U.S. Charges Russia Tampered with Alleged Syria Chemical Attack Site

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

U.S. Charges Russia Tampered with Alleged Syria Chemical Attack Site

April 17, 2018 (EIRNS)—Yesterday’s meeting of the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was the scene of accusations and countercharges, as the U.S. and the U.K. accused Russia of blocking access to the site in Douma, Syria of the April 7 alleged chemical weapons attack. Even worse, the U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW Kenneth Ward claimed that the Russians may have tampered with the site of the alleged April 7 chemical attack “with the intent of thwarting the efforts of the OPCW fact-finding mission to conduct an effective investigation,” Ward said, the Wall Street Journal reported. The same powers that were accusing Russia of blocking OPCW access to the site of an alleged chemical attack were more than happy, in late 2017 to accept the report of a joint UN-OPCW investigation blaming the Syrian government for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, though the investigators declined to visit the attack site!

Ambassador Alexander Shulgin, Russia’s representative to the OPCW, told the council that the U.S. is worried that the inspectors might not find any evidence of an attack, and thus are worried about what happens next.

“The U.S. ambassador said that Russian experts had visited the site of the presumable chemical attack and cleaned up something there to help the Syrians cover up the tracks,”

Shulgin said.

“We consider that as a clumsy attempt to cushion the blow in case it turns out that they have lied about what had actually happened.

“Our American partners look to be nervous, in frenzied effort to find anything that could justify their steps in case their allegations about the use of chemical weapons in Syria prove to be false,”

Shulgin stressed. “They are probably afraid that experts on the ground may refute their false theory that was used as a pretext for a strike on helpless Syria.”