the portrait that the West has painted of itself.
The UK Independent reports that over this past week-end Obama, Cameron, and Hollande agreed to launch cruise missile attacks against the Syrian government within two weeks despite the lack of any authorization from the UN and despite the absence of any evidence in behalf of Washington’s claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the Washington-backed “rebels”, largely US supported external forces, seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.
Open letter to the citizens of the world about our war-mongering government.
Dear World,
As the U.S. government fabricates its way into yet another aggressive war, this time in Syria, I understand why you might resent average Americans because we allow this war path to continue.
After Gaddafi's carcass was dragged through the streets of Libya, our Secretary of State told you with a demonic smirk "We came. We saw. He died." I get it, they make us look like bloodthirsty thugs.
“Israel, unable to field credible conventional forces, is attempting to destroy the fighting ability of the Syrian Army through attrition, not simply “shock and awe,” but nuclear, chemical and even biological weapons.”
—
Experts on arms control policy, confirmed by multiple independent sources, indicate that Syria has been hit, in recent days, by at least four tactical nuclear weapons.
In addition, a Syrian Army brigade suffered massive casualties from a Sarin gas attack.
Not only are these attacks pushing the world to the brink of war but they coincide with a threat against America “from within,” Pentagon, DHS, AIPAC, drug cartels and key leaders of extremist GOP and Tea Party factions.
There is no “Al Qaeda threat,” the whole thing is a deception and cover, which has allowed President Obama to put in place needed defenses against a coup that was only days away.
WMD Use in Syria
The chemical weapons were traced to the Republic of Georgia and delivered to Israeli-led Al Qaeda forces inside Syria by units of the Turkish Army.
Israel, unable to field credible conventional forces, is attempting to destroy the fighting ability of the Syrian Army through attrition, not simply “shock and awe,” but nuclear, chemical and even biological weapons.
Crisis Looming
Last week, IDF Military Intelligence told their American counterparts that Russia had delivered eight nuclear weapons to Syria as a deterrent to further WMD attacks by Israel.
The US contacted Russia though official diplomatic channels. Russia, when asked, denied transferring nuclear weapons to Syria but indicated it had “special weapons” in theatre, with naval and air forces, if their “vital interests” were threatened.
Israel then reached out to Saudi Arabia, asking them to promise Russia a payment in excess of $1 trillion to abandon both their interests in Syria and to work to isolate Iran.
Russia was told they would receive their payment when they introduced a resolution to the Security Council to enact a “no fly zone” over Syria. Israel and Saudi Arabia received assurances that China would not exercise her veto at the Security Council if Russia either introduced or supported the measure.
There has been no leak from Kremlin sources as to the position President Putin will take.
Brinksmanship Diplomacy
The visit to Israel by General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is an effort on behalf of the Obama administration to curtail what sane voices in Washington see as an attempt to begin a nuclear conflict that would inexorably engulf the planet.
President Obama canceled his scheduled meeting with President Putin in Moscow, not over issues of political asylum for Edward Snowden as reported in the press.
President Obama is facing a powerful domestic threat, reports of a possible military coup. He will not leave the capitol and has sent those he sees as leaders of that effort to bring down the government, Senators McCain and Graham, to Egypt on a “fishing expedition.”
In Egypt, McCain’s crass remarks and unconsidered comments, directly contradicting not just Secretary of State Kerry but angering the Egyptian government, may well undermine McCain’s influence with extremist elements planning to overthrow the US government.
“Songbird” McCain may well have plotted his last.
On the Ground in Syria
Today, a car bomb killed 18 outside Damascus. Al Nusra, the Al Qaeda affiliate trying to topple the governments of Iraq and Syria is credited. However, all intelligence estimates now clearly recognize that Al Nusra is, increasingly, Israeli controlled, particularly after bouts of infighting between factions fighting the government of Syria.
Russia spoke out against this attack, citing foreign-backed militants trying to “burn Syria to the ground” in revenge for the lack of support the Syrian people have given toward “regime change.”
What Russia hasn’t done is speak out against far more serious attacks on Syria, the use of tactical nuclear weapons by Israel, some believed to be launched from above Golan or Lebanon, some from inside Turkey or from submarines off Syria’s coast.
Russia’s lack of a reality-based policy on Syria is as responsible for the current state of affairs as Israeli hubris.
