Video Evidence of False Claims Made in the White House Intelligence Report of April 11, 2017 by Ted Postol - Publius Tacitus

Here is the third paper by Professor Emeritus Theodore "Ted" Postol on the alleged Syrian Government chemical weapons attack. To reiterate--there was no Syrian Government chemical weapon attack.

Video Evidence of False Claims Made in the White House Intelligence Report of April 11, 2017

Theodore A. Postol
Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This is my third report assessing the White House intelligence Report of April 11, 2017.  My first report was titled A Quick Turnaround Assessment of the White House Intelligence Report Issued on April 11, 2017 about the Nerve Agent Attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria and my second report was an Addendum to the first report.

This report provides unambiguous evidence that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) of April 11, 2017 contains false and misleading claims that could not possibly have been accepted in any professional review by impartial intelligence experts.  The WHR was produced by the National Security Council under the oversight of the National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster. 

This image was extracted from a video of a worker during midday (note shadows) on April 5, 2017 next to the crater where sarin was allegedly released according to the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued of April 11, 2017.  The WHR asserts that it reviewed commercial video evidence and concluded that sarin came from the crater next to a man.  Other video frames show unprotected workers in the crater showing no evidence of sarin poisoning at the same time the dead birds are being packaged.  The URLs to this and a related video are contained in this report.

The evidence presented herein is from two selected videos which are part of a larger cache of videos that are available on YouTube.  These videos were uploaded to YouTube in the time period between April 5, 2017 and April 7, 2017.  Analysis of the videos shows that all of the scenes taken at the site where the WHR claims was the location of a sarin release indicate significant tampering with the site.  Since these videos were available roughly one week before the White House report was issued on April 11, this indicates that the office of the WHR made no attempt to utilize the professional intelligence community to obtain accurate data in support of the findings in the report.

The video evidence shows workers at the site roughly 30 hours after the alleged attack that were wearing clothing with the logo “Idlib Health Directorate.”  These individuals were photographed putting dead birds from a birdcage into plastic bags.  The implication of these actions was that the birds had died after being placed in the alleged sarin crater.  However, the video also shows the same workers inside and around the same crater with no protection of any kind against sarin poisoning.

These individuals were wearing honeycomb face masks and medical exam gloves.  They were otherwise dressed in normal streetwear and had no protective clothing of any kind. 

The honeycomb face masks would provide absolutely no protection against either sarin vapors or sarin aerosols.  The masks are only designed to filter small particles from the air.  If there were sarin vapor, it would be inhaled without attenuation by these individuals.  If the sarin were in an aerosol form, the aerosol would have condensed into the pours in the masks, and would have evaporated into a highly lethal gas as the individuals inhaled through the mask.  It is difficult to believe that such health workers, if they were health workers, would be so ignorant of these basic facts.

In addition, other people dressed as health workers were standing around the crater without any protection at all.

As noted in my earlier reports, the assumption in WHR that the site of the alleged sarin release had not been tampered with was totally unjustified and no competent intelligence analyst would have agreed that this assumption was valid.  The implication of this observation is clear – the WHR was not reviewed and released by any competent intelligence experts unless they were motivated by factors other than concerns about the accuracy of the report.

The WHR also makes claims about “communications intercepts” which supposedly provide high confidence that the Syrian government was the source of the attack.  There is no reason to believe that the veracity of this claim is any different from the now verified false claim that there was unambiguous evidence of a sarin release at the cited crater.

