Thursday, April 10, 2014

DID BRITISH INTELLIGENCE SUPPLY THE CHEMICALS USED BY THE REBELS IN SYRIA? AND IS ROBERT FISK PROTECTING THEM?

Robert Fisk has written about the latest Seymour Hersh article, and drops a quiet bombshell before referring to Hersh:
The Syrian government were, of course, the first to claim that the sarin gas which killed hundreds of Syrian civilians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta last August had come from Turkey - and had then been used by Islamist groups in the hope that the West would blame Assad and turn its strategic weapons against the regime. When The Independent enquired about the attacks in Syria, Russian sources stated that the chemicals had not been sold to Assad. They had come from stocks sold by Moscow to the former Gaddafi regime in Libya.

[source : Robert Fisk, Turkey's actions in Syria see PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan go from model Middle East 'strongman' to tin-pot dictator, The Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/turkeys-actions-in-syria-see-pm-recep-tayyip-erdogan-go-from-model-middle-east-strongman-to-tinpot-dictator-9252366.html, 10th April 2014]

The quiet bombshell, if you didn't hear it, was the statement that the Sarin used at Ghouta came from stocks that were in Gaddafi's arsenal.

Fisk then refers to Hersh a paragraph later:
That most controversial of American investigative journalists, Seymour Hersh - I confess he is an old mate of mine even though he often uses my most hated phrase, anonymous “officials” and “experts”, as his sources - has now published his own disturbing and compelling research on the use of chemicals in Syria and points the finger at Turkey for allowing rebels to use sarin in an earlier chemical attack against the Syrian village of Khan al-Assal.

Fisk then refers to Hersh's statement about the rat line running weapons from Gaddafi's looted arsenal to the Syrian rebels via Turkey:
Erdogan, according to Hersh, had allowed the Americans to ship a 'rat line' of weapons from Libya via Turkey to the Syrian rebels - hence the connection to earlier shipments of sarin to Libya from the then Soviet Union. Hersh says that for months after the Ghouta attack occurred, this 'rat line' continued.

Fisk does not go into further details about this rat line.

But here is what Hersh actually said:
A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping.

[source : Seymour Hersh, The Red Line and the Rat Line, London Review of Books, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line, 4th April 2014]

Two things to note:
1. Fisk states that the Sarin used at Ghouta came from Gaddafi's arsenal;
2. But although Fisk refers to the Hersh article, and mentions the rat line running looted weapons from Gaddafi's arsenal, Fisk does not mention that Hersh stated that MI6 were involved in this.

So is it possible that MI6 helped to supply the Sarin to the Syrian rebels that was used at Ghouta?

And is Fisk helping to cover this up by omitting that MI6 ran looted weapons from Gaddafi's arsenal?

I recently covered the very well hidden role of the British in Syria in BLOODY TREACHEROUS BRITISH INVOLVEMENT IN THE SLAUGHTER IN SYRIA.





No comments: