Independent political journalist Joe Lauria discusses the United Nations’ surprising interference with the US/UK push for military strikes in Syria; shades of pre-war Iraq as UN ambassador Samantha Power insists weapons inspectors aren’t needed to investigate the Damascus chemical attack after all; and why the White House seeks only “to attack just strongly enough not to be mocked.”
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Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, and our guest today is Joe Lauria, reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
He covers the UN beat for the Wall Street Journal.
Welcome back to the show.
Joe, how are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Scott.
Thank you very much for having me on again.
Well, I'm very happy to have you here.
So, you wrote this article, and while you were one of the authors of this article in the Wall Street Journal on the 26th, UN pushes back at U.S. calls to abort Syria inspection, and then the article was rewritten after John Kerry gave a statement, and some of the meat of your part of the article was pushed out for editing purposes, purely above board, honest and pure ones, I have to assume.
So, I was just wondering if you want to take the opportunity to remind people what's no longer available on the Wall Street Journal website, what was in this article, and what's important in the development since then, for that matter?
Well, what happened was that right after this attack, the United States pressured Syria to allow the UN inspectors to go to this neighborhood east of central Damascus, Ghouta, where this chemical attack apparently took place.
Kerry called the foreign minister of Syria to pressure him, and suddenly on Sunday, Sunday morning, either Samantha Power, the new UN ambassador, or Kerry spoke with Ban Ki-moon.
I know that Power made several calls to Ban Ki-moon, so it was probably her, but Kerry also spoke to him that weekend, and suddenly said that the inspectors had to be pulled, that it wasn't safe for them, and that their mission was pointless.
And this has now been put on the record by Susan Rice, the National Security Advisor, that the U.S. thinks inspectors are pointless, because their mandate, it has to be remembered, is simply to determine whether a chemical attack took place, not who is responsible for it.
So they're arguing in the U.S. that since they're certain that a chemical attack did take place, what is the point of these inspectors?
So there's speculation that they were being asked to be withdrawn so the U.S. could attack, and there's precedent for this.
Of course, it happened in Iraq, weapons inspectors were pulled when the U.S. told the UN that there would be an invasion imminent.
But the inspectors did not leave, and Ban Ki-moon, to his credit, and it's unusual because he's not known for standing up to any of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, above all the United States, told them no, that the inspectors would go ahead with their work.
And that was an extraordinary moment, and it has slowed down the rush to war to some extent, in addition to what's gone on in Britain, because there's been a revolt, even in the Conservative Party, but certainly with the Labour Party, to have two debates on this.
But at that time, that looked like the first moment when the UN was saying, hold on a minute, let's do the inspections, and to heck with the U.S. telling us to pull them.
So the inspectors did go out, they were shot at the next morning, we still don't know who actually fired at them.
A bullet went through the windshield of one of their vehicles, and they've been collecting evidence.
Now, even though I said they can't, by their mandate, determine who did this, they may inadvertently come up with information that could help understand better what happened that day, and who may have been behind it, particularly the type of chemical that was used.
We still don't know what it is.
It's an assumption that it was sarin gas, which we know the government has.
But it could have been chlorine as well, and in a moment, if you'll let me, I'll go through all the evidence that we have that Syrian rebels have had access, and probably have used chlorine gas already in this attack.
So if it is chlorine, for example, it might point to the fact that rebels were the ones who carried out this attack, and not the government, and we're waiting today, Thursday, for the U.S. to reveal its intelligence on this, their proof, that would allow them to conduct a military strike.
And given what happened with the Iraq War, and all the skepticism about the false evidence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, there's a pretty high bar for the United States to meet.
And if you can believe New York Times reporting last night and today, this report today will not be very conclusive, and it won't have a smoking gun.
Right.
Well, okay, so a lot of things there.
First of all, do you think it's fair to speculate that there was panic behind this move?
It seems very clumsy that they would say, yes, we should send in weapons inspectors and chemical weapons experts.
Wait, stop, pull them back, don't let them go, because, jeez, there's no point in them being scientists on the scene anyway.
I mean, what is that?
It's very suspicious.
It's like when they grounded the Bolivian leaders playing over Ed Snowden.
Like, what are you guys doing?
Again, they say on the record that they were no longer needed and they're not safe there.
But the U.S. certainly changed their minds, whether they got definitive evidence that it was the government that did it, you hear that today, and then they decided that was it, they had to attack, and the inspectors had to be pulled out, or they're afraid that the inspectors will find out some information that will undermine the U.S. intelligence and their argument that it was definitely the Syrian government that carried out this attack.
