(Chemical File) … Politicization and Falsification of Facts to Target Syria

Damascus, SANA- The US and a number of the Western states are continuing to use the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as a weapon in the war waged against Syria, and a tool to exert political pressure to serve the agendas of these states in Syria and to justify their attack on it.

Dozens of cases of using chemical weapons by terrorist organizations in Syria have been ignored by the countries supporting these organizations, and the United Nations has refused to investigate most of them:

• December 8, 2012- Syria sent letters to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the Security Council informing them that (al-Qaeda) terrorists were manufacturing chemical weapons in a laboratory located near the Turkish city of Gaziantep and threatening to use them against Syrians, after which the Council begun to consider for the first time the so-called (chemical file) in Syria.

•  March 19, 2013 – The first use of chemical weapons took place in Syria through the firing of a toxic gas missile by terrorists in the Khan al-Asal area of Aleppo Province, which led to the martyrdom of 25 people, including 16 military personnel, and injuring dozens.

•  March 21, 2013 – Syria sent an urgent letter to the UN Secretary-General calling for the dispatch of a specialized and impartial mission to investigate the incident and identify its perpetrators. This move did not satisfy the states sponsoring terrorism. France and the United Kingdom confused the letter and covered the use of chemical weapons by terrorists in Khan al-Asal.
• The first scandal in the (chemical file) was embodied when the investigation team appointed by the UN Secretary-General, led by Swedish expert Ake Sellstrom, headed to Damascus five months after the Khan al-Asal incident, while everyone knows that chemical gases and evidence of their use are affected by the expiration of this long period.
• August 21, 2013 – In conjunction with the presence of Sellstrom and his team in Damascus and his intention to go to Khan Al-Asal to initiate investigations, the alleged incident of using chemical weapons took place in Ghouta in Damascus countryside, so the mission’s destination was diverted from Khan Al-Asal to that area.

• September 13, 2013 – Syria informed the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, of its accession to Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) of 1992, and the accession entered into force on October 14, 2013.
• June 2014 – Sigrid Kaag, Head of the Joint Mission on the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria, made a briefing at the Security Council in which she confirmed that Syria had destroyed all of its chemical stockpile on board an American ship and other European ships.

• January 5, 2016 – The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria by 100 percent, noting that the last quantity of these weapons was destroyed in the US state of Texas.
• The West’s lies and scandals related to this file resulted in many incidents, including the two incidents in Khan Sheikhoun on April 4^th, 2017 and Douma on April, 7^th, 2018, despite Syria’s accession to the Chemical Weapons Convention and its disposal of its entire stockpile of these weapons and their production materials and facilities.
• November 2017 – The Security Council closed the (Joint Investigative Mechanism JIM) file due to the false and unprofessional practices in its work, as a result of the American, British, and French pressures on its team to issue non-objective and biased reports against Syria.
• Syria sent more than 215 letters to the UN Secretary-General, the Security Council, the OPCW, the Resolution 1540 Committee, and the committees concerned with combating terrorism, which included accurate information about the terrorist organizations’ possession of toxic chemicals and their use against civilians and military personnel, with the support of well-known countries and their intelligence agencies.

• Washington and its allies turned the OPCW into a tool against Syria, as it issued reports prepared remotely that lacked the minimum standards of credibility and objectivity, and based its conclusions on false witnesses, speculations, and assumptions based on what it called open sources, and on what was presented by the terrorist organization (the White Helmets) and its sponsors.
• The United States, France and Britain obstructed conducting investigations into the alleged incident in Douma by the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), by launching a military act of aggression against Syria on the 14th of April 2018, which resulted in the destruction of scientific centers containing laboratories for peaceful civilian purposes that were visited by the OPCW missions which emphasized their civilian character.

• April 26, 2018 – The Syrian and Russian missions to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons presented 17 witnesses from the city of Douma, who were in the city on the day of the alleged attack on April 7, and proved during a press conference at the organization’s headquarters in The Hague that the attack was a fabricated play.
• June 27, 2018 – The 4^th special session of the Conference of the States Parties to the OPCW adopted a decision to establish the so-called “Investigation and Identification Team” which constituted a dangerous turning point in the history of the organization because it reflected the extent of politicization carried out by the United States and Western countries to push the organization to engage in political aspects and interfere in the affairs of countries whose policies do not agree with these countries.
• February 13, 2019 – BBC correspondent Riam Dalati confirmed in tweets that his interviews with terrorists of (the White Helmets), and investigations that took months about the scenes that were said to have been filmed in Douma city hospital on the day of the alleged attack, proved that they were (just a play), and that everything said about the attack using sarin was fabricated, and that at least one country in the NATO was aware of what was happening at the hospital.
• March 1, 2019 – The team of the Fact-Finding Mission about the alleged incident in Douma issued a report that included a serious distortion of the facts on the ground, many contradictions and inconsistencies, and completely neglected the role of the (White Helmets) terrorist organization, the terrorist arm of Jabhat al-Nusra, in implementing the agenda of the countries that stood behind the war waged against Syria.
• May 17, 2019 – Australian Ian Henderson, the leader of the Fact-Finding Mission team to Douma, who examined the site of the alleged incident, confirmed that the results of the organization’s report (do not correspond to reality and contradict engineering expertise), indicating that the tests that were conducted at two locations of the accident, as well as the post-analysis show that it is possible that the chemical cylinders were placed on the ground and did not fall from the air, and this completely refutes the report of the organization, and he was later expelled from the organization because of his disclosure of tampering with the investigations.
• November 24, 2019 – The British Daily Mail Newspaper revealed that a scientist employed by the organization said in a leaked e-mail: that the investigations on the ground in Douma did not find strong evidence about the alleged attack, and that facts were deliberately hidden in the organization’s reports, which confirms its tampering with the report.

