Swept Under the Rug part 2

Swept Under the Rug

The Plot to Delay the OPCW Douma Probe and Manipulate the Evidence

Part 2: Scrub Marks?
August 5, 2018

In Swept Under the Rug part 1 we looked at the minor delays in the OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) investigation of the Douma chemical incident of April 7. That delay was unfairly blamed on Damascus and Moscow, allegedly used to buy time and scrub the crime scenes of clues. Now we turn to what was and wasn't found once they got to Douma and, as best I can, to what it actually means.

No Sarin: That's A Problem

With the release of the OPCW's interim report in July (PDF link), we have some information from the scene that might contain clues of any meddling. We finally learn that all the environmental and biological samples so far tested (not all of them, but about one in three) suggest chlorine exposure - Dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, etc.

There are some questions raised by other researchers and activists about these "chlorinated compounds," which I'll make a separate space to consider. Not knowing for sure, it seems their findings confirm a chlorine release, despite the lack of specificity. If so, headlines declaring chlorine found are premature - as the BBC acknowledged changing one - but the gist is probably accurate anyway. They likely have confirmed it or will in time.

But the tests come up negative for the expected sarin nerve agent, its breakdown products, or anything similar.

2.5 The results of the analysis of the prioritised samples submitted to OPCW designated laboratories were received by the FFM team on 22 May 2018. No organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties. … Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is ongoing. 

Technically, one organophosphorus nerve agent surfaced; the commercial pesticide malathion. This likely means nothing as it's so common, but in context, it could be extremely relevant… a dedicated post to explore that is forthcoming (comments best saved for there, after I make my case).

Anyway, the report explains how 31 samples were selected for first analysis - those deemed most important and/or fragile (see point 8.6). By the report's annex 3, these are 11 biological samples (blood and plasma) and 20 environmental samples. The latter showed chlorine-related compounds, unexplained explosives residue, and other things of no clear consequence (including a flame retardant found in some fabric). But over and over it says for all 31 samples "No chemicals relevant to CWC have been found" or "No nerve agent related chemicals detected."

As I explain here, that's a big problem for the opposition's claims, because chlorine alone can hardly explain 35 people dropping dead on site. Sarin or similar very well could, if it even makes sense to deploy it along with chlorine (which is an open question of some importance). But it now seems there wasn't any sarin. Not everyone acknowledges it, but this doesn't add up.

MediaLens ran a good analysis of the problem. "It is worth reiterating again – as media responses to the OPCW's latest report, conspicuously, have not - that chlorine was not a sufficiently deadly agent to cause either the claimed level of carnage or the claimed level of Western moral outrage. " Activists reported symptoms of nerve agent, the death toll and appearance of sudden death highly suggested it, and in fact U.S. government officials claimed they had blood samples showing an unnamed nerve agent.

NBC News, April 12: "The U.S. now has blood and urine samples from last Saturday's deadly attack ...The samples suggested the presence of both chlorine gas and an unnamed nerve agent, two officials said." It's unlikely tests could detect chlorine exposure (see below), so they can't likely show this plus sarin. "The officials said they were "confident" in the intelligence, though not 100 percent sure." With this confidence aired, on April 14 president Trump ordered the launch of missiles at Assad's alleged nerve agent factories (recently cleared by the OPCW, however) and, less mentioned, Syria's well-defended airfields. Soon U.S. officials were specifying sarin was the nerve agent, but not citing blood or urine tests - just "information" suggesting it (DoS briefing, 4-17), and deduction from reported symptoms (DoD report, 4-18). Was the talk of samples just a confident prediction? If so, the confidence seems ill-placed. The OPCW tested several people who claimed to be exposed in the same incident, and none showed that alleged nerve agent result.

