Boris Johnson A Categorical Liar 1859

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Evidence submitted by the British government in court today proves, beyond any doubt, that Boris Johnson has been point blank lying about the degree of certainty Porton Down scientists have about the Skripals being poisoned with a Russian “novichok” agent.

Yesterday in an interview with Deutsche Welle Boris Johnson claimed directly Porton Down had told him they positively identified the nerve agent as Russian:

You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?

Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory …

So they have the samples …

They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, “Are you sure?” And he said there’s no doubt.

I knew and had published from my own whistleblowers that this is a lie. Until now I could not prove it. But today I can absolutely prove it, due to the judgement at the High Court case which gave permission for new blood samples to be taken from the Skripals for use by the OPCW. Justice Williams included in his judgement a summary of the evidence which tells us, directly for the first time, what Porton Down have actually said:

The Evidence
16. The evidence in support of the application is contained within the applications
themselves (in particular the Forms COP 3) and the witness statements.
17. I consider the following to be the relevant parts of the evidence. I shall identify the
witnesses only by their role and shall summarise the essential elements of their
evidence.
i) CC: Porton Down Chemical and Biological Analyst
Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the
findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples
tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent OR CLOSELY RELATED AGENT.

The emphasis is mine. This sworn Court evidence direct from Porton Down is utterly incompatible with what Boris Johnson has been saying. The truth is that Porton Down have not even positively identified this as a “Novichok”, as opposed to “a closely related agent”. Even if it were a “Novichok” that would not prove manufacture in Russia, and a “closely related agent” could be manufactured by literally scores of state and non-state actors.

This constitutes irrefutable evidence that the government have been straight out lying – to Parliament, to the EU, to NATO, to the United Nations, and above all to the people – about their degree of certainty of the origin of the attack. It might well be an attack originating in Russia, but there are indeed other possibilities and investigation is needed. As the government has sought to whip up jingoistic hysteria in advance of forthcoming local elections, the scale of the lie has daily increased.

On a sombre note, I am very much afraid the High Court evidence seems to indicate there is very little chance the Skripals will ever recover; one of the reasons the judge gave for his decision is that samples taken now will be better for analysis than samples taken post mortem.

——————————————————-

This website remains under a massive DOS attack which has persisted for more than 24 hours now, but so far the defences are holding. Some strange form of “ghost banning” is also affecting both my twitter and Facebook feeds. So please

a) Feel free to repost, republish, translate or spread this article anywhere and anyway you can. All copyright is waived.
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The state and corporate media now have evidence of the vast discrepancy between what May and Johnson are saying, and the truth about the Porton Down scientists’ position. I am afraid to say I expect this to make no difference whatsoever to the propaganda output of the BBC.

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1,859 thoughts on “Boris Johnson A Categorical Liar”

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    • Sean Lamb

      Be reasonable Paul, if the police didn’t endorse a lunatic theory that the Skripals both touched a door and imbibed the same dose so that they wandered around town for four hours before suddenly both simultaneously falling catatonic out of sight of everybody on a park bench, they would run the massive risk of actually catching the perpetrators.

      And then imagine all the red faces right around the world. Thank God we now looking for fantasy Russian agents applying a magically acting chemical agent to a front door in the middle of the night. That is certain to go nowhere

        • Bayleaf

          So you seem to be suggesting that the agent must have been inhaled, which at least fits the supposition that both victims succumbed at the same time.

          Any slow-acting agent would have affected the two people differently, since age, weight, sex, and BMI are different. Absorption though the skin would also have resulted in differing doses being received by each victim.

          Fortunately for the UK government, the police seem to be very keen to focus their attentions away from the possibility that the attack took place in or around the park. Analysing all that video footage from surveillance cameras in the centre of Salisbury would be so tiresome! Better to look elsewhere.

  • Mary Paul

    CNN made these points on 12 March – about the inconsistency of the UK governments actions – and they are still valid now
    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/12/europe/salisbury-analysis-npw-intl/index.html

    As for Met Police-issue witness statements, not worth the paper they are written on. JCde M witness is one example, but I have myself sat at home with flu and watched on tv a live broadcast of a peaceful demo in London, from start to finish, only for the Met Police to later report it as violent with bottles thrown.

