American Press Laments Travel Restriction for Oscar Nominated Syrian "FilmMaker'

Today the AP is running a propaganda 3 for 1 special. How can the Associated Press spin Obama's illegal war in Syria to smear Trump while tying it into the heavily politicized Hollywood award show called the Oscars? Headline, read all about it ...

SYRIAN WHO WORKED ON NOMINATED FILM CAN'T ATTEND OSCARS 

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities are barring entry to a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation's civil war, "The White Helmets," that has been nominated for an Academy Award. 

According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security has decided at the last minute to block Khaled Khateeb from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars. 

Khateeb was scheduled to arrive Saturday in Los Angeles on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul. But his plans have been upended after U.S. officials reported finding "derogatory information" regarding Khateeb. 

Derogatory information is a broad category that can include anything from terror connections to passport irregularities. Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Gillian Christensen, said, "A valid travel document is required for travel to the United States." 

"The White Helmets," a 40-minute Netflix documentary, has been nominated for Best Documentary Short. If the film wins the Oscar, the award would go to director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara. Khateeb is one of three people credited for cinematography; Franklin Dow is the film's director of photography. 

Oscars: Street artist  Sabo's work meets Redbox

The film focuses on the rescue workers who risk their lives to save Syrians affected by civil war. Many of the group's members have been killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad's air forces. The group also was nominated for last year's Nobel Peace Prize. 

"The White Helmets" includes emblematic scenes of the deadly 6-year-old conflict: people digging through destroyed homes looking for survivors, at constant risk of "double tap" attacks that target first responders after they've arrived at the scene of a strike. 

Khateeb had been issued a visa to attend the ceremony with Hollywood's biggest stars. But Turkish authorities detained him this week, according to the internal U.S. government correspondence, and he suddenly needed a passport waiver from the United States to enter the country. 

The correspondence indicated he would not receive such a waiver. There was no explanation in the correspondence for why Turkey detained Khateeb.

Surely the average uninformed American would think that preventing the oscar nominee to travel to the United States is unfair but there is more to the story, Much more. The White Helmets is a propaganda piece by every measure.  Who and what are the 'White Helmets"?  What was really going in Obama's illegal war in Syria?  The Obama administration aided and funded Al Qaeda in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi and then moved on to Syria supplying and aiding rebels in Syria to overthrow Assad. Rebels that included ISIS, Al Qaeda and their affiliates.  Why do you think Benghazi was covered up? Because of the RAT LINE of arms from Libya to Syria via Turkey among other things including elections.

Politico

Shielding Obama and his assumed successor Hillary Clinton from any criticism and scandal was eagerly performed by the legacy media in the United States and the coverage of the illegal Syrian war in general has been lacking in most other countries around the world.  In fact, coverage in Syria by CNN was exposed as fraudulent years ago with Syria Danny and now we have the 'White Helmets' What does a real independent journalist have to say about Syria, the press and the 'White Helmets' ? Watch:

Yes, Hollywood is in the propaganda business and always has been. Unfortunately, the legacy news media in the United States has totally abandoned its role as the fourth estate and the lines have been totally erased between news and entertainment, fact and fiction and speaking truth to power. The Church committee revealed decades ago that the Deep State controls the media through secret programs like Operation Mockingbird . While  newer secret programs remain unnamed, the results of their efforts are obvious to anyone that critically reads the headlines and examines the FAKE NEWS. For everyone else the Oscar goes to ....

Obama Lies Again, Sends Boots on the Ground to Syria

The Obama administration with Barack at the helm broke the middle east , with the debacles in Iraq, Libya and Syria topping the list.  A list that you really won't see published because the media in America have always protected  Barack Obama and his administration and will until he leaves office.

 This administration armed Al Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, via a ratline of weapons from Benghazi and embarrassed themselves by drawing a mythical red line in the Syrian sand for Assad.  Syria, where this administration has said they will NOT put 'boots on the ground' 

Boots on the ground, like the troops Obama brought home from Iraq to keep his promise. Boots on the ground he quickly sent back in increasing numbers AFTER the election .  An election the media helped Obama win by aiding the cover-up of the attack on the ILLEGAL special mission compound in Benghazi, Libya.  Libya, a country that this administration helped overthrow and a country that is now a haven for ISIS and others. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton built that.  

Did someone say ISIS ..... the non-Islamic JAYVEE TEAM ?

Now, from TheHill......

Pentagon denies mission creep in Syria deployment

By Rebecca Kheel - 04/25/16 03:54 PM EDT

The Pentagon pushed back Monday afternoon against criticism that deploying 250 troops to Syria constitutes mission creep in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), saying the deployment is needed to meet current requirements. 

“These are specific capabilities ... specific needs right now as we talk to our partners,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters. “And including our assessment, talking to local leaders on the ground in Syria, these are decisions that we think makes sense to accelerate this campaign and to further enable those local forces.” 

"This is not a question of putting in thousands of American forces to wage this fight,” he later added. “We are looking to others to carry this fight out but to do what we can to support them.” 

President Obama announced Monday he had authorized sending another 250 troops to Syria. Previously, just 50 special operations troops were in the country. 

Monday’s news, coupled with the Pentagon’s announcement last week that about 200 more troops will be sent to Iraq, has led to lawmakers from both parties slamming the administration’s incremental increase in the number of troops being sent to the region. 

Republicans say more are needed, and Democrats argue the gradual increases risk drawing the United States deeper into the conflicts. 

Troops in Syria will not be on the front lines, Cook said, echoing the president.
Rather, their role will be to connect with, train and assist local forces, and provide intelligence from the ground, Cook said. 

The Pentagon expects the troops to act similarly to the original 50 special operations forces sent in, he added. 

“Force multipliers is the best way to look at this,” he said. “A small number of Americans with these kinds of capabilities can bring an enormous weight to bear in this fight and in support of these forces. And those forces who have come into contact and worked with U.S. forces, I think would attest to that.” 

In additional to special operations forces, the 250 troops will include medical and logistical personnel, Cook said. 

The administration settled on 250 on the recommendation of military commanders, Cook said.
Cook did not rule out the possibility of sending more troops to Iraq or Syria down the line.

“We're going to continue to look at every single opportunity we have, work with our local partners, to see how we can accelerate this campaign,” he said. “As you have seen from these specific — very specific — deployments and decisions, that what we're looking at here is specific capabilities.”

