"U.S. military confirms rebels had sarin" WND

"The document, classified Secret/Noforn – “Not for foreign distribution” – came from the U.S. intelligence community’s National Ground Intelligence Center, or NGIC, and was made available to WND Tuesday. It revealed that AQI had produced a “bench-scale” form of sarin in Iraq and then transferred it to Turkey. A U.S. military source said there were a number of interrogations as well as some clan reports as part of what the document said were “50 general indicators to monitor progress and characterize the state of the ANF/AQI-associated Sarin chemical warfare agent developing effort.” “This (document) depicts our assessment of the status of effort at its peak – primarily research and procurement activities – when disrupted in late May 2013 with the arrest of several key individuals in Iraq and Turkey,” the document said. “Future reporting of indicators not previously observed would suggest that the effort continues to advance despite the arrests,” the NGIC document said. The May 2013 seizure occurred when Turkish security forces discovered a two-kilogram cylinder with sarin gas while searching homes of Syrian militants from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra Front following their initial detention."   WND

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The administration's case against Syria over the 21st of August disaster is gradually disintegrating.  It will continue to do so.  pl  

http://www.wnd.com/2013/09/u-s-military-confirms-rebels-had-sarin/#j3LFpSudsmWFoFO3.03

Comments

[The beaver]

Colonel

The ICP from Matthew Lee is a must to read these days.
http://www.innercitypress.com/syria2fabius091213.html

(quote)For weeks the UN has said its report on chemical weapons in Syria will only say if they were used, not by whom. Since August 24 the UN has said it would release its report as soon as it was ready.

Now, from statements by Laurent Fabius in AFP this morning, and orchestrated leaks last night, neither it true.

Fabius says the UN report will be released on Monday -- in four full or five days -- and will implicate Assad.(end Quote)

[MM]

World NUT Daily?

I see they're still trying to peddle the "Saddam moved the WMD to Syria" myth.

Why not publish the alleged "classified document"?

[turcopolier]

MM

Be advised that personal insults like "world nut daily" are not tolerated here. That's once. pl

[MM]

My apologies. Wasn't intended to be a "personal insult" just an observation based on past reporting.

I would assume Pravda got some things correct from time to time.

A source, I would hope, should be credible.

I am against an attack on Syria for many reasons.

[nick b]

Col, When sourcing material like the article cited in your post. How does one separate the "wheat from the chaff"? I too was curious about WND as a source. It's not some place I go for information.

You had that very amusing "they can't say anything on the internet that's not true" tv commercial posted the other day. It was funny, but also revealing. How does one divine the credible from all that's out there?

If this is way too off topic, my apologies, but I am very interested in honing my own skills in this regard.

[Kunuri]

Turkish Government is giving overt and covert support to the rebels without much deliberation to whom it goes as long as they have the common goal of bothering Assad. I completely detest their lack of finess and dogmatic, amateurish bunglings.

It is very murky who used the gas, but it does not seem to be Assad who ordered it. He has rouge commands within his inner circle who may have acted independently and at about the same time the rebels have been planning something similar but at a much smaller scale. The gas attacks may even have happened simultaneously. In intense artillery exchanges shells have been observed colliding in mid air.
But who done it doesn't matter anymore as it will never be convincingly attributed to one side or another. We are back to square one, what to do about Syria and who? In my opinion, in confused wars such as this, either both sides keep going until they exhaust themselves and become sick of it, or someone comes up with a Gordion's Knot solution.

A sword was involved in that solution as everyone here would know. There are some who have the sword, but is there an Alexander?

[turcopolier]

nickB

One of my sermonettes here about analysis holds that the material and the source must be evaluated seperately. pl

[nick b]

Thank you, Col. You make me wonder why my default position is to weight the source so much more heavily.

[Harper]

It is a further delicious irony of this whole Syria mess that Michael Maloof, who was part of the propaganda team in the Rumsfeld DOD under Bush-Cheney that put out the lies about Saddam's WMD stockpile, should be putting out an apparently accurate account of U.S. Army intelligence on the rebels' control of chemical weapons of their own. Clearly there are deep splits among the neocons over this Syria situation, probably related to the fact that Israel is also divided over what is the best outcome from their standpoint. Alas!

[turcopolier]

nick B

Yes, that is a serious temptation that could easily cause you to miss something important confirmed by other sources or just your gut. pl

[Susan]

I wish that whoever gave that intelligence document to Maloof would give it to another outlet that would get more attention from the Very Serious People. World Net Daily is not considered credible by most of those people, and I fear that this report will be ignored.

[Bandolero]

Here is some fresh update from Turkey on the Sarin case in Turkey:

Syrian rebel groups sought to buy materials for chemical weapons, prosecutors say

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syrian-rebel-groups-sought-to-buy-materials-for-chemical-weapons-prosecutors-say.aspx?pageID=238&nID=54365&NewsCatID=341

Turkish version of that seems to be for now that the arrested JaN guys wanted to make sarin, but they didn't manage.