  • Guest

    Could you PLEASE comment in a new post on the article published on thesaker.is on 18th March (The British Spy Skripal hoax, to date with 4 follow-ups)?
    1 There is no nerve agent named Novichok (Robin Black, Head of Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down in 2016).
    2 Letter to the editor from The Times, 16 March by Stephen Davies, Consultant in emergency medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust
    “may I clarify have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.”
    htt ps://thesaker.is/the-british-spy-skripal-hoax/

    • Ivan

      I must tell you that I find the Saker who also posts at UNZ Review to be long on rhetoric but short on facts. He pads his articles with fluff. He was good much earlier on the strange relationships that Muslims have with the Russians, who despite following antagonistic religions have found a way to live with each, since the time of the Tsars. But that was all I found useful. He has no particular expertise on these current matters, that we should give way to his authority. Further please read the earlier comments, all your questions have been dealt with at length by various commenters.

    • Kempe

      So he’s claiming it’s all a hoax with no victims and no nerve agent?

      Not worthy of anyone’s time, he’s really lost the plot.

  • saluspopuli.org

    Deep State propaganda and disinformation techniques per WMD have been well tested in Syria. The US missile attack against Syria for alleged WMD used allegedly by the Syrian government relied in part on reporting by the “White Helmets” organization as a pretext. Now we have a WMD event in Salisbury as pretext for the expulsion of Russian diplomats. Are consultants from Cambridge Analytica, SCL, etal. involved in the perception management around the Skripal case? Have “lessons learned” from manipulating public opinion about WMD in Syria been used in Skripal case?

    The White Helmets were exposed in 2016 as linked to the UK:

    “….White Helmets founder Le Mesurier, who graduated from Britain’s elite Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, is said to be an ‘ex’ British military intelligence officer involved in a number of other NATO ‘humanitarian intervention’ theatres of war, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq, as well as postings in Lebanon and Palestine. He also boasts a series of high-profile posts at the UN, EU, and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Not to mention his connections back to the infamous Blackwater (Academi)…..”

  • Mary Paul

    newsflash : Yulia is recovering no longer in critical condition PR from hospital

    • MarkSpencer

      Good to hear she’s recovering (though how is that possible after contact with a “deadliest nerve agent known to mankind” used by a professional assassin with intent to kill, is anyone’s guess).

      However, there is no word on her regaining consciousness. And her father remains “in critical condition”. With him as hostage, it will be unsurprising if Yulia supports “official narrative” all the way.

    • Un individu louche

      Mischieviuosly wondering who they are going to send the NHS treatment bill to?

  • Mary Paul

    So I from the facts so far I am assuming this was a very slow acting, not necessarily deadly, nerve agent. Are there any that fit that description?

    • MarkSpencer

      There are no “facts” that support this being a nerve agent, at all.

      1. Porton said it may be a nerve agent “OR RELATED COMPOUND”.
      2. NHS doctor said “no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only been ever been three patients with significant poisoning”, even though May said “over 130 people” might be affected.
      3. There is no access to Skripals by anyone, and no independent verification of UK Govt claims regarding the affair. It’s not a “fact” that they were even poisoned.
      4. “Very slow-acting and non-lethal” is basically the opposite of a military nerve agent. Maybe some kind of pesticide or insecticide.

        • MarkSpencer

          The whole idea of this being a hit on Yulia from some angry mother-in-law seems like particularly ridiculous rubbish.

          If even there was such a homicidal harpy (which I highly doubt), it would have been immensely easier for her to “off” Yulia back in Russia, where the girl actually LIVES, rather than going through the whole business of conducting an assassination on foreign soil, even more so in Britain (known to be a “surveillance state”), even more so with such a baroque instrument as an obscure military nerve agent. That just screams Occam’s razor failure to me.

      • MarkSpencer

        There would have to be an extraordinary set of circumstances for unprotected people to survive direct contact with a military nerve agent. Basically, there would have to be: 1) either no intent to kill or a thoroughly botched attempt (so agent is diluted, etc.); and 2) remedies immediately available (while “Novichok” supposedly requires a very special antidote, at least according to Mirzayanov).

