Truthdig
Syrias Alleged Sarin-Gas Attack: Questioning a Flawed Investigation
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_the_investigation_of_syrias_alleged_s
arin-gas_attack_believable_20170705/
Posted on Jul 5, 2017
By Scott Ritter
Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Ahmet Üzümcü during a 2013 press conference in The Hague, Netherlands.
(Peter Dejong / AP
(http://www.apimages.com/Search?query=Ahmet+uzumcu&ss=10&st=kw&entitysearch=
&toItem=15&orderBy=Newest&searchMediaType=allmedia) )
In October 2013, only weeks into its mission to dismantle Syrias chemical
weapons program, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,
or OPCW (https://www.opcw.org/) , received the news that it was the
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In making the announcement, the chairman
of the Nobel committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, emphasized that the OPCW had
received the prize not only in recognition of its ongoing work in Syria,
conducted under extremely difficult conditions, but also as a tribute to its
16-year mission of ridding the world of chemical weapons.
The director-general of the OPCW, Ahmet Üzümcü
(https://www.opcw.org/about-opcw/technical-secretariat/director-general/) ,
a veteran Turkish diplomat whose geopolitical and disarmament credentials
included assignments to NATO and the United Nations, delivered the Nobel
Prize lecture in December 2013 upon receiving the award on behalf of the men
and women of the organization he led. Not surprisingly, the situation in
Syria featured prominently in his speech.
The [Chemical Weapon] Conventions achievements make the recent chemical
attacks in Syria, which shocked us all, even more tragic, Üzümcü stated,
for they highlight the manifest security advantages that states adhering to
the Convention enjoyin the sixteen years that the Convention has been in
force, no Member State has experienced an attack with chemical weapons.
On April 4 of this year, events in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/sarin-was-used-in-syria-khan-
sheikhun-attack-says-chemical-weapons-watchdog) proved Üzümcü wrong, with
the release of what was believed to be sarin nerve agent killing dozens of
Syrian civilians. The Turkish diplomats observation during his Nobel
lecture, Syria has tested us, proved prescient.
There is little debate that something horrible happened in and around Khan
Sheikhun the morning of April 4. There is, however, active debate over
precisely what happened and who was responsible. One narrative, embraced by
the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and France, holds
that the Syrian air force dropped a bomb filled with sarin on the center of
Khan Sheikhun, releasing deadly gas that killed and injured hundreds while
they slept. Another, put forward by the Syrian and Russian governments, has
the Syrian air force dropping conventional high explosive bombs on rebel
targets inside Khan Sheikhun, one of which struck a building housing a
weapons cache that included chemical weapons, inadvertently creating a cloud
of poison that killed nearby civilians.
Eyewitness accounts of the physiological effects of this event, whatever its
origins, on the citizens of Khan Sheikhun are themselves ambiguous. Some
interpret them as supporting the narrative that sarin gas was the culprit,
while others (myself included) believe the victim statements and symptoms
are more indicative of a chlorine-type agent of the sort known to have been
used by anti-regime rebels in the past. The OPCW has emerged as the final
arbiter, with the preliminary results of its investigation into the April 4
events proposing that sarin or a sarin-like substance was responsible for
the deaths and injuries in Khan Sheikhun.
While the OPCW is assiduous in not apportioning blame or responsibility for
any incident it investigates, those who point an accusatory finger at the
Syrian government, in particular the U.S., the U.K. and France, have cited
the OPCW findings as representing de facto evidence of guilt. It should
therefore have come as no surprise when the Russian government responded by
questioning the impartiality of the OPCW, singling out the team leaders of
the OPCWs fact-finding mission (FFM) in Syria, both of whom happen to be
U.K. citizens, as evidence of bias.
