Democracy Now! Offers Syrian Attack Commentary
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh battles the question: "Was Turkey behind last year's Syrian chemical weapons attack?", in reference to the massive amount of Syrian deaths in Ghouta last year.
Hersh discloses to Democracy Now!, that the American intelligence sphere feared Turkey was offering sarin gas to the rebels of Syria in the months preceding the attack. This information has never yet been publicized.
The daily, national, award-winning, independent global news hour's Amy Goodman spoke to Seymour Hersh, regarding Turkey's involvement in the Syrian crisis. A portion of the rush transcript can be found below:
Amy Goodman: As Syria continues to remove its chemical weapons arsenal under the monitoring of the United Nations, a new article by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh questions what happened last year in the Syrian city of Ghouta, when hundreds of Syrians died in a chemical weapons attack. The United States and much of the international community blamed forces loyal to the Assad government, and the incident almost led the U.S. to attack Syria. But according to Hersh, while President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were making the case for U.S. strikes, analysts inside the U.S. military and intelligence community were privately questioning the administration's central claim about who was behind the chemical weapons attack.
According to Hersh, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency issued a highly classified five-page "talking points" briefing on June 19th which stated the Syrian rebel group al-Nusra maintained a sarin production cell. According to the DIA, it was, quote, "the most advanced sarin plot since al-Qaida's pre-9/11 effort." The DIA document went on to state, quote, "Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large scale production effort in Syria." A month before the DIA briefing was written, more than ten members of al-Nusra were arrested in southern Turkey with what local police told the press were two kilograms of sarin.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh now joins us from Washington, D.C. His latest piece is headlined "The Red Line and the Rat Line." It was just published in the London Review of Books.
Sy Hersh, welcome back to Democracy Now! Lay out what you have found.
To view the transcript's entirety, please visit the Democray Now! link: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/7/sy_hersh_reveals_potential_turkish_role