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What a great article on mission creep, wasn't it ?  How could they talk about mission creep without ANY mention of saying there would never be boots on the ground ?

Take a look at the nuanced language used by the Nobel Peace prize winning anti-war President's team......

State shocker: Obama never promised 'no boots' in Syria
(Excerpt)

The State Department's top spokesman insisted Monday that the Obama administration has never promised a "no boots on the ground" strategy in Syria, even though President Obama himself has made the "no boots" promise several times over the last few years.  

"There was never this 'no boots on the ground,'" spokesman John Kirby said Monday. "I don't know where this keeps coming from." 

Surprised reporters noted that numerous senior officials, and even Obama himself, have said over and over that there would be "no boots" in Syria. Last year, USA Today put together a list of the 16 times Obama made the "no boots" pledge.

Kirby was pressed on the issue just hours after the Obama administration announced that 250 more special operations troops to Syria, in addition to the 50 that were sent in October.

Reporters said the 300 total troops seems to violate Obama's pledge. But Kirby said anyone who thinks the Obama administration is breaking its pledge doesn't fully understand what Obama and others meant when they said "boots on the ground." 

Specifically, Kirby said the administration has always meant "boots" to mean large-scale forces. 

Here is the list.......
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria

Here is just ONE:

Interview with the PBS Newshour, Sept. 9, 2013 

"Tomorrow I'll speak to the American people. I'll explain this is not Iraq; this is not Afghanistan; this is not even Libya. We're not talking about — not boots on the ground. We're not talking about sustained airstrikes. We're talking about a very specific set of strikes to degrade his chemical weapons capabilities in terms of delivery."

Strange, we aren't talking about Libya either where there were no 'boots on the ground'  What did 'no boots on the ground mean in 2011 ? 

Robert Gates: No US 'boots on ground' in Libya
(excerpt)

Robert Gates, the US secretary of defence, emphatically ruled out deploying American ground troops inside Libya as details emerged of CIA intelligence teams being sent to the country. 

Gates, testifying before the House of Representatives armed services committee, repeatedly denied that there were any plans for American soldiers to go into Libya. "Not as long as I am in this job," he said at one point. 

But he declined to comment on questions about CIA activities there, apparently making the distinction between intelligence teams sent into Libya and uniformed military personnel. "I can't speak to any CIA activities, but I will tell you that the president has been quite clear that in terms of the United States military there will be no boots on the ground," Gates said.

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Boots on the ground means soldiers in uniform now and in 2011. This administration has been given a pass by its hypocritical supporters and encouraged to lie to the public because Obama and his administration will NEVER be held accountable by the fourth estate. The fourth estate are now little more than propagandists and  pamphleteers for the Democratic party

Did I forget to mention Barack Obama's war in Syria is illegal ..... ? ? ? 
Barack Obama's Illegal Covert War in Syria

Brussels Terrorist Suspect Featured in Swedish Documentary About Integration

The dhimmis in the west continue to push for the settlement of even more 'migrants' from Islamic countries such as Syria.  Islamic countries inhabited by citizens that are sworn enemies of our country and sworn enemies of all those who do not believe EXACTLY as they do. Citizens of Islamic countries that cannot be properly vetted. (  FBI Director: Gaps Remain in Syrian Refugee Screening Process )  A 'migration' that is really called a HIJRAH.  There are three more things you should know about Islam...

The Hijrah isn't immigration any more than it is a plan to integrate.........

Brussels terrorist suspect featured in Swedish documentary about integration

A Swedish man believed to be part of the Brussels and Paris terrorist network once starred in a documentary about successful immigration in Malmo. 

Osama Krayem, a 23-year-old Swede of Syrian origin, was arrested earlier this month with Mohamed Abrini – the Brussels terrorist known as “the man in the hat”. 

Krayem has been charged with “terrorist murders” and is thought to have been involved in preparations for the Brussels attack, as well as participating in the metro bombing. 

But Sweden’s Aftonbladet newspaper reported on Friday that Krayem featured in a 2005 documentary showing how sport helped immigrants integrate into the city. 

Entitled Without Borders — A Film About Sport And Integration, the film saw an 11-year-old football-mad Krayem discuss how the Malmo team had helped him settle into Swedish society..................

Read more at The Telegraph   

U.S. Report Warns of ISIS Creating Fake Passports

The flood of Syrian 'refugees' is best described as a hijrah and the documents used by the jihadis have long been reported to be fake and almost flawless. In September the Daily Mail reported:

:
With another article in November

Barack Obama, the divider in chief has attacked the opponents of his relocation program for tens of thousands of unvettable Syrian refugees saying his critics are afraid of 'widows and orphans' and more.  After the background of the San Bernardino terrorist and the lack of screening for her visa was revealed. the critics concerns are not only a rational but reality.

ABC News and CNN finally report in December.....

U.S. report warns of ISIS' ability to create fake passports

Washington (CNN)  A new intelligence report shared with law enforcement warns of ISIS' ability to create passports utilizing seized Syrian government assets, according to a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the intelligence report's contents. 

The report warned that, based on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's intelligence sources, ISIS has access to passport printing machines and blank passport books, raising the possibility the documents could be faked, according to the source.

The source noted that, beyond the report, there's concern that this capability coupled with ISIS access to government buildings in Syria that contain valid biographical data and fingerprint info on Syrian citizens give rise to the threat of identity theft. 

State Department spokesman John Kirby said government officials are "mindful" that terrorists could be making false passports. 

"We have been aware of reports, not just in the press, that they may have obtained this capability," he said. "Obviously, it's something that we take seriously. It's obviously something, clearly that we're mindful of."

Syrians Resettled in Uruguay: We Want to go Back Home When Our Free Benefits End

This piece at @CNN highlights a few interesting things about the invasion of the west, or hijrah by the Syrians and others from the middle-east.  The spread of Islam will be a multi-tiered battle, fought by infiltrators physically targeting the Government in the streets, schools, churches and the public square and fiscally targeting the Government's treasure via the welfare office.  The article starts off with the usual puff piece's pull at the heart strings using children as follows:

Syrians resettled in Uruguay: We want to go back

Montevideo, Uruguay (CNN)The youngest ones already have learned conversational Spanish with a local accent. They have also made some friends in school. 

