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<H1>NY Times Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis</H1></DIV>
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<H2>The US Government, Human Rights Watch and NY Times claims that Sarin
Rockets came from a Syrian military base are no longer supported by the
facts</H2>
<P><STRONG>For months, the “slam-dunk” evidence “proving” Syrian
government guilt in the Aug. 21 Sarin attack near Damascus was a “vector
analysis” pushed by the New York Times showing where the rockets
supposedly were launched. But the Times now grudgingly admits its analysis
was flawed.</STRONG></P>
<P>The New York Times has, kind of, admitted that it messed up its big
front-page story that used a “vector analysis” to pin the blame for the
Aug. 21 Sarin attack on the Syrian government, an assertion that was
treated by Official Washington as the slam-dunk proof that President
Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people.</P>
<P>But you’d be forgiven if you missed the Times’ embarrassing confession,
since it was buried on page 8, below the fold, 18 paragraphs into a story
under the not-so-eye-catching title, “New Study Refines View Of Sarin
Attack in Syria.”</P>
<P>But this <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/world/middleeast/new-study-refines-view-of-sarin-attack-in-syria.html?ref=world&_r=0">Times
article</A> at least acknowledges what has been widely reported on
the Internet, including at Consortiumnews.com, that the Times’ “vector
analysis” – showing the reverse flight paths of two missiles intersecting
at a Syrian military base – has collapsed, in part, because the range of
the rockets was much too limited.</P>
<P>There were other problems with the “vector analysis” that was pushed by
the Times and Human Rights Watch, which has long wanted the U.S. military
to intervene in the Syrian civil war against the Syrian government.</P>
<P>The analytical flaws included the fact that one of the two missiles –
the one landing in Moadamiya, south of Damascus – had clipped a building
during its descent making a precise calculation of its flight path
impossible, plus the discovery that the Moadamiya missile contained no
Sarin, making its use in the vectoring of two Sarin-laden rockets
nonsensical.</P>
<P>But the Times’ analysis ultimately fell apart amid a consensus among
missile experts that the rockets would have had a maximum range of only
around three kilometers when the supposed launch site is about 9.5
kilometers from the impact zones in Moadamiya and Zamalka/Ein Tarma, east
of Damascus.</P>
<P>The Times’ front-page “vectoring” <A
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/17/world/europe/syria-united-nations.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1387381766-55AjTxhuELAeFSCuukA7Og">article</A> of
Sept. 17 had declared: “One annex to the report [by UN inspectors]
identified azimuths, or angular measurements, from where rockets had
struck, back to their points of origin. When plotted and marked
independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New
York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites
pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.”</P>
<P>An accompanying map on the Times’ front page revealed the flight-path
lines intersecting at an elite Syrian military unit, the
104<SUP>th</SUP> Brigade of the Republican Guard, based northwest of
Damascus, near the Presidential Palace. This “evidence” was then cited by
U.S. politicians and pundits as the in-your-face proof of the Syrian
government’s guilt.</P>
<P>The Times/HRW analysis was especially important because the Obama
administration, in making its case against the Syrian regime of Bashar
al-Assad, had refused to release any evidence that could be independently
evaluated. So, the “vector analysis” was almost the only visible nail in
Assad’s coffin of guilt.</P>
<P><B>Short-Range Rockets</B></P>
<P>In Sunday’s article – the one below the fold on page 8 – the Times
reported that a new analysis by two military experts concluded that the
Aug. 21 rockets had a range of about three kilometers, or less than
one-third the distance needed to intersect at the Syrian military base
northwest of Damascus.</P>
<P>The report’s authors were Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science,
technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, and Richard M. Lloyd, an analyst at the military contractor
Tesla Laboratories.</P>
<P>The Times noted that “the authors said that their findings could help
pinpoint accountability for the most lethal chemical warfare attack in
decades, but that they also raised questions about the American
government’s claims about the locations of launching points, and the
technical intelligence behind them. … The analysis could also lead to
calls for more transparency from the White House, as Dr. Postol said it
undermined the Obama administration’s assertions about the rockets’ launch
points.”</P>
<P>Finally, in the article’s 18<SUP>th</SUP> paragraph, the Times
acknowledged its own role in misleading the public, noting that the
rockets’ estimated maximum range of three kilometers “would be less than
the ranges of more than nine kilometers calculated separately by The New
York Times and Human Rights Watch in mid-September. … Those estimates had
been based in part on connecting reported compass headings for two rockets
cited in the United Nations’ initial <A
title="The United Nations report."
href="http://www.un.org/disarmament/content/slideshow/Secretary_General_Report_of_CW_Investigation.pdf">report</A> on
the attacks.”</P>
<P>In other words, the much-ballyhooed “vector analysis” had collapsed
under scrutiny, knocking the legs out from under Official Washington’s
certainty that the Syrian government carried out the Aug. 21 attack which
may have killed several hundred civilians including many children.</P>
<P>The Times article on Sunday was authored by C.J. Chivers, who along
with Rick Gladstone, was a principal writer on the now-discredited Sept.
