Michael Kobs Profile picture

Jan 28, 2023, 57 tweets

This sounds like a continuation of the #Douma scandal in a new guise. But of course we will have to read this report, if only to find out how all the previous manipulations were put into new words.

What immediately strikes you as you quickly scroll through is the desperate search for a scientific-sounding reason for how the cylinder could jump onto the bed.

To do this, the front ring of the harness must have migrated through reinforced concrete without deforming, while the cylinder stuck in the ring was flattened. The valve also cut laterally through the ceiling and wall so that it could survive undamaged. It gets better, though...

Evidence of the rotation (!!!) in this impossible cylinder stunt, according to this report, is the fact that the cylinder did not touch the cabinet at all (!!!).

Have they gone completely nuts now?

As they progress, they worry about the specific angle. However, the fact is that the cylinder on a straight path to bed also could not destroy the shower. But this destruction also bears clear traces of vandalism, which this report - I bet - will not go into.

Then, when they hit the ground, the fins must have somehow gotten caught in a blanket. This then wrapped around the fins, almost as if it had been used to transport the cylinder.

The FFM Report stated, somewhat hidden and veiled, that this cylinder could have jumped about 40cm far under ideal conditions. But that, too, has been forgotten.

Again, this report leaves out the essential details.
1) It is clearly visible that these "condensation droplets" ran down the entire length of the cylinder (note: the cylinder in the picture was rotated upside down).

2) these "condensation droplets" not only left gray traces of concrete dust, but also partially washed away the black substance (soot). This soot also formed a streak pattern.
Both has consequences for the interpretation, which were simply not thought through to the end here.

In the original position, it is easy to see that the entire top appears as if a short but heavy rain had hit the concrete dust. However, the entire cylinder cannot have been iced over, because the ice only forms when the cylinder is empty up to the level of the broken valve.

More important, however, is the fact that the soot washed away must have reached the cylinder before freezing and thawing in order to be washed away by condensate!
That is, this soot came from a fire in the corner of the room below the crater.

When the White Helmets rushed into this space and filmed the seemingly frozen cylinder, the original white ceiling and the inside of the "new" crater were already black. And there was no smoke in the air.
So when did the soot get under the ice to be washed away by the thaw???

A White Helmet claimed to the FFM that they lit the fire to decontaminate the room from the gas. This was an obvious lie.

3) I certainly can't be proud that I was the first to point out these scratches.
This "3rd OPCW report" repeats the nonsense of a kind of embossing of the cylinder when it hits the grid. How the side of the cylinder can hit the grid during a vertical fall is immaterial...

... to these investigators. It's just impossible no matter what position the grid was in. It embossing also left scratches where the harness was supposed to be. If there was no harness, then that leads to further questions that are even more difficult to answer.

back to 2)
As I am reading right now, they have also accepted this nonsense uncritically. You don't know whether to laugh or cry. While even the "revised" FFM Report mentions this claim only as a testimony by some "first responder", here it becomes a fact.

4) If the cylinder had a diameter of 33.5 cm and the front ring of the harness therefore had at least an inner diameter of 33.5cm (more likely 35cm), then what is the significance of welds on a 32 cm disc with a stovepipe that could never have been attached to the harness?

This is the front ring and there is no explanation as to when this ring could be flattened like this. In fact, as long as the virtually undeformed cylinder was stuck in the ring, such a deformation was impossible. It is also a fact that this cylinder came to a full stop ...

...before it came to rest on the balcony. So when did the armor come off and what energy was left to flatten the thick steel?
Interesting, however, that the lattice (imprinted on the side of the cylinder) landed on top of the harness. Just another mystery.

5) IIT's attempt to appear to be seriously investigating possible staging is already absurd with the false premise. It is well known that these cylinders were not empty and in Location 4 the valve was apparently turned open and closed.

Thus, on April 8, we see the first video by activist Bilal in front of the bed with a visible greenish cloud over a white blanket. As will be shown hours later, this blanket is brown and probably frosted due to the release of chlorine. One hears birdsong but no hissing!

The Bilal video includes a close-up of the red brass valve. Surprisingly, the entire valve is tarnished white (presumably frosted) except for the outlet cap made of exactly the same material. So why does this outlet cap appear warm and not frosted?

A few hours later, Bilal's friend Al-Doumani is filming at the same location. The same blanket is now brown. The green cloud has disappeared. No polystyrene bead has changed place, so the bed has not been cleaned. Still no hissing.

48hrs after the alleged attack, another video activist films this location and sends his video to Bellingcat or Forensic Architecture. Proudly, Forensic Architecture points to the evidence that this cylinder is hissing loudly as a clear evidence of chlorine leakage.

When the Russians finally arrive, the valve is completely red. Again, no hissing, but the clear traces of corrosion everywhere. Nevertheless, this cylinder was found half full.

In this context, it makes no sense to either philosophize about the corrosion of the chandelier like Bellingcat or to assume, like IIT, that a staging would only be possible if the entire room were treated several times with bleach.

Based on this precedent, we can assume that real genuine liquid chlorine was also used in Location 2 to leave authentic traces, such as frost on the cylinder. A drop from the helicopter followed by impossible imprints, soot and large drops cannot be proven in this way.

6) Aside from the likely use of chlorine in Location 2 as well, one claim in the IIT Report seems curious. The bold claim "the only chemical..." goes back to Bellingcat, not to the FFM Report. In addition, the source citations are incorrect.

Instead of under the sources given, there is a reference under 8.9 in the FFM Report, and that is that exactly two wood samples contained BC and TCP. One sample came from the board under the cylinder in the bed, which is in a green cloud in the Bilal video.