No Sarin Traces Rally Means No Sarin

Some people - if they acknowledge the evidence is broken at all - will decide the Russians or Syrians broke it, by removing the traces of the necessary poison. But one CW expert didn't think that was likely, when he spoke to the Guardian for an April 17 report: "Jerry Smith, who helped supervise the OPCW-led withdrawal of much of Syria’s sarin stockpile in 2013 … said it was likely that residual samples of nerve agent would remain for at least another week, even after an attempted clean-up." Read literally, that would be at least until April 24 - 17 days after the incident. Investigators arrived April 21 at one site, and on the 25th at the other. By Smith's assessment, they would be likely to turn up such clues then, if they ever existed. But as far as we know, he's no expert in regime-blaming, where different standards of science seem to apply.

In contrast, British CRBN expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a stalwart regime-blamer, and tells Josie Ensor at the Telegraph (July 23): "He believes a nerve agent was likely used alongside chlorine ... but that the material had badly degraded in the two weeks it took inspectors to get to the site." A lack of "timely access from the (Syrian) government" was the problem that led to this suspected erasure of the evidence. But as we've seen, if it was simple delay to blame, it wasn't Syria or Russia behind that. (snippets via Malika on Twitter).

So experts disagree - all sarin traces are either likely to vanish from the site within 14 days, or likely to persist for at least 17 days. This isn't possible to call with certainty. My prior research has little or nothing on delayed environmental samples, but there is this: My list of impure sarin incidents includes two attacks against Syrian soldiers in the days after the 2013 Ghouta attack, and in the same basic area (Damascus Suburbs). 8-24-2013 Jobar, and 8-25-2013 Ashrafiah Sahnaya. In fact, the Jobar attack was just meters from the apparent firing area for the Ghouta attack's rockets. It was rebel-held, just then being contested and hence the attack by cornered Islamists. At right is the firing spot (approximate - explained) compared to the 8-24 incident location, per UN report, p. 62. (Yes, I'm suggesting rebels there fired the sarin-linked rockets blamed for the absurd Assad attack as reported)

No one died in either attack, but some soldiers were seriously affected. Plasma samples were taken by the Syrian Government on the day of each attack, and at least 4 from Jobar and 5 from the other attack tested positive for Sarin signatures. Those nine samples from the two cases were re-tested by UN-OPCW investigators on September 26 and 28, about a month later (as explained in the UN report linked above). These were DNA matched to the same soldiers earlier tested, and found mostly to be negative. But one sample from the August 24 incident still tested positive, and that's enough to suggest they all did, like the Syrian tests had said, but the signs had mostly faded by then.

So by this, about a month out, signs will sometimes appear in the body (probably a high-exposure case), but usually will not. Three weeks seems like a rough but fair outer limit for detection in most cases.

That's inside the body, with metabolic activity breaking it down, and only byproducts (if telling ones) actually found. Just laying in the environment the decay should be slower and simpler. I had picked that up somewhere... but it could be about the same, or even faster, depending. I can't get more specific at the moment, but it seems likely both of these estimates above are short, one out of caution and one out political expediency.

Furthermore, if a time delay cast any serious doubt over the findings, so there may have been sarin at the site at one point, the OPCW should have mentioned this. They don't mention this, so implicitly, all samples were gathered within what they consider the time frame of detection.

Just two weeks out, the chlorine signs turn up uniformly, but not the sarin ones. So what, if anything, was scrubbed? The methods and details of any cleanup being unclear, we can't say for sure, but probably nothing. It could be the crime scene was found just as nonsensical as the Islamists left it; some non-lethal chlorine was released, 35 people with non-red eyes allegedly dropped dead in piles, and Assad is to blame.

The Incomplete Site Search
The OPCW report mentions how during their visit to location 2 (the crucial 35-bodies site), Syrian authorities "did not provide the access requested by the FFM team to some apartments within the building, which were closed at the time. The Syrian Arab Republic representatives stated that they did not have the authority to force entry into the locked apartments." (point 8.10)

In fact their access may have been quite incomplete. "8.11 The FFM had full access to other areas of interest within the same building, namely the balcony where the cylinder had allegedly impacted, the apartment directly below this, and the basement of the same apartment block." All listed samples are from levels 3 (balcony), level 2 (apartment beneath that) and level -1 (the basement). None are from the floors in between (levels 0 and 1 as they'd say, or floors 1 and 2 as we do here). These were perhaps entirely un-accessed. Two samples were collected at level 0: both concrete found in the street outside the building. Inside on the ground floor, and on the level above, is where all but 7 of the 35 bodies were found on the night of the attack. Chlorine supposedly made people drop dead on the spot in those spots. Did it mix with something here? Perhaps no clues were gathered at all to help shed light on that.