The Russians also noted
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/25/syria-chemical-attack-investi
gation-russia-opcw) that the OPCW findings were done without any actual
on-site inspection of either Khan Sheikhun or the Syrian air base at Shayrat
where the alleged chemical weapons were supposedly sourced, relying instead
on laboratory analysis of biomedical samples taken from victims who had fled
to neighboring Turkey (and raising the possibility of collusion between the
Turkish government, which has taken a very strong pro-rebel position, and
the Turkish director-general of the OPCW). Russia called for the
reorganization of the FFM to include the appointment of neutral team
leaders and members and a refocusing of its mission to include on-site
inspections of Khan Sheikhun and Shayrat air base. On April 20, the OPCW
executive committee, led by the delegations of the U.S., U.K. and France,
overwhelmingly rejected this proposal, reinforcing the Russian perception of
anti-regime bias on the part of the OPCW.
As a former chief weapons inspector with the United Nations in Iraq, I was
filled with a sense of déjà vu by the Russian protests against the OPCW. In
January 1998, I was heading up an inspection team tasked with conducting
very intrusive inspections of sites we believed to hold clues to the fate of
Iraqs unaccounted-for weapons of mass destruction but which were also
deemed to be politically sensitive to the regime of Saddam Hussein. At the
conclusion of the first day of inspections, the Iraqi government announced
that it would no longer cooperate with my team.
Of particular concern for the Iraqis was the large number of American and
British citizens on the team, in particular the leader (me). Russia took up
the Iraqi complaint in the United Nations Security Council, leading to the
imposition of new restrictions on the conduct of certain sensitive
inspections involving presidential palaces. The issue of team composition,
however, was not acted on; and I was able to continue my work, despite
pressure from on high, including from Secretary General Kofi Annan himself,
to restrict my involvement. The same held true for my American and British
colleagues. What saved our jobs was our professionalism and integrity as
inspectors and our strict adherence to our mandate, qualities even the Iraqi
government, in the end, was forced to concede.
The U.N. inspection process in Iraq ultimately collapsed because of the
interference in our work by the U.S. and U.K. governments; our disarmament
mission was corrupted from without by linking it to regime change in
Baghdadnot by any unprofessional conduct on the part of the inspectors.
In the more recent case in Syria, I felt a good degree of sympathy and
empathy for the two British OPCW inspectors, Steven Wallis and Leonard
Phillips, who had been called out by the Russian government. By all
accounts, both men are experienced inspectors who came by their appointments
not through any affiliation with the circles of foreign policy intrigue
emanating from London, but rather through their respective expert
qualifications. Phillips came from the commercial sector, starting his
career as a research scientist with ICI Chemicals and Polymers after
graduating from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, in 1997 with a
degree in chemical engineering. He moved on to Associated Octel, where he
worked as a process engineer before joining the OPCW as an inspector in
January 2008. Phillips was promoted to inspection team leader in 2011, and
he participated in the disarming of Syrias chemical weapons programs before
being appointed a fact finding mission team leader in March 2015.
Wallis served as a warrant officer in the British Armys Parachute Regiment
for four years before leaving the military in 2004 to become a paramedic
with the National Health Service. In 2008 he was seconded to a multi-agency
training team at the National Police Chemical, Biological, Radiological and
Nuclear Training Center (http://www.cbrn-uk.com/) , where he became involved
in hazardous materials medical response. In 2010 he joined the OPCW as a
health and safety specialist and subsequently served in a number of roles,
including mission leader. In March 2015, Wallis was appointed a team leader
with the fact-finding mission
(https://www.opcw.org/special-sections/syria/fact-finding-mission-reports/)
.
The record of both men in Syria shows the kind of creativity and
professionalism one would want in an inspection team leader operating under
difficult conditions. Both Phillips and Wallis were involved in the
dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons program and had significant
experience operating inside Syria, where conditions were harsh and
dangerous. The disarmament inspections they participated in, however, were
relatively straightforward affairs, involving verification of declared
materials, equipment and facilities, and overseeing their respective
disposition and destruction in accordance with a plan of action worked out
in cooperation with the Syrian government. These operations were very much
in keeping with the procedures and methodologies already in place within the
OPCW for inspections of declared chemical weapon storage facilities and
chemical weapon destruction facilities.
