For months, the \u201cslam-dunk\u201d evidence \u201cproving\u201d Syrian government guilt in the Aug. 21 [2013] Sarin attack near Damascus was a \u201cvector analysis\u201d pushed by the New York Times showing where the rockets supposedly were launched. But the Times now grudgingly admits its analysis was flawed.<\/i><\/p>\n
The New York Times has, kind of, admitted that it messed up its big front-page story that used a \u201cvector analysis\u201d to pin the blame for the Aug. 21 Sarin attack on the Syrian government, an assertion\u00a0that was treated by Official Washington as the slam-dunk proof that President Bashar al-Assad gassed his own people.<\/p>\n
But you\u2019d be forgiven if you missed the Times\u2019 embarrassing confession, since it was buried on page 8, below the fold, 18 paragraphs into a story under the not-so-eye-catching title, \u201cNew Study Refines View Of Sarin Attack in Syria.\u201d<\/p>\n
But this Times article<\/a> at least acknowledges what has been widely reported on the Internet, including at Consortiumnews.com, that the Times\u2019 \u201cvector analysis\u201d \u2013 showing the reverse flight paths of two missiles intersecting at a Syrian military base \u2013 has collapsed, in part, because the range of the rockets was much too limited.<\/p>\n There were other problems with the \u201cvector analysis\u201d that was pushed by the Times and Human Rights Watch, which has long wanted the U.S. military to intervene in the Syrian civil war against the Syrian government.<\/p>\n The analytical flaws included the fact that one of the two missiles \u2013 the one landing in Moadamiya, south of Damascus \u2013 had clipped a building during its descent making a precise calculation of its flight path impossible, plus the discovery that the Moadamiya missile contained no Sarin, making its use in the vectoring of two Sarin-laden rockets nonsensical.<\/p>\n But the Times\u2019 analysis ultimately fell apart amid a consensus among missile experts that the rockets would have had a maximum range of only around three kilometers when the supposed launch site is about 9.5 kilometers from the impact zones in Moadamiya and Zamalka\/Ein Tarma, east of Damascus.<\/p>\n The Times\u2019 front-page \u201cvectoring\u201d article<\/a> of Sept. 17 had declared: \u201cOne annex to the report [by UN inspectors] identified azimuths, or angular measurements, from where rockets had struck, back to their points of origin. When plotted and marked independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.\u201d<\/p>\n An accompanying map on the Times\u2019 front page revealed the flight-path lines intersecting at an elite Syrian military unit, the 104th<\/sup> Brigade of the Republican Guard, based northwest of Damascus, near the Presidential Palace. This \u201cevidence\u201d was then cited by U.S. politicians and pundits as the in-your-face proof of the Syrian government\u2019s guilt.<\/p>\n The Times\/HRW analysis was especially important because the Obama administration, in making its case against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, had refused to release any evidence that could be independently evaluated. So, the \u201cvector analysis\u201d was almost the only visible nail in Assad\u2019s coffin of guilt.<\/p>\n Short-Range Rockets<\/b><\/p>\n In Sunday\u2019s article \u2013 the one below the fold on page 8 \u2013 the Times reported that a new analysis by two military experts concluded that the Aug. 21 rockets had a range of about three kilometers, or less than one-third the distance needed to intersect at the Syrian military base northwest of Damascus.<\/p>\n The report\u2019s authors were Theodore A. Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Richard M. Lloyd, an analyst at the military contractor Tesla Laboratories.<\/p>\n The Times noted that \u201cthe authors said that their findings could help pinpoint accountability for the most lethal chemical warfare attack in decades, but that they also raised questions about the American government\u2019s claims about the locations of launching points, and the technical intelligence behind them. \u2026 The analysis could also lead to calls for more transparency from the White House, as Dr. Postol said it undermined the Obama administration\u2019s assertions about the rockets\u2019 launch points.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, in the article\u2019s 18th<\/sup> paragraph, the Times acknowledged its own role in misleading the public, noting that the rockets\u2019 estimated maximum range of three kilometers \u201cwould be less than the ranges of more than nine kilometers calculated separately by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch in mid-September. \u2026 Those estimates had been based in part on connecting reported compass headings for two rockets cited in the United Nations\u2019 initial report<\/a> on the attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, the much-ballyhooed \u201cvector analysis\u201d had collapsed under scrutiny, knocking the legs out from under Official Washington\u2019s certainty that the Syrian government carried out the Aug. 21 attack which may have killed several hundred civilians including many children.<\/p>\n The Times article on Sunday was authored by C.J. Chivers, who along with Rick Gladstone, was a principal writer on the now-discredited Sept. 17 article.<\/p>\n The erosion of that \u201cvector analysis\u201d article has been underway for several months \u2013 through reporting at Web sites such as WhoGhouta and Consortiumnews.com \u2013 but few Americans knew about these challenges to the Official Story because the mainstream U.S. news media had essentially blacked them out.<\/p>\n When renowned investigative reporter Seymour Hersh composed a major article<\/a> \u00a0citing skepticism within the U.S. intelligence community regarding the Syrian government\u2019s guilt, he had to go to the London Review of Books to get the story published. [See Consortiumnews.com\u2019s \u201cDeceiving the US Public on Syria<\/a>.