Syria's Assad Interviewed By Fox; Would Tell Obama "Listen To Your People"
Putin had his NYT Op-ed. Syria's Assad, on the other hand, is going straight for the jugular using the "undisputed chemical weapons proof"route, aka YouTube.
Below are some of the highlights from his just released interview with FoxNews:
- I have not spoken to Obama. I would say to him: "listen to your people, follow the common sense of your people"
- Democracy is a means for prosperity, not a goal
- The entire Mideast region has moved away from democracy
- Syria will destroy its chemical weapons to comply with the UN Treaty; Syria is fully joining the chemical weapons agreement
- Destroying chemical weapons is a complicated operation, some say it would take 1 year to get rid of the weapons
- It is not true that Syria used Sarin gas; The Syrian government did no use any chemical weapons
- Tens of thousands of Jihadists are in Syria; 80-90% of rebels are linked to Al-Qaeda
- I'm sure many of our children will have to be rehabbed from watching be headings and barbecued heads and cannibalism
- More than 15,000 government soldiers have died
- Syria is not placing conditions on destroying chemical weapons
- My decisions help the majority of our people. We have the make those decisions that are least harmful"
- Other Gulf State regimes have far less democracy than we have. The democracy has to match our own traditions.
- We support Geneva & cooperate w UN. The US is standing in the way of any progress.
- Any diplomatic moves without getting rid of the terrorists will be an illusion
- I did not invite terrorists into my country because I waited too long to listen to demands of my people ..this narrative is not true
- My being here or not being here should be decided by the Syrian people and no one else has a word in this issue.
- Real opposition only belongs to the Syrian people, not to terrorists. In every house you have pain and sadness. We are defending our country
- We have so many refugees because of the terrorists. This is why we are shelling civilian areas because that's where terrorists are
- We are still moving forward in Syria with respect to democracy. From the very beginning we listened to the demands of my people.
- Only the American Administration, and their allies in EU, and some of
their puppets in the Arab world interfere with a sovereign nation - Syria doesn't see the US as an enemy, wants good relations.
Part 1 of the interview
Part 2 of the interview
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/09/18/un-syria-shenanigans-already-breaking-down-as-russians-dispute-that-assad-was-to-blame-for-damascus-gas-attack/
( Russia long game in view.... )
UN Syria shenanigans already breaking down as Russians dispute that Assad was to blame for Damascus gas attack
POSTED AT 7:21 PM ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
Curious that they’d agree that he should disarm in the wake of the Damascus attack if they sincerely believe he’s innocent of it, no? Just like it’s curious that they’d agree the UN is the proper forum for resolving Assad’s disarmament if they sincerely believe its findings on his WMD are “politicized” and “one sided.”
Nah, just kidding. This is, of course, theater for western dummies:
Russia denounced U.N. investigators’ findings on a poison gas attack in Syria as preconceived and tainted by politics on Wednesday, stepping up its criticism of a report Western nations said proved President Bashar al-Assad’s forces were responsible…“We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the U.N. secretariat and the U.N. inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely,” deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run Russian news agency RIA in Damascus.“Without receiving a full picture of what is happening here, it is impossible to call the nature of the conclusions reached by the U.N. experts … anything but politicised, preconceived and one-sided,” Ryabkov said after talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem.
They know Assad won’t disarm, which in turn means sooner or later the U.S. might ask the Security Council for a Chapter VII authorization to use force. Here’s their way of impugning the credibility of the process in anticipation of inevitably vetoing that authorization later.
