Douma Chemical Massacre 2018 Revisited, part 2

Adam Larson (aka Caustic Logic)

February 5, 2023 

last edits Feb. 18

My personal response to the latest report of the OPCW's Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) continues. Part 1 relates my updated position on the ballistic evidence at "Location 2" in Douma, where the bodies of 35 civilians were found after this alleged chlorine attack in 2018. Even after an open-minded review, it's evident that the blamed gas cylinder was most likely placed manually next to pre-existing damage caused by TWO artillery/mortar shell impacts. 

Other options - including the alleged helicopter drop - remain hypothetically possible, but they don't conform easily to the evidence and aren't very reasonable. The IIT finds helicopter drop is the only option "reasonable" enough to even mention, but I have to strongly disagree with that.

Manual placement would mean there was no aerial chlorine attack, and whatever else might follow has nothing to do with the Syrian military. With no crash to break the valve, any chlorine release, and anything resulting from it, should logically be blamed on the local people who set the thing there. 

That itself might a good place to stop, and we do need this story re-broken, re-set, and healed straight. But I also need to run ahead and start on the chemical and toxicological evidence. 

Let's start with a bit related to part 1. In the prior 2019 report of the OPCW's FFM investigation (Official-Series Document (opcw.org)), many samples at Location 2 are shown as contaminated with trinitrotoluene. That's commonly abbreviated TNT, the military explosive, like mortar shells are packed with. It was on "Concrete debris from the crater-edge in front of the cylinder nose," but all through the building as well, even in the basement, as well as in the street outside, and at Location 4 across town where there were no evident blast signs. The city was a warzone, and the concentrations of TNT aren't specified anywhere. So that doesn't add much. 

For the rest of this post, I consider if chlorine gas was released and, if so, how it might connect to the fatalities. And my review had to go 3-part. No surprise. Part 3 will continue with the chemical clues, alongside other evidence going into the question of just how 43 to 187 people were chemically murdered in Douma on April 7, 2018, by whom, and why. 

See also as helpful: a dated "masterlist" of Douma posts here: Monitor on Massacre Marketing: Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, April 7, 2018. And while I didn't dig for links to some of the great work by others, feel free to read around, and question and consider a wider range of views.

Chlorine Presence: Probably 

The IIT report and interpreters including Eliot Higgins spend a lot of time arguing for real molecular chlorine gas at both attack sites, and against all other options. Someone among OPCW "states parties" - probably the Syrian government - had proposed this idea that chlorine bleach was used to fake the chemical signs. As Higgins summed up in his Twitter thread:

The location 2 results points to "chlorine gas as being the chlorinating agent present at the scene, and in very high concentrations." Not bleach spread around by Al Qaeda or whatever theory the tankies had. ... The myth of the Al Qaeda Bleach Fairy has been busted.

The OPCW IIT also spends a lot of time explaining why alternative scenarios explaining the presence of chlorine byproducts that doesn't involve chlorine gas exposure are pronouncements of nonsense.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned just as a possibility or posed as factual, but it's been made an issue, unfortunately. This gives the OPCW probes and their critics reason to waste a lot of time failing to address the real issues. 

I could be wrong, but this "tankie" has long believed the chlorine in those cylinders was released. First of all, it only makes sense. If the Islamists lugged the things up to visually simulate a chemical gas attack, and they wanted consistent chemical traces to be found later ... they could simply open the valves for the most realistic faking possible. It would be extremely easy and reasonably safe, for someone protected even by a simple gas mask.

More decisively, the visual evidence always suggested the gas was released. Briefly: 

* Location 2: There's apparent frost coating the cylinder underside, in a video filmed around 10PM. This suggests active gas release, which causes auto-refrigeration - the remaining liquid part becomes cold as it tries to "boil" so that metal touching it frosts over. The frosted area seems to have a visible edge (blue) showing liquid is only at the bottom now, maybe 10% remaining - so most of it (~90%) has emptied by filming. That's about 2.5 hours after an alleged impact around 7:30.  The IIT finds this would happen "upon the rapid release of a liquefied gas from the cylinder." But it shouldn't be releasing very rapidly at this point, if their more crucial findings are true and the majority of the contents emptied in the first minute or so, and there's still this much left, it needs to be releasing quite slowly. 

Early on, I developed a theory that the fire set in this room was used to melt the soft metal "fusible plug" from the valve's side, allowing a remote gas release. The fire was set prior to this or any images, and it's now accepted that there's soot on the cylinder beneath that frost (after many including the NYT called it black rust, forming atop yellow paint). The visual record still seems to allow for this plug-melting option, with the valve unseen in the early video (oddly concealed behind crossed metal slats), and later on it looks snapped off, so we can't see if it has an extra hole in it. That's interesting, but it's not proven or necessary. Maybe someone just snapped the valve clean off at the start. 

And hypothetically, being "chill" ... maybe it was snapped off in that impact after the fall from a helicopter. Either way, I'm pretty sure that's a cylinder releasing its compressed gas contents from the top of Location 2. At 2.5 times heavier than air, it would sink down and all through the place.

* Location 4: However this thing got onto that bed, sequential images at right show distinct phases of staining where the bed and debris are stained chlorine green with long-term drip points on a pillow deep brown (it oxidizes to brown over time), then this widens some and it all shifts to brown, then is coated again in a wider green stain. The metal harness still on the cylinder shows massive corrosion and rusting by the end, with signs of splashing with water (chlorine + water = acid that oxidizes metals) - the bed and a board were found soaking wet, and a brown viscous liquid was visible and noted in the room, I would guess being remnants of oxidized chlorine mixed with water and dust, etc.

Furthermore: the cylinder was still half-full but not emptying when OPCW visited some 2 weeks later. In preceding videos, there was an audible hissing of gas release at some times (allegedly, anyway - it's easy to fake) & no hissing at other times. Why? The supposed hairline crack in the valve can hardly matter - it's almost certain that the valve was being opened and closed by the people managing this scene. The FFM even tested a pair of gloves they found discarded nearby, coated in brown goo ... see below. (For more detail on both sites and the whole issue, See here.)

There have been many questions raised about chlorine presence, some of which seem quite impressive. The second OPCW whistleblower, "Alex" - later doxxed as Brendan Whelan - had seemed to claim that chlorinated compounds were found, but just normal background levels of them, suggesting no chlorine was released. E.G. as Peter Hitchens understood it,: 

"A source has told me that the OPCW report, which was eventually published on July 7, 2018, was stripped of a vital fact at the last minute: the traces of chlorinated material which were found at the site were so small, and so easily available, that they could simply not be said to show that chlorine gas was employed." 

Even worse than stripped, any such findings that existed were replaced in the FFM's public reports with some rather high levels of chlorinated compounds they claim to have found. The 2018 interim report listed substances found, but indeed it did not give any concentrations. 2019's final report (Official-Series Document (opcw.org)) gives numbers for some entries, but not others. At Location 2, it says 11,000 ppm combined chlorides were found in "Dry wipe of the cylinder thread." and 1,100 ppm from "Dry wipe from kitchen wall above the oven (level 2)," near several fatalities. 1,100 is not so high, comparitively. Consider too at Location 4, where no one died:

* A wet board under the cylinder "had the highest content of chlorinated organic compounds of all wood samples taken." 06SDS-L4 is listed with findings of alpha-pinene, bornyl chloride, phenol, and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol. The amounts in ppm aren't given for this sample, but for others:

* Dry wipe from nozzle, front part next to thread: chloride: 15,000 ppm (IC) - zinc: 4,700 ppm (ICP-MS)

* Chips of paint from wall behind bed: chloride: 2,600 ppm (IC) - zinc: 150 ppm (ICP-MS)

* Gloves from stairs  (probably used to open and/or close the brass-zinc valve): chloride: 17,000, ppm (IC) - zinc: 1,500 ppm (ICP-MS)

Is that all fabricated? From Whelan as read, I have reason to suspect that. But I also have even greater reason to accept those findings, or their gist anyway. The visual clues seem hard to explain any other way.

This could raise doubts about the whistleblower, as it initially did for me. But overall I suppose it's some misunderstanding, like over what "background" means. Open questions: Does it really argue against a gas release? If not, then why bring it up? Could Whelan just be confused about documents he recalled seeing, in what it says or in its significance? What specific levels did he mean? 1-2 ppb (parts-per-billion) was mentioned. Was that of one specific compound, that could be less common in Syria than usual for reasons he didn't realize? Or was it this low for all such compounds? 

Related? CLOC = Chlorine containing Organic Chemicals. The 2019 report says wipes from "the burnt wall in the room located under the cylinder (level 2)" yielded "CLOC (trace)," as did "Dry wipe from kitchen wall above the oven (level 2)." "CLOC (trace)" is also given for 4 samples from Location 4, and one from Location 1. Every case of CLOC is given as (trace). Some specify (LC-HRMS) and some (GC), whatever that means. 

Aaron Maté's new article focuses on another, rather shady-seeming detail in the IIT report; a newly-mentioned concrete sample provided by the "White Helmets," most likely, that was accepted in violation of the OPCW's long-violated chain-of-custody rules. That's nothing new. Ever since the OPCW FFM's first attempt to investigate on-site in 2014 had opposition fighters attack and arrest them, they've let the opposition collect the evidence for them. They seemed trustworthy enough. Eventually a White Helmets chemical sample unit handled that work. 

In Douma, for the first time since 2013, the OPCW FFM had access to the sites. Yet they apparently used this off-chain sample instead of some concrete sample the FFM collected themselves, but never tested.* From this likely imposter, the IIT added the identification of chlorine marker chemical tetrachlorophenol or TeCP. As Maté puts it "TeCP, it would seem, is the veritable smoking gun needed to establish a chemical attack in Douma as fact." How crucial really is TeCP vs. these other compounds? I don't know. But from this, it looks snuck in. 