        So if this was really a “Novichok” or any comparable weapon-grade nerve agent, then 1) the “assassin” was either completely incompetent, or did not aim to kill at all; and 2) UK authorities were aware of the attempt and had the right antidote ready.

        Other option is that this was not “Novichok”, or not even a nerve agent at all, but some kind of poison that might simulate certain symptoms – or maybe not even that. This falls in line with almost complete lack of care from UK authorities regarding the supposedly “130” people possibly affected (belated recommendations to use baby wipes, dry cleaning etc). They know that there is no actual danger.

        Both options are completely contrary to “official narrative”, and point to either a false flag operation, or some kind of accident with Skripals secretly delivering something to Porton-Down and the Russia story spun as cover. Of these two options, the second is also a bit far-fetched, while the first fits the bill almost to a t.

        • G.Bng

          @MarkSpencer
          I think your 2nd option fits equally well and maybe the agent wasn’t for Porton Down but for outside buyers. A similar theory proffered for the Litvinenko poisoning, and not surprising since for those in intelligence dealing with the underworld must come with the job. Certainly both options could explain why a higher ranking policeman than would usually be expected was dispatched for two drunks/drug addicts freaking out on a bench and why he appears so soon after at the Skripals house, and why the then hero appears to have been gagged from even giving a personal thank you to the supporting public, his collegues, and the medical staff that treated him.

      • Sean Lamb

        “A large amount of liquid on the skin causes effects within minutes. Commonly there is an asymptomatic period of one to 30 minutes, and then the sudden onset of an overwhelming cascade of events, including loss of consciousness, seizure activity, apnea, and muscular flaccidity. After small amounts of liquid agent on the skin the onset of effects has been delayed for as long as 18 hours after contact. These effects are initially gastrointestinal and are usually not life threatening. Generally, the longer the interval the less severe are the effects. ”

        “Exposure to a small droplet of liquid on the skin may produce few physical findings. Sweating, blanching, and occasionally fasciculations at the site may be present soon after exposure, but may no longer be present at the onset of GI effects. After a large exposure, the signs are the same as after vapor exposure. ”

        Yeap, describes what happened to the Skirpals to a T.

        • SA

          How? I thought that once you developed the symptoms, as the Skripals and DS Bailey had, , you are essentially dead. Does not fit what happened at all, let alone to a T.

    • Stephen

      Military grade itching powder.
      Sorry I couldn’t resist given the increasing absurd situation.

    • Bayleaf

      “So I from the facts so far I am assuming this was a very slow acting, not necessarily deadly, nerve agent.”

      Which facts are you referring to? Surely not the latest nonsense about it being on a doorknob.

      Perhaps you forgot to add that it must, after a delay of many hours, also *simultaneously* affect two people of different age, sex, weight and BMI who no doubt will have received a different dose from the aforementioned “doorknob”?

      I thought you now believed the poisoning occurred in or near the park.

      • MarkSpencer

        Not to mention there is no reason for BOTH Skripals to use the doorknob (it takes only one person to open/close a door, unless you’re a [insert preferred ethnic slur here]). Unless the idea is that they entered and exited the house multiple times before succumbing to the agent, which is even more preposterous.

        • Pyotr Grozny

          Indeed smearing the doorknob is not very targeted. In the official narrative who is the target, Sergie, Yulia or both?

          • MarkSpencer

            Officially Sergei, him being a defected Russian intelligence officer and traitor to Mother Russia. Despite the fact that he already served a prison sentence in Russia and was exchanged to the West as far back as 2010 (so a thoroughly “used asset” with plenty of opportunities to off him while in prison).

            There is a crack off-shoot theory that Yulia was the target because her boyfriend’s mom in Russia didn’t want her son to marry a “traitor’s daughter”… yeah it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but is an alternative way of implicating Russia (this time through “losing control” over the nerve agent, as May suggested in her speech to the Parliament).

      • Sean Lamb

        How about if Nick Bailey got his exposure from going around contaminating with trace amounts the Skripals route that day in order to obfuscate the investigation and somebody miscalculated?

        There seems to be a strange vagueness about how it happened. Sometimes it is said he was giving mouth to mouth and then other news articles don’t mention that at all.