And I think that those are the two possibilities.
They just don't want the inspectors to go and find out something that they don't want the world to know about.
Or they just simply feel they need to rush to this attack, which is curious, because why?
I mean, Syria's not going anywhere, and this is the most supremely serious act any state can undertake, which is a military action, and it behooves them to take their time to carefully evaluate the evidence and make it public.
It has to remain public.
It has to be convincing.
So why the rush?
Now, they put out a story the next day that Aleppo could be next, it could be an attack in Aleppo, so they have to do it right away.
I mean, that's just not credible, in my view.
So there's this rush to go to war, and I think that they're worried the inspectors might slow it down by their mere presence there, or that they might come up with something that undermines their argument, that it was the government that did it.
You know, it seems like part of the government, and maybe, I don't know, I'm just going on my impression of where it seems like some of these leaks are coming from when they're talking.
Well, and I guess, no, part of this was just from the press conference, where reporters were actually pushing back at the State Department press conference, and they had to admit that they really don't have much, other than it seems like it must be the government.
I mean, if there was a chemical weapons attack, then it must have been the government that chemical weapons attacked them, which is more or less what the State Department spokesman said.
And then in the Associated Press, there's this piece by Kimberly Dozier saying that, yeah, well, you know, questions remain about maybe it was a rogue group.
It sounds like this is at least part of the administration talking, but maybe lower down than that?
Look, I mean, as far as who did this attack, you have to look at two things, motive and capability.
I'm asking as far as who in the government is putting out this narrative, that maybe it was the government, but maybe it wasn't Assad.
Who do you think is behind that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But why is that happening?
They're not unified in their understanding.
But they are saying, they're covering themselves by saying, even if it was a lower level and Assad didn't know about it or give the order, it doesn't matter, that the Syrian side did this, Syrian government side, and they have to be punished, and they have to prevent them from doing it again, which is fraught with all kinds of danger as well, if they attack chemical weapon sites.
But I don't know.
You know, that kind of information is just, it's not clear, you know, what the inner thinking is within the government.
But they're putting out, maybe they're covering the tracks with all kinds of possibilities of how this could have happened and how the government did it.
So I think they clearly don't have a smoking gun.
They cannot say they have evidence that Assad ordered this.
They have these supposed tapes from the Israelis where his brother, the head of this elite unit, was the one who gave the order.
I'd love to hear those tapes.
I mean, I wouldn't be able to hear or understand what they're saying or who was saying it, but somebody would, and some outside experts should vet those tapes to see whether that, indeed, are the people speaking, that they say are speaking, like Assad's brother.
But, you know, I think they're just trying to throw a wide net out there and hope that whatever they're going to reveal today will be believed.
Well, come on.
It's not like the Israelis have a vested interest in this either way, Joe.
Precisely.
I mean, you have to be very skeptical of whatever the Israelis put out.
Well, I thought it was interesting that...
And they are going to be, by way of deception, is that the slogan of the Mossad?
Well, and then on the other hand, they put it right there in Haaretz and the Israeli Times and whatever, that, yep, we were the ones who got the intercept, and they don't apparently know that they shouldn't be saying that.
That should be a secret if it's even true, you know.
But anyway...
Well, then we'll reveal it when it's convenient to them.
I mean, it's not a secret they're listening in to the Syrians, as the Americans are.
I mean, it's no secret.
Sure, but, I mean, to me, I don't know.
They think that there's no reason to be embarrassed by that, whereas I would think that there's a reason for it to be...
If they want us to take it seriously, they should leave their name off of it, you know, us being the American public.
But that just shows the confidence that Israeli leaders probably have in the support of the American government and the public, if they can say it.
But certainly in the region, I mean, the Syrians know, as the Syrian ambassador yesterday said to reporters at the UN, that he had basically said American diplomacy in the region has been purely run by Israel over the last decades, and so nobody's fooled in the region about Israel's motives for revealing that information, if it's true.
Even if it's true.
All right, now, there's a couple of articles about experts doubting some of the things about the pictures and the videos that have come out here, where it seemed that the doctors and others helping, transporting the bodies around and that kind of thing, were not at all taking necessary precautions to protect them from sarin and ought to have been suffering terrible symptoms themselves.
It's not like this stuff just dissipates in the wind in a minute after it's effective.