When a CNN team arrives, a girl called Khitam grabs the microphone from the reporter and pretends to do an interview in Spanish with one of the boys. 

"How are you doing in school?" Khitam asks. "Good" is the answer. They also seem to be adjusting well to the local culture. One of the teenage girls says she no longer wears the head covering know as hijab and is dating a local boy. 

But the parents of these Syrian children are not happy. Last year five Syrian families, 42 people in total, were welcomed in Uruguay as refugees. They were fleeing from war and violence in their native country. Two births in the past 12 months have increased their number to 44. 

The government of the small South American nation provided for their needs and helped with resettlement. But now most of the adults complain that Uruguay is very expensive. They also say they're afraid they won't be able to make ends meet once the government aid runs out in a year.

The Syrian families gathered Tuesday at Independence Square, the main public space here in Uruguay's capital. The square is in front of the Executive Tower, where the Uruguayan President's office is. 

Maher al Dees, a Syrian refugee who arrived in Uruguay last year with his wife and four children, said he is concerned about their financial future. 

"They're giving us housing assistance for two years, but I'm afraid we're going to be homeless at the end of this period," Al Dees said, with the help of an interpreter. "They had promised they would help us indefinitely,"

Aisha al Mohamed, 18, another Syrian refugee who arrived in Uruguay with her mother, took courses to become a makeup artist but has yet to find a job. Al Mohamed said she likes life in Uruguay but her mother, Karima, a widow, is determined to return to Syria in spite of the conflict. 

At least 7.6 million other people have been displaced inside Syria, according to the United Nations refugee agency. That means more than half of all Syrians have been driven from their homes by the war, which has killed more than 200,000 people. 

"My mother doesn't like it here. She doesn't want to live here anymore. She wants to move back to the Middle East, maybe Lebanon or back to Syria," al Mohamed said.

Uruguayan Human Rights Minister Javier Miranda said his government has done everything possible to help the families, even though the situation is not ideal. He said the story of a Syrian family who flew to Serbia in August only to be deported back to Uruguay for not having a visa has made the rest of the families fearful. 

"I think it's completely understandable if they say that they haven't been able to adapt to life here in Uruguay and want to move to a different country," Miranda said. "They have every right to leave if that's what they want to do." 

Representatives of the families were received by a government official at the President's office after their protest and promised an answer to their demands and concerns within 48 hours.
"We would prefer that they wouldn't protest and that they would sit down to have a conversation with us as we have done in the past. They can stay in the resettlement program," Miranda said. 

While the adults talk, the children keep on playing on the grass in Montevideo's Independence Square. Khitam, the girl playing reporter, is still holding the microphone.
"Why did you come to Uruguay?" she asks a boy. 

"Because they're at war back home," the boy answers. 

"Do you like war?" 

"Little." 

"Why are you here at the square?" 

"Because we want to go back to Syria."

The 'migrants' of working age don't have marketable skills or a desire for self-sufficiency, instead they plan on using the safety net as a hammock.  Do the once free people of Europe and the West want to fund the hijrah and surrender their countries and cultures to the Muslim hoards. Is 'progressive' just a term for the new dhimmi

ISIS Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria Exposes the Obama Administration's Deceit & Failure

More bad news for Barack Obama, his administration and the Democrats today.  More events in Syria tarnish Obama's already failed foreign policy 'legacy'. A legacy of deception, appeasement, weakness and failure.

Officials confirm ISIS used mustard agent in Syria

If the origins of the mustard gas is from Syria, it is just another example of the failure of Obama's chemical weapons agreement with Syria. If the origins of the mustard gas is from Iraq, it is just another example of WMD that were in Iraq. If it was just an improvised weapon, then it highlights the fact that the Obama administration also aided ISIS to fight Assad in Syria by moving arms from Benghazi,  Libya through Turkey to their destination in Syria. This chemical weapon attack by ISIS in Syria  was bad news, especially for Obama and the Democrats.  

U.S. Intel Officials Suspect Syria's Assad Retained Chemical Weapons

John Kerry 'Absolutely Certain' Assad Using Chlorine Attacks on his People

Democrats & The Iraq War: WMDs & the Surge

Barack Obama's Illegal Covert War in Syria

Obama Arms the Syrian Rebels & 'Overlooks' Their Use of Chemical Weapons

Barack Obama's Illegal Covert War in Syria

Barack Obama and his administration's secret war against Assad in Syria will always be framed in a different light.  The coup in Libya under the guise of the 'responsibility to protect doctrine' or R2P and the resulting chaos in Libya has been a disaster for the entire middle east.  The attack on the Special Mission in Benghazi and the transfer of weapons from Libya to Syria, via Turkey, exposed Obama's secret and unconstitutional war long ago. Just as Turkey is using the war on ISIS as an opportunity to attack the Kurds, Obama is now using the war on ISIS to target Assad. 

 This RAT LINE of military arms from Libya directly and indirectly aided ISIS in Syria, a group that Obama has done little to confront and who the POTUS called the 'jayvee team'.  ISIS, a group that this administration uses to fight Assad.  Obama's ISIS army only became a problem for him when they streamed into Iraq when the POTUS withdrew our troops, thus surrendering the territory to ISIS and Iran.

The Obama administration's power under the AUMF to conduct war in Syria have been questionable from the beginning and the actions under Article 2  now are politely described as ' blurry' as the following story excerpted from TheHILL describes. 

White House Legal Strategy for ISIS Fight Gets Blurry

President Obama has shifted his legal rationale for justifying military force to defend Syrian rebel forces battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as the prospect has increased that they could come into conflict with Syria’s government.

The administration had been using a 2001 authorization approved by Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks to justify air strikes against ISIS.

But the administration now says it will also rely on Article II of the Constitution as the legal backing for air strikes against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s forces if Assad attacks the rebel groups.

“If Syrian government forces attack the Syrian fighters we have trained and equipped while they were engaging ISIL, the President would have the authority under Article II of the Constitution to defend those fighters,” a senior administration official told The Hill, using another acronym to describe ISIS.

The legal shift comes as the Syrian rebels are beginning to deploy back into Syria from their training sites.

This is raising the prospect that they will come into conflict with Assad’s forces, prompting the need for a U.S. response.

And the U.S. is not only protecting the rebels they've vetted and trained, but the entire groups that they were recruited from and return to — many of which the U.S. has not vetted.