Israeli Collapse
Israel is desperate, under pressure by the US to come up with a peace plan with the Palestinians who, themselves, now “smell blood” and are unwilling to settle for a smile, handshake and knife in the back as they had before.
Israel’s use of nuclear weapons against Syria is far from a demonstration of power, it is a sign of, not just weakness but collapse. Israel is so “forgotten” even the weekly holocaust hand wringing marathons are going unnoticed.
The whole idea behind the victimization hysteria that constitutes the social fabric of Israel is failing.
Israel’s continually changing scenario, always trying to “brand an evildoer,” is no longer having success with Iran. Iran’s newly seated popular government, progressive by Western standards, makes fear mongering by Netanyahu’s Likudist fanatics less than credible.
Background
In early May, Israel lost a Dolphin submarine to a Russian built homing torpedo dropped from a Syrian helicopter. Approximately 48 hours later, Israel hit a Syrian command center with a tactical nuclear weapon.
Video of the attack, when examined by nuclear weapons experts, led to one conclusion. This was a nuclear weapon.
Since then, Israel has lost one F16 with two crewmembers to their S300 air defense system. However, sources indicate that the US, prior to Bush (43) leaving office, had supplied, not only latest variants of Generation III and IV tactical nuclear weapons, yields as low as 10 tons of TNT, some with no residual radiation whatsoever.
This has allowed Israel to attack Syria’s “soft targets” using terrain following missiles that can avoid the S300 radars, which are stretched thin.
On August 1, 2013, Israel attacked what they called a “large weapons cache” outside Homs.
In many ways, the attack resembled the Qasyoon mountain attack in early May, an attack that was confirmed to be nuclear, a full mushroom cloud with requisite “ball lightning.”
The Homs explosion was said to be both a fuel depot and arms cache. What was observed, however, was a telltale mushroom cloud, a massive shockwave and an explosion that no munitions expert would ever consider a “secondary blast.”
From an August 5, 2013 article by Jon Snow, posted on the UK Channel 4 blog:
“But the two explosions in Homs and Qasyoon share the same property:
They are both above ground airbursts according to Greg Thielmann, an expert on arms control policy whom I spoke with on Saturday at great length. I was first alerted to the connection by slow twitter chatter right after the bombing in Homs.
Needless to say I was shocked at what he told me next:
‘The fact of the matter is, what we are seeing in both these cases is a tactical nuclear strike, probably by cruise missiles launched from aircrafts near the borders of Syria or right off the coast in the Mediterranean.’
But sure, Greg, wouldn’t this mean a nuclear holocaust? Not so he says. ‘Tactical nuclear weapons lower the threshold on use of a nuclear bomb as their modern incarnation can be tuned in yield in order to target military sites using standoff weapons without escalating by destroy surrounding civilian infrastructure.’”
Snow’s source, highly credible and knowledgeable, indicated that Israel stood ready to deploy its arsenal of five-megaton thermonuclear weapons against Syria’s cities.
Israel believes they are immune to retaliation.
Toward that end, Israel has instructed India to begin border clashes with Pakistan and to put its nuclear forces on high alert.
Only Pakistan could meet an Israeli attack with an overwhelming nuclear response. It is India’s job to tie Pakistan’s hands.
Every base has been covered, the US threatened with coup, the EU financially destroyed, Russia facing an uncertain United States and the chance for a huge financial payday.
People have heard about game theory warfare but few knew the real risks.
Obama is now pushing massive funding for Syrian rebels who have not only been linked to al-Qaeda, but are gruesomely beheading innocent Christians and using 14-year-old child soldiers.
And virtually no one seems to even be questioning the Obama administration’s support of these chaotic troops who kill innocent citizens using US-funded arms in a bid to throw Syria’s current system into insanity. What’s perhaps even worse is that Obama has been pushing to continue this funding in a battle with reasonable lawmakers in a move that highlights his continued support of Syrian rebels who massacre innocents in public beheading sessions (that are met with applause and cheers).
It’s even hidden in the mainstream news, yet the media pieces on the subject somehow fail to generate any social media sharing or view counts for the most part. Just look at the August 2012 Reuters admission that Obama secretly went ahead and enabled support for Syrian rebels while bypassing any form of checks or balances. Flash forward to June 2013 with the headline ‘Syrians behead Christians for helping military, as CIA ships in arms’ in The Washington Times publication, and we’re still letting this happen.