        • MarkSpencer

          I think the latest version was of Bailey getting exposed while entering Skripal’s house? Yep, here it is:

          “Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who was also hospitalised, is thought to have become ill after going to the house and was one of the first on the scene.”
          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/03/28/russian-hit-squad-put-nerve-agent-sergei-skripals-front-door/

          In that case he might have been the one to paint the doorknob with “evidence”, and suffered secondary effects.

          NB: Amusing how the Telegraph speaks of an entire “Russian hit squad” on the job. And still not a single victim dead. Those must have been some top-grade “assassins” (or rather “stooges”… oh wait, that’s the brit public apparently).

          • Bayleaf

            The authorities cannot allow the idea that there was a hit in the park to get traction.

            It is instructive how our servile media have published multiple theories over the past few weeks as to how the chemical agent was administered that all seem to direct us away from it being a hit in the park. Rather like Sherlock Holmes’ dog that didn’t bark, the uniformity with which they are all “on message” should allow us to infer where we should be directing our attention.

    • MarkSpencer

      Personally I wouldn’t wage on OPCW being 100% honest on this. It’s probably full of U.S. cronies like most international organisations. And it didn’t conduct itself too well on the Syria affair, either.

      One may hope, though, that they wouldn’t want to get directly involved in a brawl between “big boys”, and might want to preserve at least a semblance of integrity, opting for some vague language full of imprecise terms (“possibly”, “likely” etc.). UK and US will still spin it as supporting their narrative, of course.

      • Pyotr Grozny

        Yes but how can the OPCW square it being Novichok with Yulia recovering ? I presume that’s why Lavrov has called for them to meet. Lavrov has already set out the line he’ll take if they don’t meet.

      • Stephen

        The things that the OPCW has to address is who (nationality of the inspectors) took the blood samples and whether they were able to take them directly from the subjects. They won’t be able to prevaricate about it being a type developed by Russia if they want to show credibility considering the Iranian demonstration of the ability to manufacture it that was reported to them.

    • G.Bng

      Yep, she’s awake, talking, eating and drinking and Mr Skripal has improved to stable… all of which absolutely doesn’t tally with anything we’ve been told, fed, and bombarded with so far.

    • MarkSpencer

      One explanation is that they’re out of ideas and want Yulia to publicly support their version of events. Hence this miraculous recovery from a – supposedly – incredibly deadly nerve agent administered by a “Russian hit squad”.

      • Pyotr Grozny

        She has been reported as having wanted British Citizenship which might give her an incentive to come up with something which helps the British Government.

        • MarkSpencer

          Holding her father hostage is a better incentive than any such promises. If the false flag theory is correct, she has now fully realized that the British Government will have no qualms about killing them both and blaming Russia. Just very recently, it was either that or permanent brain damage for the Skripals, with recovery highly uncertain (see Court decision).

          Cynically speaking, the only apparent reason for the UK authorities to allow any of the Skripals to “recover” would be to make them support London in framing Russia.

          • Lestek

            There’s something what annoys me in whole story almost from the beginning. I mean literally nobody could see Skripals. All we know (or ‘know’) about them comes from British government, official statements and so on. I mean from liars.

            Yulia Skripal was in critical condition, then she is recovering. What’s very unconvenient for May, Johnson & co. But… if not? If it’s not false flag operation, but BIG false flag operation? I mean if the whole story is part of scenario? If everything we could see/hear was ordinary performance? What if Yulia Skripal – when eventually we will see her – accuses Russia?

            What do I mean? Let’s assume Yulia Skripal is British agent (or been persuaded by father to take part in plot). So, everything was under control – Skripals took some kind of drug which gives symptoms similar to nerve agent, felt unwell, went to hospital. MSM mass anti-russian hysteria starts here. May and Johnson accusations, and so on. A lot of inconsistencies on the way, but who cares, since main actors KNOW final result. Who would care about inconsistencies if Skripals will accuse Russia?

            There’s very weak point of such hypothesis – could OPCW inspectors see/examine Skripals on their own or not? (I couldn’t find this information). If not, everything is very easy, just give them pre-prepared blood samples (nerve agent from Porton Down) etc.

            I admit perhaps it’s too sophisticated conspiracy theory. But… Anyway I hope it will not happen.