* Maté: "a similar sample collected at the same Douma location by the organization’s own inspectors was inexplicably disregarded and not even analyzed." The one they used was from "the room under the crater and the cylinder,” as was the unused "lump of concrete from floor debris in the room under the cylinder (level 2)." But there were several FFM concrete samples from Location 2, with some analyzed and included:  one "from the crater-edge in front of the cylinder" and 2 from the street nearby had Dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, chloral hydrate, chlorophenol, dichlorophenol, and trichlorophenol, but no TeCP. Tetrachlorophenol is listed for 3 samples from locations 1 and 4, but none from Location 2. 

The obvious impression is the OPCW investigators made up the chlorine proof by using tricks like this, probably because there was no gas. But it seems there was plenty of gas. Maybe there was a release at location 2 that was just weaker than the investigators wanted, yielding low traces and lacking especially in TeCP. Or Maybe the OPCW dropped this hint because they want the skeptics to keep doubting this point and thus stay on the wrong track. 

Michael Kobs recently lodged some good-sounding points I can't vouch for, summarizing chlorine gas "is a good and easy way to explain all these chlorinated materials but it's not the only way." That too could leave a reader suspecting it WAS staged in another way. But Michael for one agrees with me that the gas probably was released in both locations (I'm not sure if Aaron does). And if that were the fact of the matter, then such doubts could block serious consideration of the evidence from there forward. And this is exactly where we go in this post - forward. So whatever your doubts, unless you know better than I do, you'd do well to defer, or suspend that disbelief, to open your view. We need to carefully consider - not necessarily believe in - chlorine gas being released at both alleged impact sites, in ample amounts to do the things it ACTUALLY DOES, 

Chlorine Levels: Unclear, Possibly High

IF the gas was released, the next important question is how much and how quickly. This will decide the concentration of the gas and its effects on anyone contacting it. The IIT found extreme levels were reached within three minutes of the alleged cylinder impact. 

"The IIT notes that all models indicate that within three minutes of the release of chlorine from the cylinder, all floors within the building would have exceeded a concentration of chlorine which would lead to occupant death, noting that within 60 seconds the concentration of chlorine on the second floor would have led to occupant death." (6.111 )

A concentration "which would lead to occupant death" in an unspecified time after an unspecified exposure duration is pretty vague. What actual concentrations did they find likely? Paragraph 6.107 is the only place where "ppm" (parts per million) appears in the report, to explain what happens at some levels and to state that those levels were far exceeded; "Finally, the IIT obtained information indicating that the concentration of chlorine released at Location 2 in Douma on 7 April 2018 was at least 1,000 ppm." 

I don't know how to calculate the likely levels and challenge that, and I'll take "chill" way for the moment. The rate of release is variable, with the first part releasing quickly as a liquid (due to compression), either dripping or potentially pouring out the unobstructed valve (it boils into heavy gas instantly after emerging). Once the fluid level drops below the escape route - here, a somewhat down-tilted gas cylinder neck - it comes out more slowly as gas. I don't know the rates, but someone does. As noted, it seems ~90% of the liquid is gone by 10PM, and it seems not far below the neck. Let's say 99% of that ~90% poured at once, in the first minute, and just 1% over the next 2.5 hours. I don't think it's that quick, but hey ... maybe. Let's try it out. And the IIT apparently assumed an extreme release like this, concluding that floor 3 was filled to fatal in just 20 seconds.

From a 120-liter cylinder of compressed gas would come a certain volume of expanded gas I don't know. A good bit. Most of it would fill only part of floor 3 and the stairwell there and on floors 2 and 1, some to the sides depending on details, an unclear space just outside the entrance, plus some back in and down to the basement. That's not such a huge space. If it emptied all at once - which we're trying out - I would expect extreme levels in the stairwell. AFAIK 1,000 ppm is possible in this core, if not in other areas or at any slower rate of release. Maybe it would just be 2-300 ppm or even less, but we're trying out the higher level.

The report points out how extreme 1,000 ppm would be: "in concentrations over 400 ppm, fatality occurs within minutes." Is even that maybe instant enough to preclude escape to fresh air? As I read, "The lowest lethal concentration for a 30-minute exposure has been estimated as 430 ppm." (Chlorine Gas Toxicity - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf (nih.gov)) As explained below, the IIT version calls for nearly instant death or immobilization, so 430 ppm could hardly explain this. But they cited well over twice that level, and they could have been more to the point. Their own source (https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp172.pdf) cites lots of deaths hours to months later, but it says "immediate death follows inhalation of a concentration of 1,000 ppm." (As explained below, "immediate" probably has to mean suffocation speed.) 

The IIT "obtained information indicating that" this level was achieved. They don't mention it coming from their modeling, so ... was it the REPORTS that people died there instantly that "indicated" the concentration must have been 1,000 ppm or higher? That sounds pretty "reasonable," doesn't it? I wouldn't be surprised. Note 2/18: To clarify, this would be circular reasoning: they assume people died swiftly from chlorine, which would "indicate" 1,000 ppm or higher. This would be just a corollary of their unfounded assumption, but they act like it's separate "information" in support of that assumption. The final report may have skipped the 1,000 ppm citation because, in earlier drafts, its appearance in the text made this circular reasoning too evident. (end note)

Still, it's a good moment to consider the possibility, at least for good measure. But first, let's consider what chlorine does and then come back to what a whole lot of it might do, and how well that explains the evidence. 

HOW Chlorine kills and what it DOESN'T usually do

Higgins continued: "You may wonder why I'm at pains to point this out, but some of the loudest voices in Douma denialism claim the victims were killed elsewhere and placed at the site, rather than killed by chlorine gas exposure at the site. The OPCW IIT makes clear this is a fabrication."

They do suggest and state at different points that this chlorine caused the victims' deaths, but they were not able to "make it clear." Fatally high chlorine levels would not prove those people died there, from that. In fact, it's quite doubtful that they did. All this consideration of chlorine presence, release time and levels might be irrelevant to the true crime.

In most circumstances, chlorine is not terribly good at killing people. It's classed as a pulmonary irritant, with one relevant effect; it generates Hydrochloric and Hypochlorous Acid on contact with water, and this acid damages moist, sensitive tissues like the eyes and airways. It burns, and all else it does is secondary to that. 

In most cases airway damage is not severe, but it limits breathing from the start and causes mucous production that, over time, leads to pulmonary edema or fluid-filled lungs. These fluids often appear as oral foam as the victims struggles to breathe through it. Failure in that is the usual cause of death following chlorine exposure. This edema usually develops as a delayed response, hours after the victim has escaped the gas, but this has been hotly debated. As I've read, pulmonary edema "can be" delayed for hours and usually is. But I'm not sure it's always is that delayed. I've seen some indications it can happen after around 30 minutes of continuous exposure, and even sooner seems hypothetically possible. 

Never mind degrees of edema foam that can form after debatable times. Why would the Douma victims LAY THERE foaming until dead? As the OPCW FFM's first consulted toxicologists correctly explained  (per a record of the visit) "It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas, victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building." These unnamed but eminent experts, reportedly visited in Germany, thought "it was highly unlikely that victims would have gathered in piles at the centre of the respective apartments at such a short distance from an escape." 

Indeed, in countless documented real-world incidents, fatal chlorine exposure is avoided almost 100% of the time as people tend to leave the concentrated gas swiftly, using their feet and their completely unimpaired consciousness. (add 2/18: see some cases I considered in this 2017 blog post) The "German toxicologists" (as I'll call them) offered a logical, reality-based assessment the FFM leadership apparently did not want. Like the engineering study, all record of this visit was memory-holed until it was leaked. Any toxicology work the FFM tried in the first months was re-done later, securing a more vague and flexible assessment. 

Eliot Higgins knows this is at issue, and makes a point of pretending the issue never mattered: "The war crime deniers tried to focus on an early FFM meeting about the toxicity of chlorine, which they used to dismiss claims of chlorine gas use in the attack. The IIT brought on even more specialists, who established the symptoms did in fact match with high levels of exposure." The later experts might have provided nothing but nonsense, but "even more" is posed as winning the day. 

The IIT sought to explain why the victims were found all over the 1st and 2nd floors, and on the stairs between and even above, when they had been in the basement to start with. 

The IIT assess that it is likely that the recommended protocol during chemical attacks “to head to higher ground” is why the majority of the fatalities are observed on the first and second floors and on the stairs. (6.104 )

They were told to get above the gas, but this doesn't explain it. 

It does makes initial sense for people to go upstairs after smelling the gas in the basement. Refer to the 3D model above and the image below, showing how to go upstairs requires first stepping almost out in the street, where the best chance at fresh air could be found, But IF the gas had got to the basement, it was via this area, filled with gas the breeze doidn't disperse. Encountering it there too, the victims might think the gas came from somewhere outside, and then seek higher ground inside. 

That still makes complete sense, up to where most of them dispersed into the ground floor, just a few steps "higher" than the outside, and to where they encountered even more dense chlorine inside, and more yet the higher they went. Then - most logically - they would decide it came from inside and the protocol isn't THAT binding, so they would leave the site to save their own lives. 

That protocol is often cited to counter the German toxicologists, who found it unlikely that the victims would run upstairs "counter to the direction of dissemination of the toxic gas," or deeper into the cloud of it. We do have a reason that they might. But as the toxicologists also said, and as the FFM/IIT can hardly explain, "It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas," even for a second time, "victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building." No one disputes they would WANT TO turn around and escape the gas - better late than never. But these experts expected the victims WOULD have exited according to that instinct. They did not expect some kind of immobility to set in and prevent it.  