ARMING THE CARNAGE ON RECORD
From the report in The Washington Times:
“A priest and another Christian were beheaded before a cheering crowd by Syrian insurgents who say they aided and abetted the enemy… The reported beheading of the two Christians comes about the same time America has started sending arms to rebel fighters, the Wall Street Journal revealed this week.” read more
I know how you feel. Under attack & busy trying to control the ´peace´ in Turkye.
The US imprinted you -and others- to be afraid of the Russian Army. Well, they are no thread at all to you. I know from experience that Russian people are caring, loving and thriving people the same you'll find anywhere on the planet.
The Kurdish people just want a piece of peace for their own. Let them be and they let you thrive too.
In your other backyard on the Syrian border, Turkish & Syrian people need serious help. Give them what they need on a daily bases and they'll support you all the way.
Instead of helping these hundreds of thousands of people what do you do now?
Neglecting these people and attacking your own population with your teargas-policeforce and not even listening to them?
You can try to fight an invisible enemy on these multiple battlefields.
You saw what happened earlier in Egypt. And you know how thà t ended.
Anyone in your position will be scared sometimes too. But you can turn these things around. In the favour of your people & yourself.
The people protesting on your streets are not terrorists but civilians with a voice. Can you hear that voice? Listen to them, please...
If this is so much of importance to só many people, can you please make an effort to just listen to them? Your ultimate solution is then already at 50%
The other 50% must really go from your heart to the people. What do you think what happeness if you really help the people? c'mon, it's your job.
How would you feel if everyone in and around Turkye loves what you are doing for them? If you really take good care of everyone in your region then trust me...
they will take care of you.
If you fail to do so, you know where this ends...
Now...what do you want?
It's in your hands.
You can turn it around.
Make a difference and be a hero!
or a zero..
As detailed by well known Erwin W. Lutzer in his book When a Nation Forgets God, an unidentified Christian pastor shared a story with him of someone living in Germany during the Nazi takeover.
The person sharing the story was a churchgoing Christian and a member of a small church located adjacent to railroad tracks. Every Sunday morning, according to this eyewitness, the congregation could hear the whistle of the train in the distance, the noise of the wheels over the tracks, and as the train passed, the cries coming from inside the train. The cries were those of the Jews being transported to concentration camps, a process that occurred with regularity each Sunday morning during their worship service.
According to this eyewitness, week after week the whistle would blow and the church members dreaded the sounds they heard. The screams tormented them. So, what did they do? As the train approached and in anticipation of the screams from the Jews, herded like cattle into the train cars, they Christians sang louder to drown out the screams. Soon, they head them no more.
The eyewitness ended his account by describing the torment of hearing the train whistle in his sleep, and pleaded for forgiveness for not only himself, but for all of those who called themselves Christians but did nothing to intervene.
Regardless of your faith or station in life, chances are great that you are exactly like that eyewitness, and equally, if not more accountable for the actions of our government today. What is coming is going to be far worse than the world has ever seen, and is going to blindside many. Don’t be one of them.
World War III is looming like the train whistle in the distance
A global war of unimaginable atrocities is being planned as I write this. It has been in the works for some time, yet few will want to read what I have written. Rather, most will instead choose to “sing louder” to drown out the screams of innocents, except this time, the screams will be too loud, too frequent, and too many.
The United States of America has been overtaken from within by a group of heartless and soulless individuals with designs on reshaping the world into a state of global governance. They are members of both political parties, and part of their plans include reshaping the Middle East at any cost, including the inevitable and incalculable cost of human life. Currently at the helm is Barack Hussein Obama, although his way was paved by the majority of his predecessors and elected officials of both parties.
He was purposely selected as the man for the job to insure that the inappropriately celebrated Arab Spring that swept North Africa and the Middle East was conducted as planned. It was a staged and orchestrated event by the globalists and those in power in the U.S. and elsewhere. Using your tax dollars and in your name, the United States has been providing funding and operational support to the groups toppling governments in favor of radical Islamic control. Such control is nothing but a necessary means to an end. While many correctly decry the brutality of Islam, few realize that is a tool of the globalists. They are not thinking big enough. The lie is bigger than you have been told.
