01/09/17 – Gareth Porter on the Pentagon’s plot to undermine US-Russian cooperation in Syria – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, Al Scott Horton's show, I'm Him, which of course means I'm on the line with Gareth Porter, like usual.
This one's for Truthdig.
How do you like that?
Gareth Porter at truthdig.com, and really important one, a follow-up, Inquiry Points Toward a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama's Syria Policy.
Oh, say it ain't so, Gareth.
Welcome back to the show.
Hi, Scott.
Glad to be back.
Thanks.
Happy to have you here.
Now, why did I mention that you wrote the book on the Iran nuclear program?
You can forget all the other books on the Iran nuclear program.
Gareth Porter wrote the book on the Iran nuclear program.
It's called Manufactured Crisis, The Truth Behind the Iran Nuclear Scare.
Read that, and you'll know the truth.
All right, now, boy, oh, boy, so in September, before the election, in the war in Syria, there was an attack by the American Air Force, Gareth, on a Syrian government military position right in the middle of a battle against not just al-Qaeda, but the Islamic State, in fact.
September 17th, it was, as you say here, 62 Syrian troops were killed, and dozens more were wounded, and they said it was a big accident.
Now there's obviously broader political context, and now there is a summary of an official investigation by CENTCOM, and please, when you get into that part, take note of what's unique about this investigation that makes it a little bit different from the usual cover-up.
Yes.
Well, first of all, just let me say one thing about the attack itself.
In fact, it's worse than the way you presented it, because it was not in the midst of a battle that was going on.
That might make it more credible, somehow, that the U.S. CENTCOM Air Force component and its allies in Operation Inherent Resolve, the anti-ISIL allied effort in Iraq and Syria, that they could make a mistake between the Syrian army forces and the ISIL forces.
But in fact, no such battle was going on then.
In fact, it was relatively quiet.
In other words, the ISIL forces had repeatedly tried to attack the airport, the Deir ez-Zor airport, which was the key to making it possible to resupply the city of Deir ez-Zor, because that was the only way to resupply it.
And they had been doing this repeatedly for quite some time, but they had failed because of the positions that the Syrian army had at a much higher level of, a higher elevation geographically, in Deir ez-Zor near the airport.
So this was really the key.
And the fact is that this attack on the Syrian army positions, there were actually two different positions that they attacked, was much more difficult to explain because there was no real hurry.
There was no urgency about such an attack.
And that's one of the points that I make in my piece, that the official investigation that was called for by CENTCOM actually makes in this heavily redacted, very short but very interesting report on the investigation, that there was no need to hurry to carry out such an attack because we're talking about fixed positions.
These positions weren't going to go anywhere.
They were fixed positions that they knew they would have right there for quite some time.
And despite that fact, the command that was headed by this General Harrigan of the US Air Force, CENTCOM Air Force component, basically made the decision to switch from what had been a leisurely, unhurried process of gathering intelligence to suddenly saying, okay, we've got to do it right now.
And the investigators said, no, that's not according to Air Force regulations.
That's not the way you do things.
There's no reason for you to hurry this thing.
You should have taken the time to verify the initial intelligence identification of the units as ISIL rather than Syrian army.
So that was a key point about this whole investigation and about the attack itself.
And in my piece, I just make the case based on the evidence that was uncovered by the investigators.
And this is quite extraordinary because, as I point out, ordinarily, when the military does something stupid or just screws up, kills a lot of civilians or whatever, does something that requires an investigation, they simply cover it up with a pro forma investigation, which then issues a statement saying, yeah, you know, no regulations were really violated and they were doing the best job they could.
In this case, it's clear that something different happened because it wasn't just a U.S. military investigator.
There was a one star U.S. general who was a part of the investigating team, but the co-author was clearly non-American.
The identity and even the country represented by the co-author was redacted.
So we don't know who and for what country that general was serving.
