Saturday, April 8, 2017

Robert Parry — Where Was CIA’s Pompeo on Syria?

There is a dark mystery behind the White House-released photo showing President Trump and more than a dozen advisers meeting at his estate in Mar-a-Lago after his decision to strike Syria with Tomahawk missiles: Where is CIA Director Mike Pompeo and other top intelligence officials?

The photograph released by the White House of President Trump meeting with his advisers at his estate in Mar-a-Lago on April 6, 2017, regarding his decision to launch missile strikes against Syria.
Before the photo was released on Friday, a source told me that Pompeo had personally briefed Trump on April 6 about the CIA’s belief that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was likely not responsible for the lethal poison-gas incident in northern Syria two days earlier — and thus Pompeo was excluded from the larger meeting as Trump reached a contrary decision....
Did Mike Pompeo decline to become the next George Tenet? Remember Tenet's appraisal of Saddam's WMD as a "slam dunk"?

Consortium News
Where Was CIA’s Pompeo on Syria?
Robert Parry

9 comments:

Penguin pop said...

Someone summed up Trump in the best possible way.

All one really needs to know about him are his connections to Robert Kioysaki. Follow that rabbit trail and you'll find Peter Schiff and the debt doomsday crowd and CNBC morons the further you go, and the goldbug charlatans. Forget about all the other ghosts people are chasing. I keep saying that he's a distant relative of all those hacks in this sense.

Focus in on that and you'll really get what the hell this guy's thinking half the time.

Postkey said...

Here is what happened?

" Here is what happened:

The Russians briefed the United States on the proposed target. This is a process that started more than two months ago. There is a dedicated phone line that is being used to coordinate and deconflict (i.e., prevent US and Russian air assets from shooting at each other) the upcoming operation.
The United States was fully briefed on the fact that there was a target in Idlib that the Russians believes was a weapons/explosives depot for Islamic rebels.
The Syrian Air Force hit the target with conventional weapons. All involved expected to see a massive secondary explosion. That did not happen. Instead, smoke, chemical smoke, began billowing from the site. It turns out that the Islamic rebels used that site to store chemicals, not sarin, that were deadly. The chemicals included organic phosphates and chlorine and they followed the wind and killed civilians.
There was a strong wind blowing that day and the cloud was driven to a nearby village and caused casualties.
We know it was not sarin. How? Very simple. The so-called "first responders" handled the victims without gloves. If this had been sarin they would have died. Sarin on the skin will kill you. How do I know? I went through "Live Agent" training at Fort McClellan in Alabama."

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/04/donald-trump-is-an-international-law-breaker.html

Noah Way said...

Even more important: where is Dick Cheney?

Matt Franko said...

Why not use incendiaries then and burn the substances if you knew they were there?

Matt Franko said...

Or why not just go in on the ground and take the place and then safely dispose of the substances?

Tom Hickey said...

Syrian and Russian intel believed that it was a conventional weapons storage depot that was targeted.

But either it was a chemical weapons depot the terrorists were using for transport to Iraq.

Or it was planted by terrorist to provoke the desired response if hit.

Based on cui bono? (who gains?), one of there is more likely that Assad or his generals initiating a strike with chemical weapons on civilians, which makes zero sense in just about any scenario imaginable when terrorist operations are not being targeted with chemicals.

In addition. I posted several links earlier today on the previous alleged use of chemicals by Assad in Ghouta 2013 was a false flag arranged by terrorists.

Of course, it is "possible" that Assad did it, but it's not only not a "slam dunk," but there are good reasons to doubt it.

Trump's response was politically contrived (wag the dog's tail) rather than based on evidence, or even strategic. It seems to have worked politically, but we haven't yet seen the fallout or blowback.

Matt Franko said...

Almost 60 Tomahawks seems as though they were "digging" down at something....

Don't discount the idea that Assads army and the Russians are not fully committed and resort to standoff weapons only but are incompetent even at that...

Maybe Trump was demonstrating to them how a standoff system is properly employed ....

Tom Hickey said...

And maybe Russia called Putin and said he was in trouble at home and Putin OK'd the strike to help his pro out.

Tom Hickey said...

"pro" should be "bro."