New Report in the European Parliament on the OPCW-Douma Controversy

Authors Note: The OPCW-Douma controversy concerns the issue of alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria (see here for a recent overview article). In 2018 the US, UK and France bombed Syria after accusing the Syrian government of having launched a chlorine gas attack that killed 43 civilians. Immediately controversial, it subsequently emerged that two whistle blower scientists involved in the investigation of the alleged attack reported that evidence and reports were being manipulated so as to reach a ‘preordained conclusion’. My work with the Berlin Group 21 (BG21) (comprised of Hans von Sponeck, Professor Richard Falk, José Bustani and myself), along with that of Aaron Maté, the Working Group on Syria, Media and Propaganda, Wikileaks, Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett and Peter Hitchens, has now demonstrated that the West has effectively co-opted the Syria investigations, manipulating them to place blame on the Syrian government, as a part of a wider strategic ‘regime-change’ objective of overthrowing the Syrian government. I continue to work with the Berlin Group 21 which represents the issues raised by the whistleblower scientists.

On Thursday the 11th of July, outgoing MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly presented their report "The OPCW and the Chemical Weapons Convention: A War Forward" in the European Parliament.

New Report from outgoing MEPs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly

It follows the earlier publication of the Berlin Group 21 (BG21) Review in 2023 which provided a forensic analysis of the ways in which the Douma Fact Finding Mission was manipulated in order to reach a ‘pre-ordained’ conclusion with respect to the alleged chemical weapons attack on Douma, Syria, on 7th of April 20018.

BG21 Review of the OPCW’s Douma investigations, published in May 2023.

The new report from Mick and Clare focuses on the ways in which the whistleblowers were mistreated by the OPCW, the incompatibility between the OPCW Syria Fact Finding Missions (FFMs) and the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), and makes suggestions for restoring the OPCW’s credibility by ensuring its full return to operating within the Chemical Weapons Convention framework. The report has been circulated to the OPCW States Parties and its Scientific Advisory Board and audio from the presentation, which included input from me during the last ten minutes, can be heard below.

MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace presenting their ‘Way Forward’ report in the European Union Parliament, Thursday 11th of July. Recording of their presentation and comments from me are available here:

The ‘War Forward’ report does an excellent job in terms of highlighting how the Syria FFMs have, in fact, always operated outside of the CWC framework with the inspections using samples supplied by third parties and their analyses drawing upon anonymous ‘experts’. Perhaps most importantly, the ‘Way Forward’ report highlights the extraordinary fact that the Syria FFMs are co-ordinated through the Office of the Director General (ODG) and bypass the scientific divisions of the OPCW. This information first same to light in a communication from a senior OPCW official which stated, in addition to providing an alarming description of the culture of fear within the OPCW, that the ‘ODG was in charge of the FFMs from the moment this instrument was created, they were the ones with full control over each and every important decision made’:

Communication from senior OPCW officials, 2019.

Furthermore, and as documented in the BG21 review, the ODG is staffed by officials who are from countries that are belligerents to the war in Syria:

'during the Douma investigation … the serving Chief of Cabinet in the ODG was Robert Fairweather, a career British diplomat who was subsequently awarded an OBE in 2018 for ‘services to international relations’. At the time of the FFM Final Report on Douma in March 2019, the Chief of Cabinet was Sebastien Praha, a career French diplomat. From 2009 until 2018 the DG of the OPCW was Ahmet Uzumcu, a Turkish career diplomat … In the cases of Fairweather, Braha and Uzumcu, they each come from states that are belligerents to the war in Syria. (BG21 Review, page 19).

It should be obvious that the sidelining of scientific divisions and control being handed to what can best be described as a political office at the OPCW, staffed by individuals linked to key belligerents in the Syria war, lacks impartiality and leaves the door open to political manipulation.

Fortunately, these problems have also not been lost on some OPCW member states. The matter of non compliance with the CWC, as well as the need to return to consensus-based decision making, continue to be central criticisms made by major states. At the recent OPCW Executive Council, for example, India issued the following statement:

Pakistan’s ambassador stated:

Taken together with the BG21 Review, which documents in full the events surrounding the Douma controversy and sets out the procedural and scientific flaws contained in the OPCW’s Douma investigation, the Way Forward report demands that the OPCW senior management must finally address the issues raised by former OPCW scientists, Brendan Whelan and Ian Henderson. A forthcoming statement from BG21, already circulated to OPCW states parties and Scientific Advisory Board, includes the following summary of what is now a matter of record:   

1) In June 2018, the original FFM report was secretly altered at the last minute and its key findings suppressed whilst misleadingly suggesting, without any scientific evidence, that chlorine gas had been released (BG21 Review pp: 103-106 and pp: 45-48 and p.26: A Way Forward pp: 24-25). This incident confirms that one or more officials within the OPCW conspired in order to attempt to publish a scientifically fraudulent and misleading report (See BG21 Review pages 26-27 and A Way forward pages 24-25). As we detail on page 62 of the BG21 Review, this act of malpractice should now be investigated as a suspected breach of confidentiality.  

2) The original toxicology report provided by NATO chemical warfare experts (toxicologists) confirmed that the 43 civilian victims were not killed by chlorine gas. This bombshell finding was subsequently suppressed and, come the 2023 IIT Report, demonstrably false and misleading scientific claims were presented in order to suggest otherwise (BG21 Review: pp; 39-42 and pp; 65-77).

3) Across the OPCW reports, there is a clearly identifiable pattern of distortions involving the suppression of inconvenient witness testimony (BG21 Review: pp; 43-45 and pp; 79-99), exaggeration of chemical analyses (BG21 Review: pp; 45-48 and pp; 101-117), and obfuscation of the impact studies necessary to show whether the two cylinders found at the alleged attack sites had been dropped from a Syrian Air Force helicopter (BG21 Review: pp; 49-52 and pp; 119-135).

Taken together, these scientific flaws in the OPCW’s Douma reports mean that the central claim, that there are ‘reasonable grounds’ the alleged chemical weapons attack occurred, is inaccurate and untenable. Furthermore, as explained in full in the new report for the European Parliament and the BG21 Review, it is clear that the FFMs having been operating outside of the framework of the CWC:

4) The FFMs ‘are an ad hoc mechanism whose processes and procedures have not been agreed in any intergovernmental treaty, and those processes and procedures lack transparency and accountability’ (A Way Forward: p.38).

5) The FFMs have no effective scientific peer-review process precisely because they are controlled by the Office of the Director General (ODG) and the OPCW’s technical divisions are excluded (A Way Forward: p. 42). This arrangement is ‘inconsistent with sound scientific practices and creates the opportunity for undue political influence to be exerted on the FFMs’ (BG21 Review: pp. 18-19).

There will be more updates on the OPCW-Douma controversy during the coming months.