In fact, a U.S. official said, the U.S.-led coalition already is providing those groups with air support against ISIS – even though they do not yet have U.S.-trained rebels embedded with them.

Continued:

The diplomatic official said some of the groups may target Assad — which would bring the U.S. closer to war with the regime.

Already, things have not gone as planned. Although the rebels were trained to fight ISIS, the first rebels to return almost immediately came under attack by al Nusra — an al Qaeda affiliated group, prompting coalition airstrikes. 

The administration maintains the U.S. can defend the rebels from al Nusra — al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria — using the 2001 AUMF.

So far, there has been no conflict with Syrian forces.
Both the expansion of the fight, and the shifting rational for its legality has drawn criticism from Congress.

Continued: 

Legal scholars said using Article II to justify defensive actions as protecting the rebel groups from Assad is a stretch.
“That means nothing. That’s pretty bad when you have to cite Article II…You have to be more specific than that,” said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former Congressional Research Service researcher.

He and other legal experts say Article II has been interpreted to allow a president to “repel sudden attack” against U.S. troops, the U.S.mainland, and its interests.

Using it to defend Syrian rebels would not fit under that previous interpretation, he said.
“Invoking Article II is question-begging,” agreed Stephen Vladeck, law professor at American University.

Vladeck said Article II has also been interpreted to allow the U.S. to defend its “assets.”
However, he said “by that logic any person or piece of military equipment used by anyone on a side of a conflict with which we agree is all of a sudden covered by Article II. And that cannot be right.” 

As recently as last month, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. did not have the authority to conduct airstrikes against the Syrian regime. 

“My understanding is that we don't have the legal authority at this time to go after the Assad regime. And it's also the policy of the administration not to go after the Assad regime militarily,” he said at a hearing on July 7. 

The administration now is saying it will conduct “offensive” strikes against ISIS that would be justified by the 2001 AUMF, use the same AUMF to justify “defensive” strikes against al Nusra, and use Article II to justify “defensive” strikes to defend the rebels against the regime.
Some lawmakers are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the blurred lines, one year after the airstrikes against ISIS first began.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama and his administration has wanted to directly attack Assad for years and only when they sought political cover by involving Congress at the last minute was this averted. The reasons for opposing Obama's 'intervention' in Syria were numerous and the public opposed his actions as well. 

The Obama administration has never been honest about Syria. In fact, they have always lied about Syria at every opportunity. The claims that the Assad regime solely using chemical weapons against the Syrian people and was a cause for war or Obama and his administration claiming they destroyed Assad's chemical weapons arsenal and enforced the chemical weapons treaty are lies. Further 'blurring' the lines of Constitutional power really isn't a problem for this corrupt and dishonest administration.

U.S. Intel Officials Suspect Syria's Assad Retained Chemical Weapons

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned that the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad might still harbor some chemical weapons and could use them in an attempt to prevent his ouster, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

While Assad was supposed to relinquish all of his chemical weapons as part of a 2013 deal brokered by the United States and Russia, intelligence officials say he might have retained small amounts of deadly nerve agents. His regime has also launched dozens of attacks with chlorine, an industrial chemical that can be lethal when weaponized.
The Journal reports: 

Last year, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad let international inspectors oversee the removal of what President Barack Obama called the regime’s most deadly chemical weapons. The deal averted U.S. airstrikes that would have come in retaliation for an Aug. 21, 2013, sarin-gas attack that killed more than 1,400 people. 

Since then, the U.S. officials said, the Assad regime has developed and deployed a new type of chemical bomb filled with chlorine, which Mr. Assad could now decide to use on a larger scale in key areas. U.S. officials also suspect the regime may have squirreled away at least a small reserve of the chemical precursors needed to make nerve agents sarin or VX. Use of those chemicals would raise greater international concerns because they are more deadly than chlorine and were supposed to have been eliminated. 

The intelligence is “being taken very seriously because he’s getting desperate” and because of doubts within the U.S. intelligence community that Mr. Assad gave up all of his deadliest chemical weapons, a senior U.S. official said. […] 

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of the British army’s chemical-weapons unit, said: “Even if the regime had only one ton of VX left, that would be enough to kill thousands of people.”

The Assad regime now reportedly controls only about one-fourth of Syria amid victories for the Islamic State, other terrorist groups, and U.S.-backed rebels.

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Is chlorine covered under the chemical weapons agreement with Assad ?




Barack Obama says chlorine gas historically  isn't a chemical weapon.....



Is there any other evidence that Syria didn't get rid of all their chemical weapons?



Is there other evidence of remaining chemical weapons?

John Kerry 'Absolutely Certain' Assad Using Chlorine Attacks on his People

The Obama administration isn't credible on any issue or in the eyes of our foreign adversaries. Syria is another great example of this.  Chlorine gas attacks in Syria have been going on for years now, with only bluster and B.S. coming out of this administration in Washington D.C.

An excerpt from The Hill from 06/16/2016
John Kerry 'absolutely certain' Assad using chlorine attacks on his people

Secretary of State John Kerry is “absolutely certain” that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has launched chlorine attacks on its own people is currently compiling evidence to support it, he told reporters Tuesday.  

“I am absolutely certain, we are certain that the preponderance of those attacks have been carried out by the regime,” Kerry said Tuesday during a surprise appearance at the State Department’s daily press briefing, noting that it’s possible that some members of the opposition could have used chlorine in attacks as well. 

“It has been significantly documented; it’s dropped from airplane. The opposition isn’t flying airplanes or helicopters,” he said. 

“And you can go through a certain sort of tracking of the delivery system and delivery approach. It’s frankly not that hard to pin down in the end, and that’s some of what we will lay out at the appropriate time.” 

Kerry added that he’s discussed the findings with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and, while he’s confident the Russians will raise the issue with Syria again, patience is “wearing thin” over the “extraordinary depravity” of the weapons Assad is allegedly using against his own people. 

“We are not simply sitting there and allowing this to happen without any efforts to see if there is a way to stop it,” Kerry said. “Thus far, it has not been stopped and it is only increasing the international community’s anger at the Assad regime.”

In April 2014 the State Dept. responded to reports of Assad using chlorine gas, a prohibited weapon by their agreement with Assad.



Barack Obama downplays the use of Chlorine on civilians......


Barack Obama claims to have disposed of Syrian Chemical Weapons.......


