By Brandon Turbeville

The United Nations is marching ahead with its task of acting as the Anglo-Financier administrative arm of the world corporate-financier government structure with its recent “report” aimed at the Syrian government. According to Western corporate media outlets who are reporting the story with unconcealed glee, the United Nations “war crimes investigators” produced a report blaming the Syrian government for chemical weapons attacks at Khan Sheikhoun and nearly two dozen other incidents (access the report here).

The United Nations team stated that there had been 33 incidents investigated; 27 were the fault of the Syrian government and perpetrators had not yet been identified in the other seven. In other words, all of the alleged chemical weapons incidents were the fault of the Syrian government except for the ones they have yet to determine.

However, there are many problems with the stance of the report, its methodology, and its purpose.

The UN Investigative Apparatus Is Not Unbiased

It is important to remember that, whatever the UN may be, it is not impartial or unbiased, particularly when it comes to Syria. Whether it is delisting Saudi Arabia as “parties that kill or maim children” due to KSA’s threat to remove money from the organization to producing phony reports against the Syrian government, the United Nations has demonstrated time and again that its own mechanism is geared toward helping NATO, GCC, and Israel destroy the secular government of Bashar al-Assad.

Indeed, one of the UN’s own Syria “war crimes prosecutors” publicly admitted her own bias as she stepped down from her post over her frustrations that the U.N. simply couldn’t barge into Syria and bring Assad up for trial for “war crimes.”

In her remarks announcing her resignation, Del Ponte, who is 70 years old, admitted her own bias against the Syrian government since the beginning of the crisis. She stated that, when she was first appointed to the Independent Commission of Inquiry On Syria in 2012, “the opposition (members) were the good ones; the government were the bad ones.” Apparently, the woman so concerned with “crimes against humanity” was fine with “opposition members” randomly shooting civilians, raping women, slaughtering whole families and villages, and committing unspeakable acts against Syrian military soldiers and Syrian civilians. After all, she considered them the “good ones.” Only when the Syrian military began fighting back in earnest did “war crimes” become a concern.

“The Assad government is committing terrible crimes against humanity and using chemical weapons. And the opposition, that is made up only of extremists and terrorists anymore,” she said.

Del Ponte claimed that the Security Council should have appointed a court similar to the ones for Rwanda and Yugoslavia but the decision to do so was vetoed by Russia.

As Sarah Abed writes in her article, “Carla Del Ponte – Blames “Rebels” For Chemical Weapons Attack Yet Wants To Falsely Convict Assad Of War Crimes,”

In 2010, Judges at the UN war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague ordered an independent inquiry into the practices of Del Ponte and two prominent serving prosecutors, Hildegard Ürtz-Retzlaff and Daniel Saxon, after complaints from witnesses that they had been harassed, paid, mistreated and their evidence tampered with.

Ms. Del Ponte, the former war crimes prosecutor who put Balkan warlords and political leaders behind bars, was investigated over claims that she allowed the use of bullying and bribing of witnesses or tainted evidence.

In the eight years leading up to this investigation, Del Ponte was a combative and divisive figure. As a determined Swiss investigator she served as her country’s ambassador to Argentina until she left her post in 2007.

The allegations against her concerned the working practices of her team of investigators in the prosecution for war crimes of the Serbian politician, Vojislav Seselj, a notorious warlord.

“Some of the witnesses had referred to pressure and intimidation to which they were subjected by investigators for the prosecution,” said a statement from the judge in the Seselj case. “The prosecution allegedly obtained statements illegally, by threatening, intimidating and/or buying [witnesses] off.”

One Serbian witness said he was offered a well-paid job in the US in return for testimony favorable to the prosecution.

“The statements mention sleep deprivation during interviews, psychological pressuring, an instance of blackmail (the investigators offered relocation in exchange for the testimony they hoped to obtain), threats (one, for example, about preparing an indictment against a witness if he refused to testify), or even illegal payments of money.”

An independent investigator, expected to be a French magistrate, is to report on the allegations within six months. Prosecutors in The Hague rejected the allegations while promising to co-operate with the inquiry.

Another call for an investigation against Del Ponte but this time with a request for sanctions against her as well

Yet again, Ms. Del Ponte was under investigation in 2012 when the counsel for Mr. Ante Gotovina filed a formal complaint and request for an investigation and for sanctions to be placed against her.