It is true that the new UN report on the Damascus attack doesn’t explicitly blame one side or the other, but the NYT has a nifty analysis today explaning that, if you read the technical details in the report closely, it’s obvious where the missiles containing the gas were launched. And that in turn makes it obvious which side is responsible:
The inspectors, instructed to investigate the attack but not to assign blame, nonetheless listed the precise compass directions of flight for two rocket strikes that appeared to lead back toward the government’s elite redoubt in Damascus, Mount Qasioun, which overlooks and protects neighborhoods and Mr. Assad’s presidential palace and where his Republican Guard and the army’s powerful Fourth Division are entrenched.“It is the center of gravity of the regime,” said Elias Hanna, a retired general in the Lebanese Army and a lecturer on strategy and geopolitics at the American University of Beirut. “It is the core of the regime.”…The map that Mr. Lyons and Human Rights Watch prepared, and a similar map made by The Times with no consultation or exchange of information, suggested that gas-filled rockets, which sailed over central Damascus and landed in civilian neighborhoods, originated “from the direction of the Republican Guard 104th Brigade,” which occupies a large base on the mountain’s western side…“When you fire it from such a place, it means that you don’t care if fingers will be pointed to you in some period of time,” General Hanna said.
That last bit is the only surprising thing about the attack. Assad has, as he must, maintained his innocence in the Damascus gassing publicly, just because it might be a bit too brazen a violation of Obama’s “red line” for him to start crowing, “Yup, I did it.” But launching the missiles from an impregnable regime power base instead of some more plausibly deniable locale is all but an admission to experts who know how to trace missile trajectories. If he’s worried enough about a U.S. attack to play along with Russia’s disarmament charade, why didn’t he do a bit more to make it look like it might have been the rebels who were behind the gassing? If Obama hadn’t chickened out about the domestic politics of hitting Syria without congressional approval, Assad might very well be dead now thanks to an American smart bomb. His posture on all this is a weird mix of steadfastly denying blame but barely denying it.
Speaking of domestic politics, the Russian “reset” has finally reached its predictable conclusion with the American public — but not for the reason you might think:
After 15 years of pretend friendship, people are ready to join Mitt Romney and stop pretending. It’s not because of the Syria standoff, though. I figured the last straw for Americans was watching Putin spend the last few weeks de-pantsing President Bumbefark on the world stage, but no: Per Gallup, 72 percent endorse the phony Russian plan to disarm Assad (i.e. to keep the U.S. out of another messy war) and 50 percent say Putin’s participation was mostly helpful versus just 36 percent who disagree. The rising antagonism is due to public irritation with Russia for sheltering Edward Snowden (of those who’ve heard about it, the split is 25/64 in disapproving) and for its new anti-gay policies (13/69 disapproval among those who are familiar with the subject). We’ve reached the point of war weariness, I guess, where watching Russia protect a degenerate who’s firing off gas-tipped missiles at civilians is less of an annoyance than them granting a visa to an American whose defenders treat him as a civil libertarian hero. Interesting times.
http://www.france24.com/en/20130918-syria-gives-russia-evidence-rebels-behind-chem-attack
Syria gives Russia 'evidence' rebels behind chem attack
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem (R) meets with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov (L) in Damascus on September 17, 2013.
AFP - The Syrian regime has handed Russia new materials implicating rebels in a chemical attack outside Damascus on August 21, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said after talks in Damascus.
"The corresponding materials were handed to the Russian side. We were told that they were evidence that the rebels are implicated in the chemical attack," Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies after talks with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem.
Ryabkov also said Russia was disappointed with a UN report into the chemical weapons attack, saying it was selective and had ignored other episodes. "Without a full picture... we cannot describe the character of the conclusions as anything other than politicised, biased and one-sided," he said.
On Tuesday the United States accused Russia of ignoring the facts surrounding the poison gas attack in Syria, highlighting tensions between the West and Moscow over how to eliminate the country's chemical weapons.
Despite a weekend agreement between the Cold War rivals aimed at dismantling Syria's chemical arsenal by mid-2014, the two sides remain poles apart in their assessment of the August 21 gas attack which left hundreds dead.
Russia insists the attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta was a "provocation" by opponents fighting Syria President Bashar al-Assad's regime designed to trigger military strikes by the United States.