And then you brought up that there were reasons to doubt that it was sarin and reasons to believe that instead it was chlorine and even a history of the so-called rebel side using chlorine or at least having stocks of it or something like that.
Can you please elaborate?
Yeah, of course.
At first there were reports that it could have been concentrated tear gas, or I'm speculating chlorine, because of the rebels' history with the chlorine.
But it did not seem from what immediately was said by experts that it was sarin gas, although maybe it was.
I mean, that's what the U.N. inspectors are there to find out, what the Americans don't want them to find out, apparently.
What was the gas that was used?
And maybe you could even find its history and where it was manufactured, and that could be very revealing as well.
But the background of the – so, I mean, those videos, something happened.
A lot of people died, and there was no wounds.
And, I mean, some experts say there wasn't a lot of vomiting, and the color of the foam I read coming out of some people's mouths wasn't what you'd expect from a sarin gas attack.
So all those things are still up in the air, exactly what it was that killed these people.
But the background to whether the rebels were involved in this, I mean, you look at the motive, first of all.
The Syrian government, Assad, has absolutely zero motive to have done this.
First of all, they're winning on the battlefield.
Number two, he invited, and they had just arrived, U.N. weapons inspectors, chemical weapons inspectors, to look at three previous alleged attacks in the country.
And it was also the anniversary of Obama's red-line speech.
Why would Assad unleash a chemical attack unless he's completely mad and he was just giving the finger to the U.S. and the U.N.?
It doesn't make sense.
But, of course, the motive on the other side is clear, why the rebels would do this, to get airstrikes.
And they were on the verge of maybe getting what they wanted, because they're losing, and they're desperate, and their backers in Saudi Arabia, maybe Qatar, need Western intervention to save their project of overthrowing Assad.
So the motive is clear.
The rebels have a motive, and the government doesn't.
It doesn't mean that the rebels did it.
But the capability is interesting, because Susan Rice, National Security Advisor, and other officials have said, and U.K. officials have said categorically, that the rebels do not have the capability to launch this attack.
That's clearly untrue.
There's a video circulating on YouTube right now.
We don't know where it is.
We don't know who these people are.
They could even be Syrian government militias in plain clothes.
But you see men loading gas canisters onto a howitzer and firing them.
So, I mean, it doesn't take much to fire gas into an area of that nature very close by, because the fighting is going on in very close quarters.
And as Petri Escobar, you've had many times on your show, has written in RT, Russia Today, last night, that the Israelis have said that they believed that they leaked to a Kuwaiti newspaper that apparently reported that the government had fired from a position nearby this neighborhood, Goja.
But Petri points out that a Finnish investigator has shown that that actual post that it was fired from has been under rebel control since June.
So it can be done by the rebels.
And do they have access to the chemicals?
Well, al-Qaeda in Iraq, a cell was broken up in 2007 after 12 attacks.
The New York Times reported it back then inside Iraq.
But we know that al-Qaeda in Iraq has infiltrated and moved into Syria, and they've already been arrested for 12 chlorine gas attacks.
At the end of May this year in Turkey, there were several members of Nusra Front detained by the police.
At first, it was reported that it was sarin that they had.
And now that was denied by the police.
We don't know what they had.
It could be chlorine.
And then two days later, another arrest in Iraq of five members of the cell manufacturing sarin and mustard gas.
And then, of course, on March 19th in Khan al-Assaw, the reason why the inspectors, the U.N. inspectors, were there was to look at that and two other sites.
There was an attack that killed 26 people, 26 Syrian government soldiers, I should say.
And the Russians produced an 80-page report saying that this was crudely manufactured devices that were used in chemicals that could only have been done by rebels because the Syrian government has more sophisticated methods if they were going to deliver chemical gas.
So we have several cases.
We also have pictures from the Syrian government that were released that could be propaganda, but they could also be true, of captured chemical weapons in rebel hideouts that have markings of Saudi Arabia being the origin of these chemicals.
So they have access to chemicals.
They have capability to do it.
We may never know.
But to dismiss the fact, the possibility rather, that it was the rebels is just plainly wrong.
All right, now, so what's the latest from the inspectors?
I mean, they're a few hours ahead of us anyway.
They're leaving.
Ban Ki-moon spoke today in Vienna.
And it's curious because he did stand up to the United States, but in his speech he was saying he wishes that the inspectors can stay a bit longer I mean, it's up to him to decide whether they stay or not.
But he's pulling them out a day earlier, it turns out.
They're going to leave tomorrow, and they're going to report to him on Saturday, and he's going back to New York.