There's also no mention of samples taken from the stairwell. That would be the gas' spread route down to the victims, and 3 bodies were found there that night. It was surely accessible to the FFM, used to go from the basement to the top. Heavier traffic there is more likely to disrupt the clues, but the corners might have been worth testing.

Whatever the doors to whatever areas, the OPCW says the Syrians claimed someone locked them and they had no authority to force entry. Considering the gravity of the situation, with chemical "inspectors" flying into a war zone and Syrian officers getting wounded trying to get them to the site, with acts of war already carried out based on someone's impression of this crime, and with the mileage made of any possible sign of obfuscation from Damascus ... it might have been wiser to suspend that rule. They could be forgiven for breaking down enough doors in an abandoned building to get a clear scientific picture, and leave as little as possible to speculate over. They'd be denounced for brutally kicking-in doors, but that's life.

Because valid or not, this will be reason enough for some to write-off the whole investigation. It could be concluded the scrubbed up sarin traces were piled and swept under a rug in one of these rooms, and they've probably been moved since, now hidden Raiders of the Lost Ark style along with Iraq's vanished WMDs.

But then, any inconvenient scientific findings can be ignored with no reason at all. We'll come back to the locked doors.

Blood-Scrubbing?

Now who has ever accused Russia and Syria of holding inspectors up so they could finish removing sarin traces from the blood of the victims? No one. That sounds pretty stupid. Such talk always refered to the attack sites. But what else can explain the absence of that required sarin even in the bodily fluids of people who swear they were gassed just the same way?

According to the OPCW report's annexes, plasma and blood samples were collected from April 17 to 30, directly by their Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), or mostly handed in by coded sources of unknown reliability - probably Islamist activists in league with the former administrators. Apparently, none of these tested for sarin either: "No organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties."

The definition of "casualties" isn't clear except that, as the report explains, none of those actually killed is included. Apparently none of those was sampled - at least not reliably enough for their standards - prior to burial. At report time, the OPCW still hadn't exhumed any decaying bodies, but hoped to in time. Perhaps they alone also show (showed) signs of sarin? Not likely, but we're left wondering.

There is precedent - Moadamiya, Aug. 21 2013. UN-OPCW investigators found no reliable sign of sarin in the environment, but an almost total positive for people allegedly exposed there (see WhoGhouta). And this was just a couple of days after the incident, not two weeks. That's a suspected false-flag fail due to poor coordination. The same could have happened in Douma, potentially, especially under the losing conditions.

Also recall in the 2013 Ghouta attack, from all the alleged 1,429, 1,700 fatalities, or whatever it really was (hundreds are for sure), none of them at all was tested by the UN-OPCW, who chose to rely on the alleged survivors with dubious patterns like that mess-up in Moadamiya. (see here) Again in Douma, 2018, so far the pivotal people are left out of the science part of things. The bodies of all chemical victims ("some 50" to the reported total of 43) were said, by alleged CW program defector Zaher Sakat, to be buried in a secret location in or near Douma. (EA Worldview). This is reportedly a singular mass grave, as the Islamists usually do for useful massacre victims with really busy families, I guess. The OPCW was reportedly informed of the location, but the regime apparently didn't know it. Mohammed Alloush, a senior official of Jaish al-Islam (the former occupying force in Douma), "claimed on Tuesday night that 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." (EA Worldview, same link)

So the tested "casualties" are not any of the dead, and could be people who claim to have been in one of the gassed buildings, or to have encountered the gas in the streets or elsewhere. We're not sure even what's alleged about their exposure, except that implicitly, it's to the gas Assad dropped that day, the stuff in question.

