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U.S. Had Intel on Chemical Strike Before It Was Launched
[Foreign Policy] American intelligence agencies had indications and warnings three days beforehand that the Syrian regime was poised to launch a lethal chemical attack that killed more than a thousand people and has set the stage for a possible U.S. military strike on Syria.
Yep, we saw em! All dressed up in rubber suits.
The newest scandal disclosure -- part of a larger U.S. intelligence briefing on Syria's chemical attacks -- raises all sorts of uncomfortable questions for the American regime government. First and foremost: What, if anything, did it do to notify the Syrian opposition of the pending attack?
Questions? What uncomfortable questions ?
In a call with reporters Friday afternoon, senior administration officials did not address whether this information was shared with rebel groups in advance of the attack. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the information had been shared.
Appears a few hundred civilians did not appear to get the memo.
But at least some members of the Syrian opposition are already lashing out at the U.S. government for not acting ahead of time to prevent the worst chemical attack in a quarter-century. "If you knew, why did you take no action?" asked Dlshad Othman, a Syrian activist and secure-communications expert who has recently relocated to the United States.
We had to let the rockets fly to know what was in them.
He added that none of his contacts had any sort of prior warning about the nerve gas assault -- although such an attack was always a constant fear. Razan Zaitouneh, an opposition activist in the town of Douma, one of the towns hit in the Aug. 21 attack, said she had no early indication of a major chemical attack. "Even the moment [the attack hit], we thought it was as usual, limited and not strong," she told The Cable in an instant message. That only changed when "we started to hear about the number of injuries."

"It's unbelievable that they did nothing to warn people or try to stop the regime before the crime," Zaitouneh added.
Unbelievable to you perhaps.
The U.S. intelligence community is now all but certain that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons on rebels and civilians in the suburbs of Damascus nine days ago. And part of that certainty were the military's signs of advance preparation for an attack.

"In the three days prior to the attack, we collected streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence that reveal regime activities that we assess were associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack," said a U.S. intelligence report the Obama administration leaked released Friday.
"Streams of human, signals and geospatial intelligence" not available a year ago in Benghazi ?"
Multiple streams of intelligence indicate that the regime executed a rocket and artillery attack against the Damascus suburbs in the early hours of August 21," the report added. Satellites detected that the weapons were launched from territories held by the regime. They landed in rebel-controlled or contested neighborhoods.
Yazir, POO and POI [point of origin - point of impact] confirmed, we think it's the 122nd Messkit Repair Rocket Battalion again.
The intelligence assessment is based on "a substantial body of information," including satellite imagery, intercepted Russian communications, and social media reports from the scene of the attack.
Commonly referred to as multi-source intelligence, which is generally required to validate and confirm events.
And then there's this bit, further down the article:
In releasing the intelligence report, the Obama administration sought to assure Americans that its conclusions were based on multiple verifiable sources, including public accounts, and that the intelligence community had not repeated the mistakes of 2003, when it incorrectly judged that Iraq possessed chemical weapons.
It must be noted that the FP writer ignores the subsequent CIA mistake of asserting in their annual consensus report, whose acronym I have forgotten -- and then leaking the report to hamstring the president -- that Iran had most definitely given up the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Thus it is that some of us are a bit suspicious of such loudly trumpeted claims in support of the much loved successor to George W. Bush.

Posted by: Besoeker 2013-09-01
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=375032