[frank_boyd]

Btw, if there was a chemical attack, there are 3 possibilities: a) Assad, b) Rebels (who may already have got access to some chemical weapon), c) CIA doing business as usual.

And as always, we'll never learn the truth in time.

[shimon_e]

No one is denying that there was a chemical attack. The question is how big it was. If it was just a small attack then it could have been the rebels dropping a bag of sarin gas. But if it is confirmed it was a large attack that could have only been launched by payload thus it must have come from the Syrian army. Leaving two possibilities. A rogue element from within the army or the Assad regime.

[m0skit0]

According to latest data, it was the rebels most likely. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/6/syrian-rebels...

[pcl]

The linked article is from May. The latest controversy is about an attack apparently by the Assad regime on the 21st of August.

[frank_boyd]

True, but the take-way is:

> Carla del Ponte, a member of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told Swiss TV there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof,” that rebels seeking to oust Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad had used the nerve agent.

This means: it's not impossible that rebels have access to some chemical weapon.

The US gov keeps repeating "we have evidence that it has happened" but a) they have never shown it, and most of all: b) they don't say "we have evidence that shows it was Assad".

[mapt]

Earlier events, if they actually occurred, were very small-scale; They killed a handful of people, and were very difficult to confirm - with blood tests eventually being held up as a smoking gun that chemical weapons were used at all.

What happened on August 21 is an entirely different matter: it involved a large-scale rocket barrage on a dozen locations in discontinuous rebel-held neighborhoods which gassed entire city blocks; the gas persisted long enough afterwards to kill people such as journalists who responded to the reports. Hundreds of Youtube videos of the fairly characteristic aftermath exist, with the bodycount presently at about 1500. The areas gassed were threateningly close to the core of Damascus. This much cannot be reasonably contested.

The US government reports that it was listening in on the phone calls from one military commander to another and heard comments indicating regime involvement. They are also claiming to have identified using aerial imagery the area the rockets were fired from, the preparation three days before, and the actual firing of the rockets:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nearly...

[frank_boyd]

> The US government reports that it was listening in on the phone calls from one military commander to another and heard comments indicating regime involvement.

I just don't understand why they could not let the UN check what they call "evidence".

[m0skit0]

One of the arguments of the rebels is that they never had access to such weapons, which is absolutely false. In other news in May 30th Al-Qaeda's Jabhat Al-Nusra members were arrested in Turkey possessing Sarin Gas. Which, oh coincidence, is the same gas used in latest attack.

Also logic dictates it's very unlikely that the Syrian government, which is winning the war, will launch Sarin Gas in a Damascus neighbourhood (which is the capital, and thus where Al-Assad and this relatives live), leaving the US and its allies with an excuse to strike. Also Washington didn't want UN inspectors to stay longer to investigate, and it's doing everything possible to strike before UN inspectors can reach any conclusion. Without talking about Kerry proclaming US government has "proofs" but unwilling to show these proofs to anyone... Sorry, this is a "déjà vu".

Besides, witnesses and a AP reporter say it was the rebels who performed the attack. http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-sau...