The United States and France maintain the attack was carried out by Syrian government forces, and believe an assessment by UN experts released on Monday backed their view.
On Tuesday, after meeting French counterpart Laurent Fabius in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated Moscow's allegation that the August 21 attack was carried out by Syrian rebels.
Damascus has presented to Russia additional evidence regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Earlier Western countries accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against civilians, citing a controversial UN report.
The evidence was handed over on Wednesday to Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who met Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem and President Bashar Assad in Damascus.
“That is really true. Just now we were given evidence. We need to analyze it,” he told RT.
He didn’t describe further the evidence Damascus had presented, although it apparently is meant to prove that rebel forces have access to chemical weapons and used it in the conflict.
He also criticized the UN report, saying that Russia is disappointed with its “biased” and “politicized” nature.
"We are unhappy about this report, we think that report was distorted, it was one-sided, the basis of information upon which it is built is not sufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of August 21," Ryabkov told RT.
The UN released a 38-page report on the incident, which confirmed that chemical weapons were indeed used in Syria on August 21. The inspectors behind the report were not authorized to name a suspected culprit in the attack, and the evidence they presented is now subject to conflicting interpretations.
The report stated that the warheads used in the Syria chemical attack “could be original or improvised.”The conclusion came after inspectors collected over 30 samples from both victims and nearby soil in the Damascus suburb last month.
The UN team noted that they had limited time to conduct the investigation and cautioned that evidence might have been “moved” or even “manipulated” since others visited the sites before and during the investigation.
Several Western countries, including the US, viewed the UN report as not leaving any doubts that the Syrian government was responsible for the August 21 use of sarin gas. Russia says those countries are jumping to conclusions and should wait for a final UN report, which is expected to be based on evidence gathered at other sites of alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
UN inspectors were conducting their investigation of those earlier incidents, but their mission was put on pause, as the inspectors were called to probe the latest attack and present an intermediate report on it alone. Moscow says that if all evidence is taken into account, the August 21 chemical attack appears to be a rebel provocation.
Russia has brokered a deal under which the Syrian government has agreed to scrap its chemical weapons arsenal in order to defuse tension that mounted after the August 21 sarin gas attack. The agreement, prepared by Russia and the US, put on hold America’s plans to use military force against Syria over the attack, which Washington blames on the government.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) have begun negotiating a resolution on chemical weapons in Syria, which was presented at the meeting on Tuesday, RIA Novosti quoted a UN source as saying. "France, Great Britain and the United States introduced a draft resolution today at a meeting of the five in New York," the source said, adding that Russia and China will be studying the resolution.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov clarified Russia’s position on the future document on Tuesday, saying that the resolution in support of the plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons won’t refer to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which grants the Security Council a right to use military force to restore peace, Lavrov stressed.
The resolution, Lavrov stressed, is meant only to affirm the UNSC’s support of the roadmap for the destruction of the chemical weapons stockpile, which will be penned by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
In the meantime, US Secretary of State John Kerry asserted that the US-Russian agreement for Syria to hand over its chemical weapons needs to be backed by a UN resolution in order to ensure Syrian President Bashar Assad’s compliance.
"That will happen only with the United Nations passing a strong resolution. It will happen with the enforcement of the world, with Russia standing by us in this effort, and it will happen, finally, because Assad lives up to what he has agreed to do," Kerry told reporters.
Earlier, in response to a question from a journalist on whether the chemical weapons deal gives Assad job security, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that any government in place would be in charge of seeing it to the end.
“Any individual, any government that is in place, whether that’s a transitional government, whatever it may be, would be in charge of implementing this. And that is the body that would work through this,” she said.
http://rt.com/op-edge/syria-rebels-have-sarin-980/
The US military have reportedly proved that sarin gas production is going on among some Sunni salafists in Iraq, and via Turkey, can reach Syrian rebels, former Pentagon official Michael Maloof told RT, citing classified sources.
