Newsweek Suppressed OPCW Leak Story, Reporter Resigned in Protest

The OPCW is responsible for investigating alleged chemical weapons attacks, such as the Douma, Syria attack that was blamed on Syrian President Assad and used by the West to bomb Syria.

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But two leaks this year have shredded the credibility of the OPCW report on the Douma attacks agreed with the Western mainstream narrative to blame Assad. In May, a leaker from the Engineering Assessment team said a chlorine cylinder that was "evidence" of an Assad attack , was placed at the scene, not dropped from the air as alleged. It was a staged canister to blame Assad.

A newer report from an anonymous whistleblower in October blowes further holes into the US-pressured OPCW reports to blame Assad. The points are as follows from ZeroHedge:

1- US government officials attempted to pressure OPCW investigators into believing that the Assad government was responsible for the Douma incident. The officials were placed in the same room as the investigators by the OPCW’s then-cabinet chief Bob Fairweather, which the investigators of course felt was a grossly inappropriate breach of the OPCW’s commitment to impartiality. For the record the US government already has a known history of bullying the OPCW, an ostensibly independent and international body, to force it to allow the advancement of pre-existing regime change agendas.

2- Alex reports that internal dissent on the OPCW’s official publications on the Douma incident was far more ubiquitous than previously known, saying “Most of the Douma team felt the two reports on the incident, the Interim Report and the Final Report, were scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent.”

3- All but one member of the team agreed with the Engineering Assessment that it was far more likely that the chlorine cylinders were manually placed on the scene by people on the ground.

4- Ian Henderson, the South African ballistics expert whose name was signed on the leaked Engineering Assessment, seems to have been responsible for leaking it. The identity of the leaker was not previously known to the public.

5- Investigators experienced pressures against saying anything about their mounting findings that no chemical attack occurred, with Alex calling it “the elephant in the room which no-one dared mention explicitly”.

6- The OPCW’s Final Report on the Douma incident explicitly claimed the investigation found “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.” Yet according to Alex the levels of chlorinated organic chemicals found on the scene “were no higher than you would expect in any household environment” and were in fact “much lower than what would be expected in environmental samples”, comparable to or even lower than the World Health Organisation’s recommended chlorine levels for drinking water. This extremely crucial fact was actively and repeatedly omitted from the OPCW’s public reporting in a way Alex describes as “deliberate and irregular”.

7- Steele mentioned last month that he’d unsuccessfully reached out to the OPCW for comment on the second OPCW whistleblower’s revelations, and in his new article he confirms that the organisation is still dodging him, with both Fairweather and the OPCW’s media office refusing to respond. La Repubblica’s Stefania Maurizi has also been reporting that the OPCW is dodging the press on this important matter. The OPCW did respond to press inquiries after the first whistleblower surfaced in May, but it appears that someone has given the order to cease doing so with the claims of this second whistleblower.

The OPCW is supposed to be an independent investigatory body, but doesn't seem to be the case anymore. The US is dictating the results of the report to favor the narrative they want the world to accept and consent to the military violence that is ongoing in the Middle East. We are being lied to on many fronts. It's thanks to whistleblowers that we often get to see the reality behind the illusory veil of politics, media and military actions.

The Newsweek reporter, Tareq Haddad, is another example of someone who stood by the truth of this event, rather than work for a new outlet that buries truth that inconveniences the US government. Bravo.

"Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason"

"I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually correct."

"I could have kept silent and kept my job, but I would not have been able to continue with a clean conscience. I will have some instability now but the truth is more important."

References:

• Newsweek Reporter Resigns After Accusing Outlet Of Suppressing OPCW Leak Story
• The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here's Why No One's Talking About It