Syria chemical weapons evidence 'too degraded' for proof

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Guardian

Western intelligence agencies fear they can no longer prove for certain whether the Syrian government was responsible for alleged chemical weapon attacks, because initial samples and evidence trails have degraded over time.

Instead, Britain and the US are likely to have to wait for fresh evidence from further attacks before deciding whether to take a military response against the Assad government.

Philip Hammond, the British defence secretary, revealed the shortcomings in recent reliance on soil and blood samples ahead of talks with his US counterpart Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday.

"The confidence that we are seeking degrades over time, and in order to have a properly measured chain of custody we would need to obtain samples after an[other] incident," he said in a briefing at the British embassy.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/us-uk-syria-chemical-weapons-claims

[KansDem]

1. Can't they use the same tests and techniques used to determine that Saddam gassed his own people?

Oh, wait!

US Army War College: NO PROOF SADDAM GASSED THE KURDS!

Having looked at all of the evidence that was available to us, we find it impossible to confirm the State Department's claim that gas was used in this instance. To begin with there were never any victims produced. International relief organizations who examined the Kurds -- in Turkey where they had gone for asylum -- failed to discover any. Nor were there ever any found inside Iraq. The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/helms.html

[font size="1"]...never mind!

[leveymg]

2. But, Israeli military intel insisted . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-general-says-syria-government-forces-used-chemical-074330220.html
Israeli spy says Syria used chemical arms, U.S. unconvinced
ReutersBy Maayan Lubell | Reuters – Tue, Apr 23, 2013

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons - probably nerve gas - in their fight against rebels trying to force out President Bashar al-Assad, the Israeli military's top intelligence analyst said on Tuesday.

The assessment met with skepticism from the United States, which has declared any use of chemical weapons in Syria's two-year-old civil war a "red line" that could trigger intervention.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the latter "was not in a position to confirm" the briefing given by Itai Brun, a military intelligence brigadier-general, at a Tel Aviv conference.

"I don't know what the facts are," Kerry told reporters in Brussels.

Netanyahu's office declined comment on Kerry and Brun's remarks, made a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said while visiting Israel that Washington's spy agencies were still assessing whether such weapons had been employed.

"To the best of our understanding, there was use of lethal chemical weapons. Which chemical weapons? Probably sarin," Brun told Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies in the most definitive Israeli statement on the issue.