Former UK ambassador says no proof of Syrian gas attack

Speaking on BBC Radio, Ford pointed out there was “no proof that the cause of the explosion was what they said it was”. Ford also doubted that it would make sense for president Assad to launch such an attack when his troops were advancing on terrorists, as it would be “totally self-defeating”.

Ford, has questioned the mainstream narrative and warned of dire consequences for the Syrian people. As to Assad’s alleged responsibility, Ford believes that the Syrian government had no plausible motive to launch such an attack at the time when the Syrian forces were heading towards victory.

“There is no proof that the cause of the explosion was what they said it was. Remember what happened in Iraq…I’ve seen testimony alleged from witnesses who said they saw chemical bombs dropping from the air. Well, you can not see chemical weapons dropping from the air. Such testimony is worthless.

“But think about the consequences because this is not likely to be the end of it. It doesn’t make sense that Assad would do it. Lets not leave our brains outside the door when we examine evidence. It would be totally self-defeating as shown by the results…Assad is not mad.”

Ford said that the US attack will serve to deteriorate the crisis in Syria: “What Trump has done has made it less likely that there can be a negotiated outcome.”

Ford concluded in an interview with RT: “If you were a jihadi, would you not be jubilant? Would you not be planning false flag operations to make sure more American involvement was brought on Assad’s head? Of course you would.”

He reminded viewers of the US WMD hoax in Iraq. “We’ve totally forgotten the lessons of Iraq. Remember the ‘dodgy dossier’? Remember how certain the British and American intelligence agencies were that Saddam [Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction? That he had sarin, indeed? Turned out to be false, utterly false. We’re like a dog returning to its own vomit,” Ford said.

“It beggars belief. They had absolutely zero motive for doing it, and a hundred reasons not to it. Only days after Trump put out an olive branch in their direction, is it credible at all that Assad would respond with a two-finger gesture?”

Such “false-flag operations” have already been launched by militants as documented in the August report by the UN, he warned and added that “we’re all being manipulated by the jihadis and their backers”.

Ford’s comments echoed those of former Representative Ron Paul who argued that there was zero chance that Assad had deliberately launched a chemical weapons attack on Syrian citizens.

“It doesn’t make any sense for Assad under these conditions to all of a sudden use poison gases – I think there’s zero chance he would have done this deliberately,” Paul noted.

Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul questioned the move by Trump, noting that the US was not attacked by Assad and Trump had failed to get congressional approval. “Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer and Syria will be no different,” he said.

But on Wednesday, a CNN anchor looked stunned during a televised interview when another congressman questioned the mainstream narrative that Bashar al-Assad attacked his own people with chemical weapons too.

“It’s hard to know exactly what’s happening in Syria right now. I’d like to know specifically how that release of chemical gas, if it did occur — and it looks like it did — how that occurred,” Representative Thomas Massie told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

“Because frankly, I don’t think Assad would have done that. It does not serve his interests. It would tend to draw us into that civil war even further. I don’t think it would’ve served Assad’s purposes to do a chemical attack on his people…It’s hard for me to understand why he would do that — if he did.”

Didn't the missile attack just make the situation better for ISIS?

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 7, 2017

As Trump did in the past, both Massie and Paul have consistently opposed military intervention without a declaration of war from Congress. Massie cosponsored legislation in 2013 to prevent the kind of move Trump made on Thursday. “I am vehemently opposed to US military aggression against Syria,” Massie said at the time.

Most Democrats and some Republican neocon warhawks praised and offered their support to President Donald Trump after he ordered a missile attack against Syria on Thursday night.

The US has reportedly begun an investigation because they suspect that Russia is linked to the chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib, which Washington has squarely blamed on Damascus. Russia has condemned the US strike on a Syrian air base, which killed up to 15 people.

An unidentified drone, allegedly “Russian or Syrian”, has been spotted over a rebel-held town in Idlib province after the Tuesday incident Khan Sheikhoun, AP cited US military officials as saying on Friday.