,
59 tweets,
20 min read
Read on Twitter
OPCW issued report on Douma. opcw.org/sites/default/…
2/ remember US assessment on eve of bombing which charged Syria with a probable sarin attack, based on supposed medical observation of symptoms of sarin exposure? 
3/ all those claims to have observed symptoms of exposure to sarin were either fabricated or a mistaken interpretation of something else. OPCW observed zero evidence of sarin or organophosphates either in their interim samples or in a second batch.
4/ OPCW concluded that the chlorine cylinders - one lying on a bed in one apartment and one on the balcony of the building with dead bodies - had been dropped and released chlorine. They have new calculations which will take time to digest. Technical analysis wasn't included.
5/ they sort-of analysed trajectory and damage to both cylinders. First, the seemingly staged cylinder in bedroom. They say that cylinder went through roof with cylinder axis horizontal, then bounced onto bed.
6/ they observe some new damage points in the bedroom - attributed to cylinder. But do not explain the undisturbed teacups, which the Russians had (reasonably) questioned when challenging idea that cylinder had landed on bed out of sky.
7/ OPCW stated that "presence of chlorine-reactive species is based primarily on the detection of bornyl chloride and/or trichlorophenol in the wood samples". The wood samples used for this assertion were previously reported in Interim Report which did not make this assertion.
8/ OPCW said that trichlorophenol found in all wood samples analysed, "this compound is not naturally present in wood" and, in an experiment, "could be generated by exposing wood samples to chlorine gas". But watch the pea as OPCW hid something essential.
9/ NIH profile on trichlorophenol states that it has been used "primarily in various pesticide formulations and as a WOOD PRESERVATIVE". OPCW should have disclosed this. Shame on them.
ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/conten…
ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/roc/conten…
10/ chlorine bleach is used to remove mildew. I wonder if there is empirical evidence on how much bornyl chloride is produced from chlorine gas flowing over wood. Did OPCW do any experiments?
11/ in addition to trichlorophenol being a wood preservative, OPCW says that it can result from ordinary household bleach
12/ many sections of OPCW report, purporting to summarize technical analysis, are so poorly written as to be unintelligible. What, for example, is distinction between two cases shown here? And what is assumed helicopter height and cylinder terminal velocity?
13/ here's another unintelligible statement and diagram in continuation of this section. What exactly is proven by this figure? Also note that fins are omitted from analysis? But how are such flimsy fins supposed to survive intact here whereas completely stripped at other site?
14/ here's the Figure 14 referred to in previous terse paragraph. OPCW provide no analysis whatever. None. What a useless and uninformative analysis.
15/ BBC Syria producer Riam Dalati said that he had proof that hospital scene was staged. OPCW observed that none of the children in hospital photos "appear to be ill".
16/ OPCW reported that metadata for videos with metadata is three hours later than reported time of the incident. As in all other sections, OPCW provided no data which could be examined. Why not provide data? Why hide the weinie?
17/ here's something interesting. Recall the suspicious foam on corpses, Some of which manifested several hours after death. OPCW says foam is "more profound", has "consistency more like viscous foam than secretions typically originating from the upper or lower airways".
18/ here's an example of a woman with no foam in earlier video but copious foam in a later video. OPCW did not discuss this issue nor did they address possibility that too viscous foam might be staged, rather than authentic,
19/ they observe that "wet hair [on corpses] in an otherwise dry environment is difficult to assess". They arm-wave above sweating. Another possibility is that evidence of smoke exposure was cleaned up before the bodies were presented to videographers.
20/ another point about the woman with foam in tweet 18: the excretion of foam from her forehead seems a little suspicious
21/ re-tweet of calculations by @SlugBub of terminal velocity of helicopter high enough to avoid MANPADs. OPCW failed to show any such calculations.
Their Figure 12 only shows "residual velocity" after impact.
Their Figure 12 only shows "residual velocity" after impact.
22/ note that none of their supposedly scientific figures have captions, let alone captions consistent with a scientific report. Totally inadequate.