The relevant quotes from the WHR are collected below for purposes of reference:

• The United States is confident that the Syrian regime conducted a chemical weapons attack, using the nerve agent sarin, against its own people in the town of Khan Shaykhun in southern Idlib Province on April 4, 2017.
• We have confidence in our assessment because we have signals intelligence and geospatial intelligence, laboratory analysis of physiological samples collected from multiple victims, as well as a significant body of credible open source reporting
• We cannot publicly release all available intelligence on this attack due to the need to protect sources and methods, but the following includes an unclassified summary of the U.S. Intelligence Community's analysis of this attack.
• By 12:15 PM [April4, 2017] local time, broadcasted local videos included images of dead children of varying ages.
• … at 1:10 PM [April4, 2017] local … follow-on videos showing the bombing of a nearby hospital …
• Commercial satellite imagery from April 6 showed impact craters around the hospital that are consistent with open source reports of a conventional attack on the hospital after the chemical attack.
• Moscow has since claimed that the release of chemicals was caused by a regime airstrike on a terrorist ammunition depot in the eastern suburbs of Khan Shaykhun.
• An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed [Emphasis Added]—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, [Emphasis Added] after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.
• observed munition remnants at the crater and staining around the impact point are consistent with a munition that functioned, but structures nearest to the impact crater did not sustain damage that would be expected from a conventional high-explosive payload. Instead, the damage is more consistent with a chemical munition.
• Russia's allegations fit with a pattern of deflecting blame from the regime and attempting to undermine the credibility of its opponents.

Summary and Conclusions

It is now clear from video evidence that the WHR report was fabricated without input from the professional intelligence community.

The press reported on April 4 that a nerve agent attack had occurred in Khan Shaykhun, Syria during the early morning hours locally on that day.  On April 7, The United States carried out a cruise missile attack on Syria ordered by President Trump.  It now appears that the president ordered this cruise missile attack without any valid intelligence to support it.

In order to cover up the lack of intelligence to supporting the president’s action, the National Security Council produced a fraudulent intelligence report on April 11 four days later.  The individual responsible for this report was Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster, the National Security Advisor.  The McMaster report is completely undermined by a significant body of video evidence taken after the alleged sarin attack and before the US cruise missile attack that unambiguously shows the claims in the WHR could not possibly be true.  This cannot be explained as a simple error.

The National Security Council Intelligence Report clearly refers to evidence that it claims was obtained from commercial and open sources shortly after the alleged nerve agent attack (on April 5 and April 6).  If such a collection of commercial evidence was done, it would have surely found the videos contained herein.

This unambiguously indicates a dedicated attempt to manufacture a false claim that intelligence actually supported the president’s decision to attack Syria, and of far more importance, to accuse Russia of being either complicit or a participant in an alleged atrocity.

The attack on the Syrian government threatened to undermine the relationship between Russia and the United States.  Cooperation between Russia and the United States is critical to the defeat of the Islamic State.  In addition, the false accusation that Russia knowingly engaged in an atrocity raises the most serious questions about a willful attempt to do damage relations with Russia for domestic political purposes.

We repeat here a quote from the WHR:

An open source video also shows where we believe the chemical munition landed—not on a facility filled with weapons, but in the middle of a street in the northern section of Khan Shaykhun [Emphasis Added]. Commercial satellite imagery of that site from April 6, after the allegation, shows a crater in the road that corresponds to the open source video.

The data provided in these videos make it clear that the WHR made no good-faith attempt to collect data that could have supported its “confident assessment.” that the Syrian government executed a sarin attack as indicated by the location and characteristics of the crater.

This very disturbing event is not a unique situation.  President George W. Bush argued that he was misinformed about unambiguous evidence that Iraq was hiding a substantial store of weapons of mass destruction.  This false intelligence led to a US attack on Iraq that started a process that ultimately led to the political disintegration in the Middle East, which through a series of unpredicted events then led to the rise of the Islamic State.

On August 30, 2013, the White House produced a similarly false report about the nerve agent attack on August 21, 2013 in Damascus.  This report also contained numerous intelligence claims that could not be true.  An interview with President Obama published in The Atlantic in April 2016 indicates that Obama was initially told that there was solid intelligence that the Syrian government was responsible for the nerve agent attack of August 21, 2013 in Ghouta, Syria.  Obama reported that he was later told that the intelligence was not solid by the then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.