An example from my city, Spokane, in 2015: eight workers at a recycling plant were hospitalized and Edward Dumaw, a forklift operator, died after a mid-size chlorine leak. A partly-filled half-ton tank of compressed gas was crushed, or was punctured as it was loaded in the crusher, most likely by or very near Dumaw's forklift - so probably just a meter or so from his face. It was outdoors, but a lot was released (I didn't yet find exact details). Soon after the incident, paramedics were seen taking one man to an ambulance by stretcher. That's probably Mr. Dumaw, up on his side, holding the railing and his oxygen mask (1:30 in this video: EPA finds source of tank that triggered massive chlorine gas leak - YouTube ). 

It seems like he stayed conscious, and so did everyone else. Another man wears a breathing mask but is walking fine. (Both men are shirtless following decontamination that was probably overdone for a simple irritant). Even Mr. Dumaw could probably walk if needed, but he was badly injured and had spent some unclear minutes with inadequate oxygen, and was probably fatigued. Hopes were high that he would soon recover, though he was put on ventilation at the hospital. But then even that wasn't enough; he slipped into a coma before complications from his injuries finally killed Mr. Dumaw a few days later. 

One report quoted Spokane Assistant Fire Chief Brian Schaeffer as saying “The effects of exposure to the chemical plume ranged from minor respiratory issues like coughing to severe respiratory issues.” There's no mention of anyone dying suddenly, blacking out, or being otherwise immobilized. It's something that's pretty well absent from the other incidents I've studied as well.   

Multi-death incidents like in Huaian, China or Graniteville, South Carolina, or most of those WWI battles like at Ypres, will see victims dropping and dying at different distances from the release. These involve huge area-wide gas release that can only be escaped by a long hike. Generally they do hike, but less effectively over time, and some drop dead before they get out of the plume. The worst off are those severely injured by a concentrated exposure, who may only a stumble a short distance before suffocation takes them. Anyone who drops instantly and dies in place is a rare fluke that hardly gets mentioned.

But in Douma, as the German toxicologists pointed out, fresh air would have been available somewhere outside. That's not so far to hike, even after that dash upstairs, but we hear people just laid down and died instead. That's what we call "unexplained."

So this "protocol" thing cannot, in itself, be the answer. We need sudden, widespread immobilization that has never been a known effect of chlorine. This is just why experts early on suggested a nerve agent like sarin was involved. British media spook Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, making the same case for sarin most other observes initially made: "If it was chlorine, they could have escaped. But they died after just taking a few steps." (see Media Lens article with other examples or this WGSPM briefing note). That's about what the Germans had said. 

Unnamed U.S. official even said they had biomedical samples proving that a sarin-like nerve agent was used. But then sarin did not turn up in chemical tests, and sudden, widespread chlorine immobilization started trying to become a new "fact." That's why to the FFM in 2019, the "inhalational irritant or toxic substance" responsible was also "a rapidly incapacitating or a highly toxic substance." Chlorine fit both bills ... because adding "or" makes all these words interchangeable? Furthermore, "The victims do not appear to have been in the midst of attempting self-extrication or respiratory protection when they collapsed, indicating a very rapid or instant onset. This type of rapid collapse is indicative of an agent capable of quickly killing or immobilising." Indeed, the victims were not escaping and don't even seem to have been covering their faces - that's how instant it seemed. Someone probably told the FFM this indicated sarin, etc. and they included it anyway - with some "or" work - as supportive of chlorine.

The IIT now says it was chlorine, the pulmonary irritant, and the victim could take all the steps TOWARDS the gas they wanted - because of that "higher ground" advice - but they could not turn around and escape it because ... over 1,000 ppm was "indicated." Hamish would now agree, of course. Earlier, the agent was "rapidly incapacitating" but chlorine is not, and now they avoid such specifically misleading words. "Unconsciousness" appears once, observed at people brought to medical point 1 (6.100). Some from other shelters reportedly "collapsed" on their way to point 1 (6.103). No form of "immobilized," "incapacitated," or anything similar appears, as they had in the 2019 FFM report. Now, the "rapid release" just caused a "rapid onset of symptoms" that aren't specified, and a "rapid and high fatality rate" with few details to explain just HOW they died and WHY "escape was no longer possible" during the victims' final moments. For lack of better organizing, I'll dwell on this some more below.

Is Syrian Chlorine Different?

Well before Douma, since 2014, it's been alleged that victims of chlorine attacks in Syria DO routinely pass out upon breathing the gas, instantly or within a few moments, and then just lay there to die instead of escaping. As I argued with this 2017 article (already linked above), these allegations are proven false partly by this built-in scientific illiteracy. Or maybe they're proven fiction by the implausible scientific plot twist; activists also dropped frequent hints of a mystery devices and chemical added to the chlorine, like some yellow powder in a separate container, for example. And somehow, unusual symptoms were often reported, including a swift blacking out similar to what sarin causes. 

Opposition sources would later report several dual chlorine-sarin attacks. In fact the Douma attack was initially reported this way, with far more deaths and unique signs like miosis (constricted pupils). Loss of consciousness was reported in general and described by supposed survivors, and there were even purported biomedical samples showing a nerve agent. 

But the OPCW's investigations find a sarin-chlorine attack implausible, correctly noting that chlorine would tend to neutralize the sarin. And at Douma they found no sign of sarin ever being present, in biomedical or environmental samples, and no sign of any other mystery chemical - just chlorine. (Conversely, in Saraqib 2 months earlier, they found sarin traces along with the chlorine signs, but couldn't accept them in the same attack - as was alleged. So they deemed the sarin a random coincidence from some other, unknown use as they blamed Syria for the chlorine part!)

Even with the added blackout feature, Syria chlorine attacks historically had death tolls usually between zero and one. Occasionally 2 or even 3 people would allegedly lay there and die under a single chlorine bomb. A record of 7 deaths happened once (some prisoners of Jaysh al-Islam in Adra that actually appear murdered with chest punctures). Two 6-member families who passed out in their homes and died were tied for 2nd place (Taleb 2015 with additional overdose signs and murderous medical malpractice, "Baytounji" 2016 with additional "raccoon eyes" from recent unexplained skull fractures, and never mind "Baytounji" - probably not their name or a clue they were Christians after all). 

Those attacks with 6-7 killed were the deadliest chlorine incidents until Douma, with nearly 200 deaths initially reported, but with sarin also involved, and finally "just" 43 were reportedly killed, grudgingly, by chlorine alone. And it's accepted without batting an eyelash. 

The OPCW has taken down these prior claims and issued reports including them. They should be able to cite that long record to say the Douma victims simply lost consciousness from the chlorine, like so many others have, and therefore never made it out. But even the OPCW's investigations can't bring themselves to confirm this long-running allegation. Before, they had suggested "immobilization" must have been involved, but they didn't explain why that might be so. 

Now they avoid even this, but the story does still require it. The only way to explain those bodies - aside from body planting - is they ran up into the gas, and were then swiftly incapacitated so they could not leave. And chlorine can immobilize. Let's consider HOW and whether the mechanisms are evident in Douma. 

HOW Chlorine Might Immobilize

Again, chlorine just burns. It's not a nerve agent, and despite the name similarity, it's nothing like Chloroform, so people don't just pass out from whiffing it. Again, pulmonary edema is the main cause of death by suffocation. This usually develops as a delayed response, and can hardly explain people dropping so quickly.

Edema or not, from the first breath of gas, strained breathing can start reducing oxygen levels, eventually leading to cerebral hypoxia, featuring fatigue (especially in the legs), along with a severe headache, and finally, in severe cases, to unconsciousness and death. But this usually takes quite a few minutes or longer to develop. It's not likely to explain the scene in Douma.

The most severe and sudden exposure could effectively destroy the lungs in one breath, causing death at suffocation speed thereafter. Over 1,000 ppm sound likely to do that; for every 1,000 molecules of breathed air, at least one is chlorine. That's a lot of acid in the lungs for each breath - maybe enough to melt half the alveoli at once and fill the lungs with blood. 

Cases of this or similar might leave the victim fully aware & mobile, running, crawling, etc. until their stored oxygen runs out. Death will take minutes, but the crucial loss of consciousness can occur within 40 seconds of total breath loss, or perhaps even less. 

And in some cases, people might also black out or freeze instantly in shock over the extreme injuries. That's not a regular feature of chlorine exposure, but a possibility of unclear likelihood. I think the IIT's reasoning requires about 100% of the victims to succumb to one of these things. 

How about laryngospasm? Sometime the airway locks up in reflexive response the chemical injury, and refuses to unlock, leading to suffocation short of melted lungs. This is an occasional reaction, another suffocation scenario that would take minutes, not seconds. And laryngospasm might block any edema fluid, besides preventing the breath needed to produce foam, which many Douma victims display.

The visual record also fails to help the IIT's case by failing to show signs of the necessary chemical injuries. to the eyes and airways. 

The suggested chlorine level - more than 1,000ppm - would probably cause massive tissue injury, and the quickest death possible - ultimately from suffocation - would entail serious bleeding in the airways. It would leave people coughing up blood, maybe breathing it into a bright pink foam if they had enough time (which is debatable at such extremes). But this isn't much in evidence at Location 2. A couple of cases show blood content (revised Feb. 8: severely with 2 boys and a girl, probably another girl, and one boy with mild blood), but we mostly see a pale-yellow foam that collapses into a yellow-and-then-brown colored fluid. The FFM and IIT have tried to suggest the brown in this is from blood content, but it's a different color that starts yellow and becomes its own clue - see part 3. 

Eye irritation - as far as I can tell - is always met with increased blood flow and visible redness. Here I established it as a regular feature of real chlorine exposure, lacking from many shown victims (mainly children shown recovering), probably because they weren't real victims. Red eyes are excluded from some symptom lists, likely because it's such a non-specific sign caused by many things, but it appears on many others. I could not quite find a source to clarify if there are any exceptions that might apply in Douma or if that's literally impossible. But not a single case of visibly red eyes appears. 

