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The evidence presented by the U.S. unclassified assessment on Syria's use of chemical weapons
is both inconclusive and childish. The four page official document looks like it's been
written by a third grader, is filled with inconsistencies and hinges mainly on circumstantial
evidence. Not anywhere in the report does the US government present any conclusive evidence
specifically addressing who was responsible for the alleged attack. Rather, we simply
are expected to take the US governments word for it much like George W. Bush relied on
this tactic before the invasion of Iraq. The most important question needing evaluation
by the American people and the international community at large is who is responsible for
the chemical attack, not if the attack actually occurred which is largely indisputable.
Strangely enough, the report references social media which it discounts in the west regularly
as illegitimate media as the primary source of information and video footage proving the
attack. But again, the most important question needing to be asked isn't whether the attack
occurred on August 21, 2013 but who carried it out? Nowhere in the report is concrete
evidence provided to answer this question. The significant body of information' the document
cites as evidence is laughable by any common sense standard stating 'to protect sources
and methods, we cannot publicly release all available intelligence.' Well then why release
any public available intelligence at all? One of the more hotly debated inconsistencies
is the US government's assessment of the casualty count which in and of itself should be one
of the more important pieces of evidence in the report. 'A preliminary U.S. government
assessment determined that 1,429 people were killed in the chemical weapons attack, including
at least 426 children.' This is disputed by Anthony Cordesman, a former senior defense
official now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies who
took aim at the death toll discrepancies in an essay published on Sunday.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Cordesman criticized Secretary of the State John Kerry
as being 'sandbagged into using an absurdly over-precise number' of 1,429, and noted that
the number didn't jive with either the British assessment of "at least 350 fatalities" or
other Syrian opposition sources, namely the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which
has confirmed 502 dead, including about 100 children and 'tens' of rebel fighters, and
has demanded that Kerry provide the names of the victims included in the U.S. tally.
"President Obama was then forced to round off the number at 'well over 1,000 people'
-- creating a mix of contradictions over the most basic facts," Cordesman wrote. He added
that the blunder was reminiscent of 'the mistakes the U.S. made in preparing Secretary (Colin)
Powell's speech to the U.N. on Iraq in 2003.' A recently released French intelligence report
further corroborated the inconsistency in the fatality count, confirming only 281 deaths.
Another eyebrow raiser is the reports assessment claiming 'US intelligence had collected streams
of human, signals and geospatial intelligence' that showed the Syrian government had been
preparing for an attack three days in advance. This raises even more complications... If
the United States government knew the chemical attack was going to occur three days in advance
then why didn't they warn Syrian rebel groups and innocent civilians, including innocent
children of an imminent chemical strike? The report that the U.S. has provided the
public is clearly built on a foundation of sand, rhetoric, lacks conclusive evidence
and is focused on opinion instead of concrete facts. As this is debated in Congress, the
most important question Americans need to ask regarding the justification for an intervention
in Syria is still left unanswered. Who is responsible for the chemical attack that occurred
on Aug 21, 2013 and where's the evidence?