Equally serious questions are raised about the abuse of intelligence findings by the incident in 2013.  Questions that have not been answered about that incident is how the White House produced a false intelligence report with false claims that could obviously be identified by experts outside the White House and without access to classified information.  There also needs to be an explanation of why this 2013 false report was not corrected.  Secretary of State John Kerry emphatically testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee repeating information in this so-called un-equivocating report.

On August 30, 2013 Secretary of State Kerry made the following statement from the Treaty Room in the State Department:

Our intelligence community has carefully reviewed and re-reviewed information regarding this attack [Emphasis added], and I will tell you it has done so more than mindful of the Iraq experience. We will not repeat that moment. Accordingly, we have taken unprecedented steps to declassify and make facts available to people who can judge for themselves.

It is now obvious that this incident produced by the WHR, while just as serious in terms of the dangers it created for US security, was a clumsy and outright fabrication of a report that was certainly not supported by the intelligence community.

In this case, the president, supported by his staff, made a decision to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian air base.  This action was accompanied by serious risks of creating a confrontation with Russia, and also undermining cooperative efforts to win the war against the Islamic State. 

I therefore conclude that there needs to be a comprehensive investigation of these events that have either misled people in the White House White House, or worse yet, been perpetrated by people to protect themselves from domestic political criticisms for uninformed and ill-considered actions.

Sincerely yours, Theodore A. Postol

Professor Emeritus of Science,
Technology, and National Security Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email: [email protected]

 

Video Evidence That Reveals the White House Intelligence Report
Issued on April 11, 2017 Contains Demonstrably False Claims about a Sarin Dispersal Crater Allegedly Created
in the April 4, 2017 Attack in Khan Sheikoun, Syria

VIDEO #1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeosawyrgyo

Dead Birds Video

 

VIDEO #2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyFAl2gjZJQ

Idlib Health Directorate Tampering with Alleged Sarin Dispersal Site Video

 

 

 

 

Comments

[robt willmann]

This third paper by Theodore Postol referenced in the posting above can be downloaded in the pdf file format from the following url address, although it contains seven pages and Prof. Postol's paper says it has eight pages--

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Video-Evidence-of-False-Claims-Made-in-the-White-House-Intelligence-Report-of-April-11-2017_April142017_.pdf

Sometimes page creation software will make an extra blank page when the page-breaking algorithm in the software says a new page should be made from the calculations about the existing bits and bytes. At this time I do not know if there is an eighth page that was left out of the file uploaded to the above Internet address.

[wisedupearly]

Right on time we have a curveball-II type.
Brigadier-General Zaher al-Sakat.
The Telegraph writes that the BG claims
"Brigadier-General Zaher al-Sakat – who served as head of chemical warfare in the powerful 5th Division of the military until he defected in 2013 – told The Telegraph that Assad’s regime failed to declare large amounts [hundreds of tons in Article Title] of sarin precursor chemicals and other toxic materials.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/14/bashar-al-assad-still-has-hundreds-tonnes-chemical-weapons-former/

Said to have defected April 2013. Extracts from an interview of unknown provenance on
https://www.memri.org/reports/defecting-syrian-officer-brigadier-general-zaher-al-saket-i-was-ordered-use-chemical-weapons
"In the Amoud Horan battle in Busra Al-Harir, I was given an order to launch toxic agents into the trenches and caves to which the F.S.A. was heading. But, Allah be praised, I replaced this substance with liquid bleach, which I diluted with water and launched into the trenches.[…]
"I buried these substances with my own hands, so my commander would not find out and send me to prison."
The Telegraph states that BG was weapons research chief.
Gird your loins.

[Priam's Crazy Daughter]

Thank you for all the work in putting these facts in a logical order so that people like me can understand what is really going on. I keep talling others I know to read these reports. It's discouraging to me that so few do.

Again, thank you.

[English Outsider]

BBC report, 14th April, headline-

"What does all this bombing tell us about Trump?"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39602782

"Mr Trump has had a good couple of weeks. He has shown a capacity to learn and adapt as a result. He has begun to understand what he doesn't know and he has marginalised the more populist members of his team."

