Hot on the heels of the release of a series of videos purporting to show victims of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough has openly admitted that there is no “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” which shows that the Syrian government was responsible for the incident.
According to a report in The New Observer, McDonough made the incredible remark that the US Congress should vote in favor of war based on what he called a “common-sense test” rather than rock-solid-evidence, over the weekend in a series of briefings which accompanied the release of the videos.
The Obama administration has claimed that 1,429 people died in the incident. There is no evidence for this figure either, and the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which collects information from a network of anti-regime activists, says it has so far only been able to confirm 502 dead.
“We’ve seen the video proof of the outcome of those attacks,” McDonough was quoted as saying.
“All of that leads to a quite strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence that suggests that the regime carried this out. Now do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence?
“This is not a court of law and intelligence does not work that way. So what we do know and what we know the common-sense test says is he is responsible for this.”
In other words, it appears that, to date at least, the “intelligence” which blames the Syrian government is even weaker than the outrageous pack of lies produced by the Bush administration over Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” which was used as an excuse to attack that nation as well.
It is little wonder that Russia and many other nations have rejected outright the “evidence” so far produced and have refused to back the war party until real evidence is produced.
Obama is set to make a television broadcast on Tuesday evening where, it is claimed, he will outline further evidence linking the Syrian government to the attack.
But if McDonough’s comments are anything to go by, it seems unlikely that any real evidence will follow. Objective observers will have to wait until then.