Barack Obama and his administration armed ISIS in Syria and overlooked the use of chemical weapons for years now. Obama's claim to have destroyed Syria's WMD is just further proof that Putin and Assad outplayed the amateur, Barack Obama, at every turn.  .

ISIS Fighter Trained by the State Dept on U.S. Soil

The Obama Administration's eagerness to overthrow Assad in Syria created ISIS.  The vetting and the arming of the 'moderate' rebels in Syria via Benghazi was a disaster. ISIS was direclty and indirectly armed and trained by this administration.   The cover-up and the lies are on full display, yet the very liberal media has shown little interest in connecting the dots. Everything will be done to avoid embarrassing the Barack Obama Administration and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who just so happens to be the next Democratic candidate for President of the United States.  

ISIS fighter was trained by State Department

Washington (CNN) An ISIS fighter who calls for jihad in a new online video was trained in counterterrorism tactics on American soil, in a program run by the United States, officials tell CNN. 

The video features a former police commander from Tajikistan named Col. Gulmurod Khalimov. He appears in black ISIS garb with a sniper rifle and a bandolier of ammunition. He says in the video that he participated in programs on U.S. soil three times, at least one of which was in Louisiana.

CNN Reports....

The State Department has confirmed this claim. 

"From 2003-2014 Colonel Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the Department of State's Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program," said spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala. 

The program is intended to train candidates from participating countries in the latest counterterrorism tactics, so they can fight the very kind of militants that Khalimov has now joined. 

A State Department official said Khalimov was trained in crisis response, tactical management of special events, tactical leadership training and related issues. 

In the video, Khalimov says that what he saw during his training sessions turned him against his sponsors. 

"Listen, you American pigs: I've been to America three times. I saw how you train soldiers to kill Muslims," he says in Russian. "You taught your soldiers how to surround and attack, in order to exterminate Islam and Muslims." 

Then, in the most chilling part of the 10-minute video, he looks directly into the camera and says, "God willing, we will find your towns, we will come to your homes, and we will kill you."

What did he learn from the State Department's subcontractor Blackwater?

The American program in which Khalimov participated is designed to teach tactics used by police and military units against terrorists by countries that cooperate with the United States on security matters. But now experts are concerned that this defector has brought ISIS not only a propaganda victory, but also an insider's knowledge of the playbook the United States is using in the fight against ISIS. 

"That is a dangerous capability," said former Army intelligence officer Michael Breen. "It's never a good thing to have senior counterterrorism people become terrorists."

The 'rat line'  from Benghazi to Syria is well documented:

The DOD documents also contain the first official documentation that the Obama administration knew that weapons were being shipped from the Port of Benghazi to rebel troops in Syria. An October 2012 report confirms:  

Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. 

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo. 

The DIA document further details: 

The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]

More Information on the Obama Administration and the creation of ISIS
How the US Aided ISIS and the Fall of Mosul and Ramadi

Barack Obama: Chlorine Gas Not 'Historically' a Chemical Weapon

Barack Obama was questioned about Syria and the use of chemical weapons in that conflict. Barack Obama played word games yet again as pointed out in the AmericanThinker 

Red line? What red line?

Syria has been using chlorine gas in their civil war for several years - despite the president's assurances that their chemical weapons stockpiles have been seized. When asked about it at a press conference at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit yesterday, the president made the astonishing claim that chlorin has not "historically" been considered a chemical weapon.

Let's examine that claim a bit further......

Barack Obama: Chlorine Gas Not 'Historically' a Chemical Weapon

Widespread reports of chlorine gas attacks in Syria have not been prevented - or acted upon - because chlorine is not "historically" considered a chemical weapon, US President Barack Obama stated Thursday. 

Obama was forced to answer the chlorine question during a press conference from a summit at Camp David with leaders of the Gulf states. Syria and Iran were key issues at the conference.

"Chlorine itself is not listed as a chemical weapon," he insisted, referring to the US's pledge against chemical weapons use in Syria.

In his response, Obama made reference to the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which indeed supervised the liquidation of Syria's sarin gas over a year-long process that ended in late 2014.

However, the chemical watchdog indeed concluded in January "with a high degree of confidence" that chlorine gas had been used in attacks on three villages in Syria last year.

Flashback 2014: Chlorine Gas Part of Syria's Agreement ....


Previous blogs on Syria, Chemicals Weapons and more:
Obama Arms the Syrian Rebels & 'Overlooks' Their Use of Chemical Weapons 
New Analysis of Rocket Used in Syria Chemical Attack Undercuts U.S. Claims

U.S. State Department's Social Media War with ISIS

The islamic State has an organized 'information and recruitment' campaign on many forms of socialmedia such as Twitter and Youtube to gather all possible support for their wars in Syria and Iraq.  The U.S. Government is seeking to counter the messaging.  Will the fervent supporters of ISIS or willing recruits even seek out this counter narrative from the U.S. Department of State on the internet ?










Twitter and Youtube are part of the new battle-space. Graphic images sell the new caliphate and soft-core versions are now used by the U.S. government to counter the campaign from ISIS.  The State Department tries ThinkAgainTurnAway. 

What do the 'experts' think about the new media campaign? (video)

Obama Travels,Double Dribbles Against ISIS

Barack Obama's misadventures and misjudgements in the Mideast continue with the latest news of an American journalist's beheading by ISIS  with threats of more to follow.  ISIS, or ISIL as the White House calls them now, was mocked as a threat in January of this year by Obama.  More from the Washington Free Beacon.....

BY: David Rutz
August 22, 2014 2:37 pm

It was a quote striking for its flippant tone even in January, as President Obama compared the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to a wannabe junior varsity basketball team.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Obama told The New Yorker. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

ISIL, now in control of large portions of Iraq and Syria, has the full attention of the U.S. now.

Amidst its violent rampage through Iraq as it seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate, ISIL posted a video this week of a member beheading American journalist James Foley. Another terrorist declared ISIL’s goal to raise the group’s flag above the White House.

Read MORE at the Washington Free Beacon 

Credits Free Beacon, Boogiefinger and Fugazi

 The following article appeared in Politico on June 22,2014. While Barack Obama will never be held accountable for any malfeasance, malpractice or major miscalculations by the biased media, the sixth year into the Obama administration means Blaming Bush no longer works.  After 6 Years, the President cannot hide from HIS record and the current results of HIS actions and reactions /

The Man Who Broke the Middle East

By ELLIOTT ABRAMS

June 22, 2014

There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger.