"Corneal opacification" is cited by the FFM and IIT as suggesting chlorine damage, seemingly uninterested in the lack of redness. Adding here, I later learned that opacification does happen right away, not just as later scarring (as the above link says). But I'm 98% sure it should come on top of redness, and the white-on-white we see simply means they died following little or no corrosive damage to their eyes, and then developed post-mortem corneal clouding like every corpse does. 

Ok, stretching the "chill" and open-mindedness, let's consider maybe ... the eyes somehow burn without redness after all, their lungs were massively destroyed but with little to no blood in the foam, the foam shows they managed to breathe for some time, so death wasn't exactly "instant." but they were not much able to move their bodies to escape the gas. That probably needs a widespread shock-paralysis or mysterious sudden black-out that is not a regular effect, but almost has to apply in every case. 

All that combined must be possible, like almost anything hypothetically is. But it's not at all expected or obvious like it's presented. Some unexplained anomalies would be involved, but the IIT just shrugs and pretends there's nothing further to explain, as if there could be no better-fitting explanation they could have considered. 

Escape Was "Impossible"?

Assuming perhaps the quickest release possible, the IIT concluded that within 60 seconds, the gas concentration on floor 2 would lead to "occupant death" - at some point after some exposure -  and suggests it would be instant enough to preclude escape. This is worth dwelling on for a moment.

6.112 ...the dispersion was so rapid that it obstructed the only possible escape route from the apartments via the stairwell. In addition, the IIT notes that approximately 20 seconds after the release of chlorine, escape from the apartments on the third floor was almost certainly no longer possible and after 60 seconds, escape from the apartments on the second floor was almost certainly no longer possible either. 

The specialists’ assessment that all exit routes on the third and second floor were no longer accessible without exposure to a high and lethal volume of chlorine gas are consistent with the rapid onset of symptoms which led to the fatalities recorded on the stairs and landings, as reported by witnesses and observed in videos and pictures from the incident. 

Some areas were inaccessible "without" fatal gas exposure, but exposure is a constant in this scenario and lingering can't help that. And they say after 60 seconds escape from floor 2 was "not possible," period. How so? Reality requires an exact mechanism. They don't seem to know it or care, but they assume that pretty suddenly, the people just couldn't move. 

Now remember that the victims needed to escape these upstairs apartments only because they had first run INTO those apartments, as the IIT reasons, in search higher ground. When "protocol" demands, people are able to climb stairs and enter some apartment, some via a smashed-in doors. Some managed to flee into back rooms on floor 1, as others could climb to floor 2 or even 2.5, to enter apartments here. Alleged survivor Nasr Hanan say he followed his brother to floor 2, watched him wash his face at the sink and the collapse, before Nasr decided to escape alone, and did it just fine. 

Maybe the IIT rejected his account or never heard it. But full mobility could be assumed up to the victims being in the apartments upstairs, where the entrance and the exit is the same doorway, just passed in opposite ways. If the exit is "obstructed," then so is the entrance. By the same reasoning, within 60 seconds people would be "obstructed" from entering those rooms on floor 2. They could not reach this higher ground "without exposure to a high and lethal volume of chlorine gas." ENTRANCE INTO these apartments would be not just unlikely but "impossible." But then how DID their bodies wind up there, somewhat in piles?

To be fair, there is the time difference between entrance and exit. Maybe they could just barely run into the cloud, and then a ways further before the O2 shortage hit them. And say the gas was still building up swiftly, growing a bit worse every moment, and was of course added to what they had already breathed. There is that to make the entrance and exit different thing. Is it enough to explain how they all could get in but not back out before that previously unknown mass immobilization kicked in? Of course I don't think so. 

The FFM noted "The victims do not appear to have been in the midst of attempting self-extrication or respiratory protection when they collapsed, indicating a very rapid or instant onset." It came on so quick they couldn't even get their faces covered, after running up there also without covering their faces, and they never had time to escape. The IIT is less specific, but decided the victims could enter these rooms alive, but then suddenly they cannot even start to reverse that terrible move and escape the corrosive gas. That's a convenient decision, if not a well-founded one.

Taking this as a metaphor for the investigation seems clever. the FFM and IIT are able to run up the stairs of this Jihadist fiction, passing up escapes to clear thinking and breaking doors of logic to get their credibility lodged deep in some vacant apartment with deception levels well above 1,000 ppm. Then, of course, they cannot turn around and escape, at least not without exposure to levels of well-earned distrust that could render the OPCW useless as a tool of empire. For those pulling the strings, it might be escaping that poisoned environment that proves fatal. 

In review

The IIT report alleges delayed-then-sudden paralysis or unconsciousness, induced by acid injuries of an extreme nature, but with oddly limited visual signs, in 35 cases, when we should expect about zero. They reason this was due to an optimally swift release from the dropped chlorine cylinder - the one with a velocity too low to penetrate the ceiling, after it coincidentally impacted where a mortar shell once did, but still such a velocity at impact that it blew the ceiling open just like another mortar shell would do. 

I suppose all of that, even combined, is extremely unlikely but hypothetically possible, in the sense that just about anything is. But it was posed exclusively as "reasonable." It was already assumed as factual by many, and is now read as extra-factual by the same. But that just doesn't cut it for me, and it shouldn't cut it for anyone else. 

Just like the chlorine cylinder fails to match the building damage, the gas it contained - and probably did release - fails to realistically explain the observed fatalities. I always suspected the bodies were planted here just like the cylinder was. And I still suspect that whatever killed them didn't do it here, or under circumstances we can easily know. But there is the evidence to guide a search into those circumstances, which will continue fairly soon with part 3.

Why the OPCW Left Evidence Buried in Douma

Douma Chemical Massacre - Victim Analysis -  Why the OPCW Left Evidence Buried in Douma

November 29, 2021

last edits 11/30

On 1 March 2019, the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM)'s final report on the Douma incident, S/1731 (PDF link), was released . Its conclusions included that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe chlorine gas had been used in Douma on April 4, 2018 in an attack by Syrian military, "which witnesses said killed 43 people." 

This is generally read as saying the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) found proof the Syrian government dropped chlorine on Douma, actually causing the deaths of those 43 people. But there was never proof that it was an attack as opposed to the staged incident it seemed, and no plausible explanation has ever been offered as to how that chlorine could have killed those people as reported. They might well have been murdered in another way and arranged at the scene, just like the chlorine cylinder seemingly was. 

The final report did seek the advice of at least two sets of forensic toxicologists, trying to secure that link. But the experts refused to correlate the sudden immobilization or other observed signs and were unable to link the deaths to any specific chemical. The report tries - at least in spots - to make it sound like this was because the FFM was unable to examine the bodies of the deceased. Paragraph 2.11 states: "with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical." 2.10 explains: "the team did not have direct access to examine dead bodies, as it could not enter Douma until two weeks after the incident (see paragraph 2.2), by which time the bodies had been buried." And once they're under the dirt, apparently, it's just too late.

Exhuming the bodies isn't mentioned as an option there, but it was mentioned elsewhere in the report, and it was a possibility that was much talked about at the time. A month after the alleged attack, on 3 May, departing OPCW Director-General Ahmet Uzumcu told the Financial Times they were looking into "ways to exhume and take some biomedical samples," to see if the suspected sarin could be confirmed. "It is a very sensitive process," Uzumcu said in the widely-reported interview. "That's why they are very cautious. Although our experts have been able to attend some autopsies in the past, this is going to be the first time we have exhumed bodies."  (via Taipei Times)

The OPCW had a chance to examine fatalities following on the Ghouta alleged attack in 2013 killed an "estimated" 1,429 people, but for dubious reason they had opted not to do it. UN disarmament chief Angela Kane was involved and spoke to this decision in an interview on RT: “there were so many victims who are still alive that there was really no need to exhume bodies.” Her bizarre and completely incorrect reasoning: “a dead body can’t tell how the person dies … a living person can tell you that.” (RT October 3, 2013. ‘No sarin detected in West Ghouta environment, only in human samples' - UN's Angela Kane. RT video, published October 3, 2013. (time-stamp: 12:29) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16udmn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcfIj6WLqRk ) 

And so, in 2013, the OPCW chose to extrapolate from insurgent-screened alleged survivors who claimed to be relatives of the dead. Many of these did test positive for sarin, but at what seems to be incongruously low levels, and their high rate of positives from Moadamiya wound up looking odd next to the almost total lack of sarin returns in the environment there. It seems likely these stand-ins had volunteered for token doses. Since 2004, tests can show sarin presence at concentrations as low as 5 picograms per milliliter of blood which - by my efforts to estimate it - is about 0.002% or 2/100,000 of a fatal dose at most - probably too little to even feel. And it seems the OPCW eschewed quantitative testing for that, just looking for presence at any level, allowing for such easy fakery. (See Sarin-faking in Syria)

As for the real reason to avoid confirmation: they might have been afraid of what they would find. As noted right away by Dr. Denis O'Brien, the fatalities in Ghouta did not appear to have died from sarin at all, especially the unusually pink ones in Kafr Batna, and especially the one whose neck the insurgents had to cut to finish the job. But without really checking, the OPCW decided sarin was to blame for, and that it came from the rockets widely believed to be fired by the Syrian military. (that belief has pretty well proven incorrect.)

From there, OPCW's second effort to even investigate on the ground in 2014 ended in disaster, but a fortunate one for the blaming of Damascus. A team from the newly-minted FFM set out to investigate some alleged chlorine attacks in Hama, but they were also given the locations where  insurgent allegedly assembled the "barrel bombs" and stored the chlorine associated with the claims. Perhaps learning of that, insurgents attacked and arrested the FFM team en route - maybe as "spies for Assad" - before sending them back to Damascus empty-handed. Soon a plan was arranged where the FFM would stay out of rebel areas and far away from any CW facilities they ran, and let insurgents and their closer allies like the "White Helmets" handle evidence collection for such investigation.