Or more succinctly, "Welcome to the dark side, Mr President."

[Kassandra]

"To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The International Military Tribunal for Germany (1946-09-30), Judgment of the International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals: The Nazi Regime in Germany

This blatant lie to legitimate an act of war of aggression shall result in a charge of high treason for each of the involved.

[MRW]

You quote memri.org as a credible source here? Are you insane?

[MRW]

Of course few do, PCD, why not? We’ve become a nation of dunces.

[b]

Watched the "bird" video. Impossible to discern where the birds died. They were dead in a cage. That the cage has been down the "crater" is not proven or clear at all from the vid.

The "crater" seems to me to be a diversion. It is unlikely the place where some chemical weapon was released.

Note - a significant part is missing in the "crater". It was there on the April 4 early on and removed later that day. See the pics in this tweet issued on April 4.
https://twitter.com/Syricide/status/849302933439221760

It is one of the earliest pictures I saw that was posted on the Internets. There are no surgical gloves laying around. The picture must have been made earlier than the ones in Postol's analysis. There is a round metal piece in the hole which I consider to be a backplate of an ammunition piece, probably of the mangled "pipe" or of an artillery grenade. That piece was removed in pictures posted later that day and beyond.

Can anyone here with some artillery background please tell us what that round metal plate could be? Ammo / projectile type?

[The Twisted Genius]

b,

I've seen photos of that round piece in the pothole somewhere earlier. It was suggested it was the tail piece of a binary chemical artillery shell. A diagram showed how this tail piece screwed off the base of the shell. If this is what it actually is, it doesn't help the narrative of an arial bomb. Could it be a self-inflicted 122 mm gas shell timed to coincide with a SAAF strike on the munitions warehouse? Since the jihadis may have gotten advanced notice of the warehouse strike from the "coalition" side, I can see that as a possibility. Another point is that the rocket pods on Syrian aircraft fire rockets that are smaller than 122 mm, closer to 80 mm I believe.

[BraveNewWorld]

Well now that there is video maybe the MSM will get interested in the evidence. Not holding my breath.

[b]

it would be great if you could find that comparison again. (I know its difficult - took me a while to dig that linked tweet up again).

I have looked for pictures of the backside of arty shells but find no reasonably good ones.

[Mark Chapman]

I believe he/she described that reference as "an interview of unknown provenance". I did not see anything that described it as a credible source. In fact, the subject's effusive description of his altruistic acts coupled with the sketchiness of the source is very likely the point.

[Mikey]

"Can anyone here with some artillery background please tell us what that round metal plate could be? Ammo / projectile type?"

Photo of leaking Iraqi 122mm Grad CW(Sarin) Rocket

Note that these rockets also have a flat nosepiece.

http://c7.alamy.com/comp/HHEYWA/122mm-rocket-destruction-sealing-for-destruction-handling-of-leaking-HHEYWA.jpg

[The Beaver]

East Ghouta

After the horror of this afternoon, buses bringing refugees from Foua-Kafraya being blown by VBIED in al-Rasheen Aleppo whilst awaiting for clearance to go through (100+ dead thus far), there are whispers that Saudi-backed rebels in Ghouta have handed out gas masks to their fighters ( another false flag in the works?)

[Jackrabbit]

With apologies to Monty Python:

CIA: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint. I wish to complain about this psy-op what I purchased not a fortnight ago from your very outfit.

Al Nusra: Oh yes, the, uh, the 'Sarin Bullshit' ...What's, uh… What's wrong with it?

CIA: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it!

Al Nusra: No, no, it's uh,...it's resting.

CIA: Look, matey, I know a dead psy-op when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Al Nusra: No no it's not dead, it's, it's restin'! Remarkable psy-op, the 'Sarin Bullshit', idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

CIA: The plumage don't enter into it. You own bird-brain videos prove it to be false!

Al Nusra: Well, it's...it's, ah...probably pining for media attention.