The picture has been modified for editorial purposes  ..... 

The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home. Today, terrorism has metastasized in Syria and Iraq, Jordan is at risk, the humanitarian toll is staggering, terrorist groups are growing fast and relations with U.S. allies are strained.

How did it happen? Begin with hubris: The new president told the world, in his Cairo speech in June 2009, that he had special expertise in understanding the entire world of Islam—knowledge “rooted in my own experience” because “I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” But President Obama wasn’t speaking that day in an imaginary location called “the world of Islam;” he was in Cairo, in the Arab Middle East, in a place where nothing counted more than power. “As a boy,” Obama told his listeners, “I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk.” Nice touch, but Arab rulers were more interested in knowing whether as a man he heard the approaching sound of gunfire, saw the growing threat of al Qaeda from the Maghreb to the Arabian Peninsula, and understood the ambitions of the ayatollahs as Iran moved closer and closer to a bomb. 

Obama began with the view that there was no issue in the Middle East more central than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Five years later he has lost the confidence of both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and watched his second secretary of state squander endless efforts in a doomed quest for a comprehensive peace. Obama embittered relations with America’s closest ally in the region and achieved nothing whatsoever in the “peace process.” The end result in the summer of 2014 is to see the Palestinian Authority turn to a deal with Hamas for new elections that—if they are held, which admittedly is unlikely—would usher the terrorist group into a power-sharing deal. This is not progress. 

The most populous Arab country is Egypt, where Obama stuck too long with Hosni Mubarak as the Arab Spring arrived, and then with the Army, and then the Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi, and now is embracing the Army again. Minor failings like the persecution of newspaper editors and leaders of American-backed NGOs, or the jailing of anyone critical of the powers-that-be at a given moment, were glossed over. When the Army removed an elected president, that was not really a “coup”—remember? And as the worm turned, we managed to offend every actor on Egypt’s political stage, from the military to the Islamists to the secular democratic activists. Who trusts us now on the Egyptian political scene? 

No one.

But these errors are minor when compared to those in Iraq and Syria. When the peaceful uprising against President Bashar al-Assad was brutally crushed, Obama said Assad must go; when Assad used sarin gas, Obama said this was intolerable and crossed a red line. But behind these words there was no American power, and speeches are cheap in the Middle East. Despite the urgings of all his top advisers (using the term loosely; he seems to ignore their advice)—Panetta at CIA and then Defense, Clinton at State, Petraeus at CIA, even Dempsey at the Pentagon—the president refused to give meaningful assistance to the Syrian nationalist rebels. Assistance was announced in June 2013 and then again in June 2014 (in the president’s West Point speech) but it is a minimal effort, far too small to match the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian Quds Force fighters in Syria. Arabs see this as a proxy war with Iran, but in the White House the key desire is to put all those nasty Middle Eastern wars behind us. So in the Middle East American power became a mirage, something no one could find—something enemies did not fear and allies could not count on. 

The humanitarian result has been tragic: At least 160,000 killed in Syria, perhaps eight million displaced. More than a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon (a country of four million people, before Obama added those Syrians), about a million and a quarter Syrian refugees in Jordan (population six million before Obama). Poison gas back on the world scene as a tolerated weapon, with Assad using chlorine gas systematically in “barrel bombs” this year and paying no price whatsoever for this and for his repeated attacks on civilian targets. Both of the key officials handling Syria for Obama—State Department special envoy Fred Hof and Ambassador Robert Ford—resigned in disgust when they could no longer defend Obama’s hands-off policy. Can Samantha Power be far behind, watching the mass killings and seeing her president respond to them with rhetoric?  

The result in security terms is even worse: the largest gathering of jihadis we have ever seen, 12,000 now and expanding.They come from all over the world, a jihadi Arab League, a jihadi EU, a jihadi U.N. Two or three thousand are from Europe, and an estimated 70 from the United States. When they go home, some no doubt disillusioned but many committed, experienced and well trained, “home” will be Milwaukee and Manchester and Marseille—and, as we see now on the front pages, to Mosul. When Obama took office there was no such phenomenon; it is his creation, the result of his passivity in Syria while Sunnis were being slaughtered by the Assad regime.

Continue 
Read Page 2 at Politico Magazine 

Elliott Abrams is senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. He served as a deputy national security adviser in the administration of George W. Bush.


Blame Bush for the Iraq War?  What about Bush implying that Iraq had WMDs?
Democrat and former president Bill Clinton will enlighten us in he next video.  

Other prominent Democrats held strong views about Iraq and WMD. Take A look (video below)

Obama Arms the Syrian Rebels & 'Overlooks' Their Use of Chemical Weapons

The chemical weapons that were used on civilians in Syria and Barack Obama's red line almost forced the west into another war in the Mideast.  Arming the Syrian Rebels is the Obama Administration's version of 'Iran Contra' mixed with the worst elements of the second Iraq war.   This story, however, will be not be covered by the main stream media, just like the other Obama scandals like Fast and Furious.

Seymour Hersh's new book provides behind the scenes details that connects the attack on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi, Libya to Turkey as an arms conduit for the Syrian rebels.  The same Syrian rebels who are responsible for the sarin chemical attack that the Obama Administration falsely blamed on Assad and the Syrian Government.

The Red Line and the Rat Line
Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​＊ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous. 

Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn’t hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria’s infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack. 

For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbours, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.’ 

The joint chiefs also knew that the Obama administration’s public claims that only the Syrian army had access to sarin were wrong. The American and British intelligence communities had been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were developing chemical weapons. On 20 June analysts for the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page ‘talking points’ briefing for the DIA’s deputy director, David Shedd, which stated that al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell: its programme, the paper said, was ‘the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida’s pre-9/11 effort’. (According to a Defense Department consultant, US intelligence has long known that al-Qaida experimented with chemical weapons, and has a video of one of its gas experiments with dogs.) The DIA paper went on: ‘Previous IC [intelligence community] focus had been almost entirely on Syrian CW [chemical weapons] stockpiles; now we see ANF attempting to make its own CW … Al-Nusrah Front’s relative freedom of operation within Syria leads us to assess the group’s CW aspirations will be difficult to disrupt in the future.’ The paper drew on classified intelligence from numerous agencies: ‘Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators,’ it said, ‘were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria.’ (Asked about the DIA paper, a spokesperson for the director of national intelligence said: ‘No such paper was ever requested or produced by intelligence community analysts.’) 