That was  always a gross violation of OPCW protocols. But after the attack and a "loss of trust," what choice was there but to go all-out trusting them or else sit out the whole regime-blaming exercise? That policy produced consistent results implicating the government time and again, mainly based on crediting any claims of aircraft involvement, however grounded they were in the evidence. This held until 2018 in Douma, where the establishment of government control made direct on-site examination of an alleged government attack possible, for the first time in nearly five years. Interestingly, this is where the blame machine ran into its biggest problems.

Uzumcu bragged this was "going to be the first time" bodies were exhumed and studied, but it hadn't been done yet by the 6 July Interim Report (S/1645/2018). All it said on the subject was the intention "was communicated to the Syrian Arab Republic" (some details given) and that "preliminary preparations were undertaken by the Secretariat for this eventuality." There was no word on progress, and three months after the event it was getting very late. 

In fact this heralded exhumation was never done and the reasons for that remain muddled. Three extremely different reasons have been proposed: 

1) Assad blocked the OPCW from finding the truth of his guilt

2) experts advised there was nothing to find, and so the FFM chose not to look 

3) the OPCW's investigators wanted to avoid an unacceptable and unclear "risk" related to reason 2 but predating it, perhaps concerned there was evidence of insurgent guilt they would rather not see.

Reason 1: Assad Kept OPCW From Finding the Evidence

It was on 26 April the OPCW communicated its interest in exhuming bodies, with a "note verbale NV/ODG/214827/18." On 3 May we heard those comments regarding that plan, and then the next day came the Syrian reply. Ten months later the final report would explain:

"The Syrian Arab Republic replied in Note Verbale No. 45 on 4 May 2018 and enumerated the conditions to be met in order to conduct the exhumation. With due consideration of the time elapsed since the alleged incident, the possibility was eventually not explored any further."

"Eventually" it had become too far out to bother. But the editing at least makes it sound like Damascus' conditions - which are never specified - had a part in this, perhaps in stalling it so long. In fact the Syrian government complained about this in another note verbale of 11 March, 2019, question 7:

"Paragraph 7.8 implicitly blames the Syrian Arab Republic for the fact that the bodies were not exhumed from their graves. The Technical Secretariat Sent Note Verbale NV/ODG/214827/18, dated 26 April 2018 and the Syrian Arab Republic replied, through Note Verbale 45, dated 4 May 2018, that it would continue to cooperate with the FFM and it was ready to provide all that is necessary to facilitate the work. However, the issue of exhumation is particularly sensitive and requires numerous procedures involving various entities (judicial, religious, medical). The Technical Secretariat, however, did not follow up on this issue with the Syrian National Authority, as mentioned in the same paragraph." 

The OPCW response: "No blame was understood or implied by the FFM in paragraph 7.8 of the report." Some people might read it that way, but they insist that wasn't their intention. (Source: S/1755/2019, 21 May 2019, Annex 1 pp 6-7 PDF link )

One especially vocal and diehard adherent to this reading is Scott Lucas, an English professor of American Studies and an affiliate of Jaish al-Islam, the Saudi-backed militants who are the prime alternate suspects for the Douma massacre.  Prof. Lucas has said "one of privileges of this job is meeting a lot of wonderful people on ground who, at risk to themselves, want to get story out. So that is why I have "facts", in and beyond OPCW report." (5/30/19) For example, as he posted on his EA Worldview page "Assad forces are digging up graves in a search for the bodies of victims, hoping to remove them before the OPCW inspectors can test for chemical exposure" - or at least that was claimed by "Mohammed Alloush, a senior official of the rebel faction Jaish al-Islam" (he was JAI's  political leader and a relative of founder Zahran Alloush) 

Along with representatives of US, UK, and France, the OPCW, and the United Nations, professor Lucas has suggested Syria and Russia had stalled the Douma probe in order to erase signs of sarin. The very possibility of that is debatable, and the only stalling anyone can identify was by the UN's security agency UNDSS, whose recon team was rushed into a grenade attack by militants, which stalled things a bit further (Monitor on Massacre Marketing: Swept Under the Rug, Part 1 and part 2 ) Lucas, for his part, has said "Evidence of an attack couldn't be completely scrubbed, but a lot of it could be put beyond inspectors, e.g., the bodies of the victims." (1/2/20 ) 

Lucas' extremist-linked sources have him unusually prone to believing sarin or similar was also involved: Early on he was firm: "From the multi-sources I have - Doctors, activists, Citizen Journalists - there was a stronger agent used, This was not just chlorine used in Douma." (video) He suggests this agent's total absence from the scene is because it was "scrubbed" away, and there was a similar effort to hide clues in those bodies. And while he's since accepted that chlorine alone could explain the deaths, at least with the help of a "funnel effect," as recently as September 6 (2021) he still suggests there was more to it that remains hidden: "So why were witnesses still speaking of "stronger agent" than chlorine in #Douma attack almost 3 weeks later? Because 43 victims had to buried quickly as #Russia-regime occupied city. So no one could verify actual agent." 

There was an effort to give the OPCW the location of the mass grave containing the bodies, but as Lucas explains, "Russia-regime control meant no way round talks w Damascus." (4/30/19) Those talks led to the airing of conditions, and "#Assad regime's blocking of exhumations came thru "conditions" which eventually brought OPCW withdrawal of attempt --- you can track this fm early May in other public sources." (4/30/19) This refers to the statements of intent followed immediately with the conditions and then by no exhumation, along with some "open-source" insinuations as to cause and effect. And so, he says, "OPCW never obtained “authorization” from #Assad regime to exhume bodies" (4/30/19) 

When the statement "No blame was understood or implied by the FFM"  was mentioned by Dr. Piers Robinson and Sander Hildenbrandt, Lucas replied "That's not what #OPCW final report on #Douma said so don't misrepresent it" and "That's very diplomatic language by OPCW about why they didn't go --- they refused #Assad regime conditions over further pursuit of bodies." Professor Lucas noted that the report sure read as blaming Damascus, and should be read that way, whatever they told the Syrians with tender diplomacy. Still no one can specify what these conditions were, but it's suggested they were so extreme they forced the OPCW to again abandon the study of actual fatalities in an alleged CW attack in Syria. 

And finally, Lucas asserts this is exactly why the OPCW could not prove that chlorine immobilized then killed all those people: "The reason why final #OPCW FFM report does not make definitive conclusion re chlorine is because inspectors were unable to examine bodies of victims." (12/20/19) He claims that was Assad's fault, and that the OPCW blames him for it, albeit with "diplomatic" language. And that alone suggests government guilt; after all, why block access if there's nothing to hide? It would seem like the bodies held the proof, and Assad just couldn't risk it being found. 

Reason 2: OPCW Told There Was No Evidence TO Find

Former Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker was a bit less rabid in addressing the issue of exhumation in his recent book, made available at his Al-Bab website: "The Syrians didn’t refuse but their reply was discouraging – it raised legal and other complications." (DENYING THE OBVIOUS: chapter 13 | al-bab.com)

 

Unlike Prof. Lucas, Whitaker doesn't claim these conditions were the reason for the OPCW's failure to examine the remains of those killed. As he writes in Denying the Obvious, there were initial plans to that effect, but "as time went on the OPCW began to have doubts about pursuing their request." And so "[t]wo months after the events in Douma, OPCW staff sought advice from a group of toxicologists in Germany" and this, Whitaker asserts, is where they got the idea to not bother digging up the bodies. The OPCW stopped themselves from looking, he argues, because there was simply no point to it. And they learned this on a trip to Germany in June.

This June 6 meeting has been the issue of some controversy. In the end, two groups of toxicology experts were consulted for the FFM's investigation. One set in September and October, 5-6 months after the incident, was cited in the final report in 2019, while this earlier visit in June was omitted from all public sources until the minutes of the meeting were leaked later in 2019. (WikiLeaks - actual_toxicology_meeting_redacted and see also my post from then: Douma Toxicology: Erasing-and-replacing the Correct Answers)

Just the other day, Aaron Maté at the Gray Zone published an e-mail by OPCW whistleblower Brendan Whelan to then-former colleagues at the OPCW protesting how that meeting was erased from the record, and urging them to help elevate these concerns so they might be addressed. In part, Whelan said: "I believe it is our professional and moral obligation to ensure the DG appreciates the gravity of the matter. There may be a justified reason for the omission – though I can’t imagine what. At a minimum a satisfactory explanation has to be provided." This was on August 23, 2019 and it doesn't seem to have been much help. Soon the minutes were leaked so the public could help raise the issue instead and, as the article notes, the OPCW started a process of investigation and punishments against Whelan. 

It's worth noting Whitaker's effort to minimize this hushed-up consultation. As he explains its purpose: "[The investigators] wanted to know what information might be gleaned from exhuming the bodies and, in particular, whether this might reveal any evidence of exposure to chlorine gas." That sounds like the entire purpose. "The toxicologists advised that for a variety of reasons, including the time since burial, “there would be little use in conducting exhumations, as the chances of gathering evidence would be almost impossible.” 

Their input on the subject was sound, but that question alone hardly seems worth a whole meeting, even in-country. Exposure to a caustic gas like chlorine leaves little to no identifying chemical trace, just non-specific damage to the lungs that can be observed as consistent. See Australia study: "the absence of biomarkers and non-specific findings at autopsy complicate the diagnosis [of chlorine poisoning], particularly as environmental levels are not stable." This applies from the moment of death, but two weeks of decay couldn't help matters. 

In fact, the German experts "were unaware of any such exhumations being done in the past to provide evidence of chlorine exposure," and they saw little reason to expect otherwise in Douma. Furthermore, the lung tissue where signs would be clearest "would likely have degraded" too badly by then to say anything at all. And so, as the summary phrases it, "the highly experimental nature of of the exercise in such a public forum would represent a risk to benefit ratio that was unacceptably high." We'll return to this phrase. 

