By Theodore A. Postol
[IMAGE 1]
Theodore A. Postol is
professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a specialist in weapons issue. At the
Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, he advised on missile basing,
and he later was a scientific consultant to the chief of naval operations at
the Pentagon. He is a recipient of the Leo Szilard Prize from the American
Physical Society and the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, and he was awarded the Norbert Wiener Award
from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for uncovering numerous
and important false claims about missile defenses.
This analysis contains a detailed
description of the times and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve
agent attack on April 4 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria. The conclusion assumes that
the White House Intelligence Report (WHR) issued on April 11 correctly
identified the alleged sarin release site.
Analysis using weather data
from the time of the attack shows that a small hamlet about 300 meters to the
east-southeast of the crater could be the only location affected by the alleged
nerve agent release. The hamlet is separated from the alleged release site (a
crater) by an open field. The winds at the time of the release would have
initially taken the sarin across the open field. Beyond the hamlet there is a
substantial amount of open space, and the sarin cloud would have had to travel
a long additional distance for it to have dissipated before reaching any other
population center.
Video taken on April 4 shows
that the location where the victims were supposedly being treated for sarin
exposure is incompatible with the only open space in the hamlet that could have
been used for mass treatment of victims. This indicates that the video scenes
where mass casualties (the dead and dying) were laid on the ground randomly was
not at the hamlet. If the location where the bodies were on the ground was
instead a site where the injured and dead were taken for processing, then it is
hard to understand why bodies were left randomly strewn on the ground and in
mud as shown in the videos.
The conclusion of this summary
of data is obvious—the nerve agent attack described in the WHR did not occur as
claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from some kind of poisoning
event, but that event was not the one described by the WHR.
The findings of this analysis
can serve two important purposes:
1. It shows exactly what needs
to be determined in an international investigation of this alleged atrocity. In
particular, if an international investigation can determine where casualties from
the nerve agent attack lived, it will further confirm that the findings
reported by the WHR are not compatible with the data it cites as evidence for
its conclusions.
2. It also establishes that
the WHR did not utilize simple and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis
procedures to determine its conclusions.
This raises troubling
questions about how United States political and military leadership determined
that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is
particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a report with “high
confidence” findings and that numerous high-level officials in the U.S.
government have confirmed their belief that the report was correct and to a
standard of high confidence.
Methodology Used in This Analysis
The construction of the time
of day at which particular video frames were generated is determined by simply
using the planetary geometry of the sun angle during the day on April 4. The
illustration below of the sun-angle geometry shows the Day/Night Sun Terminator
at the location of Khan Shaykhun on April 4. The angle of the sun relative to
local horizontal is summarized in the table that follows the image of the
planetary geometry along with the temperature during the day between 6:30 a.m.
and 6 p.m.
The next set of two
side-by-side images shows the shadows at a location where a large number of
poison victims are being treated in what appears to be the aftermath of a
poisoning event. The shadows indicate that this event occurred at about 7:30
a.m. This is consistent with the possibility of a nerve agent attack at 7 a.m.
on April 4, and it is also consistent with the allegation in the WHR that an
attack occurred at 6:55 a.m. on that day.
The timing sequence of the
attack is important for determining the consistency of the timelines with the
allegations of a sarin release at the crater identified in the WHR.
Assuming there was enough
sarin released from the crater identified by the WHR to cause mass casualties
at significant downwind distances, the sarin would have drifted downwind at a
speed of 1 to 2 meters a second and for several minutes before encountering the
only location where mass casualties could have occurred from this particular
release. The location where these mass casualties would have had to occur will
be identified and described in the next section. If there was a sarin release
elsewhere, mass casualties would have not occurred at this location but would
have occurred somewhere else in the city.
Assuming the victims of the
attack were exposed to the plume, the symptoms of sarin poisoning would have
expressed themselves almost immediately. As such, the scene at 7:30 a.m. on
April 4 is absolutely consistent with the possibility of a mass poisoning
downwind of the sarin-release crater.
The next figure shows the
earliest photograph we have been able to find of an individual standing by the
sarin-release crater where the alleged release occurred. The photo was posted
on April 4, and the shadow indicates the time of day was around 10:50 a.m. Thus
the individual was standing by the crater roughly four hours after the
dispersal event.
If the dispersal event was
from this crater, the area where this unprotected individual is standing would
be toxic, and this individual would be subjected to the severe and possibly
fatal effects of sarin poisoning. As a result, this throws substantial
suspicion on the possibility that the crater identified by WHR would be the
source of the sarin release.
At the time of the sarin
release, the temperature of the air was about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and the
sun was at an angle of only 8 degrees relative to local horizontal. This means
that liquid sarin left on the ground from the dispersal event would remain
mostly unevaporated. By 11 a.m., the temperature of the air had risen to 75
degrees, and the angle of the sun relative to horizontal was at 66 degrees.
Thus, one would expect that the combination of the rise in air temperature and
the sun on the crater would lead to significant evaporation of liquid sarin
left behind from the initial dispersal event. The air temperature and sun angle
are such that the area around the crater should have been quite dangerous for
anybody without protection to operate.
This is therefore an important
indication that the crater was probably not a dispersal site of the sarin.
The final set of three
photographs shows arriving victims seeking treatment at a hospital at some
location in Khan Shaykhun. The arrivals at the hospital are between 9 a.m. and
10:30 a.m. on the day of the attack. This is perhaps late since victims were
seriously exposed by 7:30 a.m., but victims could have been trailing in after
the initial arrival of severely affected victims. This time is considerably
earlier than the time at which WHR alleges that a hospital was attacked while
treating victims of the poisoning attack.
In the next section, we
discuss the location where mass casualties would have occurred if the sarin
release occurred at the location alleged by the WHR.
[IMAGE 2]
[IMAGE 3]
Sun shadows at about 7:30 a.m.
on April 4 at a location where large numbers of victims from a poisoning event
were being treated.
[IMAGE 4]
A man without protective
equipment standing next to the crater at 10:50 a.m. on April 4—roughly four
hours after the sarin release alleged by the WHR.
[IMAGE 5]
Victims arriving at a hospital
in Khan Shaykhun between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on April 4 following the mass
casualty event observed at 7:30 a.m.
[IMAGE 6]
An image from about 10:30 a.m.
in Khan Shaykhun suggesting a possible additional location where casualties
were generated from a poisoning attack.
[IMAGE 7]
Identification of the location
of the mass casualties.
The figure on the next page
shows the direction of the toxic sarin plume based on the assumption that the
alleged release point was the crater identified by the WHR. The wind conditions
at the time of the release, which would have been at about 7 a.m. on April 4,
would have carried the plume across an empty field to an isolated hamlet
roughly 300 meters downwind from the crater.
[for more, visit
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/nerve_agent_attack_did_not_occur_in_syria_expert_finds_20170419]
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