A table A 3.2 shows 11 samples set aside (for testing?). Nine are taken on April 21, with two taken on the 18th, but not tested by lab DL02 for some reason (both were "handed over by 1757" - see table A 4). The nine others have results saying: "No relevant chemicals found" from lab 2, with lab 3 offering a more specific blanket list of what wasn't found, apparently for all 11: any of 3 major signs of nerve agent exposure to G type agents (including sarin, or GB) and V-type agents (like VX).

Note this all says nothing for or against chlorine exposure, which doesn't leaves any lasting traces you can test for. Physicians for Human Rights (supports the Syrian opposition, seems credible on this point) has a PDF that explains "Diagnosis of acute chlorine gas toxicity is primarily clinical, based on respiratory difficulties and irritation." Many things can cause these symptoms, however. It says you can also look for signs of stress and damage to the lungs or heart consistent with CL, or anything else that causes such damage (same problem). So the presence of the chlorine smell is one of the best methods to diagnose it. Otherwise, the environment can be tested for CL release by air monitoring right after, or testing soil, etc. later on, and if it's found, one can presume that the patient was exposed there. But from this and all else I've seen, there's no direct medical test  for exposure, even very soon after the fact. (adding: CDC document says "There are no medical tests to determine whether you have been exposed specifically to chlorine."

These results do clearly  rule out sarin or anything similar, at least in the cases of those alleged casualties. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon thinks the clues had all degraded. But for that to apply to biological samples as well, it's not likely to fade that much in 11 of 11 selected blood samples, collected between 10 and 23 days after the incident. As explained above, it turns up in previous OPCW tests on blood drawn for up to a month after exposure, at least in the one case out of nine.

Furthermore, the table above shows that lab DL03 ran tests for peptide/nerve agent adducts (nonapeptide). As I hear this paper explains, these tests aren't affected by aging
of the adduct, so such a short delay is well-nigh impossible to cause a false-negative. 
Marsillach J, Costa LG, Furlong CE. PROTEIN ADDUCTS AS BIOMAKERS OF
EXPOSURE TO ORGANOPHOSPHORUS COMPOUNDS. Toxicology. 2013;307:46-54.
doi:10.1016/j.tox.2012.12.007.
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3747771
"These OP-adducted enzymes remain in circulation for times that are dependent on their half-lives, which are generally much longer than the half-lives of the parent OP compound or its metabolites, providing a longer window for detection than the analysis of urinary metabolites or free OPs in blood or urine. Further, it is possible to learn something about the OP of exposure due to the mass differences between different adducts."

And finally, the same point raised above; the OPCW should have mentioned it if there was any serious chance the time delay alone caused the false negative in blood or plasma samples. 

As noted, the opposition story makes little sense with no nerve agent. Its failure to appear in people claiming to be affected by that attack is something the Russians and Syrians cannot have messed up. It's most likely to have persisted until sampling time, but none was found. The clear conclusion: none of those people was ever exposed to sarin, and no sarin was released at either attack site, and so ... the opposition story makes little sense.

And there are some other really weird things about these crime scenes anyway.

Unexplained Fire Evidence, Missing Valve Evidence

The burned wall just beneath the cylinder hole at site 2 is a real mystery. It also has two cleaned spots on it (along the left edge of the black area - see below). Did the Russians or Syrians try washing this off and stop early? Or did someone fleeing, someone in a bigger rush, abandon this project? Ahmed or Boris scrubs a spot with soap and water to depressing effect. Then Hafiz or Ivan tries with this oxygen stuff or a solvent higher up the wall and it works great. But both agree that either way, it would take too long to clean that all up. Hopefully it would just go ignored.

Let's keep both kinds of possible site-scrubbers in mind, but for this bit of work, neither is probably to blame. The OPCW interim report lists samples 21 and 22 as wipes taken "from the burnt wall in the room located under the cylinder" on level 2 (where ground floor is level 0). Entry 21 (bottom smudge, I presume) was taken with water, and 22 with DCM (Dichloromethane - a standard solvent). These samples are not tested yet, or testing results were not published in the July report. It will likely show what kind of accelerant was used to start the fire, at least.

