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Saturday 18 January 2014 - 11:59

MIT challenges US claim on chemical attack in Syria

Story Code : 342417
MIT challenges US claim on chemical attack in Syria
The study showed that sarin gas “could not possibly have been fired at East Ghouta from the ‘heart’, or from the eastern edge, of the Syrian government controlled area shown in the intelligence map published by the White House on August 30, 2013.”
 
The study examined the range of the improvised rockets used in the attack based on mathematical calculations.
 
Conductors of the study - Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, an MIT professor - said that the rocket with such aerodynamics could not travel more than two kilometers.
 
The study concluded that based on the firing range and the troop locations, all possible launching points within a two-kilometer-radius were in militant-controlled areas.
 
“This mistaken intelligence could have led to an unjustified US military action based on false intelligence. A proper vetting of the fact that the munition was of such short range would have led to a completely different assessment of the situation from the gathered data,” the study said.
 
The MIT report challenges assessments made by the US Department of State of the chemical attack that was presented to Americans last August in an effort to rally support for a military attack on Syria.
 
“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” Postol said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”
 
The US and some of its allies blamed Damascus for the chemical attack on Ghouta. However, the Syrian government strongly denied the accusation, saying the attack was carried out by the militants operating inside the country to draw in foreign intervention.
 
According to the United Nations, more than 100,000 people have been killed and millions of others displaced in the turmoil that has gripped Syria for nearly three years.
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