The disarmament of Syrias declared chemical weapons inventory was completed
in June 2014. The OPCW then took on the task of monitoring Syrian compliance
with the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, setting up two distinct
teams. One, the declaration assessment team, or DAT, was tasked with
clarifying any issues or discrepancies that might emerge concerning Syrias
declarations of its chemical weapons holdings. The other, the fact-finding
mission, or FFM, was given the unenviable job of determining if chemical
weapons continued to be used in the ongoing civil war in Syria.
Both the DAT and FFM have experienced considerable challenges in conducting
their respective missions. The DAT process is an informal one, in which
Syrian cooperation is sought through a series of meetings and site visits.
While the OPCW does not attribute responsibility for a chemical weapons
attack, the joint investigative mechanism (JIM), set up using resources from
both the OPCW and United Nations, does; and in 2016 the JIM issued a report
that implicated the Syrian government in several chemical weapons attacks,
something the Syrian government strenuously denies. Based upon the findings
of the JIM, several new locations were identified as being of inspection
interest, and the DAT has taken the lead in obtaining access to these sites
by OPCW inspectors, with mixed results.
Since its formation in 2014, the FFM has conducted some 20-odd
investigations into possible chemical weapons use in Syria, the most recent
of which is its ongoing investigation of the April 4 attack on Khan
Sheikhun. Inspections are the bread and butter of the OPCWs work. Within
the range of inspection activities undertaken by the OPCW, perhaps none is
more demanding that what is termed investigation of alleged use, or IAU,
inspections. The FFMs mission in Syria consists exclusively of IAU-type
inspections.
Before Syria, OPCW-run IAU inspection was a theoretical possibility, not a
practical reality. The United Nations had conducted several investigations
into the possible use of chemical weapons over the years, most notably
during the Iran-Iraq War, in Mozambique in 1992 and in Azerbaijan that same
year. Inspections conducted by the United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM) in Iraq included IAU-type investigations, as well as forensic
inspections that served as the foundational work for the sampling and
analysis (S&A) work that would serve as the heart of the OPCW inspection
process.
The gold standard for the conduct of IAU-type inspection was set by the
Joint UN-OPCW-World Health Organization (WHO) investigation into the use of
chemical weapons in Ghouta, Syria, a suburb of Damascus. This team, led by a
veteran Swedish chemical weapons inspector named Ake Sellstrom, produced a
report (https://undocs.org/A/67/997) that was virtually unassailable in
terms of its scientific and technical findings. One of the reasons for the
robust nature of the Sellstrom report was the short time that elapsed
between the events in question and the S&A work and related interviews
conducted by the team. (Sellstrom benefited from already being deployed in
Syria in support of a separate investigation into possible chemical weapons
use.)
The primary reason, however, that the Sellstrom report had such credibility
was the scientifically sound investigatory techniques used by the
inspectors, combined with the unimpeachable methodology used in collecting
and managing all evidence associated with the report. The Sellstrom team
adhered to the most stringent protocols available, including standard
operating procedures developed by the OPCW for S&A operations during
inspections. One of the most important concepts underpinning these protocols
was the notion of traceability, wherein all processes and procedures
involved in the inspection were recorded and continuity was maintained for
transparency and to withstand future scrutiny. Chain of custody procedures
involving sampling were governed by the principle of traceability, under
which the retrieval of the samples was recorded and witnessed, the samples
sealed, detailed documentation prepared and the samples escorted to the
laboratory under inspection team escort.
The Sellstrom standard, however, proved to be difficult to replicate. The
FFM confronted this reality during one of its first missions in 2014,
investigating a site where the use of chlorine gas was alleged. The team
came under armed attack and had to withdraw. Under these conditions, OPCW
Director-General Üzümcü noted during an address
(https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/ODG/uzumcu/DG_Keynote_London_2017.pdf)
made on the 20th anniversary of the groups founding, the choice before the
international community is between no investigations at all or
investigations that will apply procedures and methods suited to the
difficult conditions that we are dealing with in conflict zones. In short,
Üzümcü stated, when it comes to Syria, the Sellstrom standard no longer
applied.
