FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Wall Street Journal: Unnamed U.S. Officials Claim Assad Approved Chemical Weapons Use
Sept. 10, 2018 (EIRNS)—The headline of a Wall Street Journal article posted late Sept. 9, blared, “U.S. Says Syria Plans Gas Attack in Rebel Stronghold,” and is being repeated across news media worldwide. “Syrians in Idlib Brace for Chemical Weapons Attack,” screamed Fox News today, “Syria’s Assad Has Approved Use of Chlorine Gas in Idlib,” parrots The Hill. There are dozens more similar headlines proclaiming that catastrophe is imminent in Idlib, thus helping to set the environment for what the Journal claims is inevitable: U.S.-led air and missile strikes against Syrian government forces as they advance on the last jihadi stronghold in Syria.
“President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold, U.S. officials said, raising the prospects for another retaliatory U.S. military strike as thousands try to escape what could be a decisive battle in the seven-year-old war,”
the Journal report claims at the outset.
“In a recent discussion about Syria, people familiar with the exchange said, President Trump threatened to conduct a massive attack against Mr. Assad if he carries out a massacre in Idlib....”
After this hearsay, it does go on to say that while the U.S. military has developed attack options,
“Trump hasn’t decided what exactly would trigger a military response or whether the U.S. would target Russian or Iranian military forces aiding Mr. Assad in Syria, U.S. officials said.”
The U.S. Administration could, instead, rely on economic sanctions or unspecified political tools, but the neo-cons who have hijacked U.S. policy would not be satisfied with such measures.
The Journal article otherwise repeats ad nauseam all of the war propaganda about Assad and chemical weapons, in the same manner as did the “intelligence” about Saddam Hussein’s WMD in the run-up to the Iraq invasion in 2003. Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White is quoted,
“I will not comment on U.S. military plans, but Assad’s use of chemical weapons, sarin and chlorine, and disregard for civilian lives is well documented and contrary to regional stability.”
Clearly, the al-Qaeda terrorists that run Idlib are getting a free pass.
