Ladies and Gentlemen, WMDII: A Newsweek Reporter Resigns, A Counter-Narrative Won’t Die

[DKW 86 7,437]

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/a-newsweek-reporter-resigns-a-counter-narrative-wont-die/

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REALISM & RESTRAINT

A Newsweek Reporter Resigns, A Counter-Narrative Won’t Die

Is the media suppressing evidence that the 2018 chemical 'attack' in Syria didn't happen the way officials said it did?

A picture taken on February 1, 2018, shows members of the Civil defence removing the remnants of a rocket reportedly fired by regime forces on the outskirts of the rebel-held besieged Syrian town of Douma, Syria, a month before the alleged major chemical attack in April.(Photo credit:HAMZA AL-AJWEH/AFP via Getty Images)

 

DECEMBER 27, 2019

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12:01 AM

SCOTT RITTER

 

It is perhaps the least reported media scandal about the least reported international controversy in recent times—the resignation of Tareq Haddad, a well-regarded journalist from Newsweek, a mainstay of the mainstream media. 

At issue was what he said regarding the magazine’s refusal to cover the scandal unfolding within the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Evidence has been building for some time that the OPCW cooked the books in its investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018. These allegations served as the justification for a subsequent joint U.S.-U.K.-France attack against suspected chemical weapons targets inside Syria, despite the fact that the OPCW had yet to inspect the Douma location, let alone issue a report on its findings.

In an announcement on Twitter, Haddad declared, “I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letterwere refused for no valid reason,” adding, “I have collected evidence of how they [the OPCW] suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US govt was removed, though it was factually correct.” Haddad further noted that he had been threatened by Newsweek with legal action if he sought to publish his findings elsewhere.

The OPCW’s Douma investigation has been under a cloud of controversy since shortly after its interim report was released to the public in early March 2019. The document was prepared by Ian Henderson, an engineer working for the OPCW. It challenged the conclusions of the inspection team regarding the provenance of two chlorine canisters located at the incident scene, and was leaked to the press. 

 

The document, which the OPCW subsequently declared to be genuine, raised the probability that the canisters had been manually placed at the scene, as opposed to having been dropped by the Syrian Air Force, raising the question as to whether the entire Douma incident had been staged.

Haddad’s story, however, was not about Ian Henderson’s report, but rather a series of new documents, backed up by an inspector-turned-whistleblower known only as “Alex,” that accused the OPCW leadership of ignoring the findings of its own inspectors in favor of a revisionist report prepared by another team of inspectors based out of Turkey. This second group allegedly relied heavily on data and witnesses provided by the Syrian Civil Defense (the “White Helmets”) and the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), two ostensibly humanitarian organizations opposed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Haddad’s new sources emerged after the publication of the OPCW’s final report on the Douma incident in July 2019. That document concluded that chlorine had been used as a weapon at Douma, likely via chlorine canisters dropped from aircraft—making the Syrian government solely responsible and legitimizing the U.S.-led aerial attacks.

The leaked material was verified by interviews to select reporters (possibly including Haddad, who is seeking whistleblower-like protection from Newsweek) by “Alex,” who claims to have been part of the Douma investigation. The narrative that emerges from a cursory examination of this new data is damning—the OPCW suppressed the findings of the investigation team, which concluded that chlorine had not been used as a weapon at Douma. The OPCW management then conspired with the U.S. government to manufacture another report, based on an alternate set of facts, which sustained the notion that the Syrian government had, in fact, used chlorine as a weapon.

 

The OPCW management has largely ignored the leaks. The current director general, Fernando Arias, defended the work of his organization, declaring, “While some of these diverse views continue to circulate in some public discussion forums, I would like to reiterate that I stand by the independent, professional conclusion [of the investigation].” For its part, Newsweek, through a spokesperson, told a reporter, “The writer [Haddad] pitched a conspiracy theory rather than an idea for objective reporting. Newsweek editors rejected the pitch.”

Under normal circumstances, the leaked documents and first-hand testimony of a whistleblower like “Alex” would have garnered the attention of the mainstream media, especially given their link to the Trump administration. There was a time when the media wasn’t afraid to take a controversial story and run with it, even one that involved multilateral arms control. In August 1998, I resigned from my position as a chief weapons inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), which had been charged with the removal, destruction, or dismantling of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in accordance with relevant UN Security Council resolutions. My resignation was front-page news at both The New York Times and The Washington Post (among others), and I was called to testify before the both the Senate and the House about my allegations, which centered on American interference with the work of UNSCOM. 

In retrospect, I’d be delusional to believe that the sole reason the media had taken an interest in my story was that they found the intricacies of disarming Iraq fascinating. The reality was that, at least from the perspective of the mass media, my resignation had served as a means to play the story off against competing domestic political power bases, which in my case consisted of an incumbent Democratic president, Bill Clinton, and a Congress where both houses were controlled by Republicans. 