This was an odd comment for the director-general to make, given that he is
ultimately responsible for establishing a stringent regime for collection
of samples during the course of any inspection conducted under the auspices
of the OPCW. In accordance with its own standard operating procedures and
guidelines, OPCW inspectors must be able to demonstrate to all states
parties that all analysis results have been obtained based upon independent
and verifiable bases. The procedures do allow for some flexibility, however,
allowing that inspectors must remain open to the realities of specific site
conditions and requirements.
The IAU inspection has one and only one goal: to determine the absence of
any undeclared scheduled (i.e., proscribed) chemicals at a given site. At
the end of the day, for an analysis for absence of undeclared scheduled
chemicals to be credible for verification purposes, it must be conducted in
accordance with OPCW procedures, fulfilling OPCW quality control/quality
assurance criteria, and using the OPCW Central Analytic Database (OCAD) as a
reference. Fundamental to this point is the absolute requirement for all
sample preparation and analysis conducted as part of inspection to be
performed by the inspection team using its own equipment approved for this
purpose, in accordance with OPCW standard operating procedures. In the case
of an IAU investigation, the inspection team will make use of an alleged
use sample collection kit that contains the necessary equipment to conduct
bulk solid, soil, water, liquid and wipe samples. Of note is the requirement
for all items intended to come in contact with the sample to be packed
individually for one-time use to prevent potential cross-contamination of
samples.
Under the leadership of Steven Wallis and Leonard Phillips, the FFM became
the living manifestation of the concept of flexibility to site conditions
and mission requirements. Samples collected by persons not affiliated with
the FFM were accepted by the team, violating the precept of traceability
that gave the Sellstrom report so much credibility; one example of this
breach was the receipt of a weapon that had been recovered by a Russian
military unit that subsequent tests revealed to contain sulfur mustard.
Phillips, at the head of mission FFM-Alpha, was tasked with investigating
the use of chlorine agent in locations in northern Syria that were
inaccessible to his team; he developed procedures that permitted a
nongovernmental organization, the White Helmets (a volunteer civil defense
unit funded and trained by the U.S. and U.K. governments that openly opposes
the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad), to locate persons to be
interviewed by the FFM, to check the authenticity of any samples and
bio-samples provided by the White Helmets, and to make sure the persons
interviewed were actually at the site in question.
While these actions were very much in keeping with the guidance of the
director-general to develop new procedures suited to the reality of the
situation in Syria, they violated every quality control/quality assurance
standard set forth under existing OPCW S&A procedures, thereby opening up
the findings of the FFM to scrutiny and questioning in a way the Sellstrom
report never experienced.
The operations and planning branch of the OPCWs inspectorate division
maintains a 24-hour operations center that includes what is known as the
information cell. This cell is responsible for collecting all source
material regarding worldwide allegations of the use of chemicals as weapons,
as well as for assessing the credibility of any source material collected
and making judgments regarding the deployment of inspectors in response to
this information.
On the morning of April 4, the information cell began monitoring social
media and news media reports coming out of Syria regarding an alleged
chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhun. Given that the news media reports
were largely recirculating the information being put out on social media,
the information cell was basically monitoring a single source of
information: videos and images published by the White Helmets ostensibly
documenting their response to the events in and around Khan Sheikhun.
The graphic nature of these images, combined with the fact that they were
being disseminated by an NGO (the White Helmets) with a proven record of
cooperating with the OPCW inside Syria, collectively lent the reports enough
credence to the information cell for it to recommend that the
director-general dispatch the fact finding mission to investigate. The FFM
was split into two sub-components; one, headed by Steven Wallis, was
deployed to Damascus to coordinate with the Syrian government. The other,
headed by Leonard Phillips, was deployed to Turkey, where it reached out to
the White Helmets for the purpose of initiating the collection of
information and evidence that could be used in any subsequent investigation.
Through information provided by the White Helmets, the FFM element inside
Turkey was able to obtain the names of victims from Khan Sheikhun who had
been evacuated to Turkey. After coordinating with Turkish officials, the FFM
discovered that three of these victims had died and were scheduled for
autopsies. Two members of the FFM were able to attend the autopsies and
witness the extraction of biomedical samples taken from the victims blood,
hair, brain, liver and lungs.
