With
UN
Team Set to
Leave Syria,
Who Jettisoned
Khan al Asal
and Why?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 29 --
The UN
chemical
weapons team
negotiated and
got
into Syria to
investigate
three
incidents,
including Khan
al Asal as
requested by
the Syrian
government.
On
August 29,
after UN
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon
announced that
he
spoke with US
President
Barack Obama
and the team
would now
leave
Syria on
August 31,
Inner City
Press asked
Ban's
spokesperson
Farhan
Haq if Khan al
Asal was
looked at.
In
due course,
Haq answered.
Inner
City Press
asked if that
means the UN
thinks its
team will get
back
in, even after
the type of
missile strike
that is being
publicly
discussed. Haq
did not answer
that.
Of
the 1000 other
UN staff,
nationals and
internationals,
still in Syria
Inner City
Press asked if
any of them
would be
leaving on
Saturday
with Angela
Kane, Ake
Sellstrom on
the team. This
question was
not
answered.
Inner
City Press
asked, who
decided to
jettison the
investigation
of Khan
al Asal, and
how was it
decided? The
answer appears
to be that the
team needs to
be present as
its Ghouta
samples are
tested. But
wouldn't this
have been true
of the Khan al
Asal samples
the UN asked
to be let in
to take?
The
feeling of a
rush-job was
inescapable.
The idea of a
second visit
by
a UN chemical
weapons team
seems
unrealistic.
Ban wants to
make the
UN relevant,
or useful.
When
Inner City
Press asked
Ban's
spokesperson
Farhan Haq
about the team
earlier this
week, Haq said
they would
produce an
"evidence
based
narrative."
Initially
their mandate
was to
determine only
if chemical
weapons had
been used, not
who used them.
But
every
narrative has
a plot, and
this plot
appears
already
written, at
least on the
American side.
The UK
plot thickened
on August 28,
with David
Cameron
modifying his
proposal after
Labor's
proposed
amendments to
provide for a
second, later
parliamentary
vote. In
France there
will be a
September 4
"emergency
debate," but
no vote.
From
the transcript
of what Ban
said in
Vienna:
"I
have
spoken to
President
Obama
yesterday. We
discussed how
the UN and the
world can work
together
particularly
with the
United States,
how we can
expedite the
process of the
investigation.
I have also
expressed my
wish that this
investigation
team.. will
continue their
investigation
activities
until
tomorrow,
Friday, and
will come out
of Syria by
Saturday
morning and
will report to
me as soon as
they come out
of Syria."
Inner
City Press
had
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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