This article states that the United States knew Syrian Rebels could cause a chemical attack before the attack on August 21st, 2013. Writes Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. He received this prize through his investigations during the Iraq and Vietnam wars. He says that months before the American Intelligence agencies knew that al-Qeada had mastered the creation of sarin and could manufacture it in high amounts. The chemical attack took place on the same day UN inspectors arrived in Damascus to investigate allegations of use of chemical weapons. The idea of the U.S. knowing the possibility of the creation of chemical weapons in Syria was denied by the Director of National Intelligence, Shawn Turner. We can not be positive if all of this is true, but if it is the United States could have saved any lives.
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ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting article. I think it brings several questions to the table. The first: should the United States act on every piece of information it receives? I'm sure that US intelligence receives thousands of tips a day and has to figure out which ones are legitimate. But, even if they knew this was a certainty, there was no way to have known that the Syrian Rebels would actually use the chemical weapons. I think that the United States needs to be certain on things before taking military action in foreign countries.
ReplyDeleteAnother question this article raises is: Should the United States police the world? I agree that the United States could have saved many lives if this was true, but they received a backlash from intervening even after the attack. The US was accused of "policing the world" by threatening to take military action in Syria, and I think it would have looked even worse if we took action before an attack ever even took place.
With all that said, I like this article. Although the article acts like it’s a certainty that this information was known to the US even though they are denying it, it definitely opens the question if they did for debate.