So no one cleaned that up or tried, because it doesn't seem very possible, and maybe not worth it. But that fire in the corner in fact may be a telltale clue; someone might eventually regret being unable to erase it. It was lit, apparently on purpose, on top of the concrete rubble, but sometime before the first video around 10pm on April 7. This I explain here for the benefit of some folks at or working with the New York Times, who seem to have no idea there was an unexplained fire involved, as they called its soot on the gas cylinder some kind of "corrosion" from chlorine contacting the metal.

If one accepts that rubble is from the cylinder's impact around 7:30 that same night, as most do, and release started then … why on Earth would someone be sitting in the gas cloud to light a fire as a first order of business? Why would they also drag a curtain, a package of blankets (?) and so on on top of that rubble? As fuel for the fire, perhaps, not knowing how much was needed for … that unclear purpose.

The black material over (and rinsing off of) the gas cylinder's yellow paint looks like the same soot the OPCW sampled, from the mostly unmentioned fire - so it was set in that hole at the time, and the black part is the underside in that position, the part set over the hole. As seen at 10pm, the fire is done, soot will be deposited as it is around the upper walls and ceiling. But on the cylinder we can't see it, because now it's releasing its gas slowly, causing auto-refrigeration and the frosted underside in that same area, which also has the lowest elevation. (thanks to the folks at Bellingcat for helping us figure this out).

My theory: the fire was set beneath the staged cylinder to melt the fusible plug in its valve assembly. It's a little-known but fairly safe and easy way to release the chlorine. (see above link) The purpose would be just for staging and "realism." The smell doesn't help with video, but the frost comes through. Chlorine color stains appear at the other site, and it seems chlorinated compounds resulted and were found in both spots. Mission accomplished?

It's noteworthy the visible part of the valve assembly is missing the whole time. It could be broken off on impact and lost, or unscrewed manually and hidden from view. Its twin found on the bedrest cylinder didn't vanish (see below, left), but most others we've seen over the years do, at least by video time if not on impact. In that case, the gas would pour uncontrollably out of the broken stem. So it's plausible that happened here, despite the less-than-usual damage seen with both Douma cylinders.

Below right is the first known view of the gas cylinder after the attack, during a time of complete Islamist control, mid-day on April 8. (compare: the intact valve on the bedrest cylinder at left). From a side-view, broken off cleanly or already unscrewed and gone is impossible to say. And those oddly-placed slats of metal prevent a good view of the valve area from below in every view I've seen. It's possible this is why they were placed, to block our view of this point of evidence.

The OPCW's samples 3 and 4 are swabs taken on the 21st from "inside the cylinder orifice (level 3)," meaning this one (the other cylinder has no level associated, just a bed, and they were gathered a different day). This suggests the valve was removed by then anyway, and they wiped from the exposed threads in there. The chlorine traces were found on it, but very faint; a dry sawb revealed nothing, one with water yielded "chloride" and dichloracetic acid - which is caused when chlorine mixes with water. Only a trace amount (that appears more readily when activated by water?) came in contact later, as most of the chlorine poured out through the valve assembly, which was in place then and only removed later. 

So it seems quite likely someone removed this key piece of evidence from the scene. It's impossible so far to be sure when this happened other than before the OPCW's FFM had their look. But if they were trying to hide the extra hole melted in its side, they were covering for evidence manipulations carried out when the Islamists were still firmly in control.

Other Signs of Cover-up and False-Flag (select)

- minimal/illogical damage - as seen above, the extreme ceiling damage compared to minimal cylinder damage and its stopping next to the hole is illogical - if it just stops after sustaining a minor dent, then what force flung some of the concrete's reinforcing bar so far out of place? At the other site, we see limited bed damage after severe roof damage, a cylinder with a very slight overall bend and its harness still on, and an extremely non-vertical angle suggested between the hole and the bed. That's not likely dropped from 2km up, but either hurled in on a catapult or, more likely, planted.