The other sample comes from a board that served as support of a water tank in the basement. No one can say how long it was there or whether the water was chemically purified during years of war and siege or whether BC and TCP were formed at the same time at all.

The FFM Report was still content to exclude phosgene and cyanogen chloride, while of course chlorine could not be excluded.

6) Compared to the FFM Report, IIT follows a new line of argument, which is very welcome per se. The claim is that TCP in concrete can also be formed by bleaching, but that further chlorination of TCP to TeCP can only occur by chlorine gas "in very high concentrations".

Is this the proof beyond all doubt? Strangely enough, that TeCP was found in a previously unconsidered sample, while two laboratories did not detect traces of TeCP in any sample from Location 2 previously examined by the FFM, not even in 19SLS from the edge of the crater.

Was it because the FFM labs did not look for TeCP (tetrachlorophenol)? No, they used appropriate methods to detect TeCP. And they found it in the hospital's tunnel, among other places, where you certainly can't assume a "very high concentration."

But let's use modern technology and ask a 100% unbiased source. AI disagrees with IIT's claim and says that TeCP can very well be produced by e.g. bleaching, but that this is not a wise way of synthesis because the yield would be low.

All other samples (besides the one from the tunnel and the newly introduced one) that contained TeCP came from the bed with that sometimes hissing sometimes not hissing cylinder whose valve was sometimes frosted and sometimes not frosted.

In summary, TeCP may be formed by chlorine gas, but neither exclusively nor always. There were also plenty of people stranded in the hospital tunnel during and after the bombing. So the presence of TeCP in that tunnel is not evidence of a very high concentration.

7) The claim that people fleeing to higher ground are massing in a street-level apartment right behind a broken door has always been absurd. Even IIT cannot make it more plausible by repeating this assertion.

The distribution of the bodies seems far more plausible for a scenario where the bodies were carried into the house from the street. Since it is difficult to climb over a previously placed body with the load, the density of bodies near the door becomes higher and higher.

Nothing about the position of the bodies suggests panic, tripping or falling over each other. Nothing suggests that they were looking for fresh air, e.g. a window. Nothing suggests that they were trying to protect their mouths and eyes. And not one tried to flee...

...the 5 meters back out the front door. Instead, we find a blue stretcher in front of the door and other bodies, which apparently - although on the street - did not try to escape either, but collapsed on the spot.

The assertion of an escape scenario while omitting / withholding all the circumstances that clearly speak against such a scenario is probably the most nefarious manipulation to support a desired overall picture.
In addition, all shoes were found in front of the basement stairs...

...but none of the victims had traces of the thick cement dust on their feet, through which the victim would have inevitably had to walk. However, there is no doubt that this dust would have left clear traces, unless the bodies were carried.

The word "wet" do not appear in the IIT Report. However, all bodies had wet hair and wet cloth. So if you don't assume that a baby can sweat so much that its body shape soaks through a blanket as a wet spot much larger than the Baby, then the wetness...

...has a different origin that is neither in the apartment nor in the basement. One obvious possibility is an attempted decontamination of people who may have been found after inhaling dust or smoke.

It is also known that around 4 p.m. people were "decontaminated" on suspicion of a chlorine attack - an attack that apparently did not take place. Numbers of victims who died not from chlorine but from smoke or dust inhalation are not known or are very vague.

Given the brutality of Jaish al Islam and the inevitable situation on April 7th, one cannot rule out that dead or dying victims of dust or smoke were piled up in this house for a "higher purpose".
Note that some in this house were completely sooty while others were not.

To rule out this possibility with flimsy justifications (empty cylinders, instructions to flee upwards, etc.) and that after the scandal about the Whitleblowers is neither due to negligence nor to a lack of imagination. It is working towards a predetermined result.

8) The disregard for all witnesses who remained in Douma and were not taken to Idlib or Turkey on buses with the extremists was already evident in the FFM report. These witnesses were only "alleged witnesses" even if they could be seen at work in the hospital videos, for example.

The IIT report now also changes the timeline. Shortly after 19:00 becomes 19:30-19:45 and the reason for this change seems obvious. After an hour-long pause, the first helicopter circled over Douma "just after 7:00 p.m." at 7:04 and apparently circled until 7:10 p.m.

The first take off from Dumayr Military Airport was reported at 7:23pm and this helicopter was circling over Douma from 7:26pm.

However, the statements of the "alleged witnesses who came to The Hague" reveal that the "Chemical! Chemical!" panic was staged before 7:00 p.m. because "shortly after 7:00 p.m." a girl was sent to the surgery completely hypothermic from the water.

This testimony and the necessary conclusion are tacitly suppressed by the IIT report. Instead, rescuers have their say, who allegedly suffered secondary contamination when they came into contact with a victim, which is completely impossible with chlorine.

Same IIT witnesses say they took victims to the hospital. What is certain is that no one survived in that house full of dead bodies and no one was taken to the hospital. Nor were those "rescuers" affected in any recognizable way seen in the videos.

In other words, the IIT Report grants an exclusive voice to those who would be accomplices in a possible staging, straightens out dates, omits details, and always in favor of a helicopter attack on random civilians.

9) If I remember correctly, the OPCW DG had promised that the toxicology report omitted from the FFM Report would be available to the IIT. Of course, there is nothing about it in the IIT Report. Instead, the IIT employed another toxicologist who found the above...

... (selected) witness reports to be credible, in gross contradiction to the first toxicology report. ...along with the secondary contamination? We don't know. But apparently he concluded that only chlorine can cause the symptoms described.

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