My story had relevance not because I was empowered with fact-based truth (I was), but because my cause was taken up by one side (congressional Republicans) and used as a political cudgel against the other (President Clinton). The moment both the president and Congress came together of one mind, choosing military-backed regime change over legitimate disarmament, my utility was eliminated, and the media dropped me like a bad habit. The demonization of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq precluded any meaningful discussion of issues of disarmament, with the end result the unquestioning embrace of the notion that Iraq had retained WMD, despite there being no evidence to sustain this, and an acceptance of war as the only viable solution, despite the fact that weapons inspections had proven they could be useful.

While conventional wisdom eventually evolved to accept the fact that the UN disarmament process had worked, and that I was correct when I’d reported that Iraq had been qualitatively disarmed and no longer posed a threat worthy of war, the fact remains that the issue of Iraqi WMD was always secondary to the issue of Saddam Hussein. Even once there was agreement that the WMD had been nonexistent, there was never any rethinking of how we had collectively pigeonholed Saddam into the “evil dictator” category, with the merits of his removal rarely questioned.

There are many similarities between my case and that of the OPCW inspectors, especially when it comes to their defending the integrity of the institution they represent and resisting the corruption of outside influences. The OPCW matter, however, remains a matter of internal dispute, denied the grand stage of American politics and the media attention that would garner.

There are several reasons for this. First, it is hard to rally people around a case where the central debate is over the relevance of particles per billion, or engineering equations concerning the tensile strength of concrete and steel. While the underlying science and math appears to be on the side of Ian Henderson and “Alex,” the refusal of the OPCW to engage in any substantive discussion means that what passes for a “debate” has been hijacked by social media personalities. They’re led by Eliot Higgins and his cohort of Bellingcat “specialists” who back up their questionable science with well-worn tropes designating all who oppose them as “pro-Assad” conspiracy theorists and/or Russian-controlled trolls who are simply regurgitating “Kremlin talking points.”

Newsweek’s suppression of the reporting of Tareq Haddad is disturbing; the failure of the mainstream media to pick up the metaphorical ball and run with it is a damning indictment of the current state of journalism today. There was a time when an intrepid investigative reporter like Seymour Hersh would have sunk his teeth into a story such as this. But Hersh’s one-time outlet of choice—the New Yorker—and its editor, David Remnick, have foregone the pursuit of truth in favor of publishing stories that demonize Assad and Putin. The same can be said of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major media outlets. 

The OPCW whistleblower scandal has all the elements of a blockbuster—heroes, villains, scandal, lies, and cover-up. But fact-based truth is no longer the fuel of the media business that modern journalism is supposed to sustain, especially when the truth can so easily be fobbed off as “pro-Assad” or “pro-Russia.” As long as this model remains in place, and the work of genuine journalists such as Tareq Haddad is suppressed by editors, the American people will remain prisoners of their own ignorance.   

[DKW 86 7,437]

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/14/5-former-opcw-officials-join-prominent-voices-to-call-out-syria-cover-up/

5 former OPCW officials join prominent voices to call out Syria cover-up

Prominent signatories and five former OPCW officials are calling on the chemical watchdog to address the cover-up of its chemical weapons investigation in the Syrian city of Douma, and to hear out the dissenting scientists whose findings were censored.

 

Five former officials from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons have joined a group of prominent signatories to urge the OPCW to address the controversy surrounding its investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.

Leaks from inside the OPCW show that key scientific findings that cast doubt on claims of Syrian government guilt were censored, and that the original investigators were removed from the probe. Since the cover-up became public, the OPCW has shunned accountability and publicly attacked the two whistleblowers who challenged it from inside.

The “Statement of Concern” is signed by five former OPCW officials, including the organization’s founding leader, José Bustani, and others including Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Tulsi Gabbard, John Pilger, Lord West of Spithead, as well two former senior UN officials, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck.

“The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security,” the statement says. “It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists.”

Pushback host Aaron Maté details the letter and airs clips of his and Tulsi Gabbard’s recent “Tucker Carlson Tonight” appearance discussing the OPCW controversy.

 

 

Statement of Concern: The OPCW investigation of alleged chemical weapons use in Douma, Syria
March 11, 2021

We wish to express our deep concern over the protracted controversy and political fall-out surrounding the OPCW and its investigation of the alleged chemical weapon attacks in Douma, Syria, on 7 April 2018.

Since the publication by the OPCW of its final report in March 2019, a series of worrying developments has raised serious and substantial concerns with respect to the conduct of that investigation. These developments include instances in which OPCW inspectors involved with the investigation have identified major procedural and scientific irregularities, the leaking of a significant quantity of corroborating documents, and damning statements provided to UN Security Council meetings. It is now well established that some senior inspectors involved with the investigation, one of whom played a central role, reject how the investigation derived its conclusions, and OPCW management now stands accused of accepting unsubstantiated or possibly manipulated findings with the most serious geo-political and security implications. Calls by some members of the Executive Council of the OPCW to allow all inspectors to be heard were blocked.

The inspectors’ concerns are shared by the first Director General of the OPCW, José Bustani, and a significant number of eminent individuals have called for transparency and accountability at the OPCW. Bustani himself was recently prevented by key members of the Security Council from participating in a hearing on the Syrian dossier. As Ambassador Bustani stated in a personal appeal to the Director General, if the Organization is confident in the conduct of its Douma investigation then it should have no difficulty addressing the inspectors’ concerns.