So we could hear something preliminarily on Saturday or Sunday about what their findings were, but many experts say that they would need about a week of laboratory testing to really know.
So what we're going to find out from them on Sunday is unclear, and whether it will be definitive or not, we don't know.
But we should hear something on Sunday from them about what they have found.
All right, and now, so what do you know about this guy Bashar al-Assad?
Is he Hitler?
Is he so damn insane, or what?
No, he's not Hitler, and it's funny how Obama's not called him Hitler.
If Bush were in power, I'm sure that would have come up again.
Because the U.S., whenever there's war coming, they relive fantasies of the Second World War when we were the good guys, so we have to demonize whoever the enemy is, even if we were previously allied with them like Saddam Hussein.
And don't forget, Hillary Clinton said that Assad was a guy we could work with and that he was a reformer, if you recall, a few years ago, because he was making some economic reform liberalizations that were very palatable to the neoliberal crowd.
So they liked Assad.
He cooperated very closely with Bush on torture and extraordinary rendition, and that's important, too.
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely.
He helped even during the Iraq invasion, didn't really get involved too much.
So, yeah, he wasn't a good guy, but he was somebody that the U.S. could deal with.
And he was, of course, very fashionable with his beautiful wife, and he was in London all the time, in Paris.
He was kind of a jet setter and seen as somebody not as cruel as his father was when he had to put down a 1982 revolution that we tend to forget about that squelched a lot quicker against the Muslim Brotherhood uprising.
So, no, Assad is not Hitler, but he's fighting for his life, and he, don't forget, runs and has run a very repressive police state.
This is not a democracy.
There's no question about that.
His family has been in power for 40 years.
I was in Damascus two weeks before the uprising, and I was walking around every five minutes.
You saw a picture or a statue of him or his father.
And I could only think that if I were in New York and I saw a picture of George Bush, George H. W. Bush or George W. Bush every five minutes, I wouldn't be pleased or any American leader's family of either party to stay.
So I understand the frustration and the reason for the rebellion, and I think Assad has a lot of responsibility for this revolution because he had opportunity six years ago to reform and to open up and to loosen his grip on power, but of course he did not.
It's a dictatorship.
He's going to do everything he can to stay in power, protect him, his family, the mafia around him, and the Alawites, who he has, who of course he belongs to, really the ruling group.
And he will, I don't think he's going to use chemical weapons at this point.
I always thought, and analysts I interviewed said that if he did use them, it would be only at the very end when he was completely cornered, and it would be that or death.
And at this point, that's why I say at this point in using them, when he's winning, it makes absolutely zero sense.
So he's not Hitler, but he's a dictator.
He could be tyrannical.
He's been vicious.
He has no compunction about killing civilians with conventional means.
And I don't think he would stop using chemicals if he had to.
I just don't see where he had to in this instance.
Well, I mean, that's the whole thing.
He could be a psychopath without being crazy.
You know what I mean?
They want to talk about how evil he is and try to make the same thing that they did against Saddam Hussein, the same thing they do with the Iranians, especially with the Iranians.
They say they're so religious that it makes them too crazy to deal with.
But for whatever reason, it's always we can't negotiate with this guy because he's too immoral or he's too irrational or whatever.
So the only thing he understands is force and all that kind of crap.
Yeah, well, look, they're trying to portray him as being suicidal, and I don't think he is, because it's clear that he's doing everything he can to survive.
He's not suicidal.
And to launch a chemical attack now with weapons inspectors in the country after Obama's red-blind speech on the anniversary of the first anniversary would be suicidal.
So that doesn't make any sense at all.
Now, we should look at what happens if these attacks take place.
And even if the evidence were conclusive that he did it, you have to question what's the wisdom of these attacks.
So purely some moral outrage, some responsibility to protect.
Will it prevent more chemical attacks or more killings of civilians?
No.
Will it end the war?
Will it bring about a peace conference to end this war?
I tell you, if it did, if a couple of troops themselves could do that, I would support it.
But it's very unlikely that that's going to happen.
It's more likely that it will encourage the rebels, that the fighting will increase, and that there will be retaliation at some point down the road against the United States, probably in the form of some kind of terrorist attack against U.S. interests in the region by Hezbollah, by Iranians, by the Syrians.
So I don't think this is going to have any effect whatsoever, and it could have a very negative effect even in the carrying out of the mission itself, the killing of civilians, the accidental release of chemical weapons by hitting depots.
