Tag Archive for: gas chromatography

It is a time pregnant with possibilities as the world awaits release of the US report on chemical weapon use in Syria. Today’s Washington Post informs us that we may see the report as soon as tomorrow:

The Obama administration believes that U.S. intelligence has established how Syrian government forces stored, assembled and launched the chemical weapons allegedly used in last week’s attack outside Damascus, according to U.S. officials.

The administration is planning to release evidence, possibly as soon as Thursday, that it will say proves that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad bears responsibility for what U.S. officials have called an “undeniable” chemical attack that killed hundreds on the outskirts of the Syrian capital.

The report, being compiled by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is one of the final steps that the administration is taking before President Obama makes a decision on a U.S. military strike against Syria, which now appears all but inevitable.

Wait. What?

Marcy already mused on all the talking heads focusing on how a US response to Assad using chemical weapons on Syrian citizens is all about our “credibility“. If the US response is so tied up with credibility, how on earth can it be that the person charged with compiling the report on which we will base military action is the man whose obituary will be obliged to mention his admission that he lied to Congress, but that we should excuse the lies because he gave the “least untruthful” version possible? That is how the US will convince the world that, unlike when we lied about Iraq having WMD’s before we invaded, this time we aren’t lying about Assad?

Note also that Marcy mentioned yesterday that the US, through John Kerry, tried to prevent the UN carrying out its own investigation into the chemical weapon evidence. That move undercuts US efforts at credibility since outside, independent confirmation of findings would be a huge step in providing assurance that the US is being truthful.

The UN effort continues today, with the delegation of inspectors visiting a different Damascus suburb than the one they visited on Monday. (See the map in this BBC article for the sites at which chemical weapons were accused of being used in the attack.)

We get a bit of information from AP on how the UN team is operating:

The U.N. chemical weapons experts conducted their first field testing in the western Damascus suburb of Moadamiyeh on Monday. They collected samples and testimony after a treacherous journey through government and rebel-held territory. Their convoy was hit by snipers but members of the team were unharmed.

The ability of the UN team to interview victims (which is presumably how they got “testimony”) and then to take their own samples is a key part of making their work believable. Both environmental samples at the sites of attack and biological samples from the victims play a role in identifying whether and what chemical agents were used. See this informative piece from FAS on descriptions of symptoms that the investigators would be looking for when interviewing victims.

When Clapper finally releases the US report, one of the most important aspects in that report will be the provenance of any samples the US subjected to chemical analysis. We don’t have acknowledged “boots on the ground” in Syria, so how did the US get samples? What certifications, if any, are there on chain of custody documentation on those samples? As with most other accounts of the chemical attack, the AP article linked above mentions that Doctors Without Borders has documented the number of dead and injured from the attack. Samples and documentation coming from them would be seen as having a much greater level of independence than samples provided by the rebel groups that control the territory where the attacks are said to have taken place.

Even though their main website has been taken down, reportedly by the Syrian Electronic Army, the New York Times is continuing its reporting on the situation in Syria. An article published yesterday afternoon provides some useful background information on the ability of modern forensic methods to detect chemical agent use long after the fact: Read more →