As I have previously written, a window of understanding, or a glimpse into this agenda, exists in the murderous events that took place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Full disclosure into this event would reveal a criminal enterprise so vast and staggering that it would eclipse anything we’ve ever seen. Benghazi was not about any film, protest, or even a kidnapping operation. It was about weapons smuggling to Syria to assist Islamic terrorists to topple Assad, install a Muslim Brotherhood backed regime, causing further regional destabilization leading to a massive global war. Full disclosure would reveal that the United States, through the approval of members of both political parties we elected and acting in our name, are siding with associates having direct ties to al Qaeda and other Islamic groups. The truth is sickening, revolting and shocking.
The face of what is to come
There are those who doubt this agenda, instead opting to believe that we are seeing inevitable sectarian violence that existed in that part of the world for centuries. While the matter of sectarian violence is indeed a factor, the U.S. has been funding, training, and equipping the anti-Assad terrorists for their own purposes, using our tax dollars and acting in our name. Again, this is the reason no elected official wants to open an unbiased investigation into Benghazi, for it will reveal the extent of our complicity, and the blood on their hands.
For anyone doubting what is on the immediate horizon, I would like to direct your attention to a picture I first saw published on the website Before it’s News last week. The picture accompanies a graphic video and tells the story of an innocent, crying and distraught four-year-old girl chained to a fence by the anti-Assad Islamic terrorists – the very group the United States is funding. Perhaps you’ve seen it. She was chained to the fence and forced to watch the decapitation ad dismemberment of her parents, whose crime was being members of the Shia sect.
These are the people our elected leaders, our State Department, and our CIA at the direction of Barack Hussein Obama are helping. These are the people who claim to be on the side of righteousness, by exacerbating the violence under the pretext of fighting oppression. Worse, they are engaging in these evil and unspeakable acts in our name and with our tax dollars.
At the same time, there is an active plan to fully destroy our economy by killing our national currency, thus disabling us domestically. This is being done not only to stop any meaningful opposition to a global system of governance though our financial enslavement, but to insure that our future generations are beholden to a global financial power as well.
Concurrently and as part of the larger picture, we have allowed the moral fabric of our nation become ripped by last week’s Supreme Court decisions on homosexual unions. As I detailed in my article on this site, all is not what it seems with regard to this agenda. It is a work in progress to further destroy this country from within.
The coming destruction
It is said a picture is worth a thousand words. I believe the picture that accompanies this article is worth a bucket of tears. It represents the evil that comes this way. As uncomfortable as it will make you feel, I urge you to look at the picture of the little girl and understand that by our silence, we are complicit in the most evil agenda of modern times. A multi-faceted agenda that is being accomplished by your individual and our collective silence, which amounts to tacit approval of the evil that is being done in our name. But by the grace of God, that could be your little girl. If more people fail to awaken, it very well could be.
We must not chose to cover the screams by merely singing louder, but by making a choice. Are we going to allow this evil to progress unabated, or are we going to take a stand? Time is running out as World War III looms on the horizon.
France said Tuesday it has confirmed that the nerve gas sarin was used "multiple times and in a localized way" in Syria, including at least once by the regime. [updated]
It was the most specific claim by any Western power about chemical weapons attacks in the 27-month-old conflict.
Britain later said that tests it conducted on samples taken from Syria also were positive for sarin.
The back-to-back announcements left many questions unanswered, highlighting the difficulties of confirming from a distance whether combatants in Syria have crossed the "red line" set by President Barack Obama. The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has refused to allow U.N. investigators into the country.
The French and British findings, based on samples taken from Syria, came hours after a U.N. team said it had "reasonable grounds" to suspect small-scale use of toxic chemicals in at least four attacks in March and April.
The U.N. probe was conducted from outside Syria's borders, based on interviews with doctors and witnesses of purported attacks and a review of amateur videos from Syria. The team said solid evidence will remain elusive until inspectors can collect samples from victims directly or from the sites of alleged attacks.
Some experts cautioned that the type of evidence currently available to investigators — videos, witness reports and physiological samples of uncertain origin — leaves wide doubts.
At the same time, forensic evidence of alleged chemical weapons use is fading away with time, and the longer U.N. inspectors are kept out of Syria, the harder it will be to collect conclusive proof, they said.
