Retired CIA Analyst: US’s Evidence on Syria Chemical Attack Fabricated
TEHRAN
(FNA)- Elements within the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have
fabricated intelligence to implicate the Syrian government in the recent
chemical attack in Syria and cater for Washington’s case for launching
strikes on the Middle-Eastern country, said a retired CIA analyst.
Ray McGovern made the remarks in an interview with Russia Today (RT)
channel on Monday amid the US rhetoric of war against Syria.
The US has been intensively campaigning for strikes on Syria since
August 21, when the militants operating inside the Arab country and its
foreign-backed opposition claimed that over a thousand people had been
killed in a government chemical attack on suburban Damascus.
The Syrian government categorically rejected the accusation.
The US has all along the way been insisting that it has strong
“evidence” against the Syrian government while refusing repeated calls
to release it publicly.
“The media is drumbeating for the war (on Syria) just as before Iraq,”
McGovern said. “And they don’t want to hear that the evidence is very
very flimsy. They don’t want to hear that people within the CIA - senior
people, with great access to this information - assure us, the
veterans, that there’s no conclusive evidence that Assad ordered those
chemical incidents on August 21.”
McGovern was among the veteran intelligence professionals who recently
signed a letter to US President Barack Obama, warning that Damascus was
not behind the August 21 chemical attack in the Muslim country and that
CIA Director John Brennan “is perpetrating a pre-Iraq-War-type fraud on
members of Congress, the media, and the public.”
The former CIA analyst stressed that only the Israeli regime would
benefit from the crisis in Syria, as the unrest would make the Tel Aviv
regime feel that “the Sunnis and the Shiites aren’t going to be turning
their swords and their guns on Israel. It’s that simple.”
“So, what we have here is a situation where Israel and the tough guys -
and tough gals now - in the White House, advising Obama, say, ‘you’ve
got to do something’,” he added, in an apparent reference to US National
Security Advisor Susan Rice and US envoy to the UN Samantha Power, who
have been heavily involved in the US campaign for strikes on Syria.
Obama “is being given cooked-up intelligence because John Brennan, the
head of the CIA, and James Clapper, the confessed perjurer, have
thought it in their best interests to cater to the wishes of the White
House, which have been very clear: ‘this time, we want to strike
Syria,’” McGovern concluded.
The US president, who has faced very weak support for his war plans,
said on August 31 that his administration would first seek authorization
from an already skeptical Congress.
Reports indicate a majority of Congress members are either against the
planned strikes on Syria or are yet undecided. The mood in the Congress
seems to mirror that of the general American public, which, polls show,
is largely opposed to any US strikes on Syria.
Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Mualem said on Monday,
September 9, that his country “welcomes” a Russian proposal to put its
chemical weapons under international control. The Russian proposal was
prompted by an apparently off-the-cuff comment by US Secretary of State
John Kerry.
Following the new twist in the events, Obama suggested that the
planned US strikes on Syria could be averted if the Syrian “gesture” is
“real.” In televised comments, parts of a round of TV interviews meant
to garner support for his war plans, Obama said it takes time “to tell
whether this offer will succeed.” The US president has, therefore, asked
the Congress to postpone a vote on his administration’s plan for
strikes on Syria.
Obama, however, has said that the threat of American force would remain.
The UN, Iran, Russia, and China have been voicing strong opposition to the US plan for war.
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