"... the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons says it received a letter from the Syrian government May 21 with the permission needed for the team to go to Damascus.
The team will look into allegations reported by the Syrian government as well as separate allegations by activists and doctors who say chlorine has been repeatedly used against civilians in recent weeks." seattlepi.com
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(irony alert)
Devious fellows these Assadistas, imagine having the gall to invite the OPCW to come investigate them again! Imagine!
What are they trying to do, disrupt the narrative? The Borg will not be pleased.
(un-ironic alert)
The present director of OPCW is a career Turkish diplomat? Hmm...
pl
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/Fact-finding-team-heads-to-Syria-to-probe-toxic-6301658.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_the_Prohibition_of_Chemical_Weapons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_%C3%9Cz%C3%BCmc%C3%BC
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2013/12/download-chemical-weapons.html
I wonder if they will find Hersh's "ratline"?
Posted by: Matthew | 02 June 2015 at 05:37 PM
If he is a career Turkish diplomat, one may hope that he is steeped in the diplomatic discipline of being a fair impartial facts-and-truth pursuer. Also if his career has been a long one, he may well be a pre-Erdogist holdover from more Kemalist days who was not yet purged from the service. If so, he may be under all kinds of secret Erdogist pressure to make an Erdogist-friendly finding.
One hopes he can avoid bending over forward in order to avoid the appearance of leaning over backwards to be fair. Hopefully he can just BE fair and let the inspectors do un-interfered-with work.
Posted by: different clue | 02 June 2015 at 06:14 PM
As it happens ISIS made a full on attack at the al-Muthanna chemical facility yesterday. http://english.shafaaq.com/security/14597-federal-police-foil-four-car-bomb-attacks-and-kill-10-isis-elements-in-muthanna-facility.html and while I was researching it came across a news release back in January where US used an airstrike to kill a chemical weapons expert from the Saddam era that had gone over to ISIS. http://www.wsj.com/articles/coalition-strike-kills-isis-chemical-weapons-expert-1422661826
I thought ISIS was going after another fixed infrastructure facility like they have been doing in Beiji but the airstrike kill, it made me a little curious about its chemical weapons past. And then your post about Syrian chemical attacks. Perhaps all a coincidence but ISIS committed 4 suicide car bombers to the raid plus support troops.
Posted by: bth | 02 June 2015 at 06:27 PM
From redlines to a US "proposed mechanism to assign blame", maybe a mechanism to confirm only. Since:
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=71217
"Britain, France and the United States have accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of carrying out the chlorine attacks, using barrel bombs thrown from helicopters.
The three countries argue that only the Syrian regime has helicopters, but Russia maintains there is no solid proof that Damascus is behind the attacks."
Posted by: LeaNder | 02 June 2015 at 07:15 PM
Ah, but if he wants to stay within the UN circuit, he will have to kowtow to the P3.
Remember Boutros Boutros Ghali as UNSG, the former IAEA DG ElBaradei who did not play accordingly but managed to survive and the current one Amano who got his job because he promised to be a "yes man"
Posted by: The Beaver | 02 June 2015 at 10:55 PM
The last time OPCW inspectors landed in Damascus someone released Sarin gas on some civilians. This led to accusations against Assad.
I'd expect something similar now.
Posted by: b | 03 June 2015 at 05:32 AM
Col
Please excuse the interruption, but I think the blog's RSS feed is broken.
Kagans Ramadi Jeremiad may be the offending article. It gives a "XML parsing error: not well formed"
Posted by: AEL | 03 June 2015 at 08:59 AM
Was broken for me for about a week. Started working again today. Thanks (I assume something was tweaked).
Posted by: scott s. | 03 June 2015 at 03:03 PM