Last May, more than ten members of the al-Nusra Front were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin. In a 130-page indictment the group was accused of attempting to purchase fuses, piping for the construction of mortars, and chemical precursors for sarin. Five of those arrested were freed after a brief detention. The others, including the ringleader, Haytham Qassab, for whom the prosecutor requested a prison sentence of 25 years, were released pending trial. In the meantime the Turkish press has been rife with speculation that the Erdoğan administration has been covering up the extent of its involvement with the rebels. In a news conference last summer, Aydin Sezgin, Turkey’s ambassador to Moscow, dismissed the arrests and claimed to reporters that the recovered ‘sarin’ was merely ‘anti-freeze’. 

The DIA paper took the arrests as evidence that al-Nusra was expanding its access to chemical weapons. It said Qassab had ‘self-identified’ as a member of al-Nusra, and that he was directly connected to Abd-al-Ghani, the ‘ANF emir for military manufacturing’. Qassab and his associate Khalid Ousta worked with Halit Unalkaya, an employee of a Turkish firm called Zirve Export, who provided ‘price quotes for bulk quantities of sarin precursors’. Abd-al-Ghani’s plan was for two associates to ‘perfect a process for making sarin, then go to Syria to train others to begin large scale production at an unidentified lab in Syria’. The DIA paper said that one of his operatives had purchased a precursor on the ‘Baghdad chemical market’, which ‘has supported at least seven CW efforts since 2004’. 

A series of chemical weapon attacks in March and April 2013 was investigated over the next few months by a special UN mission to Syria. A person with close knowledge of the UN’s activity in Syria told me that there was evidence linking the Syrian opposition to the first gas attack, on 19 March in Khan Al-Assal, a village near Aleppo. In its final report in December, the mission said that at least 19 civilians and one Syrian soldier were among the fatalities, along with scores of injured. It had no mandate to assign responsibility for the attack, but the person with knowledge of the UN’s activities said: ‘Investigators interviewed the people who were there, including the doctors who treated the victims. It was clear that the rebels used the gas. It did not come out in public because no one wanted to know.’ 

In the months before the attacks began, a former senior Defense Department official told me, the DIA was circulating a daily classified report known as SYRUP on all intelligence related to the Syrian conflict, including material on chemical weapons. But in the spring, distribution of the part of the report concerning chemical weapons was severely curtailed on the orders of Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff. ‘Something was in there that triggered a shit fit by McDonough,’ the former Defense Department official said. ‘One day it was a huge deal, and then, after the March and April sarin attacks’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘it’s no longer there.’ The decision to restrict distribution was made as the joint chiefs ordered intensive contingency planning for a possible ground invasion of Syria whose primary objective would be the elimination of chemical weapons.

The former intelligence official said that many in the US national security establishment had long been troubled by the president’s red line: ‘The joint chiefs asked the White House, “What does red line mean? How does that translate into military orders? Troops on the ground? Massive strike? Limited strike?” They tasked military intelligence to study how we could carry out the threat. They learned nothing more about the president’s reasoning.’ 

In the aftermath of the 21 August attack Obama ordered the Pentagon to draw up targets for bombing. Early in the process, the former intelligence official said, ‘the White House rejected 35 target sets provided by the joint chiefs of staff as being insufficiently “painful” to the Assad regime.’ The original targets included only military sites and nothing by way of civilian infrastructure. Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed. ‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’ The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings. 

Britain and France were both to play a part. On 29 August, the day Parliament voted against Cameron’s bid to join the intervention, the Guardian reported that he had already ordered six RAF Typhoon fighter jets to be deployed to Cyprus, and had volunteered a submarine capable of launching Tomahawk missiles. The French air force – a crucial player in the 2011 strikes on Libya – was deeply committed, according to an account in Le Nouvel Observateur; François Hollande had ordered several Rafale fighter-bombers to join the American assault. Their targets were reported to be in western Syria. 

By the last days of August the president had given the Joint Chiefs a fixed deadline for the launch. ‘H hour was to begin no later than Monday morning [2 September], a massive assault to neutralise Assad,’ the former intelligence official said. So it was a surprise to many when during a speech in the White House Rose Garden on 31 August Obama said that the attack would be put on hold, and he would turn to Congress and put it to a vote. 

At this stage, Obama’s premise – that only the Syrian army was capable of deploying sarin – was unravelling. Within a few days of the 21 August attack, the former intelligence official told me, Russian military intelligence operatives had recovered samples of the chemical agent from Ghouta. They analysed it and passed it on to British military intelligence; this was the material sent to Porton Down. (A spokesperson for Porton Down said: ‘Many of the samples analysed in the UK tested positive for the nerve agent sarin.’ MI6 said that it doesn’t comment on intelligence matters.) 

The former intelligence official said the Russian who delivered the sample to the UK was ‘a good source – someone with access, knowledge and a record of being trustworthy’. After the first reported uses of chemical weapons in Syria last year, American and allied intelligence agencies ‘made an effort to find the answer as to what if anything, was used – and its source’, the former intelligence official said. ‘We use data exchanged as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The DIA’s baseline consisted of knowing the composition of each batch of Soviet-manufactured chemical weapons. But we didn’t know which batches the Assad government currently had in its arsenal. Within days of the Damascus incident we asked a source in the Syrian government to give us a list of the batches the government currently had. This is why we could confirm the difference so quickly.’ 

The process hadn’t worked as smoothly in the spring, the former intelligence official said, because the studies done by Western intelligence ‘were inconclusive as to the type of gas it was. The word “sarin” didn’t come up. There was a great deal of discussion about this, but since no one could conclude what gas it was, you could not say that Assad had crossed the president’s red line.’ By 21 August, the former intelligence official went on, ‘the Syrian opposition clearly had learned from this and announced that “sarin” from the Syrian army had been used, before any analysis could be made, and the press and White House jumped at it. Since it now was sarin, “It had to be Assad.”’ 