It was at this juncture that the haphazard nature of the investigation began
to fall apart for the FFM. One of the core tenets of the OPCW is
confidentialityespecially with regard to any findings associated with the
work of an inspection team. In general, such findings would be made public
only at the time the team leader reported to the director-general, and then
only after the information had been scrutinized to ensure conformity with
confidentiality requirements and OPCW standards of quality control and
quality assurance. However, the day after the autopsies took place, Turkish
Minister of Health Recep Akdag delivered a public statement
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/turkey-says-sarin-gas-was-use
d-at-syria-chemical-attack) that,based on the test results [of samples
taken from the autopsies], evidence was detected in patients which leads one
to think they were exposed to a chemical substance [sarin]. The Turkish
statement, which noted that the autopsies were completed with the efforts
of
OPCW representatives, set off a wave of international condemnation of
the Syrian government, which cited the Turkish findings as proof that
Damascus was to blame for the events in and around Khan Sheikhun. The
Turkish government further stated that samples drawn from the autopsies
would be dispatched to the OPCW laboratory in Rijswijk, Netherlands,
reinforcing the notion of collusion between Ankara and the OPCW.
The Turkish government had set up a decontamination checkpoint in Hatay
province, at the border crossing with Syria. Some 34 people claiming to be
victims from Khan Sheikhun were processed at this checkpoint before being
sent to hospitals in Antakya, Reyhanli and Iskenderun, all in Turkey. Three
of these victims subsequently succumbed to their injuries. Of the remaining
31, 10 were identified by the FMM, working together with the White Helmets,
as being of investigatory interest. On April 8, the FMM interviewed these
survivors and witnessed blood and urine samples being taken. These samples,
together with the biomedical samples extracted during the autopsies
witnessed by the FFM, were dispatched to Rijswijk later that same day,
arriving April 9.
The samples were subsequently divided and dispatched April 10 to two
designated laboratories, one in the U.K. and one in France, certified to
conduct forensic investigations of inspection samples collected by the OPCW.
On April 11, the Turkish Health Ministry again preempted the OPCW by
announcing that Turkish labs, in their analysis of the blood samples taken
from survivors, confirmed that sarin nerve agent was used in the Khan
Sheikhun attacks. The next day, April 12, U.K. Ambassador to the United
Nations Matthew Rycroft announced that U.K. specialists had found sarin or
sarin-like substance in victims blood samples. This announcement, when
combined with the statement from Turkey the day before, preempted any
announcement of the findings by the OPCW of the U.K. designated laboratory,
which had reached its preliminary conclusion earlier that day, and
significantly undermined any notion of independence on the part of the OPCW
in the conduct of its investigation into the Khan Sheikhun incident. (On
April 16 the French government released its own assessment of the samples,
evaluated at the National Center for Scientific Research, which mirrored
that of the British.)
Things only got trickier for the FFM team in Turkey. On April 12 and 13, the
team received additional biological-environmental samples, in the form of
two dead birds and the hair from a dead goat that the team was told were
from the site of the attack; internal organs were taken from the dead birds
by the team and forwarded to the OPCW laboratory. Additional environmental
samples, in the form of soil and water samples, were turned over to the team
by a representative of the White Helmets, who provided the team with
photographs and video of the sampling to back up his claim. These samples
were sent to Rijswijk on April 21 for processing and subsequent dispatch to
designated laboratories for evaluation April 25.
On May 19, the OPCW released a preliminary report on the work of the FFM,
including an annotation detailing the findings of the designated
laboratories regarding the evaluation of the samples sent by the team. In
almost every instance, the laboratory findings showed evidence of sarin or
a sarin-like substance. Unlike the Sellstrom report on Ghouta in 2013,
however, the findings of the FFM were not universally embraced, with Russia
in particular questioning the provenance and veracity of the test results,
and therefore the credibility of the OPCW itself.