23/ OPCW list of "open sources" is pathetically bad. For example, they do not cite Douma Revolution twitter, the earliest source of many documents; only one Douma Revolution facebook and omit Fadi Abdullah youtube. Astounding.
24/ they say that "Only one video showing the cylinder at Location 4 contained metadata and it was recorded on 10 April 2018 21:41:05." This doesnt make sense. Must refer to Yaser al-Doumani video uploaded Apr 11 03:46Z facebook.com/YASERALDOUMANI…
25/ but Yaser uploaded photo of Location 4 on Apr 9 21:39Z so video was taken before then. Video probably recorded on April 8. facebook.com/photo.php?fbid…
26/ @michakobs showed that Yaser video of bedroom, though uploaded later, was earlier than Bilal abu Salah video in real time by examination of bed and by shadows.
27/ Bilal abu Salah video of bedroom cylinder uploaded at Apr 8 12:21Z, placing Yaser video earlier than that. What does OPCW metadata mean? Hard to know when they don't show their work or even give citations.
28/ another corollary. OPCW says "only digital information that contained metadata was evaluated". They only considered one bedroom video. Presumably excluding the Bilal video. But its upload time of Apr 8 12:21Z is a solid terminus ante quem. No valid reason not to use.
29/
30. OPCW has new pictures and diagram of bedroom cylinder. It has three wings at 120 degree angles and wheel array. I've denoted wing opposite wheels as A, B, C clockwise looking from non-nozzle end. Pictures here from TVZvezda. C-wing is crumpled. B-wing bent towards wheels
31. OPCW Fig.14 has no captions (like rest of crappy documentation). Photos shown here are in bedroom after rotation 90 deg counterclockwise (looking from non-nozzle end) and in similar orientation after move. Crumpled C wing and flattened area (dashed) on top. Where is A-wing?
32. OPCW Fig 14 bottom left show cylinder in same rotation as in photo in 31, but from other end. A-wing is behind cylinder and not visible. Crumpled C-wing on top, wheel array in front with B-wing bent towards same angle as wheel array.
33/ they estimate that bedroom cylinder was traveling at 60 m/s at contact with roof. Lines in Fig 12 appear to show cases of 10 and 25 m/s residual velocity after contact.
34/ OPCW says that bedroom cylinder hit roof with long axis horizontal thru hole parallel to wall. Cylinder went thru roof, presumably hits floor with right N-S and E-W momentum to bounce onto bed.
35/ during bounce onto bed, cylinder managed to maintain same rotation i.e. side flattened by impact remained down. Surprising that there was no angular momentum.
36/ in addition to issues arising from bedroom cylinder by itself, seems to me that issues are much worse when bedroom cylinder and balcony cylinder are considered jointly e.g. A) rigging on bedroom cylinder is more or less intact, while rigging on balcony cylinder was separated
37/ as thoroughly as a fish being fileted. B) bedroom cylinder landed on its side (long axis horizontal) while balcony cylinder landed long axis vertical; C) puncture from vertical impact ought to be much more intense, but only bedroom cylinder fully perforated concrete roof (and
38/ still had residual velocity to continue on to bed.) D) in contrast, balcony cylinder, after perforating roof, did a sort of seemingly gravity-defying mid-air pirouette before toppling over with its nose pointing towards hole, but not in it.
39/ in respect to balcony cylinder, OPCW stated that "FFM team noted that a similar crater was present on a nearby [adjacent] building." But rather than attribute common cause to two identical craters e.g. shells, OPCW developed elaborate theory for balcony.
40/ at the balcony, NYT-Forensic Architecture did commendable 3-D model last June. Balcony on N side of building. Crater is towards SE corner of balcony, about 1-1.5 m from corner.
41/ here is NYT-Forensic and photo view looking down and to the NW. There is a notch in the short abutment defining the edge of the roof, at the SE top corner of the balcony.