"Following that, the plan for exhumations was abandoned," Whitaker writes, and "the FFM based its decision on the toxicologists' advice." Later on, the FFM would claim "with the absence of biomedical samples from the dead bodies or any autopsy records, it is not currently possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical." In fact even with these things it seems unlikely, as they privately knew. But this "inability" to access the bodies was semantically pinned on Damascus elsewhere in the report, and so they had to keep highlighting that as something that mattered. Publicly.

So... expert advice said don't bother digging up the bodies, and that's exactly why the FFM never did so. This is certainly a more grounded explanation than prof. Lucas offers or than the FFM's final report would suggest, and seems to be at least part of the real answer. But this reading does gloss over at least one important issue; exhumation might NOT have been a waste of time. 

Assuming the bodies buried are the same ones we've seen, there was probably little value in confirming the non-specific lung damage behind the pulmonary edema that was already evident in the images. An April, 2019 briefing note of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) agreed, but explained:

"...it would still have been possible to obtain DNA samples, which might have allowed victims to be identified through matching with living relatives and with each other. Other identifying information might have been obtained from clothing, items in pockets or X-rays. Establishing the identity of the victims would have been critical in determining whether those who came forward to give interviews reporting that their relatives had died at Location 2 were telling the truth."

Noting bodies should be stripped, washed, and specially wrapped prior to burial - and some were seen so wrapped - the pockets clues would be unlikely (and of dubious value to begin with). But the rest all held some promise of shedding light on the mysterious circumstances of their deaths. I'll go into this in a little more detail below under reason 3, OPCW risk avoidance. 

Whitaker sums up the Working Group's thrust fairly enough before trying to rebut it (bolding mine): 

"Among those who defend the Assad regime against accusations of using chemical weapons, the quasi-academic Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media has previously criticised the OPCW for its "failure to proceed with exhumations". The Working Group suggests the bodies photographed in Douma were not local residents killed by the regime in a chemical attack but captives killed by rebels in a "managed massacre". It implies the OPCW didn't exhume them for fear of what might be revealed."

"However, the leaked minutes of the June meeting offer a far more straightforward explanation: that the FFM based its decision on the toxicologists' advice." 

They don't seem to have addressed DNA identification, or any other aspect aside from that of chemical exposure. Despite the limits, much could have been learned from a look at the fatalities. But the FFM tossed these clues aside without adequate explanation. There must be a reason, and we can guess it was "fear of what might be revealed."

Whitaker suggests exhumation was the only question raised in the June meeting, specifying "it appeared not to have been regarded as a full-scale “expert consultation” about the likely cause of deaths." This suggests it was always the plan to look into that central question only in September and October, at least 5 months after the incident. This is similar to the engineering study of how the cylinders came to be where they were seen, another important question officially un-addressed until October-November, but secretly addressed months before with an inconvenient and omitted engineering report. As such, the "on-going" work in these two areas that was mentioned in the public interim report of July (PDF) was allegedly still months away from even beginning. Or perhaps the reasonably-timed first tries had failed to produce the results they wanted.

Whitaker is also clear that the value of exhumation is what the FFM "wanted to know" in June. Maybe it was not the only thing they asked about, but "in particular" it was the meeting's "most immediate purpose" or (in an earlier piece) it was "the first topic raised" in Germany. Their meeting, he wrote, "lasted about an hour and after the discussion of exhumations it turned" - as conversations sometimes wander off course - "to the question of possible chlorine use" and whether it even could explain the observed fatalities. The experts offered a resounding NO. In fact, after seeing numerous images "the experts were also of the opinion that it was highly unlikely that victims would have gathered in piles at the centre of the respective apartments at such a short distance from an escape" to fresh air, and then just lay there and die, if they had simply been exposed to chlorine. Also: 

In the opinion of one employee who had been at the meeting and heard the fuller explanation, that suspicion was "fueled by" by how the deaths "do not match chlorine rather than corpses arranged for propaganda purposes." (WikiLeaks - correctly_redacted_emails_re_toxicology_minutes) 

These are notably astute observations, but luckily - as Whitaker tells it - those questions weren't really raised or relevant at the moment. A "full-scale “expert consultation” about the likely cause of deaths" was only slated for a few months later. These experts did chime in the point, but only the later opinions were actually sought and actually mattered.

However, it turns out cause of death was something they wanted to know already. The meeting minutes start by explaining "The purpose of the visit was two-fold:

1. To solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims...

2. To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims ...more specifically ... whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine ..."

The chief expert's "propaganda exercise" comments were in response to this less "particular," less "immediate" "second item" of discussion. Furthermore, as related in the summary, "the team gathered after the meeting" and it was "agreed by all present that the key "take-away message" from the meeting" (my bolding) "was that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine..." (underlined in original). The uselessness of exhuming bodies was also discussed, but it wasn't the only subject, nor even the "key" one. 

It remains odd how no one at the time took down a record of this official meeting that would later also go unmentioned, and it was down to whistleblower Whelan to assemble one from memory. But this belated record was reviewed by others (e-mails seen - Wikileaks) and none of this was contested. Some wording was tweaked, and then the expert advice was included in the draft interim report: 

"The rapid, and in some reported cases, immediate onset of frothing described by victims is not considered consistent with exposure to chlorine-based choking or blood agents. The opinion of a number of toxicologists, specialists in chemical-weapons-related intoxication supported this assessment."

...

"It should be expected that on encountering the irritant gas, victims would instinctively have retreated and exited the building, which was within a few metres away." ... etc.  (source: WikiLeaks - FirstdraftInterimReport)

Brian Whitaker had to realize the June meeting was in fact an “expert consultation” about cause of death. Note how he had to qualify his disputation by saying that "it appeared not to have been regarded as a full-scale" one - whatever that means. 

The offered opinions were actually sought, but then rejected and withheld from the public record. The draft interim report's timeline stops on June 3, just before this meeting, but it was probably meant to be updated to note the source of several cited points. Then the public interim report in July dropped all of that and skipped the timeline, and said only that work on toxicology was "on-going," like "in progress." But if so, the first part of it was never published; it was totally replaced in the final report with the second set of toxicologists, and the consultation in Germany is not on the final report's updated timeline of activities or noted anywhere therein. 

The final report should reflect the preferred toxicologists' input, but they're not cited with any specifics for or against chlorine death, just mentioned as being consulted. The report says "[A]n agent capable of  quickly killing or immobilising" was suspected, but chlorine is not particularly capable of that. A string of observed and reported symptoms were found mostly inconsistent with chlorine, with a few being debatable and/or extremely vague. Therefore, " determination of the aetiology from these observations can be related to a wide scope of chemicals" but "it is currently not possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical" - not even the only possibly relevant one they had found at the site. 

Whitaker writes "Alex’s supporters preferred the version set out in Whelan’s minutes of the June meeting and accused the OPCW of cherry-picking – listening to some toxicologists while ignoring others." ("Alex" apparently was Whelan, under a pseudonym Whitaker helped blow by doxxing this whistleblower.) But he offers no effective rebuttal; they clearly did pick one set and made the other vanish. The one they picked was a relative cherry compared to what they heard in Germany, although it seems far from ideal for their purposes (but we can guess the preferred set of experts refrained from theorizing about a staged "propaganda exercise" at least).

The FFM final report concludes it's "reasonable" to think a chlorine cylinder "impacted" the apartment building and that chlorine alone caused these deaths. But even with all this effort, they couldn't link it to any of the specific details OF those deaths. Maybe this is "why final #OPCW FFM report does not make definitive conclusion re chlorine." Even the B team wouldn't clearly say that, and they didn't want to drag it out looking for a C team. 

So ... "key" message aside, Whitaker credits the ignored German experts with the FFM's decision to leave the bodies out of the investigation. He says their reasoning was "straightforward," but if so, why did the FFM never publicly mention its basis, in fact ignoring or editing out all reference to the meeting it came from? And why did they instead lead people to read that Syria's "discouraging" but unspecified conditions were to blame? (and that was indeed implied)

While this all reflects a real aspect of the investigation, it may not be their full, true, or original reason.

Reason 3) OPCW "Risk" Avoidance

As we eventually learned, whistleblower Whelan was the main one drafting the FFM's interim report, which at one point cited a third reason never mentioned by OPCW leadership or their helpers in the media, like Lucas and Whitaker. By this, the decision to leave bodies unexamined hinged on the chemical analysis received two weeks before that Germany meeting and a resultant ... you could say "fear of what might be revealed." 

On 22 May,  the first laboratory results were received by the FFM team, and "no nerve agents or their decomposition products were detected" among them, just chlorine, a basic irritant or caustic agent. There should be nothing much to confirm, and this raised the question if that even could explain the deaths, and those are the two things they asked about in Germany. The draft report, circulating sometime in June, apparently after the Germany meeting, includes the same passage we've seen about intent to exhume, here as paragraph 6.8, followed by a second paragraph that was cut out of the public report, giving some follow-up we weren't supposed to see.

It's worth noting how Brendan Whelan primarily drafted this, perhaps as he was already forming his more "activist" views. As such, we can't be sure this is just what the FFM would otherwise be planning to say publicly. A passage like this can't show anyone's true and secret thinking, but this one... might include some "snark" or reveal more than usual. Otherwise, let's take it as what the interim report was planning to say. 

Here paragraph 6.9 says "the plans for exhumations were halted" as or because "proceeding with the exhumations presented a risk to benefit ration [sic] that was no longer acceptable." This was when they got back the samples in late May - NOT after hearing Assad's impossible "conditions" in early May, NOR after consulting with experts on June 6, as Brian Whitaker's book argues. 

The wording here does clearly recall the advice from the German exerts; as put in the summarized minutes, "the highly experimental nature" of digging for chlorine clues 2 months on "would represent a risk to benefit ratio that was unacceptably high." But it's not clear if that was the experts' own wording added to the pre-existing case against exhumation. It may also be an idea the Fact-Finding Mission had formed two weeks earlier, maybe tacked onto a prior consultation over cause of death, and the experts were just seen as confirming it. But either way, when the question was put to them, it may have been to secure a public reason for a decision the FFM had already made, perhaps for other reasons. 

