Two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia<\/p>\n
MEMORANDUM FOR: <\/b>The President 1 \u2013 We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia \u2013 with the risk of escalation to nuclear war. The threat has grown after the cruise missile attack on Syria in retaliation for what you claimed was a \u201cchemical weapons attack\u201d on April 4 on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib Province.<\/p>\n 2 \u2013 Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened. There was no Syrian \u201cchemical weapons attack.\u201d Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 3 \u2013 This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and \u2013 more important \u2013what they appear to believe happened.<\/p>\n 4 \u2013 Do we conclude that the White House has been giving our generals dictation; that they are mouthing what they have been told to say?<\/p>\n 5 \u2013 After Putin persuaded Assad in 2013 to give up his chemical weapons, the US Army destroyed 600 metric tons of Syria’s CW stockpile in just six weeks. The mandate of the U.N.\u2019s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW-UN) was to ensure that all were destroyed \u2013 like the mandate for the UN inspectors for Iraq regarding WMD. The UN inspectors\u2019 findings on WMD were the truth. Rumsfeld and his generals lied and this seems to be happening again. The stakes are even higher now; the importance of a relationship of trust with Russia\u2019s leaders cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n 6 \u2013 In September 2013, after Putin persuaded Assad to relinquish his chemical weapons (giving Obama a way out of a tough dilemma), the Russian President wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: \u201cMy working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this.\u201d<\/p>\n D\u00e9tente Nipped in the Bud<\/strong><\/p>\n 7 \u2013 Three-plus years later, on April 4, 2017, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev spoke of \u201cabsolute mistrust,\u201d which he characterized as \u201csad for our now completely ruined relations [but] good news for terrorists.\u201d Not only sad, in our view, but totally unnecessary \u2013 worse still, dangerous.<\/p>\n 8 \u2013 With Moscow\u2019s cancellation of the agreement to de-conflict flight activity over Syria, the clock has been turned back six months to the situation last September\/October when 11 months of tough negotiation brought a ceasefire agreement. US Air Force attacks on fixed Syrian army positions on Sept. 17, 2016, killing about 70 and wounding another 100, scuttled the fledgling ceasefire agreement approved by Obama and Putin a week before. Trust evaporated.<\/p>\n 9 \u2013 On Sept. 26, 2016, Foreign Minister Lavrov lamented: \u201cMy good friend John Kerry \u2026 is under fierce criticism from the US military machine, [which] apparently does not really listen to the Commander in Chief.\u201d Lavrov criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia on Syria, \u201cafter the [ceasefire] agreement, concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama, had stipulated that the two sides would share intelligence. \u2026 It is difficult to work with such partners. \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n 10 \u2013 On Oct. 1, 2016, Russia\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned, \u201cIf the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region.\u201d<\/p>\n 11 \u2013 On Oct. 6, 2016, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov cautioned that Russia was prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft \u2013 including any stealth aircraft \u2013 over Syria. Konashenkov made a point of adding that Russian air defenses \u201cwill not have time to identify the origin\u201d of the aircraft.<\/p>\n 12 \u2013 On Oct. 27, 2016, Putin publicly lamented, “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results,” and complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice.” Referring to Syria, Putin decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.”<\/p>\n 13 \u2013 Thus, the unnecessarily precarious state into which U.S.-Russian relations have now sunk \u2013 from \u201cgrowing trust\u201d to \u201cabsolute mistrust.\u201d To be sure, many welcome the high tension, which \u2013 admittedly \u2013 is super for the arms business.<\/p>\n 14 \u2013 We believe it of transcendent importance to prevent relations with Russia from falling into a state of complete disrepair. Secretary Tillerson\u2019s visit to Moscow this week offers an opportunity to stanch the damage, but there is also a danger that it could increase the acrimony \u2013 particularly if Secretary Tillerson is not familiar with the brief history set down above.<\/p>\n 15 \u2013 Surely it is time to deal with Russia on the basis of facts, not allegations based largely on dubious evidence \u2013 from \u201csocial media,\u201d for example. While many would view this time of high tension as ruling out a summit, we suggest the opposite may be true. You might consider instructing Secretary Tillerson to begin arrangements for an early summit with President Putin.<\/p>\n A handful of CIA veterans established VIPS in January 2003 after concluding that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had ordered our former colleagues to manufacture intelligence to \u201cjustify\u201d an unnecessary war with Iraq. At the time we chose to assume that President George W. Bush was not fully aware of this.<\/p>\n We issued our first Memorandum for the President on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2003, after Colin Powell\u2019s ill-begotten speech at the United Nations. Addressing President Bush, we closed with these words:<\/p>\n No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is \u201cirrefutable\u201d or \u201cundeniable\u201d [adjectives Powell applied to his charges against Saddam Hussein]. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.<\/em><\/p>\n Respectfully, we offer the same advice to you, President Trump.<\/p>\n
FROM: <\/b>Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)<\/a>
SUBJECT: <\/b>Syria: Was It Really \u201cA Chemical Weapons Attack\u201d?<\/p>\n