It just doesn't make any sense to go ahead with this attack unless it were to end the war, which it clearly will not.
Now, the Libya precedent to me was that, and I could see it coming.
I called it out on the radio show, where when they just first started talking about a no-fly zone, that once you accept that, that means you're accepting responsibility for the future security of the Libyan people, in quotes.
And so, therefore, regime change.
They'll never be secure until Qaddafi is gone, is the logic, and therefore regime change and watch them go, and there they went.
As soon as they got the no-fly zone, it was a regime change mission the next day.
And so it seems like, well, I guess the question is, do you think that's the same thing here, where, I mean, because if they just, I guess they could just call it a few punitive strikes and then step back for a little while and see what happens or something like that.
It seems like once you get that involved, you're taking the side of so-called the people versus their government, and so now you're the government.
You broke it, you own it, and Colin Powell's Pottery Barn and all that crap now.
What do you think?
I think Obama wants to avoid that.
That's what it sounds like, whether he'll be able to or not is not a question.
I think he doesn't want to get deeply into this.
He wants to be a one-off punitive strike, which, again, its utility is very questionable, what will it actually bring.
So I think he wants to avoid that, but it could happen.
I mean, there are neocons now who are taking advantage or oppressing.
They've written a letter to him, and it's signed by all the, I'm sorry to say, usual suspects.
Elliot Abrams, Fowler Dejami, Max Boot, Douglas Fyatt, Lieberman, Clifford May, Daniel Pletka, Karl Rove, Randy Sherman, Crystal Kagan, Sidney Dinesen, you know, all those friends that we haven't heard about for a while.
They all wrote a letter the other day to Obama saying, look, this is the opportunity.
It was dated August 27.
This is the opportunity to take this guy out.
And Obama's clearly, well, not clearly had his press folks in a contorted language say this is not about regime change.
So he wants to avoid that.
But the pressure's on from John McCain and these collection of neocons for him to do what you just said, which is to own the country.
And that would be something that only 9% of the American public would agree with.
Well, The Hill is reporting, or it's the Los Angeles Times, one official said the White House is seeking a strike on Syria just muscular enough not to get mocked.
Yeah.
I mean, what is this motive?
I mean, what kind of a motive is that to use massive force against the country?
Well, anyone who would want to defend him on this point, I couldn't see it.
I mean, the fact of the matter is all he has to say is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that this is biting off more than we can chew right now, and you want me to listen to my generals, right?
You don't want me to be like LBJ bossing my generals around.
They're telling me that this is a bad idea.
So you Republicans, go take it up with the Pentagon.
And then he's done.
He can hide behind his generals to stay out of a war.
That's the easiest excuse in the world.
Come on.
Absolutely, very, very good point.
I think you're absolutely right.
He can blame it on them, basically.
These are the guys that know better than I do.
I'd love to do it.
It's an outrage what Assad did.
If I thought I could bring it into the war, we would do it.
But my generals are telling me that this is just really not a good idea whatsoever and it will not achieve anything, and it could be very counterproductive.
And you know what?
Obama, in his interview last night, said he hadn't decided yet.
So it looked like we were marching to war a couple of days ago, and now maybe he's having second thoughts about this.
And as you absolutely point out, the Joint Chiefs of Staff say that we shouldn't do this.
So why do it?
And why not say that they're the ones who convinced me?
They know better than I do about military matters.
Well, you know, Hillary Clinton and Obama himself and Hillary and the CIA guys, Morrell, recently said this, et cetera.
They're basically acknowledging the fact that there are no moderates fighting on the side of the rebellion.
It's the jihadists.
It's, as you said, al-Qaeda in Iraq and the al-Nusra Front, the suicide bombers.
The al-Farouk brigades, who are the so-called moderates, who actually want to have elections someday, supposedly, they're the ones who they're guys eating the heart on video.
I know.
I know.
FSA, yeah.
Yeah, so the point being, the guy says, well, Syria, the headline was Syria, the greatest danger.
But you read the article, and it's if the government falls and it turns into a gigantic Lebanon Civil War-style 15-year multi-militia Civil War unending, that would be the real threat to American interests in the region and Israeli interests in the region.
It seems obvious enough.
We've been talking about it for two and a half years, Joe.
It's been happening already.
Longer than that.
All right.
Hey, thanks very much for your time.
Appreciate it.
No problem.
All the best.
All right, everybody, that is you and Joe.
Joe Lauria from the Wall Street Journal.
We'll be right back after this.
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