Syria
Ambassador
Tells ICP, Who
Made Kerry
Judge of
Secret
Evidence?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 30 --
Hours after US
Secretary of
State John
Kerry
cited the "verdict
reached by our
intelligence
community
about
the chemical
weapons attack
the Assad
regime
inflicted,"
Inner
City Press
asked Syria's
Permanent
Representative
to the UN
Bashar
Ja'afari what
he thought of
the US
showing.
Ja'afari
exclusively
told Inner
City Press,
"They are
lying. They
are
cornered with
the trap they
extended
themselves.
They have no
justification.
If you have
evidence,
share it with
team of
investigation."
At
the day's UN
briefing Inner
City Press
asked
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
if Turkey or
the US had
shared
the evidence
they say they
have with the
UN. Nesirky
repeated twice
that the
Secretary
General
encourages
such sharing,
which many
take
to mean no,
the US did not
share its
evidence. Video
here, from
Minute 28:22.
Ja'afari
told
Inner City
Press, "'I
have secret
information'
-- what do
you mean? What
is that? Who
assigned you
as the secret
judge of
secret
information,
with secret
allies?"
Some
allies are not
secret:
France's
Francois
Hollande has
said he could
and would
support a
military
action; Turkey
has said the
same. With
many in the
media beating
the drums of
war, they ask
only when
Obama
will strike,
not if.
Meanwhile Ban
Ki-moon is to
meet his High
Representative
on Disarmament
Angela Kane in
New York on
Saturday,
before leaving
town again on
Tuesday.
Much
is being made
of the Syrian
government's
delay in
granting the
UN's request
for its
chemical
weapons
inspection
team to visit
al Ghouta.
Inner
City Press
asked UN
spokesperson
Farhan Haq at
Tuesday's noon
briefing when
it was that
the UN
formally
requested
access to al
Ghouta -- on
Saturday,
August 24 or
before? Video
here, from
Minute 12. Video with captions, on Inner
City Press YouTube channel, here and
embedded
below, with
transcript.
Haq
read out a
press
statement from
August 22, in
which
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon said a
request is
being sent.
Then, Haq
said, Ban's
High
Representative
on Disarmament
Angela Kane
"stepped
forward with
the request"
-- on August
24, Saturday.
It was
granted the
next day.
Inner
City Press
asked again,
was there any
formal request
by the UN
other than
Ban's press
statement,
before August
24? Haq called
this
"semantics."
But when Inner
City Press
asked Ban's
spokespeople
to respond to
widely
circulated
press releases
about a
request being
made to Ban,
the UN says
the actual
formal request
had not been
received yet,
and so: no
comment. Why
should the UN
say it must be
different for
Syria?
How
could the UN
be so sloppy?
Or was
it sloppy?
While the
delay to
Sunday (or
Monday, when
the team got
out and said,
if this
YouTube video
on which Haq
declined
comment when
Inner City
Press asked is
not false,
that they are
not even
looking at
what type of
munition was
used in part
because they
didn't want to
put it in
their white UN
4 by 4) is now
an element in
the case for
missile
strikes, the
UN didn't
formally ASK
until
Saturday, in
the person of
Angela Kane
Inner City
Press covered
Kane when she
was head of
Ban's
Department of
Management,
including an investigation
by the UN
Office of
Internal
Oversight
Services for
favoritism in
the UN's
so-called
UMOJA computer
management
system.
When
Japan's Yukio
Takasu
returned after
a pause
from being his
country's
Ambassador to
the UN to
take over
Kane's job,
Kane's native
Germany
lobbied for
her to get
another top UN
job. She was offered
one in Lebanon,
as Inner City
Press reported,
but did not
want it. So
she "got"
Disarmament.
This
connection
must be noted:
it was Germany
which got Kane
this job, in
the same way
that France
installed Herve Ladsous as the fourth French
head of UN
Peacekeeping
in a row,
and the US picked
Jeffrey
Feltman,
formerly the
State
Department's
chief on the
Middle East to
replace B.
Lynn Pascoe as
Ban's
political
chief.
So the
fact that
Germany has
expressed a
willingness to
join a
coalition to
strike Syria,
without UN
Security
Council
approval, and
the Germany's
Angela Kane's
role in the
"UN's"
chemical
weapons
inspection
team should be
noted.
But by
most media
covering the
UN, it is not.
When Inner
City Press
even mentions
Ladsous' and
UN
Peacekeeping's
French
connection,
Ladsous
refuses to
answer
questions, and
some media,
including the
French wire
service Agence
France Presse
on one of
whose
management
boards Ladsous
served, have
even filed
complaints
with the UN
against Inner
City Press.
This is
dysfunction,
and is now
being
countered by
the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
@FUNCA_info.
Another
major
wire service,
Reuters,
joined in the
second of
AFP's
complaints. On
August 26
Reuters based
a piece
essentially
selling or
planning for
the legality
of military
strikes on
Syria without
Security
Council or
even General
Assembly
approval
around, as
lead, a
comment by the
Council on
Foreign
Relations' Richard Haass.
But on
that CFR
call, as noted
by Inner City
Press, was Judith
Miller. Given
her role
during the
lead up to the
US
intervention
in Iraq,
one might
think this
would have
been included
in an
overly-long
rehash story.
But no.
Notably,
Reuters' UN
bureau has
been shown to
have spied for
the UN,
handing over
an
internal
anti-Press
document
of the UN
Correspondents
Association
(which under
2013 president
Pamela Falk of
CBS hosted
Syrian rebel
Jarba for what
it called a
"UN briefing")
to UN official
Stephane
Dujarric. Story
here, audio here,
document
here.
This
beat just goes
on. Watch this
site.
* * *
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