To date, unfortunately, the OPCW senior management has failed to adequately respond to the allegations against it and, despite making statements to the contrary, we understand has never properly allowed the views or concerns of the members of the investigation team to be heard or even met with most of them. It has, instead, side-stepped the issue by launching an investigation into a leaked document related to the Douma case and by publicly condemning its most experienced inspectors for speaking out.

In a worrying recent development, a draft letter falsely alleged to have been sent by the Director General to one of the dissenting inspectors was leaked to an ‘open source’ investigation website in an apparent attempt to smear the former senior OPCW scientist. The ‘open source’ website then published the draft letter together with the identity of the inspector in question. Even more alarmingly, in a BBC4 radio series aired recently, an anonymous source, reportedly connected with the OPCW Douma investigation, gave an interview with the BBC in which he contributes to an attempt to discredit not only the two dissenting inspectors, but even Ambassador Bustani himself. Importantly, recent leaks in December 2020 have evidenced that a number of senior OPCW officials were supportive of one OPCW inspector who had spoken out with respect to malpractice.

The issue at hand threatens to severely damage the reputation and credibility of the OPCW and undermine its vital role in the pursuit of international peace and security. It is simply not tenable for a scientific organization such as the OPCW to refuse to respond openly to the criticisms and concerns of its own scientists whilst being associated with attempts to discredit and smear those scientists. Moreover, the on-going controversy regarding the Douma report also raises concerns with respect to the reliability of previous FFM reports, including the investigation of the alleged attack at Khan Shaykhun in 2017.

We believe that the interests of the OPCW are best served by the Director General providing a transparent and neutral forum in which the concerns of all the investigators can be heard as well as ensuring that a fully objective and scientific investigation is completed.

To that end, we call on the Director General of the OPCW to find the courage to address the problems within his organization relating to this investigation and ensure States Parties and the United Nations are informed accordingly. In this way we hope and believe that the credibility and integrity of the OPCW can be restored.

Signatories in Support of the Statement of Concern:

José Bustani, Ambassador of Brazil, first Director General of the OPCW and former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and France.

Professor Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor U. of Arizona and Institute Professor (em), MIT.

Andrew Cockburn, Washington editor, Harper’s Magazine.

Daniel Ellsberg, PERI Distinguished Research Fellow, UMass Amherst. Former Defense and State Department official. Former official of Defense Department (GS-18) and State Department (FSR-1).

Professor Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University.

Tulsi Gabbard, former Presidential candidate and Member of the US House of Representatives (2013-2021).

Professor Dr. Ulrich Gottstein, on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW-Germany).

Katharine Gun, former GCHQ (UKGOV), whistleblower.

Denis J. Halliday, UN Assistant Secretary-General (1994-98).

Professor Pervez Houdbhoy, Quaid-e-Azam University and ex Pugwash.

Kristinn Hrafnnson, Editor in Chief, Wikileaks.

Dr. Sabine Krüger, Analytical Chemist, Former OPCW Inspector 1997-2009.

Ray McGovern, ex-CIA Presidential Briefer; co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

 

Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council (rtd); member, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

Professor Götz Neuneck, Pugwash Council and German Pugwash Chair.

Dirk van Niekerk, former OPCW Inspection Team Leader, Head of OPCW Special Mission to Iraq

John Pilger, Emmy and Bafta winning journalist and film maker.

Professor Theodore A. Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and National Security Policy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Antonius Roof, former OPCW Inspection Team Leader and Head Industry Inspections.

Professor John Avery Scales, Professor, Pugwash Council and Danish Pugwash Chair.

Hans von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator (Iraq).

Alan Steadman, Chemical Weapons Munitions Specialist, Former OPCW Inspection Team Leader and UNSCOM Inspector.

Jonathan Steele, journalist and author.

Roger Waters, Musician and Activist.

Lord West of Spithead, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff 2002-06.

Oliver Stone, Film Director, Producer and Writer.

Colonel (ret.) Lawrence B. Wilkerson, U.S. Army, Visiting Professor at William and Mary College and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

5 former OPCW officials join prominent voices to call out Syria cover-up

[CoffeeTiger 5,154]

Interesting topic to be sure. Not sure exactly what to make of it though. I think the first article is playing up the journalist Tareq Hadda a bit much. NewsWeek seemed to be his first and only major journalism job and he was only employed by Newsweek for 3 months before quitting/being fired after the controversy. He then apparently just started his own blog and became self employed. So I don't know if that makes him a 'well regarded' journalist or not.

 

From what I gather, a person or two within the OPCW thought the investigation wasn't done well and there "may" have been some kind of coverup? There has been some recent reporting from the AP and other news outlets about the OPCW releasing a report that it didn't find WMD's in its fact finding mission, so at least that info is getting out there. 

https://apnews.com/article/chemical-weapons-syria-archive-aleppo-04f6a88cb89098925d5ca2ee2d09d74b#:~:text=Opposition groups blamed the attack,where injured victims were treated.