CIA: It's not pinin'! It's passed on! This psy-op is no more! It has ceased to be! It's exposed as false! It's ability to be convincing is now 'istory! It's been debunked!! THIS IS AN EX-PSY-OP!!

[The Twisted Genius]

Right! Stop that. Silly. Very silly, indeed.

[Richard]

Maybe I missed it, but

There were supposed to be circa 60 still living victims of the whatever-it-was transported to Turkey.

Why have I not seen interviews with these circa 60 people.

[Priam's Crazy Daughter]

My only solace is that I have covered English and American literature as my career. Dunces have been among us for a long time. For example, I think of Pope's "Dunciad." I think more recently of Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces." There are more I could name.

Somehow humans have not yet exterminated themselves over all the centuries since humans have existed, despite the prevalence of so many dunces.

But maybe that just means we're sort of like lice or cockroaches.

[VietnamVet]

PT

Frankly the White House Report is propaganda to support Donald Trump’s 180 degree turn to embrace neo-liberal-con policies and negate the 2016 election. There is no supporting science or facts to support the assertions. At its core the White House is saying that Russia aided Syria’s gassing of Idlib Sunnis and regime change in Damascus is back on.
.
The question is why? My take is that the American Empire is collapsing from external and internal pressures. The rise of the New Silk Road and the alliance between Russia, China and Iran is an existential threat to the ruling hegemon. The West’s actual rulers are never mentioned in corporate media and the fiction of democracy continues. But, the Empire is run by the top 10% of credentialed professionals who serve a very few very wealthy families including the Kochs and Waltons in the USA. They all have their money making schemes and conflicting interests such as the Gulf Monarchies and those with ties to Israel like the Kushners who are determined to keep the Shiite Crescent cut. Thomas Frank’s “What to Make of the Age of Trump” description of the Democratic Party is the best blueprint of the actual structure of the ruling elite that I have seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYlE72OzZA

The EU and the United States are splintering apart due to inequality, corruption, massive debt, austerity imposed on the little people and resource shortages. The new war with Russia funds the military contractors, provides a scapegoat to blame for the internal problems and Eurasia still has resources to loot. Unless control of western governments is wrestled away from the New Elite who have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, the outcome is bleak for mankind.

[wisedupearly]

Exactly, there are several other risible comments such as the BG knows exactly where the WMD is. But they key point is that the MSM now have another quotable source, titles and all. Past history in place.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Nor had I ever heard during an inquest (or otherwise heard of one) in which the witnesses to Serbs' atrocities in Kosovo testified.

But EU knew, just knew, that thousands of Albanians had been murdered.

[Babak Makkinejad]

You must admit that Trump, by bombing Syria, diffused all that innuendo about his relationship with the government of the Russian Federation; obfuscated his failure and his party's failure in repealing Obamacare, and made the Gulfies, Turks, Europeans, and Israelis alleviate at the thought of a more robust US position against Iran.

And he achieved all of that with 59 missiles.

Russians, Iranians, and Syrians, in turn, beat their metaphorical chests and proceeded as per usual.

That he likely ruined the possibility of doing anything constructive with Russian Federation really does not matter; to do so he would have had to go against entrenched interests in the United States who consider there being a margin in Russ-American Enmity.

All in all, the usual game played in Washington DC, and as usual, to the determent of the United States (in the opinion of the Beige Barbarian).

[Bill Herschel]

How can Trump wallow in the praise of Bush and Clinton supporters? He is doing the very things that he expressed acid contempt for in the campaign.

And why, oh why, are the people who voted for him letting him off the hook? All I hear is that he is being picked on and not given a chance. Literally.

What is going on?

[Kooshy]

Are you kidding, they wouldn't even mention any of reports by professor Postol l, I haven't seen his name mentioned on any of US MSMs, and I don't think we would hear any if this , as long as the Borg is not authorizing it to become national news. IMO, If and when the Borg's media reports other views against the currant Assad did it narrative, it would be to harm the administration as incompetents.

[Stumpy]

Yeah, this guy has been rolled out just in time. Others have asked why he sat on the info for so long.