“We, the undersigned, were counsel for Mr. Ante Gotovina, who on 16 November 2012 was acquitted of all charges by the Appeals Chamber of the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). 1, On 20 November 2012, in an interview with the Serbian newspaper Blic, Ms. Carla Del Ponte, former ICTY Prosecutor and currently a member of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria. 2, reacted to the ICTY Judgment with the following comments: “This is not justice; this is denial of a huge crime.” 3, She further elaborated on her position stating that the “Serbian Government and the Serbs cannot accept such a verdict and I completely agree with their televised statements because it is clear that the crime has been committed. We shall see what is going to happen next, but surely this is not justice.” 4, Her remarks were later published by other regional and international media. 5, Ms. Del Ponte’s improper media statements constitute a grave violation of Mr. Gotovina’s fundamental rights and are an unacceptable interference with the reputation and authority of the ICTY”.

They went on to say “Clearly, Ms. Del Ponte is accusing the Appeals Chamber judges of corruption. This is highly inappropriate, especially where there is no basis whatsoever for such serious allegations. The United Nations must act immediately both to protect Mr. Gotovina’s fundamental rights and to protect the reputation of the United Nations and its judges. Remarkably, Ms. Del Ponte admitted that she made these statements before she had even read the judgment of the ICTY Appeals Chamber.”

“Effectively, a biased, unreliable, frustrated UN official has quit a mockery of an independent team which was set up to do a witch hunt rather than actually investigate war crimes in Syria, and the world is better off because of it,” wrote Sarah Abed. If this team actually cared about the truth and was procuring information via reliable sources they would name and shame the ones that are in fact responsible for this imposed war and invasion. They would call out the United States for arming terrorists, and the UK, NATO, GCC, etc. for their involvement in fueling the armed opposition as well. They would charge Turkey and Jordan with crimes for allowing terrorists to cross the border into Syria to help with the staged uprising in 2011.”

It is thus abundantly clear that Del Ponte, given to intimidation and bullying tactics, the likes of which she routinely employs on behalf of the United Nations, is resigning in frustration and disgrace over her inability to frame the Syrian government and Bashar al-Assad for the crimes of America’s terrorists and to subsequently engage the U.N. in even greater international legal warfare against the legitimate government of Syria. Del Ponte is only one actor, however. The work at the U.N. in support of bringing down all “rogue” nations to the feet of the world Corporate-Financier oligarchy will continue.

It is thus noteworthy that Del Ponte was a part of the team that put together this most recent U.N. report.

New UN Report Contradicts Old UN Reports

Ironically, in 2013, it was Del Ponte who admitted that it was America’s terrorists who used chemical weapons, not the government, in Syria. However, there were no demands to prosecute the “rebels” or the countries that supported them to be heard from Del Ponte. There were no grandstands of resignation either.

As Carla Stea wrote for Global Research in 2013,

On December 13, [2013] UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon signed identical letters to the UN General Assembly and Security Council, stating:

“I have the honour to convey herewith the final report of the United Nations Mission to investigate allegations of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic.”

The letter of transmittal was signed by Professor Ake Sellstrom, Head of Mission, and Dr. Maurizio Barbeschi, signing for the WHO component.

On page 21 of this 85 page report is stated:

“Khan al Asal, 19 March 2013: 111. The United Nations Mission collected credible information that corroborates the allegations that chemical weapons were used in Khan al Asal on 19 March 2013 against soldiers and civilians.”

Page 22:

“Jobar, 24 August 2013: 113. The United Nations Mission collected evidence consistent with the probable use of chemical weapons in Jobar on 24 August on a relatively small scale against soldiers…”

Note the use of chemical weapons against soldiers. Unless the military was using chemical weapons against itself, this indicates clearly that the chemical weapons were being used by terrorists.

According to Seymour Hersh, December 19 ( published in The London Review of Books),

“already by late May, the senior (US) intelligence consultant told me, the CIA had briefed the Obama administration on al-Nusra and its work with sarin, and had sent alarming reports that another Sunni fundamentalist group active in Syria, al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), also understood the science of producing sarin. At the time, al-Nusra was operating in areas close to Damascus, including Eastern Ghouta. An intelligence document issued in mid-summer dealt extensively with Ziyaad Tarriq Ahmed, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Iraqi military, who was said to have moved into Syria and to be operating in Eastern Ghouta. The consultant told me that Tariq had been identified ‘as an al-Nusra guy with a track record of making mustard gas in Iraq and someone who is implicated in making and using sarin.’ He is regarded as a high-profile target by the American military.”

. . . . .