The UK defence staff who relayed the Porton Down findings to the joint chiefs were sending the Americans a message, the former intelligence official said: ‘We’re being set up here.’ (This account made sense of a terse message a senior official in the CIA sent in late August: ‘It was not the result of the current regime. UK & US know this.’) By then the attack was a few days away and American, British and French planes, ships and submarines were at the ready.
The officer ultimately responsible for the planning and execution of the attack was General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs. From the beginning of the crisis, the former intelligence official said, the joint chiefs had been sceptical of the administration’s argument that it had the facts to back up its belief in Assad’s guilt. They pressed the DIA and other agencies for more substantial evidence. ‘There was no way they thought Syria would use nerve gas at that stage, because Assad was winning the war,’ the former intelligence official said. Dempsey had irritated many in the Obama administration by repeatedly warning Congress over the summer of the danger of American military involvement in Syria. Last April, after an optimistic assessment of rebel progress by the secretary of state, John Kerry, in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that ‘there’s a risk that this conflict has become stalemated.’ 

Dempsey’s initial view after 21 August was that a US strike on Syria – under the assumption that the Assad government was responsible for the sarin attack – would be a military blunder, the former intelligence official said. The Porton Down report caused the joint chiefs to go to the president with a more serious worry: that the attack sought by the White House would be an unjustified act of aggression. It was the joint chiefs who led Obama to change course. The official White House explanation for the turnabout – the story the press corps told – was that the president, during a walk in the Rose Garden with Denis McDonough, his chief of staff, suddenly decided to seek approval for the strike from a bitterly divided Congress with which he’d been in conflict for years. The former Defense Department official told me that the White House provided a different explanation to members of the civilian leadership of the Pentagon: the bombing had been called off because there was intelligence ‘that the Middle East would go up in smoke’ if it was carried out. 

The president’s decision to go to Congress was initially seen by senior aides in the White House, the former intelligence official said, as a replay of George W. Bush’s gambit in the autumn of 2002 before the invasion of Iraq: ‘When it became clear that there were no WMD in Iraq, Congress, which had endorsed the Iraqi war, and the White House both shared the blame and repeatedly cited faulty intelligence. If the current Congress were to vote to endorse the strike, the White House could again have it both ways – wallop Syria with a massive attack and validate the president’s red line commitment, while also being able to share the blame with Congress if it came out that the Syrian military wasn’t behind the attack.’ The turnabout came as a surprise even to the Democratic leadership in Congress. In September the Wall Street Journal reported that three days before his Rose Garden speech Obama had telephoned Nancy Pelosi, leader of the House Democrats, ‘to talk through the options’. She later told colleagues, according to the Journal, that she hadn’t asked the president to put the bombing to a congressional vote. 

Obama’s move for congressional approval quickly became a dead end. ‘Congress was not going to let this go by,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Congress made it known that, unlike the authorisation for the Iraq war, there would be substantive hearings.’ At this point, there was a sense of desperation in the White House, the former intelligence official said. ‘And so out comes Plan B. Call off the bombing strike and Assad would agree to unilaterally sign the chemical warfare treaty and agree to the destruction of all of chemical weapons under UN supervision.’ At a press conference in London on 9 September, Kerry was still talking about intervention: ‘The risk of not acting is greater than the risk of acting.’ But when a reporter asked if there was anything Assad could do to stop the bombing, Kerry said: ‘Sure. He could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week … But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done, obviously.’ As the New York Times reported the next day, the Russian-brokered deal that emerged shortly afterwards had first been discussed by Obama and Putin in the summer of 2012. Although the strike plans were shelved, the administration didn’t change its public assessment of the justification for going to war. ‘There is zero tolerance at that level for the existence of error,’ the former intelligence official said of the senior officials in the White House. ‘They could not afford to say: “We were wrong.”’ (The DNI spokesperson said: ‘The Assad regime, and only the Assad regime, could have been responsible for the chemical weapons attack that took place on 21 August.’) 

*
The full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light. The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida. (The DNI spokesperson said: ‘The idea that the United States was providing weapons from Libya to anyone is false.’) 

In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on the assault by a local militia in September 2012 on the American consulate and a nearby undercover CIA facility in Benghazi, which resulted in the death of the US ambassador, Christopher Stevens, and three others. The report’s criticism of the State Department for not providing adequate security at the consulate, and of the intelligence community for not alerting the US military to the presence of a CIA outpost in the area, received front-page coverage and revived animosities in Washington, with Republicans accusing Obama and Hillary Clinton of a cover-up. A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.) 

The operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership, as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation. The former intelligence official explained that for years there has been a recognised exception in the law that permits the CIA not to report liaison activity to Congress, which would otherwise be owed a finding. (All proposed CIA covert operations must be described in a written document, known as a ‘finding’, submitted to the senior leadership of Congress for approval.) Distribution of the annex was limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress – the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republicans leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees. This hardly constituted a genuine attempt at oversight: the eight leaders are not known to gather together to raise questions or discuss the secret information they receive.
The annex didn’t tell the whole story of what happened in Benghazi before the attack, nor did it explain why the American consulate was attacked. ‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official, who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’ 

Washington abruptly ended the CIA’s role in the transfer of arms from Libya after the attack on the consulate, but the rat line kept going. ‘The United States was no longer in control of what the Turks were relaying to the jihadists,’ the former intelligence official said. Within weeks, as many as forty portable surface-to-air missile launchers, commonly known as manpads, were in the hands of Syrian rebels. On 28 November 2012, Joby Warrick of the Washington Post reported that the previous day rebels near Aleppo had used what was almost certainly a manpad to shoot down a Syrian transport helicopter. ‘The Obama administration,’ Warrick wrote, ‘has steadfastly opposed arming Syrian opposition forces with such missiles, warning that the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists and be used to shoot down commercial aircraft.’ Two Middle Eastern intelligence officials fingered Qatar as the source, and a former US intelligence analyst speculated that the manpads could have been obtained from Syrian military outposts overrun by the rebels. There was no indication that the rebels’ possession of manpads was likely the unintended consequence of a covert US programme that was no longer under US control. 

By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. ‘Erdoğan was pissed,’ the former intelligence official said, ‘and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the cut-off was seen as a betrayal.’ In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability. ‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond in March and April.’

Read MORE from Seymour Hersh's Exclusive:

Previous Blog on Syria and Chemical Weapons
New Analysis of Rocket Used in Syria Chemical Attack Undercuts U.S. Claims