42/ OPCW theory is that near-vertical cylinder at 50 m/s (vs 60 m/s at bedroom) smashed through roof abutment at top SE corner, slowing to 30 m/s. Their model doesnt show rigging or nozzle (Bedroom example and diagram shown at right for comparison.) Nozzle never found.
43/ second stage of OPCW theory is that near-vertical cylinder now traveling at 30 m/s perforated roof. In their calculation, zone of "complete disintegration" consistent with observed size of crater (shown at right). After ~25 sec, cylinder in model comes to approximate stop.
44/ after perforating the crater, instead of continuing to floor (as in bedroom scene), balcony cylinder paused - seemingly in mid-air as all concrete beneath pulverized - and tipped over onto its side. All hypothesized rigging neatly fileted and dumped towards north of balcony
45/ diagrams here from NYT nytimes.com/interactive/20…. Bottom left diagram identifies rigging in debris on north part of balcony. During contact, rigging separated from cylinder. They hypothesized screen came down during impact.
46/ something new: OPCW reports previously unreported "viscous liquid" observed at bedroom scene but shamefully do not report what it was. They said viscous liquid also on gloves on stairs. These gloves showed explosives, insecticides. What does it mean? Why didn't OPCW explain?
47/ another oddity. in discussion of Location 4, OPCW report that "round object similar to funnel cap found at Location 2" was observed in Location 4 video but no longer there. However, Location 2 discussion never mentioned funnel cap. What was it? Was it tested?
48/ another apparent OPCW error. They say that on Apr 7 night, "the presence of a strong odour prevented anyone without respiratory protection from approaching" the third floor and terrace. However, Fadi Abdullah video shows cameraman returning without respiratory protection
49/ one of the most remarkable about OPCW's investigation is that they didn't carry out a single autopsy on the dead bodies. People can speculate on whether they died from chlorine, smoke inhalation/asphyxiation or something else, but, without an autopsy, no one knows.
50/ according to OPCW Interim Report (July 6, 2018), OPCW communicated its "intention" to exhume bodies in note verbale NV/ODG/214827/18, and OPCW undertook "preliminary preparations" to do so
51/ OPCW visited Locations 2, 4 and hospital on April 21, 25 and May 1. On Apr 26, it notified Syria of intent to exhume by Note Verbale. Syria responded on May 4 and a second time in Note Verbale 57 (prior to August). Interim Report was on July 6.
52/ Final Report states that Syrian response on May 4 "enumerated conditions to be met in order to conduct the exhumation". OPCW Final: "With due consideration of the time elapsed since the alleged incident, the possibility was eventually not explored any further." Why not?
53/ Seems crazy that they didn't do any autopsies. I presume that autopsy possibility was still live as of Interim Report on July 6 or they would have closed it off then. When did OPCW stop "exploring" possible autopsy and why? Lack of autopsy creates pointless uncertainty.
54/ so OPCW didn't do any autopsies. Remember when Dr Tarakji of SAMS said that there were no blood samples: "because of a lack of resources, we can’t take blood samples.” archive.is/XNTqB That sent alarm bells off for me.
55/ in early Climate Audit blog about Bre-X fraud climateaudit.org/2005/02/06/bre…, I noted that fraudsters didnt have on-site split core, universal in exploration. They claimed that they needed entire core for sampling. I commented that analysts should have "run for the exit" immediately
56/ lack of blood samples in Douma should have placed everyone on high alert for fraud. OPCW should have checked this out, but failed to do so.
56/ it can also be proven that SAMS' claim that there were insufficient resources to take blood samples was untrue. One of the witnesses at the Russian press conference in Den Haag was Said Daaz, who did blood analysis at Douma central hospital
57/ furthermore, lab technician Said Daaz was on duty and taking blood samples on April 7 when the incident in the hospital videos occurred. SAMS' claim that there were insufficient resources to take blood samples was total BS. There was on duty lab technician who was taking
58/ samples on April 7. I wonder if OPCW cross-checked his samples from April 7. Or whether they even interviewed Said Daaz. (I recall a comment in Russian press conference that OPCW only interviewed a few medical staff and didnt follow up with most of them.)