Hersh’s final paragraph should be taken seriously:

“The UN resolution, which was adopted on 27 September by the Security Council dealt indirectly with the notion that rebel forces such as an-Nusra would also be obliged to disarm….No group was cited by name. While the Syrian regime continues the process of eliminating its chemical arsenal, the irony is that, after Assad’s stockpile of precursor agents is destroyed, al-Nusra and its Islamist allies could end up as the only faction inside Syria with access to the ingredients that can create sarin, a strategic weapon that would be unlike any other in the war zone.”

Back to Del Ponte, however, according to a report in the Daily Mail, she stated clearly contradicting reports by both Britain and the United States,

“evidence from casualties and medical staff indicated that rebel forces in the civil war had used the deadly nerve agent sarin.

‘Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals, and there are strong, concrete suspicions, but not yet incontrovertible proof, of the use of sarin gas,’ said Del Ponte in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

‘This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.’

Last night, the UN commission looking into allegations of war crimes in Syria tried to row back on the comments by its human rights investigator, pointing out that conclusive evidence had not been discovered.

However, the White House said it was likely that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, not the rebels, were behind any chemical weapons use. …

Sarin has been classed as a weapon of mass destruction due to its potency and is banned under international law.

US President Barack Obama has said that the use or deployment of chemical weapons in Syria would cross a ‘red line’ that could lead to foreign military intervention. …

The comments by Ms Del Ponte, a member of the U.N. panel probing alleged war crimes in Syria, contradict claims by Britain and the U.S. that intelligence reports showed Syrian soldiers had used chemical weapons.

She said that the United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law.

Notably, in the corporate media in the west, there is no mention of the use of chemical weapons by terrorists.

U.N. Had No Experts On The Ground – Relied On Terrorist Testimony

Commission Chairman Paulo Pinheiro publicly acknowledged the fact that the U.N. does not have boots on the ground in the areas where it is allegedly “studying” and “investigating.” It simply does not have access to those areas because most of the areas in which chemical weapons attacks occurred are held by terrorists (adding to circumstantial evidence point toward terrorist usage for propaganda purposes) and because anyone venturing into these areas risks beheading.

Commission chairman Paulo Pinheiro told a news conference:

Not having access did not prevent us from establishing facts or reasonable grounds to believe what happened during the attack and establishing who is responsible.

Of course, Pinheiro’s data relies heavily on “witness testimony” which amounts to statements provided by individuals handpicked by “opposition” supporting NGOs and outright terrorists. It also relies on interviews with “first responders” who are none other than the terrorist “White Helmets,” erroneously referred to as the “civil defence.” In fact, a relatively sizeable portion of the report is dedicated to detailing the “heroism” of the White Helmets terrorists who were, as much evidence suggests, simply acting in a propaganda film designed to be broadcast back to Western audiences.

This new report is thus reminiscent of the previous U.N. reports such as the now infamous Joint Investigative Mechanism for the UN OPCW where a similar overseas analysis took place relying on the testimony of terrorists and terrorist supporters. In addition, the United Nations team put together its report by taking into account the testimony of “first responders;” i.e. the documented terrorist organization that masquerades as a humanitarian team.

The U.N. has not had and does not have boots on the ground in the areas in question nor does it have adequate testimony to make any determinations in its investigation. The organization is using information provided by hostile Western governments and witness testimony arranged by anti-Syrian NGOs and terrorist organizations as well as terrorist organizations themselves.

New UN Report Relies On Wind Direction – Lack of Boots On The Ground – Wind Direction Is Different Than What UN Claims

Particularly in the case of Khan Sheikhoun, the United Nations report appears at face value to be the best representation of facts that could be gathered in the absence of boots on the ground investigators. One of the factors it uses to back up its claims regarding the alleged chemical weapons attacks is that of the wind direction which it claims supports its accusations that the Syrian military dropped a chemical weapon and that the gas was carried farther up the road by the wind.

The report states,

10.The weather conditions at 6.45 a.m. of 4 April were ideal for delivering a chemical weapon. Data based on historical weather forecasts indicates that the wind speed was just over three kilometres per hour from the southeast, that there was no rain and practically no cloud cover, and that the temperature was around 13 degree Celsius.[1] The OPCW FFM, in the absence of actual weather data recorded for Khan Shaykhun and instead relying on actual weather data recorded at three other locations in the area, concluded that the wind speed was low with uncertain direction, most likely coming from somewhere between the south and east. All available data indicates stable atmospheric conditions without significant turbulence. Under such conditions, the agent cloud would have drifted slowly downhill following the terrain features at the location (roads and open spaces), in a southerly and westerly direction. This is consistent with the observed locational pattern of individuals becoming affected by the agent cloud.

