Incontrovertible ... but Confidential

"Connecting the dots provided by these numbers allows us to see for ourselves where the rockets were likely launched from and who was responsible."
Josh Lyons, satellite imagery analyst, New York

"While the UN stuck within its mandate, it has provided enough data to provide an overwhelming case that this had to be government-sponsored."
Anthony Cordesman, Center for Strategic and International Studies

There is always the observation by rational thinkers who believe implicitly that everyone else thinks and acts and reacts in a straight line of reasoning that no one in their right mind -- knowing that UN chemical weapons inspectors have just arrived in their capital for the express purpose of professionally checking out previous chemical-weapons-use sites -- would authorize the use of those same weapons a scant mile from where those UN inspectors were staying.

The key words here are "rational", and "thinkers". Another key here is the anxiety of survival propels and compels those of a brutal disposition to use any and all means at their disposal of achieving their ends. And since it was done successfully on previous occasions, no reason appears to have presented itself to someone of the ilk of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, not to revisit success. And, of course, there is the issue of the odiously brutal reputation of little brother Maher.

RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images files   A file picture dated June 13, 2000 shows Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, and his younger brother Maher al-Assad during the funeral of their father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, in Damascus.

 

The finding of the UN report confirmed with no element of doubt remaining, that the chemical nerve agent sarin was used in the attacks on the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus. While it was not in their mandate to ascribe responsibility either to the regime or the rebels it was made abundantly clear in the report that the trajectory of the delivery rockets is a key piece of evidence that the regime was the culprit. Not that most observing experts had any doubt.

Citations in the  report, along with a private briefing to the UN Security Council by chief inspector Ake Sellstrom laid out the critical points: the seven rockets his team examined held a total payload of roughly 350 litres of sarin. The chemical included sophisticated stabilizing elements matching those known to be in the stockpile of such chemical weapons of the Syrian government.

AP Photo/Hassan Ammar    Black columns of smoke rise from heavy shelling in the Jobar neighbourhood, east of Damascus, Sunday.

 

Furthermore, in their report the inspectors described the rockets as a variant of an M14 artillery rocket. Inclusive of either an original or an improvised warhead. Known to be in the possession of the Syrian military, definitely not in the deploy of the opposition forces. The rockets came, fully loaded with sarin, fired from the northwest. From nearby mountains. Where, just incidentally the Syrian military maintain major bases.

Overlooking Damascus is Mount Qassioun. Where President al-Assad himself has one of his three official residences located. Extremely well secured by the presence of his several military bases. Which have been used widely by the elite Republican Guard to shell rebel-held suburban areas of Damascus. And where the army's Fourth Division, whose chief is Maher al-Assad also maintains a base.

AP Photo/Shaam News Network     Several bodies being buried during a funeral in a suburb of Damascus after the suspected chemical weapon attack.