But clearly, the allied country that was involved in the strike, it was either the UK or Denmark or Australia, was demanding that they be part of the investigation.
And that person was much more rigorous, didn't let the U.S. military get away with the usual sort of cover up the way they would have liked.
And so that's why we have more evidence here to go on.
And the other two points that I make, the biggest points in the investigative report are that there was plenty of evidence, plenty of intelligence, I should say, that presumably would have been available to the commander making the decision to go ahead with the strike that showed that this could not have been an ISIL unit, that clearly it was a Syrian army unit rather than an ISIL unit.
And part of the intelligence was provided by the main Air Force source of analysis of surveillance data from surveillance drones, which submitted its own analysis, its own assessment in response to the initial identification and said, no, this can't be, it could not be an ISIL unit.
And that information supposedly, according to the investigative report, never reached the decision makers.
And that's, of course, based on what the decision makers themselves were saying, what General Harrigan and his staff told the investigators.
Well, also, wait a minute.
I mean, here's the thing.
I mean, it sounds like they're guilty as hell so far and you're not even done yet.
And it confirms my bias as well, because the whole thing sure does look on the face of it like blatant insubordination.
I mean, what we're talking about is destroying a ceasefire that had been reached by the secretary of state and and the Russian foreign minister.
And as you say here, Ashton Carter, the secretary of defense, had really done everything he could inside the interagency process to stop this thing from happening in the first place and all that.
But so just to play devil's advocate for a second, I'm sure you've read Joseph Heller and anybody who has or understands how government works, no matter what the program would say, of course they screwed up.
It's a government program.
They couldn't possibly get it right.
And all their incentives are to get it wrong.
But also, they don't have any of the disincentives for getting it wrong.
And so things like what you just said, well, gee, nobody told us the one most important thing we needed to know, which sounds like a pretty thin and stupid excuse, actually kind of sounds pretty plausible when it comes to a bunch of Air Force guys.
Right.
I mean, you know, in the abstract, of course, you're absolutely right that that screw ups are to be expected.
But the key thing is what you also said in the same paragraph or sentence, that it's a matter of incentives.
You know, it's a question of whether the incentive is strong enough to get it right or whether there's an incentive to get it wrong.
And in this case, the point really is that the incentives were all to get it wrong.
And the motivation, in other words, was to get it wrong.
So yeah, I mean, the first point is that they had alternative, you know, intelligence, which showed that the identification that they initially made, which was simply it was based solely on the fact that they that the personnel that they were seeing on the ground were not wearing uniforms that were all the same and they didn't see any flags.
Well, it turns out that there was a site citation of a flag before the strike was carried out.
But again, somehow it never reached the the policymakers supposedly.
But in addition to that, you're right, though, that that does sound just like plausible deniability, a pretty an easy, quote, mistake, accidental on purpose kind of a thing, the way they would do it.
One, the one that really stands out above all else, in a sense, is the fact that the decision makers, they didn't follow the regulations so that they could go ahead and accelerate this despite the fact that the intelligence was was very fuzzy at best.
So the third thing that they did, which is, I think, really the most telling of all, is that they put forward to the Russians, they informed the Russians, according to their understanding for deconfliction with the Russian command about the strike that was to take place.
And they misled them.
And they told them they gave a very precise location for the strikes, saying that they were six miles away, as I recall, no, nine miles away.
They were nine miles away from the from the Deir ez-Zor airport, whereas, in fact, they were only three, three to six kilometers away, should be I should be kilometers, three to six kilometers away.
So they deliberately misinformed the Russians about the location of the strike, knowing that, of course, if they told the Russians the accurate location of the strike, the Russians would immediately know that they were going to hit Syrian bases.
Right.
And and the American general who was briefing the reporters and I listened in, I was able to hear this briefing, although they wouldn't let me ask a question, said that, you know, he acknowledged that the command had, you know, had they given the Russians the correct information, the Russians would have intervened and they wouldn't have carried out the strike.
