Nothing in this report would refute my theory of what might have happened, which I posted on FR last week. I’ll post it again. Apologies if you already read it:
have my own theory about who used the chemical weapons and why.
First, a brief summary of what we know to date:
1. It makes no sense that the regime used chemical weapons to further any of its interests
” The Assad regime was not desperate. Over the past month or so the regime has launched a major offensive, reclaiming Homs back from rebel control, pressing forward towards Aleppo as well as having overrun other important positions held by rebel forces.” ...
“Now, until recently, Jordan has quietly and discreetly provided support for some of the rebel forces, particularly defectors from the Syrian Army which is good for the rebels and better than having jihadist, extreme Sunni sectarians or warlord types.
The speech was a surprise due to the level of uncertainty (rather than enthusiasm) it highlighted for the rebel cause. The King stressed that religious scholars –be they Sunni, or Shia, or Sufi or Salafi or Alawitte, I repeat “Alawitte,” must sit down together and do everything to end the sectarian motivated conflict with a negotiated settlement.
That speech must have made headlines throughout the Arab world or at the very least resonated in the chambers of al-Assad’s power. And yet, the next day the Sarin gas attack took place. Go figure”
2. However, the regime certainly acted guilty after the attack:
” If the Syrian Army did not launch this attack and it was the fault of the rebels, then why didn’t the Syrian regime allow, indeed encourage, the U.N. inspectors, staying in a hotel only an estimated 15 minute drive from the massacre, to go to the site last Wednesday instead of delaying permission? What’s more, immediately after the alleged chemical weapons attack took place, the Syrian Army launched an offensive and heavily shelled the area..”
Also, many have claimed that the rebels wouldn’t have had the means to launch such a large scale attack.
Hypothesis:
If you are an al Qaeda rebel with access to the internet, you would know that your best chance of becoming the new power in Syria would be to somehow get the government to use chemical weapons.
So your try to force a small unit that you know has the weapons into a no-win situation where they will use them, but you fail repeatedly.
Then, if you think overthrowing the regime and establishing Islamist rule is worth a few martyrs (sound familiar?) you go for plan B:
The next time a Syrian army officer offers to defect (and there have been plenty of army defections, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Syrian_defectors), you say: stay right where you are because you have access to the chemical weapons. We need you to fire off a few rounds into a civilian area, and THEN defect. By doing so you will bring the same coalition that toppled Ghaddafi to topple Assad.
Now imagine you are the Syrian regime reacting to this scenario. You call the head of Syrian DoD and demand answers. Knowing his regime and his life are on the line he calls the local commander in a panic and demands answers:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/27/exclusive_us_spies_say_intercepted_calls_prove_syrias_army_used_nerve_gas
“Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned”
The situation on the ground is a mess, the defector (or defectors) has deliberately muddled your understanding of what actually happened there.
You don’t want the UN to find out that you were even keeping the last resort weapons, and you definitely don’t want them to discover what the rogue unit has done (because you know how the UN/NATO will react) so you close off the area until you can figure out what happened. A few days later, you still don’t really know what happened but your continued blockage of the inspectors is becoming the equivalent of a guilty plea, so you let them in.
The Germans should know. They have a lot of experience using poisonous Mustard, Chlorine and Phosgene gas in W.W.I. They invented its use as a weapon in war and in concentration camps (Zyklon B).
They are now a optional item of interference due to their “W.W. II War Crimes.