One of the major issues confronting the OPCW in releasing the findings of
the FFM is the fact that the inspected states party (ISP), in this case
Syria, was removed from the entire process, in violation of the most basic
fundamental requirements of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which
holds that the ISP is an integral part of the veracity of any inspection;
here, the Syrian government was not involved. The CWC specifically notes
that the ISP has a right to retain portions of all samples taken; indeed, of
the eight portions of each sample created, one is required to be turned over
to the ISP, and one kept on site under joint OPCW/ISP seal. This was not
done.
Moreover, sampling and analysis operations are the sole purview of trained
OPCW inspectors, using necessary equipment exclusively drawn from OPCW
stores for that purpose. This includes sample vials and bottles, scoops,
syringes, wipes and other sampling materials. Each sample taken is supposed
to be accompanied by an OPCW sampling and analysis booklet, maintained by
the OPCW inspectors, which documents the handling of the sample from
collection to final dispositionthe very essence of traceability that
governs the credibility of any findings derived from an assessment of the
sample in question.
None of the samples received by the FFM in Turkey, and forwarded to the OPCW
for subsequent evaluation in designated laboratories, meets the requirements
set forth by the OPCWs own operating procedures regarding S&A methodology.
Even if the FFM accepted at face value the images and videos provided by the
White Helmets ostensibly documenting the collection of these samples, the
fact that the samples were collected April 4 and only turned over to the FFM
on April 12 and 13 creates a week-plus time frame when the location and
status of the samples cannot be meaningfully ascertained; the FFM had no way
of determining if the samples shown being collected on the White
Helmet-provided images and videos were the same material turned over to the
FFM.
Moreover, the samples themselves fail to meet any quality control or quality
assurance standard set by the OPCW regarding its S&A activities. A cursory
examination of the White Helmet videos would show that the collection
activity was more theater than real; the individuals conducting the sampling
were wearing chemical protective suits suitable for training only (the green
suits are clearly labeled Training), which means the suits provide no
protection from chemical agents. Moreover, there is no scene control, with
personnel in full protective ensembles freely mixing with persons having no
protection at all. One individual carries a Draeger multi-gas meter, useless
in the detection of chemical agents. Samples are thrown haphazardly into a
carrying case, and the samples are collected using a single scoop, meaning
that there is cross-contamination throughout the process. Cars and
motorcycles drive freely through the sampling area, contributing to
potential cross-contamination. In short, the videos meant to show the
viability of the samples in fact negate their potential utilitythese
samples should never have been accepted by the FFM, let alone forwarded to
the OPCW laboratory for subsequent evaluation at designated laboratories.
As a hazardous materials technician who has trained extensively to operate
in a chemical weapons environment (including live agent training at Fort
McClellan in Alabama, where I participated in sampling and detection
exercises using actual sarin and VX nerve agent), I was appalled by the
cavalier approach taken by the White Helmets in conducting their supposed
sample collection of sarin-infused material. There was no effort to set up a
hot zone (i.e., area of known or suspected contamination), no indication of
any meaningful monitoring and detection activity, and no evidence of any
effort to decontaminate personnel, equipment or samples.
As a former U.N. chief weapons inspector who has led sampling missions
involving great political sensitivity, I was aghast at the collection and
handling of what the White Helmets purported to be samples from the chemical
attack scene. The samples were virtually unusable as collectedthe
cross-contamination issues alone should preclude their being used. The lack
of any discernable documentation, the lack of any tamper-proof seals, and
the lack of viable sampling containers, techniques and methodology likewise
meant that anything collected by the White Helmets in the manner indicated
on film had absolutely zero inspection utility.
These observations are obvious and self-evident to anyone possessing a
modicum of professional training and experience, as certainly the members of
the OPCW FFM in Turkey could claimespecially the team leader, Leonard
Phillips. When the shock of the nonexistent health and safety standards used
by the White Helmets wore off, it became clear to me that this wasnt simply
a scene neutrally depicting the actions of innocents trying to do a good
deed. Rather, the videotape of the sampling activities was, like the videos
and images of the White Helmets rescuing stricken survivors on April 4,
which energized the OPCW information cell into recommending the dispatch of
the FFM to begin with, a deliberate effort to deceive. The OPCW fell victim
to this deception twice: first in sending the FFM to Turkey, and second in
receiving and processing evidence, whether in the form of victims or
environmental samples.