RT: France, the US and UK are saying the UN report clearly points to the Assad government's involvement in the August attack . But how can they be so sure, especially as the document states that improvised rockets may have been used, possibly pointing to rebel involvement?
Michael Maloof: I have a report from a source who has direct connections with classified information and he basically told me that [the] US military did an assessment based upon 50 indicators and clandestine interviews that the sourcing of sarin originated out of Iraq and into Turkey before some of it was confiscated in May in Turkey. He believes that since that report was disseminated in August in 2013, that there has actually been a more significant amount of sarin production both in Iraq and in Turkey going to the opposition, principally Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra.
That was their specific target, to see to what extent Al-Qaeda was actually involved in production, in research and dissemination. He says what was confiscated was bench level or small specimens at the time, but that the production now they believe is much more robust and that the non-proliferation, genie, as he says, is no longer exclusive. So there's quite an increasing concern that this is still ongoing, that production is occurring among some Sunni salafists in Iraq and continues to be transported into Turkey.
RT: Can you tell us more about that classified document you’ve seen, which shows that the US knew that Al-Qaeda linked rebels in Syria had sarin gas?
MM: The document itself was published in August 2013 by the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC). It’s part of the intelligence community. The fact that some of it was actually captured in May along the border in Turkey and it was actually Al-Qaeda, and since it was disseminated my sources are telling me that production has probably increased significantly and sarin gas is being produced quite widely now. That it's actually ongoing and there's actually a Saudi financier whose name I’m trying to obtain right now.
This raises a whole host of questions, and even though Mr Kerry says we know what the origin of the August 21 shot was into the outskirts of Damascus that killed hundreds of people including children, he tells me that they have been scouring Syria for more than a year looking at all the Syrian military activities and that they have no information on any artillery having been fired that day at that time into that location. So this raises all kinds of further questions as to what this information is which Kerry possesses, but refuses to share with the world.
RT: Why is the US not taking any action against the Syrian rebels then? After all, they believe that Al-Qaeda, their sworn enemy has chemical weapons.
MM: Clearly the administration does not want to get more deeply involved in a Middle East conflict. It’s probably a political and policy call on the Obama administration’s part. Again, this is speculation on my part, but I think it would go absolutely against the grain of trying to assist the rebels and I think the administration’s goal really is regime change. You have an opposition and foreign fighters that have now integrated into the opposition being involved in this. This absolutely goes contrary to what their policy direction is and results in tremendous confusion.
We’ve had separate reports already that Al-Qaeda elements are rather significant in numbers and have permeated into the opposition. So the ability to distinguish who gets what and where becomes much more problematic for this administration. I think that the administration is trying to oust Assad, but the fact that you have those foreign fighters there, for them to admit it would absolutely undermine their entire policy approach.
‘US cannot afford another war with questionable results’
RT: The US says they want to see the Geneva peace talks take place - yet they've just offered more support to the opposition. How is that going to bring the peace process closer?
MM: You've got to distinguish the opposition. The opposition has refused to meet as long as the Assad government is going to be represented at Geneva 2. But I think with Russian President Putin’s direction and leadership in all this, I think the United States is compelled to have that meeting and to try and resolve this. It certainly isn’t going to please the opposition but the United States has basically boxed itself into a corner on this policy approach, because the next question is what happens in response to any bombing or regime change.
Regime change would clearly be done through military action and by force, so what the repercussions of that will be is something the administration doesn’t want to confront, and I think it’s something the opposition feels very disappointed about and it could be very demoralizing for them as a consequence.
The United States cannot afford to get involved in another military conflict with questionable results, and certainly in terms of time, where it’s all going to lead to. So I think it would be in the interests of the United States and Russia to get Geneva 2 underway and get something resolved. I think the leadership of Mr. Putin and certainly Foreign Minister Lavrov have come up with a solution and I think that that’s something that has to be pursued. Whether you get the opposition to come along is highly questionable, but I think at this stage the big boys are calling the shots on this, not the opposition.
