How Intelligence Was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria

[Maedhros]

20. One particularly troubling bit:

The clumsy attempt to pass off intelligence claimed dubiously by the Israelis as a U.S. intercept raises a major question about the integrity of the entire document. The Israelis have an interest in promoting a U.S. attack on Syria, and the authenticity of the alleged intercept cannot be assumed. Murray believes that it is fraudulent.

And this apparent deception on Kerry's part:

Since then, administration officials have dismissed the UN investigation as representing a Syrian political tactic. Kerry claimed in his statement Friday that when the UN inspections were "finally given access, that access - as we now know – was restricted and controlled."

But Farhan Haq, the associate spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who has been getting regular reports from the UN team on its work in Syria, told Truthout that he was unaware of any restrictions on the team's work.

It's also highly suspect that the Administration is poised to reject UN analysis and is instead relying on the Syrian opposition for confirmation of the analysis of hair and blood samples:

The Obama administration has made it clear it does not intend to rely on the UN investigation's findings. Kerry declared on Sunday that samples of blood and hair from medical personnel in eastern Ghouta had been found to contain traces of sarin nerve gas.

However, those samples did not go through the UN investigators, but were smuggled out of Syria by opposition activists. The spokesman for the Free Syrian Army's Supreme National Council, Khaled Saleh, had announced August 22 that "activists" had collected their own hair, blood and soil samples and were smuggling them out of the country.