11.The chemical bomb released a cloud which spread over a distance between 300 and 600 metres from the impact point and killed at least 83 persons, including 28 children and 23 women

However, well-known missile expert and former scientific advisor to the UN Chief of Naval Operations, MIT professor Theodore Postol, in his report debunking a separate White House report on Khan Sheikhoun (see “The Nerve Agent Attack That Did Not Occur”), also does significant damage to the UN report that was recently released. Notice that Postol was able to access weather data.

Postol writes,

This analysis contains a detailed description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria – assuming that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged sarin release site.

Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged nerve agent release. The hamlet is separated from the alleged release site (a crater) by an open field. The winds at the time of the release would have initially taken the sarin across the open field. Beyond the hamlet there is a substantial amount of open space and the sarin cloud would have had to travel long additional distance for it to have dissipated before reaching any other population center.

Video taken on April 4 shows that the location where the victims were supposedly being treated from sarin exposure is incompatible with the only open space in the hamlet that could have been used for mass treatment of victims. This indicates that the video scenes where mass casualties (dead and dying) were laid on the ground randomly was not at the hamlet. If the location where the bodies were on the ground was instead a site where the injured and dead were taken for processing, then it is hard to understand why bodies were left randomly strewn on the ground and in mud as shown in the videos.

The conclusion of this summary of data is obvious – the nerve agent attack described in the WHR did not occur as claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR.

The findings of this analysis can serve two important purposes:

1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity. In particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from the nerve agent attack lived, it will further confirm that the findings reported by the WHR are not compatible with the data it cites as evidence for its conclusions.

2. It also establishes that the WHR did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis procedures to determine its conclusions.

This raises troubling questions about how the US political and military leadership determined that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the US government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and to a standard of high confidence.

. . . . .

The construction of the time of day at which particular video frames were generated is determined by simply using the planetary geometry of the sun angle during the day on April 4. The illustration below of the sun-angle geometry shows the Day/Night Sun Terminator at the location of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4. The angle of the sun relative to local horizontal is summarized in the table that follows the image of the planetary geometry along with the temperature during the day between 6:30 AM and 6 PM.

The next set of two side-by-side images shows the shadows at a location where a large number of poison victims are being treated in what appears to be the aftermath of a poisoning event. The shadows indicate that this event occurred at about 7:30 AM. This is consistent with the possibility of a nerve agent attack at 7 AM on the morning of April 4 and it is also consistent with the allegation in the WHR that an attack occurred at 6:55 AM on that day.

The timing sequence of the attack is important for determining the consistency of the timelines with the allegations of a sarin release at the crater identified in the WHR.

Assuming there was an enough sarin released from the crater identified by the WHR to cause mass casualties at significant downwind distances, the sarin would have drifted downwind at a speed of 1 to 2 m/s and for several minutes before encountering the only location where mass casualties could have occurred from this particular release. The location where these mass casualties would have had to occur will be identified and described in the next section. If there was a sarin release elsewhere, mass casualties would have not occurred at this location but would have occurred somewhere else in the city.

Assuming the victims of the attack were exposed to the plume, the symptoms of sarin poisoning would have express themselves almost immediately. As such, the scene at 7:30 AM on April 4 is absolutely consistent with the possibility of a mass poisoning downwind of the sarin-release crater.

The next figure shows the earliest photograph we have been able to find of an individual standing by the sarin-release crater where the alleged release occurred. The photo was posted on April 4 and the shadow indicates the time of day was around 10:50 AM. Thus the individual was standing by the crater roughly 4 hours after the dispersal event.

If the dispersal event was from this crater, the area where this unprotected individual is standing would be toxic and this individual would be subjected to the severe and possibly fatal effects of sarin poisoning. As a result, this throws substantial suspicion on the possibility that the crater identified by WHR would be the source of the sarin release.
At the time of the sarin release, the temperature of the air was about 60°F and the sun was at an angle of only 8° relative to local horizontal. This means that liquid sarin left on the ground from the dispersal event would remain mostly unevaporated. By 11 AM, the temperature of the air had risen to 75° and the angle of the sun relative to horizontal was at 66°. Thus, one would expect that the combination of the rise in air temperature and the sun on the crater would lead to significant evaporation of liquid sarin left behind from the initial dispersal event. The air temperature and sun angle are such that the area around the crater should have been quite dangerous for anybody without protection to operate.

