Syria: Douma attack - present your argument with sources please

[Infinite Chaos]

I've seen references to Douma 2017 popping up in other threads and people rubbishing other poster's sources given but no alternate sources given.

So, please make your claim and argument, present links to back up your opinions.

Starting with the most basic - did it actually happen? Who died, how many died and what causes.

If you feel brave enough, who was responsible and please give sources to back you up.

 

[Chagos]

OPCW investigative report

43 dead

Syrian helicopter

 

[oneworld2]

According to the initial OPCW engineers report on the location/condition of the two cylinders allegedly dropped on Douma by the Syrian air force the assessment claims that there was a higher probability of them being sited manually than to have ended up how they did off the back of being dropped from an aircraft.

Courtesy of Wikileaks

WikiLeaks - 20190227-Engineering-assessment-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-Douma-incident

Assessment given on page 8 of the pdf.

The above report was the subject of a leaked email, taken from a multiple email exchange between the Fact Finding Mission team ( FFM) deployed to Douma and senior officials at the OPCW.

The content of one email from a Sebastien Braha, is cited below,

27 December, 2019
Today WikiLeaks releases more internal documents from the OPCW regarding the investigation into the alleged chemical attack in Douma in April 2018.
One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW, where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation:

“Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive]... And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA”.

WikiLeaks - OPCW Douma Docs

That's just for starters

 

[oneworld2]

With regards to the ,alleged, chemical agent thought to have been used, chlorine, the Douma inspectors said that the investigations carried out showed that this was not " consistent" with the symptoms recorded from the victims.

According to the minutes leaked today: “With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure”.

The OPCW team members wrote that the key “take-away message” from the meeting was

“that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified”.

The third document is a copy of OPCW e-mail exchanges from 20 to 28 August 2018 discussing the meeting with the toxicologists.

The fourth document is an e-mail exchange from the end of July 2018 where it is stated that the eight OPCW inspectors deployed to Douma during the fact finding mission (except one, a paramedic) should be excluded from discussions on the project.

https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/#OPCW%20Whistleblower%20Panel%20on%20the%20Douma%20attack%20of%20April%202018

 

[Infinite Chaos]

OPCW investigative report

43 dead

Syrian helicopter

Thank you. Your argument, plain and simple is the Syrians were the perpetrators - backed up by the OPCW report.

Just for the sake of neutrality, where do you place the Wikileaks commentary that one of the OPCW (Ian Henderson) investigators found inconsistencies and that he felt the gas containers was suspiciously placed and suspiciously corroded?

I have read around and have my own info but I want to get as wide ranging and objective a series of responses as possible.

According to the initial OPCW engineers report on the location/condition of the two cylinders allegedly dropped on Douma by the Syrian air force the assessment claims that there was a higher probability of them being sited manually than to have ended up how they did off the back of being dropped from an aircraft.

Courtesy of Wikileaks

WikiLeaks - 20190227-Engineering-assessment-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-Douma-incident

Same to you:
Thank you. Your argument, plain and simple is that the OPCW report is wrong or missing information?

Just for the sake of neutrality, where do you place the OPCW commentary that the two suspicious containers actually were dropped from a Syrian Army helicopter and the advanced corrosion would have come from the gas expelled?

Also, the person at the centre of the report (do you agree it is Ian Henderson?) seems to be part of this email chain where the Wikileaks claim comes from?

I have read around and have my own info but I want to get as wide ranging and objective a series of responses as possible.

the Douma inspectors said that the investigations carried out showed that this was not " consistent" with the symptoms recorded from the victims.

I'm reacting to your post without having read your new wikileaks page but for short - what do you feel the chemical agent was, who used it and does this explain the corrosion on the containers at the centre of the various OPCW reports?

 

[Chagos]

Thank you. Your argument, plain and simple is the Syrians were the perpetrators - backed up by the OPCW report.

Just for the sake of neutrality, where do you place the Wikileaks commentary that one of the OPCW (Ian Henderson) investigators found inconsistencies and that he felt the gas containers was suspiciously placed and suspiciously corroded?

1. Henderson was an employee of the OPCW, but the organisation clearly did not consider him to be part of the FFM.
2. Henderson delivered his report outside of protocol with less than a day before the final FFM report was published.
3. Three independent engineering studies commissioned by the FFM contradict Henderson’s findings.
4. Henderson’s report is fundamentally flawed by the assumption that these cylinders could not have fallen from an altitude of less than 500 meters.
5. The methodology that Henderson employed for this report was not adequate for this task.

Note that I am not questioning the integrity of Henderson or insinuating any sort of skullduggery on his part (nor upon wikileaks), it would just appear that he based his model of findings on his own faulty assumptions and subsequent modelling parameters not suited to the situation.

Occam's razor appears to have been rather blunt in his case.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

1. Henderson was an employee of the OPCW, but the organisation clearly did not consider him to be part of the FFM.
2. Henderson delivered his report outside of protocol with less than a day before the final FFM report was published.
3. Three independent engineering studies commissioned by the FFM contradict Henderson’s findings.
4. Henderson’s report is fundamentally flawed by the assumption that these cylinders could not have fallen from an altitude of less than 500 meters.
5. The methodology that Henderson employed for this report was not adequate for this task.