• December 15, 2019 – The British Daily Mail Newspaper revealed new documents proving that the OPCW tampered with the final report on the Douma incident by making significant changes to the evidence of field investigators, noting that a high-ranking official in the organization ordered the concealment of an important document that undermines the allegations that were circulated about the use of chemical weapons.
• December 27, 2019 – WikiLeaks published 4 leaked documents from the OPCW Organization that exclude the use of chlorine gas in the city of Douma, in a new confirmation of tampering with the Organization’s final report on the alleged chemical attack.
• March 14, 2020 – A new leak was published by (The Grayzone) in which an official at the OPCW revealed that the organization’s administration launched a (malicious and flawed attack) against two veteran inspectors, who proved the incorrectness of its story regarding the alleged attack in Douma, warning of the existence of a climate of intimidation designed to keep other staffers frightened into silence.

• September 28, 2020 – An informal meeting of the Security Council was held according to the (Arria-Formula) on the (chemical file) in Syria to expose Western manipulation of the file, in which the Brazilian José Bustani, the first director-general of the OPCW, and expert Ian Henderson participated via Skype, after the US refused to grant them entry visas, to prevent them from addressing the council directly and reveal loopholes in the investigation, but they participated remotely and exposed along with the director of the American website (The Grayzone) and an American academic from Boston all the lies and manipulation on the part of the organization.
• February 16, 2021 – 18 scientists and prominent personalities, led by Jose Bustani, the first director-general of the OPCW and the American thinker, Noam Chomsky, called on the current director of the organization, Fernando Arias, to restore its credibility and integrity after the manipulation by the Fact-Finding Mission about the alleged incident in Douma.

• March 16, 2021 – Former US Senator Tulsi Gabbard confirmed that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons distorted its report on the alleged attack in Douma, to justify the US-British-French aggression against Syria on April 14, 2018.
• April 16, 2021 – Members of the European Parliament Claire Daly and Mike Wallace confirmed during a session to question the OPCW Director General, Fernando Arias, that senior investigators who participated in the investigation into the alleged attack in Douma rejected the report of the organization, accusing its management of manipulating the results of the investigation, and demanded that it stop ignoring the accusations and information provided by the investigators regarding the falsification of the report.

• April 21, 2021 – Western countries, through pressure and blackmail, during the 25^th session of the Conference of the States Parties to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), passed a decision to suspend the rights and privileges of Syria’s membership in the organization. Syria affirmed that the decision represents a dangerous development in the process of the OPCW work and constitutes an aggressive plot against a state party to the convention.
• July 31, 2021 – Journalists Piers Robinson and Aaron Maté revealed, in an investigation prepared by (The Grayzone), the distortions carried out by the OPCW Director-General during the Security Council session in June, his attempt to cover up the scandal of fake reports prepared by the organization about the incident, and his refusal to investigate or provide explanations about the systematic manipulation of the investigations, in addition to ignoring and belittling the scientists who protested against the distorted report and confirmed its falsity.

• August 10, 2021 – (The Gray Zone) revealed that fake agents and experts linked to British intelligence participated in the fabrication of plays about the alleged chemical attacks in Syria, and their later use in the framework of the terrorist war waged against it.
• January 27, 2023 – The so-called (Investigation and Identification Team) of the OPCW issued its final report on the alleged incident in Douma.
• January 28, 2023 – Syria affirmed its categorical rejection of the misleading report, due to its lack of any scientific evidence and its neglect of the objective observations raised by state parties, experts, academics, documented media reports, and former inspectors from the organization which confirm beyond any doubt, from the scientific, legal and engineering aspects, and the tests conducted by specialists, including those who were commissioned by the OPCW to work on the ground, that this incident was completely fabricated.

Syria consistently condemns the use of chemical weapons anywhere, at any time and under any circumstances, and calls upon States parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and the United Nations to assume their responsibilities to safeguard the Organization’s independence, credibility and future.

Report by: Jomaa al-Jasem- Alya Issa

Manar Salameh/ Ruaa al-Jazaeri