You must keep in mind that the opposition itself is very fragmented. You have over a thousand elements in there that don’t talk to one another, it’s not a unified effort, and this actually consolidates Assad’s position, particularly with the help of Iran and Russia at this point.
5 Lies Invented to Spin UN Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack
Tony Cartalucci
Infowars.com
September 17, 2013
Infowars.com
September 17, 2013
As predicted days before the UN’s Syrian chemical weapons report was made public, the West has begun spinning the findings to bolster their faltering narrative regarding alleged chemical weapon attacks on August 21, 2013 in eastern Damascus, Syria. The goal of course, is to continue demonizing the Syrian government while simultaneously sabotaging a recent Syrian-Russian deal to have Syria’s chemical weapon stockpiles verified and disarmed by independent observers.
Image: 107mm rocket shells frequently used by terrorists operating within and along Syria’s borders. They are similar in configuration and function to those identified by the UN at sites investigated after the alleged August 21, 2013 Damascus, Syria chemical weapons attack, only smaller.
….
A barrage of suspiciously worded headlines attempt to link in the mind of unobservant readers the UN’s “confirmation” of chemical weapons use in Syria and Western claims that it was the Syrian government who used them. Additionally, the US, British, and French governments have quickly assembled a list of fabrications designed to spin the UN report to bolster their still-unsubstantiated accusations against the Syrian government.
The BBC’s article, “US and UK insist UN chemicals report ‘blames Syria’,” again states unequivocally, [emphasis added]:
The UN report did not attribute blame for the attack, as that was not part of its remit.
However, that did not stop UK Foreign Secretary William Hague who claimed:
From the wealth of technical detail in the report – including on the scale of the attack, the consistency of sample test results from separate laboratories, witness statements, and information on the munitions used and their trajectories – it is abundantly clear that the Syrian regime is the only party that could have been responsible.
And US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power who stated:
The technical details of the UN report make clear that only the regime could have carried out this large-scale chemical weapons attack.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is also quoted as saying:
When you look at the findings carefully, the quantities of toxic gas used, the complexity of the mixes, the nature, and the trajectory of the carriers, it leaves absolutely no doubt as to the origin of the attack.
The Washington Post went one step further, and perhaps foolishly, laid out a detailed explanation of each fabrication the West is using to spin the latest UN report. In an article titled, “The U.N. chemical weapons report is pretty damning for Assad,” 5 points are made and explained as to why the UN report “points” to the Syrian government.
1. Chemical weapons were delivered with munitions not used by rebels: This claim includes referencing “Syria watcher” Eliot Higgins also known as “Brown Moses,” a UK-based armchair observer of the Syrian crisis who has been documenting weapons used throughout the conflict on his blog.
While Higgins explains these particularly larger diameter rockets (140mm and 330mm) have not been seen (by him) in the hands of terrorists operating within and along Syria’s borders, older posts of his show rockets similar in construction and operation, but smaller, most certainly in the hands of the militants.
The Washington Post contends that somehow these larger rockets require “technology” the militants have no access to. This is categorically false. A rocket is launched from a simple tube, and the only additional technology terrorists may have required for the larger rockets would have been a truck to mount them on. For an armed front fielding stolen tanks, finding trucks to mount large metal tubes upon would seem a rather elementary task – especially to carry out a staged attack that would justify foreign intervention and salvage their faltering offensive.
2. The sarin was fired from a regime-controlled area: The Washington Post contends that:
The report concludes that the shells came from the northwest of the targeted neighborhood. That area was and is controlled by Syrian regime forces and is awfully close to a Syrian military base. If the shells had been fired by Syrian rebels, they likely would have come from the rebel-held southeast.
What the Washington Post fails to mention are the “limitations” the UN team itself put on the credibility of their findings. On page 18 of the report (22 of the .pdf), the UN states [emphasis added]:
The time necessary to conduct a detailed survey of both locations as well as take samples was very limited. The sites have been well travelled by other individuals both before and during the investigation. Fragments and other possible evidence have clearly been handled/moved prior to the arrival of the investigation team.