Note that I am not questioning the integrity of Henderson or insinuating any sort of skullduggery on his part (nor upon wikileaks), it would just appear that he based his model of findings on his own faulty assumptions and subsequent modelling parameters not suited to the situation.

Occam's razor appears to have been rather blunt in his case.

Thank you:
Do you know why Henderson was not considered part of the core team? His email certainly makes it plain he wasn't happy with this decision. He did also say he was going to continue his report regardless of him being in the core team.

What qualified the independent studies more than Henderson himself? He states his "being the most qualified member, having been to Douma and because of my experience in metallurgy, chemical engineering, artillery and Defence R&D"?

Also, regarding his investigation of the cylinders - he felt they were “old, rusty, already damaged cylinders” which would be highly unlikely to have been put on board a helicopter for an air assault. The risk to the crew (of any chlorine filled cylinder losing structural integrity) would be too high.
Could the cylinders not have been placed there by a 3rd party?

 

[Chagos]

Thank you:
Do you know why Henderson was not considered part of the core team? His email certainly makes it plain he wasn't happy with this decision. He did also say he was going to continue his report regardless of him being in the core team.

I have no idea why the OPCW, or rather the FFM, held him at arms' length and I would thus have to speculate. Nevertheless I have some suspicions but can't provide any verification on those. So I'll just state my impression that there's some kind of narcissism involved which, among other things just raising that impression, didn't sit well with "the others".

Fact appears to be that he was never part of FFM (IOW member) so that would be sufficient reason to not include him in its finding.

It all sounds much like sour grapes on the part of Henderson, but what do I know?

What qualified the independent studies more than Henderson himself? He states his "being the most qualified member, having been to Douma and because of my experience in metallurgy, chemical engineering, artillery and Defence R&D"?

On that I have no source other than Henderson himself. Same thing goes for OPCW disagreeing with him.

Also, regarding his investigation of the cylinders - he felt they were “old, rusty, already damaged cylinders” which would be highly unlikely to have been put on board a helicopter for an air assault. The risk to the crew (of any chlorine filled cylinder losing structural integrity) would be too high.

Again, see 2nd paragraph above.

Could the cylinders not have been placed there by a 3rd party?

Nothing can be ruled out ever, anywhere or everywhere. Even the sun may rise in the West tomorrow but that seems of little plausibility.

 

[Chagos]

Also the finding of "old and rusty" cylinders making them unlikely to have been put on an aircraft, let alone thrown from one, leaves out the fact of metal becoming quickly corroded when in contact with chlorine gas.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

Also the finding of "old and rusty" cylinders making them unlikely to have been put on an aircraft, let alone thrown from one, leaves out the fact of metal becoming quickly corroded when in contact with chlorine gas.

Thanks. One final set of questions, how do you view the email exchange I linked previously that has had sections put on Wikilieaks and the fuller version of events on the link I gave?

Do you believe Braha was involved in the "cover-up" that hit the internet in 2019, repeated by the Russians and Syrians?

It has been suggested (by those who feel there was a cover-up) that chlorine gas was not the cause of deaths. Do you agree this and do you have any alternative suggestion for the deaths that occurred?

There is also the matter of Henderson's report here.

https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/01/Engineering-assessment-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-Douma-incident-27-February-2019-1.pdf

Henderson chose to ignore the structure attached to the cylinder as a possible aide to its operation as a crudely guided "bomb / device" - I'm asking a lot but why do you feel this was done, especially as there were other examples of similar devices used in Syria?

 

[Chagos]

Thanks. One final set of questions, how do you view the email exchange I linked previously that has had sections put on Wikilieaks and the fuller version of events on the link I gave?

Viewed it at the time and could make neither head nor tail of it.

Do you believe Braha was involved in the "cover-up" that hit the internet in 2019, repeated by the Russians and Syrians?

When it comes to "believe", anything coming from the Syrians and/or the Russians falls thru the grid for me.

It has been suggested (by those who feel there was a cover-up) that chlorine gas was not the cause of deaths. Do you agree this

No.

and do you have any alternative suggestion for the deaths that occurred?

No.

There is also the matter of Henderson's report here.

https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/01/Engineering-assessment-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-Douma-incident-27-February-2019-1.pdf

Henderson chose to ignore the structure attached to the cylinder as a possible aide to its operation as a crudely guided "bomb / device" - I'm asking a lot but why do you feel this was done, especially as there were other examples of similar devices used in Syria?

I see no way of getting into Henderson's head but suggest that meeting rejection does funny things to people. His assumption that there was no structure (steel framework) on the cylinder(s) is merely that, an assumption.

Not evidenced, it would appear, by any effort of Henderson to simulate the possibility.

Some people are sufficiently self-confident to just walk away, some simply have to keep at it like a dog at a bone.

Not an uncommon trait as we keep seeing on here and especially scientific experts providing no exception.

I mean, just look at the ongoing brouhaha over the Twin Towers that simply won't cease.

 

[Infinite Chaos]

@Chagos - thanks for your time. If I get any counterpoints or find any myself, I'll pop some more questions (not necessarily just for you).