But even if one gives the OPCW the benefit of the doubt and forgives its
absolute lack of discerning cynicism regarding the work of the White
Helmets, the failure on the part of the FFM to adhere to even a modicum of
professionalism when considering the samples turned over by the White
Helmets is unforgivable. The Russians have singled out the British team
leaders of the FFM, in particular Phillips, as being complicit. On the
surface, the Russians seem to have a case; it was Phillips, after all, who
initiated contact with the White Helmets in 2015, legitimizing their
presence in the OPCW inspection process. This embrace of the White Helmets
by the OPCW seems to have contributed to its willingness to accept at face
value whatever the White Helmets turned over for its use, including videos,
samples and victim identification.
Phillips, however, is not the final authority on the work of the FFM in
Turkey. This is the purview of the director-general of the OPCW, Ahmet
Üzümcü. Before Phillips and his team deployed to Turkey, they were issued an
inspection mandate by the director-general that detailed the scope of
their mission, up to and including the type of equipment to accompany the
team. Normally the inspection mandate is an ironclad document derived from
the specific authorities enjoyed by an inspection team in accordance with
the Chemical Weapons Treaty. But Üzümcü has spoken of the specific need for
flexibility in approaching the unique circumstances faced by the FFM. One
wonders which specific instructions the inspection mandate for Phillips
includedwhat, for instance, was the nature of the FFMs relationship with
Turkey (not an inspected states party); what was the specific authority
given in terms of establishing a working relationship with the White
Helmets; and what waivers of procedures and guidelines were granted in terms
of sampling and assessment activity?
I have no doubt that Phillips, like his fellow FFM team leader Steven
Wallis, is a consummate professional. The notion of an OPCW team leader of
his stature deviating from standard operating procedure is virtually
unthinkable. At the end of the day, the onus for explaining the conduct of
the FFM in Turkey falls on the shoulders of Ahmet Üzümcü. If he indeed
provided an inspection mandate with such blatant deviations from the kind of
strict procedure-based protocols that give the OPCW its legitimacy, upon
whose authority did he do so?
The hand-in-glove relationship between Üzümcü and the governments of Turkey,
the United States, the United Kingdom and France that emerges from this
process can only lead to the conclusion that, in the desire for regime
change in Damascus, the narrow-minded self interests of a few governments,
facilitated by an international civil servant lacking the courage to stand
up and challenge an abuse of authority by these nations, has led to the
discrediting of yet another international disarmament organization.
I witnessed this process firsthand as a weapons inspector with UNSCOM
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Special_Commission) in
1997-1998, when the United States and its British allies exploited the
personal failings of the UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler to
undermine and ultimately destroy the U.N. disarmament effort on Iraq, all in
the name of removing Saddam Hussein from power. Sadly, the same process is
being used today regarding the work of the OPCW.
The cooperation of Ahmet Üzümcü in allowing the White Helmets to infiltrate
the very inspection processes that gave the OPCW its credibility, and
likewise to permit the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Turkey
to use this very OPCW investigation process to attack the government of
Syria as part of their collective efforts for regime change in Damascus, is
a case study in history repeating itself. Ambassador Üzümcüs cavalier
approach toward inspection integrity in the name of flexibility has
tarnished the once stellar work record of the OPCW and undermined the
principles of international peace and security that were inherent in the
decision by the Nobel committee to award the organization the 2013 Nobel
Peace Prize.
Russia would do well to stop picking on the two British inspectors, Wallis
and Phillips, and instead single out the true culprit in the debacle that
has become of the OPCW experience in SyriaAhmet Üzümcü. His resignation as
director-general of the OPCW would be the start of a healing process that
would hopefully return the OPCW to the status it once enjoyed as one of the
worlds pre-eminent disarmament organizations.
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