Syria gas attacks; White House data faulty

Richard sends us a link to a McClatchy article which reports that weapons experts have determined that the GRAD rockets used in the chemical attacks in Syria last year couldn’t have been launched by the Syrian government, given the range of those rockets and the distance from the target of government forces;

In the report, titled “Possible Implications of Faulty U.S. Technical Intelligence,” Richard Lloyd, a former United Nations weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argue that the question about the rocket’s range indicates a major weakness in the case for military action initially pressed by Obama administration officials.

[…]

To emphasize their point, the authors used a map produced by the White House that showed which areas were under government and rebel control on Aug. 21 and where the chemical weapons attack occurred. Drawing circles around Zamalka to show the range from which the rocket could have come, the authors conclude that all of the likely launching points were in rebel-held areas or areas that were in dispute. The area securely in government hands was miles from the possible launch zones.

[…]

“I honestly have no idea what happened,” Postol said. “My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct.”

But the Obama Administration was in a “rush to war” to prop up flagging approval ratings, they really didn’t have time to worry about those pesky facts-thingies. Of course, McClatchy has to mention the Bush “rush to war” which took more than a year-and-a-half, and the “faulty intelligence” that led to the Iraq War in 2003. But there’s no real comparison. The whole world thought that Hussein had a chemical weapons capabilty, and there has been NBC material removed from Iraq that hardly gets a mention in the media. The Obama Administration wanted to bomb Syrian government forces real bad, but being the incompetent boobs that are advising this bunch, they ignore evidence all of the time and they arrive at the wrong solutions every time. But then they’ve got Joe Bite Me and John Kerry to lead their way – the most incompetent boobs on the planet.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, John Kerry, Terror War