This is therefore an important indication that the crater was probably not a dispersal site of the sarin.

The final set of three photographs shows arriving victims seeking treatment at a hospital at some location in Khan Sheikhoun. The arrivals at the hospital are at between 9 and 10:30 AM on the day of the attack. This is perhaps late since victims were seriously exposed by 7:30 AM, but victims could have been trailing in after the initial arrival of severely affected victims. This time is considerably earlier than the time at which WHR alleges that a hospital was attacked while treating victims of the poisoning attack.

. . . . .

As such, the Hamlet could well have been within lethal range of the sarin exposure. However, areas further downwind from the Hamlet would be sufficiently far away that the sarin will have dispersed sufficiently that it would not be capable of causing deaths.

Thus, the Hamlet area 300 m downwind of the crater is the only area where mass casualties could occur if there had been a sarin release at the crater as alleged by the WHR!

I highly encourage accessing Postol’s report entitled, “The Nerve Agent Attack That Did Not Occur: Analysis Of The Times And Locations Of Critical Events In The Alleged Nerve Agent Attack At 7AM On April 4, 2017 In Khan Sheikhoun, Syria.”

Assad and the Syrian Government Denies Using Chemical Weapons In Khan Sheikhoun

For its part, the Syrian government has categorically denied launching chemical weapons against civilians or terrorists in Idlib. Russia has reaffirmed that the Syrian military is innocent of the charges brought by the West with a military source telling al-Masdar News that the army “has not and does not use them, not in the past and not in the future, because it does not have them in the first place.”

But to listen to the Western corporate press, one would be excused in believing that there was overwhelming and damning evidence to the contrary as both the press and Western governments continue to hurl accusations at the Syrian government. Indeed, some outlets have even went so far as to blame Russia for dropping chemical-laced missiles into Idlib, an impossibility since Russia was not conducting any airstrikes over Idlib at the time.

The Weapons Depot

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the incident was not a “chemical weapons attack” but the result of an SAA airstrike against a terrorist weapons depot that was also being used for the production of chemical weapons. Major-General Igor Konashenkov, the Defense Ministry Spokesman, stated that the facility was being used to produce these chemical weapons for shipment to terrorist forces inside Iraq. The warehouse that was bombed, according to Konashenkov, was being used to both produce and store shells that contained toxic gas which were then shipped to Iraq and used there. He pointed out that both the Iraqi government and a number of international organizations have confirmed the use of these types of weapons by terrorists operating in Iraq.

Konashenkov added that the terrorists used the same type of weapons in Aleppo, where Russian military experts took samples in 2016. The Russian Defense Ministry claims to have confirmed this information as being “fully objective and verified.” The Ministry also claimed that the victims of Khan Sheikhoun exhibited identical symptoms to those shown by victims in the Aleppo attacks.

“According to Russian airspace monitoring systems, yesterday between 11.30 and 12.30 local time the Syrian aviation carried out an airstrike on the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhun, targeting a major ammunition storage facility of terrorists and a cluster of military hardware. The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles stuffed with toxic agents,” Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

“From this major arsenal, chemical-laden weapons were delivered by militants to Iraq. Their use by terrorists was confirmed on numerous occasions by international organizations and official authorities of the country,” he said.

Video footage from social networks shows that those affected in Khan Sheikhun demonstrate the same symptoms of poisoning as the victims of the Aleppo attack had last fall,” he added. “We assure that this information is completely unbiased and true.”

The terrorists, however, disagree with the Russian statement. As RT reports,

Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the Free Idlib Army rebel group, rejected Russia’s version of the incident, saying the rebels had no military positions in the area.

“Everyone saw the plane while it was bombing with gas,” he told Reuters.

“Likewise, all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the manufacture [of weapons]. The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these substances,” he added.

This is false. Khan Sheikhoun is terrorist-held territory and it is held by force. Naturally, the Syrian people in Khan Sheikhoun are no more interested in being ruled by Neanderthal freaks as any other town in the country, and thus terrorists must be present to maintain order and prevent Syrians from expressing civilized behavior.

Second, terrorists in Syria have, for years, had the ability to manufacture, produce, and use chemical weapons. Back in December of 2012, after the death squads managed to capture a chlorine factory inside Syria, the Syrian government actually issued a warning that the death squads might attempt to use chemical weapons of this nature in their battle to overthrow and oppress the government and people of Syria respectively. The Syrian Foreign Ministry stated, “Terrorist groups may resort to using chemical weapons against the Syrian people … after having gained control of a toxic chlorine factory.”