It's not immediately clear what "risk" is referred to here. Again, no specific chemical signs were expected, which speaks to lacking the kind of "benefit" they had hoped for with sarin returns. And the same lack of specifics might be read by some as a lack of evidence that should exist, or as evidence against a chemical release. Although a solid case could still be made based on all evidence combined, a risk of confusion would be raised. The bit about it all being in "such a public forum" supports that.

Exhumation takes work and raises complications, but aside from misreading, it shouldn't pose any legitimate risk, although a few illegitimate kinds are possible. Consider that chlorine could hardly explain the deaths anyway, as the FFM had clarified by the same experts in Germany. The value of confirming something that doesn't even help the case might be low, and in fact it might be better left unconfirmed, to leave possibilities open. As Aaron Maté recently reported: 

"When the original report was being finalized, there were still dozens of samples remaining to be analyzed. Accordingly, the inspectors left it open that further analysis could in theory turn up new evidence and hypothesized that: "a. The victims were exposed to another highly toxic chemical agent that gave rise to the symptoms observed and has so far gone undetected." 

"This passage — with its mention of the toxicologists’ assessment and a hypothesis leaving open the possibility of a staged incident — was never published by the OPCW. And the team would never get the chance to continue this critical area of investigation."

Final lab results still showing no nerve agents at the scene would clarify that point only in February, 2019, allowing the final report in March. But until then hope was held out; in June, the toxicology minutes have team leader Sami Barrek pursuing this line of inquiry with little effect

Maybe the OPCW's investigation leaders didn't want to to risk their wiggle-room to hypothesize different agents to blame Syria with. Ruling that out with autopsies would end it. And then if it was found the victims died from sarin or similar after all - when environment samples didn't show the same thing - it could mean site-scrubbing if that were possible, OR probably that those Syrian people died somewhere else that the OPCW's insurgent partners were hiding. 

Or they might have found some contradictory clue as to how the victims died, like that they weren't gassed at all. The draft report had mentioned a possibility that "The fatalities resulted from a non-chemical-related incident," suggesting the scene was staged with corpses from elsewhere. And again there was the risk of finding by DNA that the victims were not the people claimed. It could even be shown that they specifically were other people last seen being kidnapped by the Jaysh al-Islam militants occupying Douma and Eastern Ghouta at large. And the search might have found signs of bondage during the gassing, or some other clues of how they died the OPCW leadership and its sponsors didn't want to risk seeing. 

When there can be no good answer worth proceeding on, what's the motive to find which bad answer is true? Especially if one is able to use the flexibility of ignorance to further one's agenda? The course the OPCW's investigators chose has left the situation mysterious and malleable for the Lucasses and Whitakers of the world, and that may be the main reason they left that evidence buried in Douma.

Conclusion

In summary, the clinicopathologic evidence was seen as presenting a stated "risk," and perhaps other secret risks, which the OPCW's Fact-Finding Mission wanted to avoid. The nature of that is still unclear, and may be innocent, as Brian Whitaker proposes; they risked finding nothing. But it seems the decision to leave the fatalities unexamined was internal to the OPCW and driven by a desire to actually avoid some of the evidence. 

This is what the WGSPM briefing note had suggested, and as it still seems was the case with Ghouta, as well as with all the incidents in between where the OPCW allowed the likely perpetrators to handle much of the investigation. Such avoidance would be in line with suppression or omission of engineering, toxicological, and other evidence that complicated the politically convenient findings for Syrian guilt. 

And whatever the true reason for neglecting this evidence, OPCW leadership saw fit to put forth unfounded suggestions of other reasons that would themselves implicate the government side. Altogether this suggests - as the global public is finally coming to realize - this corrupted organization's intent was never to ascertain the truth, but just to further the dirty information war against Syria on behalf of the corrupting powers that have seized it.

Two Toxicologists on Saraqib Symptoms

April 24, 2021

I already had this incident of February 4, 2018 covered fairly well in the post The Nonsense Gassing of Militants in Saraqeb - a part of my project Re-Considering the IIT's Nine Unsolved CW Cases. The news is that the findings are in: the OPCW's Investigation and Identification Team found all contrary claim to be nonsense, and that it's "reasonable" to believe that Syria's military did that, and now we're all supposed to believe it. The IIT releases its second report (press release - PDF direct link) just in time for the Conference of State's Parties where Syria was stripped of its rights (Syriana Analysis or Saudi-owned Al-Araby). 

I've been a bit slo to write about this, and now I'm just looking at a couple of aspects. But first a quick review of the chlorine cylinder "impacts." That's an issue I'll have to consider in another post, but I suspect they fell right here from above, and maybe at a very slight angle ... probably after reaching an arc following a steep-angle launch from the surface nearby. The how is unknown but possible, as far as I know, and tricky enough that I have to leave other fakery (hydraulic press, etc. - on-site or off - grass bleaching faked or coincidental, craters made with something else to be explained) or helicopter drop as PHYSICAL possibilities.

Explaining Away the Sarin

Otherwise, there's a lot of strangeness to consider here, like their answer to the illogical sarin-chlorine allegations that were backed up by actual sarin returns. The same would be claimed in Douma in April; sarin and chlorine barrel bombs killed over 180 at activist last count before they reverted to 42, and then just chlorine was found. It seems to me that story was supposed to go somewhere, but it got messed up, presumably in the chaos of total defeat for Islamist forces. And it seems to me Saraqib was supposed to be the illustrative prelude, hence a devious (and essentially impossible) "Assad chemical trick" - sneaking sarin back in under cover of the more boring chlorine. 

IIT report 2 decides: To attack with both sarin and chlorine at once was illogical and improbable, besides poorly-illustrated, as their experts had to admit. So the Identifiers set to correcting the record with no foul called. The sarin was just there in the dirt already. Who knows why. 

There was a separate question of whether normal sarin breakdown products should be found or chlorinated ones. I didn't see that answered here. If they should be chlorinated by the chlorine and aren't, that means they weren't in the attack OR in the soil already, but added later. That would be leading sample contamination - the kind of thing the OPCW thinks it can avoid having rebels videotape their scooping and sealing of samples, while having no clue if anyone had already messed with the site (or seeing clues they decided to ignore?).

The sarin-like symptoms reported would need explained away. Sure, the miosis was never real, at least not for all 11 patients as reported. ("pinpoint or constricted pupils, firmly established by the IIT in two individuals only"). And no foul called for leadingly exaggerating a mismatching symptom. But there were others that seemed odd, and now must be caused by just chlorine. As it happens, the experts agreed - both of them - that it all lined up just fine. 

6.44 Two experts (toxicologists) assessed the FFM Report on Saraqib, photographs, and information provided by witnesses – including medical personnel – on symptoms and treatment of victims involved in the incident of 4 February 2018. The toxicologists, after reviewing relevant medical literature, independently checked each account from witnesses (victims or other eyewitnesses to the symptoms) against the symptoms that could be expected from chlorine exposure. They also considered imagery related to the treatment received by the victims. 

6.45 On the basis of the material provided to them, the two toxicologists reached a shared conclusion, i.e., that the accounts of victims (three of whom were among the first responders) and medical personnel – despite some marginal discrepancies – are consistent with exposure to a toxic gas like chlorine, which is poisonous and classified as a pulmonary irritant. The two toxicologists did not express doubts as to the overall veracity of the accounts. ...

We'll have a look at that, but first at a way these experts were more passively used by the IIT to make a pointless point that misses a much bigger point.

Review: Gas Spread

Next: the toxicologists correctly deduced who should and shouldn't be seriously exposed, without being led there by anyone being identified. Just from the symptoms described by anonymous person X Y or Z, basically, they agreed the ones with the worst reported effects wind up being the same ones who reported being closer to the gas: the event made basic sense, or at least the story was gotten straight. 

"...the victims considered by the expert toxicologists to have symptoms consistent with exposure to irritating gas are those from the shelter, as well as the two first responders. The witnesses deemed to be “unlikely exposed” by the expert toxicologists were either those responders that only assisted in the later transfer of the victims to the Sarmin field hospital or were part of the medical staff (who would have all had much later exposure and were better equipped with protective equipment)."

(otherwise it's three affected "SCD" White Helmets responders). It was initially 6, 8, or 9 men in a shelter, depending on reports, several in camouflage pants, app. all militants claiming to all be civilians. In IIT report 2, it was 7 "individuals" in the shelter effected, plus 3 rescuers, implicitly 2 others from the whole town, one treated at the clinic and one not, out of 12 named individuals who reported experiencing any symptoms. One of them should be this guy:

Manhal Haj Hussein “At about 9 pm, while I was sitting and my family at home, we heard a helicopter approaching the place, and only a few minutes until we started smelling a strange smell inside the house. Then, I fainted, and then the civil defense teams arrived and took me to the hospital...” 

His apparent son, by name - Hasan Manhal Haj Hussein, age 22 - happened to be one of those affected in the fateful shelter, along with an apparent cousin, Dammar Hasan Haj Hussein, 36. The other non-shelter witness at the time was another relative: Ali Hajj Hussein: at "home with his pregnant wife and two children" - heard helicopters, something falling, then screams in the neighborhood. Luckily none of those screaming people needed any medical help, because reportedly just 1 non-shelter person in the town got treatment at what seems to be the only functioning clinic around. 

The other witness I've heard from, speaking later, has a different name, and says his father was one of those in the shelter (apparently being Haithan Amad Kafrtouni, age 53), and was since killed in an airstrike while helping people (not in the course of being an antigovernment militant). There are probably other witnesses out there, but when I was following close, it was 3/3 apparent - and mostly close - relatives with the shelter victims. It seemed a bit like the whole story was some project of a couple local families of some militants nobody else was in on, except a few unrelated militants and the White Helmets always around to help militants. 

