Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration\u2019s version of events surrounding the April 4 \u201cchemical weapons attack\u201d on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun \u2013 though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out.<\/p>\n
In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports<\/a> that his national security sources offered a distinctly different account, revealing President Trump rashly deciding to launch 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase on April 6 despite the absence of intelligence supporting his conclusion that the Syrian military was guilty.<\/p>\n Hersh draws on the kind of inside sources from whom he has earned longstanding trust to dispute that there ever was a \u201cchemical weapons attack\u201d and to assert that Trump was told that no evidence existed against the Syrian government but ordered \u201chis generals\u201d to \u201cretaliate\u201d anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Marine General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Marine General, now Defense Secretary James \u201cMad-Dog\u201d Mattis ordered the attacks apparently knowing that the reason given was what one of Hersh\u2019s sources called a \u201cfairy tale.\u201d<\/p>\n They then left it to Trump\u2019s national security adviser Army General H. R. McMaster to further the deceit with the help of a compliant mainstream media, which broke from its current tradition of distrusting whatever Trump says in favor of its older tradition of favoring \u201cregime change\u201d in Syria and trusting pretty much whatever the \u201crebels\u201d claim.<\/p>\n According to Hersh\u2019s sources, the normal \u201cdeconfliction\u201d process was followed before the April 4 strike. In such procedures, U.S. and Russian officers supply one another with advance details of airstrikes, such as target coordinates, to avoid accidental confrontations among the warplanes crisscrossing Syria.<\/p>\n Russia and Syrian Air Force officers gave details of the flight path to and from Khan Sheikhoun in English, Hersh reported. The target was a two-story cinderblock building in which senior leaders \u2013 \u201chigh-value targets\u201d \u2013 of the two jihadist groups controlling the town were about to hold a meeting. Because of the perceived importance of the mission, the Russians took the unusual step of giving the Syrian air force a GPS-guided bomb to do the job, but the explosives were conventional, not chemical, Hersh reported.<\/p>\n The meeting place was on the floor above the basement of the building, where a source whom Hersh described as \u201ca senior adviser to the US intelligence community,\u201d told Hersh: \u201cThe basement was used as storage for rockets, weapons, and ammunition \u2026 and also chlorine-based decontaminates for cleansing the bodies of the dead before burial.\u201d<\/p>\n A Bomb Damage Assessment<\/strong><\/p>\n Hersh describes what happened when the building was struck on the morning of April 4: \u201cA Bomb Damage Assessment by the US military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of fertilizers, disinfectants, and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to intelligence estimates, the strike itself killed up to four jihadist leaders and an unknown number of drivers and security aides. There is no confirmed count of the number of civilians killed by the poisonous gases that were released by the secondary explosions, although opposition activists reported that there were more than 80 dead, and outlets such as CNN have put the figure as high as 92.\u201d<\/p>\n Due to the fog of war, which is made denser by the fact that jihadists associated with Al Qaeda control the area, many of the details of the incident were unclear on that day and remain so still. No independent on-the-ground investigation has taken place<\/a>.<\/p>\n But there were other reasons to doubt Syrian guilt, including the implausibility of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad choosing that time \u2013 while his forces were making dramatic strides in finally defeating the jihadists and immediately after the Trump administration had indicated it had reversed President Obama\u2019s \u201cregime change\u201d policy in Syria \u2013 to launch a sarin attack, which was sure to outrage the world and likely draw US retaliation.<\/p>\n However, logic was brushed aside after local \u201cactivists,\u201d including some closely tied to the jihadists, quickly uploaded all manner of images onto social media, showing dead and dying children and other victims said to be suffering from sarin nerve gas. Inconsistencies were brushed aside \u2013 such as the \u201ceyewitness\u201d who insisted, \u201cWe could smell it from 500 meters away\u201d when sarin is odorless.<\/p>\n Potent Images<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, whether credible or not, these social-media images had a potent propaganda effect. Hersh writes that within hours of watching the gruesome photos on TV \u2013 and before he had received any US intelligence corroboration \u2013 Trump told his national security aides to plan retaliation against Syria. According to Hersh, it was an evidence-free decision, except for what Trump had seen on the TV shows.<\/p>\n Hersh quotes one US officer who, upon learning of the White House decision to \u201cretaliate\u201d against Syria, remarked: \u201cWe KNOW that there was no chemical attack … the Russians are furious \u2013 claiming we have the real intel and know the truth…\u201d<\/p>\n A similar event had occurred on Aug. 21, 2013, outside Damascus \u2013 and although the available evidence now points to a \u201cfalse-flag\u201d provocation<\/a> pulled off by the jihadists to trick the West into mounting a full-fledged assault on Assad\u2019s military, Western media still blames that incident on Assad, too.<\/p>\n In the Aug. 21, 2013 case, social media also proved crucial in creating and pushing the Assad-did-it narrative. On Aug. 30, 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry pinned the responsibility on Assad no fewer than 35 times, even though earlier that week National Intelligence Director James Clapper had warned President Obama privately that Assad\u2019s culpability was \u201cnot a slam dunk<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Kerry was fond of describing social media as an \u201cextraordinarily useful tool,\u201d and it sure did come in handy in supporting Kerry\u2019s repeated but unproven charges against Assad, especially since the US government had invested heavily in training and equipping Syrian \u201cactivists\u201d to dramatize their cause. (The mainstream media also has ignored evidence that the jihadists staged at least one chlorine gas attack<\/a>. And, as you may recall, President George W. Bush also spoke glowingly about the value of \u201ccatapulting the propaganda.