17 article.</P>
<P>The erosion of that “vector analysis” article has been underway for
several months – through reporting at Web sites such as WhoGhouta and
Consortiumnews.com – but few Americans knew about these challenges to the
Official Story because the mainstream U.S. news media had essentially
blacked them out.</P>
<P>When renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh composed a
major <A
href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/2013/12/08/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin">article</A> citing
skepticism within the U.S. intelligence community regarding the Syrian
government’s guilt, he had to go to the London Review of Books to get the
story published. [See Consortiumnews.com's "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/09/deceiving-the-us-public-on-syria/">Deceiving
the US Public on Syria</A>."]</P>
<P>Even Ake Sellstrom, the head of the United Nations mission
investigating chemical weapons use in Syria, challenged the vector
analysis during a Dec. 13 <A
href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/un-mission-to-investigate-allegations-of-the-use-of-chemical-weapons-in-the-syrian-arab-republic-press-conference/2932994876001/">UN
press conference</A>, citing expert estimates of the missiles’ range at
about two kilometers, but his remarks were almost entirely ignored. [See
Consortiumnews.com's "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/23/un-investigator-undercuts-nyt-on-syria/">UN
Inspector Undercuts NYT on Syria</A>."]</P>
<P><B>A Replay of Iraqi WMD</B><B></B></P>
<P>Besides the deaths from the Sarin itself, perhaps the most troubling
aspect of this episode has been how close the U.S. government came to
going to war with Syria based on such flimsy and dubious evidence. It
seems as if Official Washington and the U.S. mainstream news media have
learned nothing from the disastrous rush to war in Iraq a decade ago.</P>
<P>Just as false assumptions about Iraq’s WMD set off a stampede over that
cliff in 2003, a similar rush to judgment regarding Syria brought the U.S.
government to the edge of another precipice of war in 2013.</P>
<P>The New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets propelled the rush
to judgment in both cases, rather than questioning the official stories
and demanding better evidence from U.S. government officials. In September
2002, the Times famously fronted an article linking Iraq’s purchase of
some aluminum tubes to a secret nuclear weapons program, which – as
Americans and Iraqis painfully learned later - didn’t exist.</P>
<P>In the case of Syria, another potential catastrophe was averted only by
a strong opposition to war among the American public, as registered
in opinion polls, and President Barack Obama’s last-minute decision to
seek congressional approval for military action and then his openness to a
diplomatic settlement brokered by Russia.</P>
<P>To defuse the crisis, the Syrian government agreed to destroy all its
chemical weapons, while still denying any role in the Aug. 21 attack,
which it blamed on Syrian rebels apparently trying to create
a <I>casus belli</I> that would precipitate a U.S.
intervention.</P>
<P>With very few exceptions, U.S. news outlets and think tanks mocked the
notion of rebel responsibility and joined the Obama administration in
expressing virtual certainty that the Assad regime was guilty.</P>
<P>There was almost no U.S. media skepticism on Aug. 30 when the White
House stoked the war fever by posting on its Web site what was called a
“Government Assessment,” a four-page white paper that blamed the Syrian
government for the Sarin attack but presented zero evidence to support the
conclusion.</P>
<P>Americans had to go to Internet sites to see questions raised about the
peculiar presentation, since normally a decision on war would be supported
by a National Intelligence Estimate containing the judgments of the 16
intelligence agencies. But an NIE would also include footnotes citing
dissents from analysts who disputed the conclusion, of which I was told
there were a number.</P>
<P><B>The Dogs Not Barking</B></P>
<P>As the war frenzy built in late August and early September, there was a
striking absence of U.S. intelligence officials at administration
briefings and congressional hearings. The dog-not-barking reason was that
someone might have asked a question about whether the U.S. intelligence
community was in agreement with the “Government Assessment.”</P>
<P>But these strange aspects of the Obama administration’s case were not
noted by the major U.S. news media. Then, on Sept. 17 came the New York
Times front-page article citing the “vector analysis.” It was the Perry
Mason moment. The evidence literally pointed right at the “guilty” party,
an elite unit of the Syrian military.</P>
<P>Whatever few doubts there were about the Syrian government’s guilt
disappeared. From the triumphant view of Official Washington, those of us
who had expressed skepticism about the U.S. government’s case could only
hang our heads in shame and engage in some Maoist-style
self-criticism.</P>
<P>For me, it was like a replay of Iraq-2003. Whenever the U.S. invading
force discovered a barrel of chemicals, trumpeted on Fox News as proof of
WMD, I’d get e-mails calling me a Saddam Hussein apologist and demanding
that I admit that I had been wrong to question President George W. Bush’s
WMD claims. Now, there were ugly accusations that I had been carrying
water for Bashar al-Assad.</P>
<P>But – as John Adams once said – “facts are stubborn things.” And the
smug certainty of Official Washington regarding the Syrian Sarin case
gradually eroded much as a similar arrogance crumbled a decade ago when
Iraq’s alleged WMD stockpiles never materialized.</P>
<P>While it’s still not clear who was responsible for the Aug. 21 deaths
outside Damascus – whether a unit of the Syrian military, some radical
rebel group or someone mishandling a dangerous payload – the facts should
be followed objectively, not simply arranged to achieve a desired
political outcome.</P>
<P>Now, with the New York Times’ grudging admission that its “vector
analysis” has collapsed, the pressure should build on the Obama
administration to finally put whatever evidence it has before the world’s
public.</P>
<P>[For more details on this issue, see Consortiumnews.com's "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/20/nyt-replays-its-iraq-fiasco-in-syria/">NYT
Replays Its Iraq Fiasco in Syria</A>." For more of our early reporting on
the Syrian chemical weapons attack, see: "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/08/30/a-dodgy-dossier-on-syrian-war/">A
Dodgy Dossier on Syrian War</A>"; "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/17/murky-clues-from-uns-syria-report/">Murky
Clues From UN's Syria Report</A>"; "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/11/obama-still-withholds-syria-evidence/">Obama
Still Withholds Syria Evidence</A>"; "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/10/16/how-us-pressure-bends-un-agencies/">How
US Pressure Bends UN Agencies</A>"; "<A
href="http://consortiumnews.com/2013/11/14/fixing-intel-around-the-syria-policy/">Fixing
Intel Around the Syria
Policy.</A>"]</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>