Murky Clues from UN's Syria Report

These mainstream U.S. news reports did not cite the cautionary comments contained in the UN report about possible tampering with evidence, nor did they take into account the conflicting lab results in Moadamiyah compared with Zamalka/Ein Tarma. [For more on rebel capabilities, see Consortiumnews.com's "Do Syrian Rebels Have Sarin?"]

Conventional Wisdom

Though the U.S. conventional wisdom seems to be solidifying around Syrian government guilt, there still remain troubling questions.

One is why would the Syrian regime -- having invited UN inspectors in on Aug. 18 to inspect suspected chemical attack sites elsewhere in Syria, cases that the government blamed on the rebels -- then launch a major chemical-weapons attack around Damascus, knowing that such an assault would divert the UN's attention and invite U.S. military intervention, something sought by the rebels, not the government.

Granted, during bitter warfare, military units can undertake outrageous actions without consideration of the consequences. Think, for example, of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison or U.S. soldiers desecrating Korans in Afghanistan. But the Syrian government would seem to have had a lot to lose and little to gain by ordering a widespread chemical-weapons attack just as UN inspectors were arriving.

The refusal of the U.S. government to release any verifiable evidence to establish the Syrian regime's guilt is another curious element of this mystery. If the U.S. evidence -- supposedly including intercepts of Syrian government communications -- was conclusive enough to justify military strikes, why couldn't at least some of it be shared with the American people?

Why did President Obama leave out one of the key pieces of supposed proof from the Aug. 30 "Government Assessment" when he gave his Sept. 10 speech, the claim that a "senior" Syrian official had been overheard admitting guilt? Instead, Obama simply stated, with unaccustomed vagueness, that Syrian officials had "reviewed results of the attack," phrasing that suggests neither innocence nor guilt?

In past cases like this, the decision to drop high-profile allegations from later presentations has been an indication that they are no longer trusted. For instance, in a 2003 speech to the UN Security Council, Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to repeat President George W. Bush's assertion about Iraq trying to obtain uranium from Africa because U.S. intelligence had repudiated the claim, though that retreat was not spelled out to the American people.

And, where does the U.S. intelligence community stand on these allegations? It's curious that the Aug. 30 white paper was issued by the White House press office as a "Government Assessment," when such a report would normally come from the Director of National Intelligence and be labeled an assessment of the U.S. intelligence agencies. A traditional assessment would also include footnotes indicating where there were differences of opinion about the data.

I was told by one intelligence source on Monday night that there continues to be skepticism among intelligence analysts about the White House claims and conclusions being drawn from the UN report. So, as U.S. pundits and pols cite the UN report as confirming Syrian government guilt, the remaining skeptics might still want to press the Obama administration to release the evidence that it claims to possess -- if it really wants to solve the mystery.