It should also be noted that militants still controlled the area after the alleged attack and up to and including during the investigation by UN personnel. Any tampering or planting of evidence would have been carried out by “opposition” members – and surely the Syrian government would not point rockets in directions that would implicate themselves.
3. Chemical analysis suggests sarin likely came from controlled supply: The Washington Post claims:
The U.N. investigators analyzed 30 samples, which they found contained not just sarin but also “relevant chemicals, such as stabilizers.” That suggests that the chemical weapons were taken from a controlled storage environment, where they could have been processed for use by troops trained in their use.
Only, any staged attack would also need to utilize stabilized chemical weapons and personnel trained in their use. From stockpiles looted in Libya, to chemical arms covertly transferred from the US, UK, or Israel, through Saudi Arabia or Qatar, there is no short supply of possible sources.
Regarding “rebels” lacking the necessary training to handle chemical weapons – US policy has seen to it that not only did they receive the necessary training, but Western defense contractors specializing in chemical warfare are reported to be on the ground with militants inside Syria. CNN reported in their 2012 article, “Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing chemical weapons,” that:
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday.
The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.
4. Cyrillic characters on the sides of the shells: The Washington Post claims:
The Russian lettering on the artillery rounds strongly suggests they were Russian-manufactured. Russia is a major supplier of arms to the Syrian government, of course, but more to the point they are not a direct or indirect supplier of arms to the rebels.
The Washington Post’s logic fails even at face value. Terrorists operating inside of Syria also possess rifles and even tanks of Russian origin – stolen or acquired through a large network of illicit arms constructed by NATO and its regional allies to perpetuate the conflict.
Additionally, had the attacks been staged by terrorists or their Western backers, particularly attacks whose fallout sought to elicit such a profound geopolitical shift in the West’s favor, it would be assumed some time would be invested in making them appear to have originated from the Syrian government. The use of chemical weapons on a militant location by the militants themselves would constitute a “false flag” attack, which by definition would require some sort of incriminating markings or evidence to accompany the weapons used in the barrage.
5. The UN Secretary General’s comments on the report: The Washington Post itself admits the tenuous nature of this final point, stating:
“This is perhaps the most circumstantial case at all, but it’s difficult to ignore the apparent subtext in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s news conference discussing the report…”
That the Washington Post, and the interests driving its editorial board, could not even produce 5 reasonably convincing arguments as to why the UN report somehow implicates the Syrian government casts doubt on claims regarding the “wealth of technical detail” pointing in President Bashar al-Assad’s direction.
The UN report confirms that chemical weapons were used, a point that was not contended by either side of the conflict, before or after the UN investigation began. What the West is attempting to now do, is retrench its narrative behind the report and once again create a baseless justification for continued belligerence against Syria, both covert and as a matter of official foreign policy.
Chemical weapon talks teeter - West and Syrian Rebel sponsors still clinging to desire for military strikes ?
US-Russia Deal on Syria Teetering Over ‘Use of Force’ Option
France Still Pushing War, Threatening Finalization of Pact
by Jason Ditz, September 17, 2013
The US-Russia pact on Syria was seemingly a done deal, pushing Syria on a speed-up above and beyond the requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), butgiving up on US demands for a “military option.”
That deal seems to be in serious risk now, asFrance is pushing for attacking Syria and the US and Britain are no longer saying that they will accept a UN resolution based on what the US and Russia agreed to last week.
Russia says they won’t support any resolution authorizing use of force against Syria, and that means there could be an indefinite delay on any UN resolution, even though Syria ratified the CWC days ago.
France seems to be the driving force against the deal, and that decision seems to be in no small part based on the Hollande government’s desperation to assert itself as a world power, even if it means starting an unnecessary war in one of their former colonial possessions.
and...
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