New evidence shows that the Syrian government was not responsible for the August 21, 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta on its own people. The Syrian government was not responsible for the nerve agent attack that left hundreds of Syrians dead, contrary to what the Obama administration claimed, Seymour Hersh and others have reported. US intelligence deliberately manipulated its findings to justify a subsequent strike against Assad, whose regime is being blamed for “gassing thousands to death”.

In a report assessing possible implications of faulty US intelligence Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore A. Pistol, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), examined the delivery rocket’s design and calculated possible trajectories based on the rocket’s payload. The authors concluded that sarin gas, “could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the Eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.”

Based on mathematical calculations, Lloyd and Postol estimate a rocket with such aerodynamics could not travel more than 2 kilometers. To illustrate their conclusion, the authors included the original White House map that depicted areas under Assad control and those held by the opposition. Based on the firing range and troop locations on August 21, the authors conclude that all possible launching points within the 2 km radius were in rebel-held areas.

Sources:

Seymour M. Hersh, “Syria: Whose Sarin?”, Information Clearing House, December 8,2013, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37048.htm.

“MIT Study of Ghouta Chemical Attack Challenges US intelligence”, RT, January 16, 2014, http://rt.com/news/study-challenges-syria-chemical-attack-681/.

Richard Lloyd and Theodore A. Postol, “Possible Implications of Faulty US Technical Intelligence in the Damascus Nerve Agent Attack of August 21, 2013,” MIT Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group,” January 14, 2014, https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1006045-possible-implications-of-bad-intelligence.html.

Student Researcher: Eddie Curiel (Sonoma State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Marco Gonzalez (College of Marin) and Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)

Review Article with Credder