\u201d)<\/p>\n Implications for U.S.-Russia<\/strong><\/p>\n To the extent Hersh\u2019s account finds its way into Western corporate media, most likely it will be dismissed out of hand simply because it dovetails with Moscow\u2019s version of what happened and thus is, ipso facto, \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Russians (and the Syrians) know what did happen \u2013 and if there really was no sarin bombing \u2013 they recognize Trump\u2019s reckless resort to Tomahawks and the subsequent attempts to cover up for the President. All this will have repercussions.<\/p>\n This is as tense a time in U.S-Russian relations as I can remember from my five decades of experience watching Russian defense and foreign policy. It is left to the Russians to figure out which is worse: a President controlled by \u201chis generals\u201d or one who is so out of control that \u201chis generals\u201d are the ones who must restrain him.<\/p>\n With Russia reiterating its threat to target any unannounced aircraft flying in Syrian airspace west of the Euphrates, Russian President Putin could authorize his own generals to shoot first and ask questions later. Then, hold onto your hat.<\/p>\n As of this writing, there is no sign in \u201cmainstream media\u201d of any reporting on Hersh\u2019s groundbreaking piece. It is a commentary on the conformist nature of today\u2019s Western media that an alternative analysis challenging the conventional wisdom \u2013 even when produced by a prominent journalist like Sy Hersh \u2013 faces such trouble finding a place to publish.<\/p>\n The mainstream hatred of Assad and Putin has reached such extraordinary levels that pretty much anything can be said or written about them with few if any politicians or journalists daring to express doubts regardless of how shaky the evidence is.<\/p>\n Even the London Review of Books,<\/em> which published Hersh\u2019s earlier debunking of the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin-gas incident, wouldn\u2019t go off onto the limb this time despite having paid for his investigation.<\/p>\n According to Hersh, the LRB<\/em> did not want to be \u201cvulnerable to criticism for seeming to take the view of the Syrian and Russia governments when it came to the April 4 bombing in Khan Sheikhoun.\u201d So much for diversity of thought in today\u2019s West.<\/p>\n Yet, what was interesting about the Khan Sheikhoun case is that was a test of whom the mainstream media detested more. The MSM has taken the position that pretty much whatever Trump says is untrue or at least deserving of intense fact-checking. But the MSM also believes whatever attacks on Assad that the Syrian \u201cactivists\u201d post on social media are true and disbelieves whatever Putin says. So, this was a tug-of-war on which prejudices were stronger \u2013 and it turned out that the antipathy toward Syria and Russia is more powerful than the distrust of Trump.<\/p>\n Ignoring Critics<\/strong><\/p>\n The MSM bought into Trump\u2019s narrative to such a degree that any criticism, no matter how credentialed the critic, gets either ignored or ridiculed.<\/p>\n For instance, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity produced a memo<\/a> on April 11 questioning Trump\u2019s rush to judgment. Former MIT professor Ted Postol, a specialist in applying science to national security incidents, also poked major holes<\/a> in the narrative of a government sarin attack. But the MSM silence was deafening.<\/p>\n In remarks to Die Welt<\/em>, Seymour Hersh, who first became famous for exposing the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War and disclosed the Abu Ghraib abuse story during the Iraq War, explained that he still gets upset at government lying and at the reluctance of the media to hold governments accountable:<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a President in America today who lies repeatedly \u2026 but he must learn that he cannot lie about intelligence relied upon before authorizing an act of war. There are those in the Trump administration who understand this, which is why I learned the information I did. If this story creates even a few moments of regret in the White House, it will have served a very high purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n But it may be that the Germans reading Welt am Sonntag<\/em> may be among the few who will get the benefit of Hersh\u2019s contrarian view of the April 4 incident in Khan Sheikhoun. Perhaps they will begin to wonder why Chancellor Angela Merkel continues with her \u201cme-too\u201d approach to whatever Washington wants to do regarding tensions with Russia and warfare in Syria.<\/p>\n Will Merkel admit that she was likely deceived in parroting Washington\u2019s line making the Syrian government responsible for a \u201cmassacre with chemical weapons\u201d on April 4? Mercifully, most Americans will be spared having to choose between believing President Trump and Seymour Hersh.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry\/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst for a total of 30 years and now servers on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). <\/i>Reprinted with permission from Consortium News<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh is challenging the Trump administration\u2019s version of events surrounding the April 4 \u201cchemical weapons attack\u201d on the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun \u2013 though Hersh had to find a publisher in Germany to get his information out. In the Sunday edition of Die Welt, Hersh reports that his national […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-29263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29265,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29263\/revisions\/29265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29263"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}