\u201d]<\/p>\n Even Ake Sellstrom, the head of the United Nations mission investigating chemical weapons use in Syria, challenged the vector analysis during a Dec. 13 UN press conference<\/a>, citing expert estimates of the missiles\u2019 range at about two kilometers, but his remarks were almost entirely ignored. [See Consortiumnews.com\u2019s \u201cUN Inspector Undercuts NYT on Syria<\/a>.\u201d]<\/p>\n A Replay of Iraqi WMD<\/b><\/p>\n Besides the deaths from the Sarin itself, perhaps the most troubling aspect of this episode has been how close the U.S. government came to going to war with Syria based on such flimsy and dubious evidence. It seems as if Official Washington and the U.S. mainstream news media have learned nothing from the disastrous rush to war in Iraq a decade ago.<\/p>\n Just as false assumptions about Iraq\u2019s WMD set off a stampede over that cliff in 2003, a similar rush to judgment regarding Syria brought the U.S. government to the edge of another precipice of war in 2013.<\/p>\n The New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets propelled the rush to judgment in both cases, rather than questioning the official stories and demanding better evidence from U.S. government officials. In September 2002, the Times famously fronted an article linking Iraq\u2019s purchase of some aluminum tubes to a secret nuclear weapons program, which \u2014 as Americans and Iraqis painfully learned later\u00a0\u2013 didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n In the case of Syria, another potential catastrophe was averted only by a strong opposition to war\u00a0among the American public, as registered in opinion polls, and President Barack Obama\u2019s last-minute decision to seek congressional approval for military action and then his openness to a diplomatic settlement brokered by Russia.<\/p>\n To defuse the crisis, the Syrian government agreed to destroy all its chemical weapons, while still denying any role in the Aug. 21 attack, which it blamed on Syrian rebels apparently trying to create a casus belli<\/i> that would precipitate a U.S. intervention.<\/p>\n With very few exceptions, U.S. news outlets and think tanks mocked the notion of rebel responsibility and joined the Obama administration in expressing virtual certainty that the Assad regime was guilty.<\/p>\n There was almost no U.S. media skepticism on Aug. 30 when the White House stoked the war fever by posting on its Web site what was called a \u201cGovernment Assessment,\u201d a four-page white paper that blamed the Syrian government for the Sarin attack but presented zero evidence to support the conclusion.<\/p>\n Americans had to go to Internet sites to see questions raised about the peculiar presentation, since normally a decision on war would be supported by a National Intelligence Estimate containing the judgments of the 16 intelligence agencies. But an NIE would also include footnotes citing dissents from analysts who disputed the conclusion, of which I was told there were a number.<\/p>\n The Dogs Not Barking <\/b><\/p>\n As the war frenzy built in late August and early September, there was a striking absence of U.S. intelligence officials at administration briefings and congressional hearings. The dog-not-barking reason was that someone might have asked a question about whether the U.S. intelligence community was in agreement with the \u201cGovernment Assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n But these strange aspects of the Obama administration\u2019s case were not noted by the major U.S. news media. Then, on Sept. 17 came the New York Times front-page article citing the \u201cvector analysis.\u201d It was the Perry Mason moment. The evidence literally pointed right at the \u201cguilty\u201d party, an elite unit of the Syrian military.<\/p>\n Whatever few doubts there were about the Syrian government\u2019s guilt disappeared. From the triumphant view of Official Washington, those of us who had expressed skepticism about the U.S. government\u2019s case could only hang our heads in shame and engage in some Maoist-style self-criticism.<\/p>\n For me, it was like a replay of Iraq-2003. Whenever the U.S. invading force discovered a barrel of chemicals, trumpeted on Fox News as proof of WMD, I\u2019d get e-mails calling me a Saddam Hussein apologist and demanding that I admit that I had been wrong to question President George W. Bush\u2019s WMD claims. Now, there were ugly accusations that I had been carrying water for Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n But \u2013 as John Adams once said \u2013 \u201cfacts are stubborn things.\u201d And the smug certainty of Official Washington regarding the Syrian Sarin case gradually eroded much as a similar arrogance crumbled a decade ago when Iraq\u2019s alleged WMD stockpiles never materialized.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s still not clear who was responsible for the Aug. 21 deaths outside Damascus \u2013 whether a unit of the Syrian military, some radical rebel group or someone mishandling a dangerous payload \u2013 the facts should be followed objectively, not simply arranged to achieve a desired political outcome.<\/p>\n Now, with the New York Times\u2019 grudging admission that its \u201cvector analysis\u201d has collapsed, the pressure should build on the Obama administration to finally put whatever evidence it has before the world\u2019s public.<\/p>\n [For more details on this issue, see Consortiumnews.com\u2019s \u201cNYT Replays Its Iraq Fiasco in Syria<\/a>.\u201d For more of our early reporting on the Syrian chemical weapons attack, see:\u00a0\u201cA Dodgy Dossier on Syrian War<\/a>\u201d; \u201cMurky Clues From UN\u2019s Syria Report<\/a>\u201d; \u201cObama Still Withholds Syria Evidence<\/a>\u201d; \u201cHow US Pressure Bends UN Agencies<\/a>\u201d; \u201cFixing Intel Around the Syria Policy.<\/a>\u201d]<\/p>\n ________________________<\/p>\n Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America\u2019s Stolen Narrative, either in print here<\/a> or as an e-book (from Amazon<\/a> and barnesandnoble.com<\/a>). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry\u2019s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America\u2019s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here<\/a>.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n