So all of this fits together.
It fits a pattern that makes it extremely unlikely that this was an accident.
Extremely unlikely it was an accident.
Well, look, if you put the shoe on the other foot and it was the Russians who did it to our side, meaning Al-Qaeda, they'd be screaming bloody murder about it, which, in fact, they did do.
Right.
As soon as the Russians started bombing Al-Qaeda, they were saying, hey, you're not bombing ISIS.
You're bombing only rebels.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, that's a that's another story, of course, isn't it?
OK, so now the Russian reaction to was at least they were feigning as though they see it the same way as you see it here, that this must have been on purpose.
And the ambassador to the U.N., you quote, you're saying, well, who's in charge in Washington, the White House or the Pentagon?
And geez, Garrett, it sounds like a fair question.
Well, I mean, I think that the Russians generally were very concerned about the fact that this had all the appearances of a deliberate strike against the Syrian government, despite the fact that, you know, just a few days later, the plan was, according to the Syrian ceasefire agreement, that they would enter into the United States and Russia would enter into cooperation with regard to fighting ISIL, bombing ISIL targets and potentially Al-Qaeda targets as well.
And so clearly the Syrian government was very angry and didn't trust any possible cooperation with the United States in Syria anymore.
And they declared the ceasefire ended.
And the Russians went along with that.
And that indeed, you know, it was Ambassador Chokin at the United Nations, the Russian ambassador of the United Nations, did in fact say, you know, who is in charge in Washington?
And I think that was undoubtedly an honest response to what appeared to be Obama's inability to control his own military.
Flashback to 10 years ago, I first met you and interviewed you in January 2007, when Bush was announcing the surge and was announcing that Iran was responsible for all the problems in Iraq, even though Iran was back in the same team we were in the Cold War.
And we were at least soon to be thanking our lucky stars for the insubordination of Admiral William Fallon, who is telling Bush and Cheney no dice on their planned attack on Iran.
Now it's the other way around.
Well, I, you know, in fact, Fox Fallon, I know the White House felt that it was kind of an insubordination.
But clearly, there's a big difference because he was openly, you know, within the administration saying that, you know, he he believed that it was it was not in the US interest to get into a confrontation.
Well, but then again, he sort of made it be known that he would refuse to participate in such thing as the commander of CENTCOM, which is a whole other thing.
Right.
Right.
And he did he did make it clear, apparently, and I reported that, as you recall, that that he would resign rather than carry out a policy that involved war against Iran.
And and that is that's really honest, above board, you know, opposition to a policy.
Right.
You're right.
I shouldn't conflate him too much.
But this is really the exact opposite.
I mean, it's underhanded, dishonest.
I mean, the question really comes down to, though, in both cases.
Well, I mean, you're saying, yeah, he would have just resigned, which is different.
But right.
I mean, this really does raise the question of the chain of command here.
Is Obama the president or not?
Apparently, he's not.
Absolutely.
This is I don't even know if Ash Carter is the secretary of defense.
I mean, on one hand, I would just assume he was in on this.
But then again, for all I know, it was just the Air Force that decided to do it.
And there's no chain of command at all over there.
Yeah, we just we just don't know how high up this went.
I mean, I speculate that it appeared to me that certainly CENTCOM itself was was not horrified by this.
On the contrary, they they seemed in their response to be part of the cover up.
Yeah.
All right.
Listen, I'm sorry I kept you way too long here, man.
And I'm late, late, late for my next appointment here.
But thank you so much, Garrett.
This is really great stuff, dude.
Always.
Thanks a lot.
All right.
So that's a great Garrett Porter.
He's a truth dig dot com.
And yeah, boy, I'll tell you what.
Read it and we pass this thing around.
It's a really important one.
Inquiry points toward a Pentagon plot to subvert Obama's Syria policy and to subvert that ceasefire last fall.
All right, y'all.
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