[JohnH]

Could someone please explain to me why, on the 12th anniversary of 911, the administration is NOT freaking out about Al-Qaeda having WMDs?

This complacency about Al-Qaeda is sure to give rise to or affirm all sorts of conspiracy thinking...

[Fred]

You mean those who write for WND and those who read it are not exceptional Americans? Just which 'exceptional' Americans was Obama talking about?

[Fred]

It seems some of the sources used by the 'Very Serous People' have some integrity problems:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/susannahgeorge/syria-researcher-elizabeth-o-bagy-fired

[Kyle Pearson]

@JohnH:

Because A) they think the US oil magnates and the Israelis are in control of the Saudis, and B) the Saudis are in control of the Jihadis.

The logic they are using is simple: let the Wahabbi/Salafis and the Syrians fight each other until they both get sick of fighting, Assad is deposed, or there's nobody's left to fight.

From their perspective, the terrorism will either then stop, or the US can come up with a different plan to keep the War on Terra going, or the Saudis will be able to create a client state like they tried to build in Iraq, and increase the violence against Iran.

Unfortunately, they haven't considered the other possibilities: that A and B might be fatally flawed presumptions.

[Edward Amame]

WND does not have a reputation as being a reliable news source.

In the past, they've published stories claiming that soybean consumption causes homosexuality, the first leftist was Satan, and that President Obama is not a natural-born US citizen.

http://www.wnd.com/2006/12/39253/

http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/who-was-the-first-leftist/

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/scalia-flummoxed-about-natural-born-citizenship/

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/obama-eligibility-skeptic-goes-public-on-cruz/

[Will]

just focusing on the source and not the message. the Col. makes a good point that they should be analyzed separately.

WND is Joseph Farrah's creature. When all is said and done he is of Syrian-Lebanese heritage. Syrian-Lebanese Christians and their descendants know niether al-Qaeda nor the Ikhwan (Muslim Brotherfood) is their friend.

wiki: "Farah was born in Paterson, New Jersey, on July 6, 1954, to parents of Syrian and Lebanese ancestry.[2][3] His father was a schoolteacher.[3] He graduated from William Paterson University, in Wayne, New Jersey with a B.A. in Communications.[3] He is married to Elizabeth Farah and is a conservative evangelical Christian."

[confusedponderer]

The article is in part detailed enough that it should be verifiable. There's weird stuff on WND, but either the report he quotes does say what Maloof writes it does, or it doesn't

“This (document) depicts our assessment of the status of effort at its peak – primarily research and procurement activities – when disrupted in late May 2013 with the arrest of several key individuals in Iraq and Turkey,” the document said.

“Future reporting of indicators not previously observed would suggest that the effort continues to advance despite the arrests,”

If correct that's intriguing information.

[BruceR]

There's a big difference between "bench scale" plans to start producing an improvised munition or two, and the kind of attack being alleged, which reportedly involved significant quantities of rocket artillery munitions of 140mm and 360mm sizes, which means litres and litres of sarin.

Assuming that description is accurate, the only plausible scenario involving rebel actions here would be the seizure of a significant quantity of operational heavy artillery launchers and associated chem munitions. Allegations of intent and capability on the part of a rebel-affiliated group to start bench-scale chem production, however reliable they might turn out to be, are not respondent to the attack profile alleged here. I would therefore not weight this information overly highly in this context.

[Fred]

"the only plausible scenario "

Which reports are indiating 140mm and 360mm artillery shells being used? The linked article above quotes unidentified US intellegence linking the March attack to AQI. March to August is four months. Just how much stuff can you crank out in that time? The multiple meth labs in the US crank out tons of stuff in that time.

There are other sources indicating supply via SA, Turkey or Qatar amongst other rebel sources of supply.

[turcopolier]

fred et al

In re the UN report, the M 14 rocket system is very old. There are many available on the world arms market. The most interiesting thing that I have seen in the UN report concerns "back azimuths" on rocket tail fin assemblies sticking out of debris or the ground. I asked a knowledgeable source about that and was told that a number of these had been moved before the UN inspectors arrived. pl

[Charles I]

Which I assume could point to the firing area, and if moved, the plot thickens?

So my?'s would be um, knowledgeable source who? and moved how, to where, by whom, to what effect?

Moved by 5 days of shelling or by purposeful hand, a crater urchin or a provocateur, Assad forces or Rebels(FSA or al Qaeda) to a recycler or to Center, etc. etc.

Would you or your source expand on any of that?

[turcopolier]

Charles I

They could have been moved for any number of reasons; purposfully, unpurposefully, playfully, by artillery fire, etc. The point is that without a real chain of evidence custody... pl

[Fred]

Thanks for pointing that out. If I recall correctly the fins, had they not been moved, could have been used to determine the firing trajectory and thus location?