OPCW Being Used to Associate Russia With Chemical Weapons
“Chemical watchdog confirms UK findings on Salisbury nerve agent”
That’s the headline from the UN’s own news center (links below). To read that headline, one would think that the chemical watchdog in this article, that being the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), confirmed allegations by the UK that Russia was responsible for an alleged chemical nerve agent attack on former Soviet double-agent, Sergei Skripal, his daughter and a police officer last month in Salisbury, U.K. But if you actually bother to read the story, or the OPCW report summary, that’s not what the OPCW is actually saying.
What the OPCW report does and does not say
The OPCW is the UN-backed body which works to implement the international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and eliminate the use, or threat of the use, of chemical weapons. What the OPCW report on the Salisbury incident actually says is that the OPCW technical experts confirmed the findings of the UK “relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people” and that technical experts “noted that the toxic chemical in question was of high purity.”
This all sounds very ominous and reaffirming of the UK allegations that the Russian Federation used a nerve agent on a former Soviet double-agent living in the United Kingdom, decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, during a time when tensions are running high between Russia and the United States and the United Kingdom over Syria and its alleged use of chemical weapons. It’s kind of like Bashar al-Assad ordering chemical weapons strikes against US-backed rebels in Douma a few days after President Trump publicly said the US will not be in Syria much longer. Totally makes sense, right?
But I digress.
What is glossed over is the fact that the UK collected the samples and provided them to the OPCW Techincal Assistance Visit team. In other words, the country making the allegations against Russia supplied the test samples to the ostensibly neutral OPCW. The OPCW report says nothing about whether the attack was committed by the Russians or even identifies the nerve agent by name because, as the report summary states, it’s classified! The report, at least the unclassified summary, does not address any logistics about the method of delivery, nor does it discuss the veracity of the charges leveled against Russia by the U.K.
[The OPCW] Technical Assistance Visit team has noted that the toxic chemical in question was of high purity.
So all this report does is confirms that the chemical in the samples provided by the U.K. to the OPCW is the same nerve agent that the U.K. said it was to the OPCW team in private. But according to Karen Pierce, UK Permanent Representative to the UN, “there is no plausible alternative explanation than Russian State responsibility for what happened in Salisbury”. This is the kind of political posturing that will play well to a credulous, mainstream-media-consuming American public, especially Trump supporters who don’t want to admit that Trump is the alt-right’s Barack Obama, as well as Russia-hating, Obama-loving Democrat/Liberals in the United States.
Such conclusory statements from posturing politicians will be all the more proof to Trump and Obama loyalists that the Russians are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Ergo, both Obama and Trump have been justified in their unprovoked attacks on that oil-rich nation.
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Resource Links:
- Chemical watchdog confirms UK findings on Salisbury nerve agent, UN News Centre, April 18, 2018
- SUMMARY OF THE REPORT ON ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT IN SUPPORT OF A REQUEST FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE BY THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND, OPCW Techincal Secretariat, April 12, 2018
- Chemical Weapons Convention, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
- Karen Pierce, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the UN, addresses the Security Council on April 18, 2018 Image credit UN Multimedia