Syria is suspected of having one of the world's largest chemical weapons arsenals, including mustard and nerve gas, such as sarin. In recent weeks, the regime and those trying to topple Assad have increasingly used accusations of chemical weapons use as a propaganda tool, but have offered no solid proof.
In the West, meanwhile, the lack of certainty about such allegations is linked to a high stakes political debate over whether the U.S. should get more involved in the Syria conflict, including by arming those fighting Assad.
Obama has been reluctant to send weapons to the Syrian rebels, in part because of the strong presence of Islamic militants among them. Obama has warned that the use of chemical weapons or their transfer to a terrorist group would cross a "red line," hinting at forceful intervention in such an event.
Yet he has insisted on a high level of proof, including a "chain of custody," that can only come from on-site investigations currently being blocked by the regime.
In Tuesday's announcement about sarin, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his government had analyzed several samples, including some brought back from Syria by reporters from the Le Monde newspaper.
He said that there was "no doubt" that at least in one case, the regime and its allies were responsible for the attack. "We have integrally traced the chain, from the attack, to the moment people were killed, to when the samples were taken and analyzed," Fabius told the TV station France 2.
He said a line was crossed and that "all options are on the table," including intervening "militarily where the gas is produced or stored."
In London, Britain's Foreign Office said samples from Syria were tested at a government laboratory and that the presence of sarin was confirmed. It did not say when or where the samples were obtained.
US intelligence has concluded "with some degree of varying confidence," that the Syrian government has used sarin gas as a weapon in its 2-year-old civil war, defense secretary Chuck Hagel said on Thursday.
Hagel, speaking to reporters in Abu Dhabi, said the White House has informed two senators by letter that, within the past day, "our intelligence community does assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin."
"It violates every convention of warfare," Hagel said.
No information was made public on what quantity of chemical weapons might have been used, or when or what casualties might have resulted.
President Barack Obama has said the use of chemical weapons would be a "game changer" in the US position on intervening in the Syrian civil war, and the letter to Congress reiterates that the use or transfer of chemical weapons in Syria is a "red line for the United States." However, the letter also hints that a broad US response is not imminent.
White House legislative director Miguel Rodriguez, who signed the letter, wrote that "because the president takes this issue so seriously, we have an obligation to fully investigate any and all evidence of chemical weapons use within Syria."
The letters went to senators John McCain and Carl Levin.
The assessment, Rodriguez says, is based in part on "physiological samples."
He also said the US believes that the use of chemical weapons "originated with the Assad regime." That is consistent with the Obama administration's assertion that the Syrian rebels do not have access to the country's stockpiles.
In Washington, McCain quoted from the letter the White House sent to several senators who had pressed the administration about Syria's possible use of chemical weapons.
"We just received a letter from the president in response to our question about whether Assad had used chemical weapons," McCain told reporters following a closed briefing with secretary of state John Kerry on Syria and North Korea.
UN experts say they do not confirm the claims by the United States, France and Britain that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the militants.
"We are not able to say who has used chemical agents or chemical weapons,” said Paulo Pinheiro, chairman of the United Nations human rights investigation committee on Syria, on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after an informal meeting with UN Security Council ambassadors, Pinheiro said he would not comment on evidence, including multiple blood, tissue and soil samples, that the US, Britain and France have sent to the UN about the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria.
The technical data presented by the three countries is of limited value to the UN which, according to its rules, can pass a final judgment on the situation only after its own inspectors personally collect evidence.
Based on the unsubstantiated claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons against the militants, President Barack Obama ordered the CIA last week to provide arms to the anti-Syrian groups, saying the government of President Bashar al-Assad had crossed Washington’s red lines.
In an article on the Washington Post on Friday, Colum Lynch and Joby Warrick write that the US move “rests on unverifiable claims” that lack transparency.
Weapons experts say Obama’s declaration of Washington’s red line in terms of more involvement in Syria “handed the Syrian opposition a powerful incentive to fabricate evidence” against the Assad government regarding the chemical arms use, the article said.
“If you are the opposition and you hear” that the White House has drawn a red line on the use of nerve agents, then “you have an interest in giving the impression that some chemical weapons have been used,” said Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish scientist who headed UN weapons inspections in Iraq during the 1990s, the article read.
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