The total exclusion of everyone else in this part of town from the story ... not an issue the IIT dwells on, if they even noticed it.

Bleach spots: seem to flow what's downhill there, then gets less discernable, maybe all-over, at the flatter ground. Suggested to me is little wind, leaving topography a serious issue. Mainly there seems to be little of that as well, so it would spread pretty widely, with a general trend wherever the breeze was headed. That may be north - that first flow probably isn't ALL downhill. 

"Crater 3" (top middle, black) may be a new crater, or an old one used as a burn pit more recently? Under the same breeze? Burning anything related to the chlorine cylinder 1 mysteriously found next to it? If so, wind that way, NNW, stronger than it seemed, and similar to the seen flow (so topography mattered less, it pooled up less, less likely to meander so far east as to flood that shelter (blue w/star).

As for wind, IIT hears from more credible sources than the OPCW has usually employed (mainly predictive model websites), or at least it sounds better: "The IIT established the meteorological situation in the area in the evening of 4 February 2018 through  concurring witness statements and other sources of information, including official reports received from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and its specialised meteorological centres" - in whatever mix. They got wind: "light, towards a northerly direction." - sounding rounded-off but likely about right. 

That makes the shelter seem like a reasonable place the gas would drift to - among quite a few other places. As they map likely areas of varying concentration, with estimated likelihood of severe symptoms, the shelter is a 40-50% likelihood by this. But it sounds like everyone there got really sick. (also note how red 50% zone's NE corner cuts off to avoid some likely inhabited buildings)

Annotated by me: excluded areas, at least judging by reports. They are mostly in the outer zone,  only 10% likely. But there are quite a few places where it's estimated 40% of the decent number living there should experience severe symptoms. A few less places than should be are in the red zone of 50%. Between them, IIT hears of two people with symptoms in all of that exempted space.

For the claims and the IIT's conclusions to reflect truth on this point almost requires the following: 

- a family shelter by 2 other home of the same family (which is possible enough - they'd probably be in the two houses immediately west and the upstairs part of the one with shelter: 3 buildings) ...

- ... with some mostly younger men in camo pants and non-relatives together in the shelter, everyone with children and pregnant women sitting upstairs in regular homes. 

- with almost no breeze, and a perfect topographical trough running not-so-straight to that block of 3 buildings and nowhere else (and that doesn't seems so absurd either, in itself, though images suggest that last part may be a bit uphill. To be decided, perhaps.)

- otherwise some other fluke had it all shift east at the road and then fuzz out to effect no one beyond that, or 

- a lot of other people were effected but never treated, never heard from or reported.

But the IIT were left at mild north wind and no special sub-trends, so a spread all over was likely. That's after they consulted experts on topography - not to find that magical trough, as they say, but to see if the terrain might explain the unusual symptoms reported. 

6.47 Although overall the symptoms of the victims are consistent with chlorine exposure, the IIT nonetheless proceeded to request from specialists the topographic analysis of the area, so that geographical and artificial features could be considered when assessing the accounts of witnesses and the likelihood of a chemical attack in an area with those characteristics. 

No, the topography doesn't change the symptoms of chlorine exposure, whether it make you black out or act goofy. Actual gas volume, release rate, wind, topography, all of that just affects concentrations of a gas that does nothing but burn. It is NOT and never was and never will be a nerve agent or anything like that. It doesn't mutate and do new things. It doesn't behave differently in one country vs. another or because the ground is so perfectly flat.

Symptoms Review

So ... the consulted experts found the symptoms to be "consistent with exposure to ... a pulmonary irritant" like chlorine. But worthy of note:

6.46 The toxicologists added that symptoms described in three out of 11 victims could also be consistent with exposure to a substance other than chlorine, such as organophosphates. 

(emphasis in original) But those 3 could just as likely be was from chlorine alone. And that's what it wound up being, since the sarin at the site was ... just already there, not freshly deployed.   

The toxicologists are right that chlorine is a pulmonary irritant, and that it's not anything else. From my readings into the subject, it turns to acid (hydrochloric and hypochlorous) on contact with water, and thus damages tissue (low-grade: "irritation"). This becomes especially problematic in the eyes and airways. It may separately limit oxygen absorption into the blood, but otherwise, it has no significant additional effects, neurological or otherwise. 

And yet the experts declare that the following symptoms all fits that bill, which I challenge with some notes.

---

symptom reported        -        chlorine sign?         -        (notes, sarin compatibility)

Shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing - YES    -    (when breathing burns, the body auto-limits it (? I just reasoned that out) - chlorine may also block absorption of O2, and causes some actual damage to lung tissue, limiting function - protective mucous is produced, needs coughed out, later on can lead to suffocation. - With sarin, impurities may have a similar caustic effect, but breathing is more paralyzed than painful, more varied fluids are produced needing coughed out, yet coughing is less likely (same reason - breathing and coughing take muscle coordination, which tends to fail under bad sarin intoxication) 

Eye irritation    -    YES  -  (direct effect, corrosive tissue damage - but the impure sarin used in Syria also burns the eyes, FWIW) 

Nausea         - NO - (vomiting is often listed as a chlorine sign, but it's secondary - look it up - severe coughing can cause retching, thence vomiting, but not usually a feeling of nausea, and especially not a sudden one - sarin does that. The G and E is SLUDGE: gastrointestinal distress, emesis (vomiting, maybe a paralyzed, infantile form of it). And it comes on instantly. Several say as they approached the bomb craters, they felt "sick" swiftly enough to note it worsening with each step. Chlorine would best be described as burning worse with each step closer, and further out too, so they probably wouldn't BE walking closer, but rather away)

Excessive secretions - NO - (eyes will water to rinse out the acid, but no one calls that excessive, and usually would say "tears," not "secretions." - Sarin can or will make secretions pour out every pore, gland, and orifice. SLUDGE syndrome.)

loss of consciousness (LoC) (sudden) - NO (contrary to popular belief, chlorine has no relation to chloroform and what that does. * This JUST BURNS. That complicates breathing, as noted. The lower O2 levels usually take time to develop, but then will cause headache, fatigue, perhaps blackout, and death. It won't be remotely instant like people describe)

* they have same "chlor" surname, but that's not how name changes work in chemical marriages. Just kidding. 

Headache (if sudden) - NO - (chlorine: secondary to hypoxia, which takes a while to develop, usually - sarin: like most signs, headache comes on suddenly)

Dizziness     - NO - (AFAIK this should be like headache, fatigue, LoC - secondary and later on, in a severe case)

Miosis         - NO - (claimed for all 11 patients, IIT decides two have it, although chlorine doesn't cause it - it's the classic outward sign of sarin exposure everyone knows to look for)

"Leg weakness" (if sudden) - NO  - (chlorine: well into a severe cases with lowering oxygen levels, fatigue appears, often noted specifically in the legs (which they're using, to escape, because they did NOT just black out) - sarin: not a specific sign I know of, but could go with general paralysis, mild form, similar fatigue issues that appear much quicker) 

"Relaxed legs" - NO - (body parts not working right is not a chlorine thing - for sarin it is, but the paralysis tends to be rigid and trembling, not "relaxed.")

Altered mental state - NO - (if anything people sharpen up with the crisis of chlorine and do logical things like seek fresh air. - "two other patients presented with moderate signs and symptoms, displaying an altered mental state that required them to be assisted." One is seen on video laying down waving his hand in the air like he's conducting a symphony. - sarin paralyzes - complex movements like that become difficult, not optional and not involuntary.)

other:

"5.22 ... No secondary exposure was reported." - YES - (no secondary exposure with chlorine past a minor itch, perhaps - whereas it would be likely with sarin)

"5.36 No biomedical samples were taken." - ?? - (no point with chlorine, but with sarin, you'll want that proof. It was claimed, but maybe not "with a high degree of confidence." They didn't collect any samples to test their claims.)

"strange odor" - NO - (chlorine smells like bleach or other cleaning products, which isn't odd or strange to most people. Someone might say that anyway, but here 2+ describe it that way, and also say they passed out right away. Impure sarin: "foul" and "strange" are the most common words used for the smell. But quite a few chemicals out there will have similar smells from similar impurities)

---

The IIT seems to be hitting rock bottom for experts here. Lucky for them, they weren't named, and their reputations won't be harmed. Unlucky for the people of Syria: they'll be trusted by many because the OPCW's IIT trusted them. Their shoddy work is already helping prolong the punishment of Syrians, apparently just for having a government our leaders don't like.

My Amateur View

There was probably no sarin exposure; despite some consistent signs, others conflict. The bleached grass and cylinders still suggest to me chlorine was released. Chlorine exposure with these militants seems pretty possible, despite the lack of visible red eyes (I haven't seen any that I recall, but I missed some evidence and got rusty). But if so, it clearly is not the whole story. 

It definitely doesn't sound like BZ/Agent 15 either (altered mental state, relaxed legs sounds good, secretions definitely not a fit, and we'd see dilated pupils, neither reported nor seen (that I've seen). That's almost my whole list of things I could say. I don't have any guess as to the relevant agent(s) except for: chosen, as part of this public deception.

Which isn't to say sarin wasn't used; it supposedly turned up in tests and now has to be awkwardly explained away. I'd say it was just used more like a movie prop - sprinkled or sprayed at the site of the chlorine cylinder "impacts." 

Basic gist of the conspiracy I theorize, starting from impact: they claim sarin-chlorine bomb attack, get some local militants poisoned with probably something else, unknown, have the medics fill in the key sarin details like miosis - get their few trusted witnesses on record, plant the sarin at the scene, carefully sample from the scene and document that to prove no tampering, get the sarin confirmed - then let someone else try to make sense of that mess later on.