- the explosives residue the OPCW found at each site could prove there was a prior attack in each spot with a mortar or some such (anything that employs TNT), causing the holes and the rubble blamed on the cylinders. Or they could be meaningless background traces. This is a point I'll be addressing in another post...

- scrape marks on cylinder and minimal/illogical damage suggest manual planting at the site of prior damage, much better than they support an aerial drop. Noting these repeated double-scratches are the same distance apart as some loose bars of the damaged lattice:

- Frost on the cylinder underside at 10:06 pm might suggest gas release began well after the alleged impact time around 7:30. This deserves more scrutiny by experts. New York Times investigators heard that, depending on conditions, a full cylinder can take "hours" to empty. The implication is it usually takes a time better described as "minutes." It better take more than 2.5 hours in these conditions. (and be sure to use reliable local weather records, from METARS, Damascus airport, and the right day - not from sources that use predictive models, like the OPCW does). 

- Unexplained vapor device: seen in the stairwell in the 10pm video, as rescuers rush about in gas mask, just now rescuing people, this canister with tube is seen emitting a mystery smoke or gas (whitish, unclear weight, consistent with many things, poorly seen). It's partly hidden under some black material, possibly a shoulder bag, but shuffled to be almost fully visible, in the middle of the stairs from floor 2 down to the landing. On the next flight of stairs from the landing down to ground floor is a similar size piece of fabric or bag off to the side halfway down, possibly concealing a second canister like this. There's been no mention of or explanation yet for this. (see Human Rights Investigations analysis )

- Bleached clothing vs. white eyes: Some bodies in or near the stairwell display wet spots on their clothes as if splashed with bleach and/or laid in it, or more likely by the variety, had still-wet clothes contact chlorine gas. It their clothes were exposed, their eyes must have been. But they never did turn red, so the chlorine exposure happened only after they were already dead (no moving blood to get them bloodshot). And since they remain white, we can be fairly sure their eyes weren't exposed to chlorine before death either. But they died, then chlorine rolled over their bodies. 

- The victims who were dead before any chlorine exposure also appear planted, clustered and even piled fairly near the exit/entrance, up to water sources, where they apparently had their hair and faces washed, well after death but before the first images of the scene. A post coming to explain some details better. The strange washing is explained already here.

- Very unusual clinical signs suggest the victims were controlled captives of the retreating Islamists, killed in a deliberate and strange chemical extermination. The mask-like stains on their faces have never been seen before, and are best explained by the victims hanging upside down, with swimmer's goggles protecting their eyes, left coughing a yellow-brown fluid up their faces until dead, staining the area all around but not in their eyes (pooling up under the goggles before rolling around and dripping away). See Douma's mask of death. 

Stranger than fiction, truth can be, and I wouldn't just decide to make up something so strange. I'm looking for anything less crazy but adequate. So far this is the best I or anyone. I've asked can think of to explain those bizarre mask-like stains all around, but not in, the victims' non-irritated eyes, and sometimes not along lines like tight straps (right: artistic extract of the pattern as seen in an extra-vivid but icky case). Aside from the weirdness of it, this explanation fits what we see perfectly. The same clues would explain extra face and hair washing so widely suggested - these ugly signs were probably worse on first delivery.

Bondage and googles could even explain how chlorine actually could kill 35 people without causing any red eyes. But then, a killing done with impure sarin would look roughly the same, or with just the impurities, or with many things, so lets' wait for the science if possible. But whatever the poison, this manner of delivery clearly would place the crime on local terrorists tying people up, not on some passing helicopter. 
- less forensically, we have the usual package of circumstantial clues - the adult male all-seeing miracle survivors who labor to explain their alleged share of the dead - the complete lack of a rational motive for the infidels selected for blame by the deceitful Islamists probably behind the whole thing, etc.

- VDC reports April 9 on Russian police visit to the sites, wondering if they tampered with anything as they kept locals away from. But they note "Simultaneously, Jaish Al-Islam also made it difficult to hold independent investigation and documentation of the site yesterday and tried to bar witnesses from documenting and photographing any evidence." (thanks Qoppa999)