      • Stephen

        There is no mention as to whether she is conscious. Until she is conscious who knows what damage has been done. As to her being a credible witness to anything before or after the supposed attack( if there was an attack) is doubtful given the reported symptoms and her reported condition of being in a coma. Then you have the various comments from different scientists who had worked on the programs. They said any recovery was not going to happen because of the longer term effects of the nerve agents.

    • MarkSpencer

      In fact, the news of Yulia recovering and Russia calling an OPCW meeting are strangely coincidental.

      • Pyotr Grozny

        Not at all coincidental, the Russians have seen an opportunity and seized it immediately.

  • Iain Crawford

    There is one ( admittedly highly unlikely) scenario that could fit all the information that has been leaked so far.
    Something has been detected on the front door of the Skripals where they presumably were initially contaminated with it as they left. Yet somehow this deadly fast acting nerve agent poison took several hours before it suddenly incapacitated them on a park bench. Also a detective is affected but nobody else.
    Could it be that the Skripals were contaminated with two different proto-toxins ( in two different places – Front door – Graveyard?) that by themselves are relatively harmless in small amounts (micro-grams) but combine to be lethal when together in minuscule amounts on the skin. The detective could easily have visited and been similarly contaminated (and poisoned) at both the Front door and Graveyard during his investigations into the matter.
    There again fill in the dots to see why this scenario might not be so far fetched after all.
    www scientificamerican com/article/vx-nerve-agent-in-north-koreans-murder-how-does-it-work/

    • Mary Paul

      I await with interest the official medical explanation for how this particular nerve agent works and how the victims were treated. Interestingly i met, separately, recently, two friends i haven’t seen in a while and asked them their view. They both said they had no idea what had happened but after the Iraq WMD debacle, they had no particular trust in the Government’s account.

      • TJ

        The medical explanation is simple –

        1. They were given a deadly nerve agent called “Novichok”.

        2. ? (A miracle happened, well it is Easter after all, and who says the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ has to be a man, if you do you’ll be imprisoned for a “hate crime” ).

        3. Profit! (£43 million to Porton Down, how much to all the other actors and actresses in this primary school level pantomime drama has yet to be disclosed).

    • Iain Crawford

      On the news tonight it was suggested that some material in the form of a gel had been smeared on the Skripals front door and poison was detected on the Skripals hands.
      So Another scenario
      The Gel had micro capsules containing the poison suspended in it.
      Both the Skripals and detective used the door.
      These capsules take several hours to dissolve at body temperature, acidity or humidity etc.
      Well established drug delivery technology exist to do this but why then was only one detective and the Skripals affected as it seems to have taken so long to find this out and others must have used the door. If In this scenario it is proposed that that reason only the Skripals and the detective were affected is that the gel had a limited life time so was only effective for a short time – then that would imply it had to be manufactured somewhere near by?????

  • M.J.

    I suspect that that the British government may have secret intelligence that has not been made public that points to the Russian state being behind the attack on the Skripals, which they shared with the Americans and friendly secret services. That would explain why the Americans have been willing to expel 60 diplomats and other countries (as a collective) another few dozen. Otherwise why would all they not simply go ‘Tsk, tsk’ and leave us to it?

    • Stephen

      After all the times we have heard that narrative has it ever turned out to be true. 15 years ago that was the exact same bollocks told to the House of Commons and that has cost between 1 & 2 million lives. They can’t be trusted this time considering ultimately the costs in the long run are possibly a world war. If they are lying then why should Russia just sit back and take it. If I was Russia and I had been accused of an act of war that I didn’t commit. Then I was subject to a complete economic blockade from the west after what happened to the Soviet Union why wouldn’t I do things differently and not go down without a fight.

    • Bayleaf

      Not only is it bollocks but it’s dangerous bollocks. The days of unquestioning deference to our “leaders” are well past.

      Fortunately, we don’t need to get our news from a servile media any more.

        • Stephen

          No it wasn’t. The so called intelligence failure was the excuse for a war of aggression to get control of Iraq’s oil fields. Even the architects of the war have admitted that now.

          • saluspopuli.org

            S, yes the war had several objectives. Oil was one. President Bush himself stated this. Another objective was to weaken Iraq to strengthen Israels geopolitical position. Partition of Iraq was a possibility also. The Balkanization of Syria and Iraq had been, and remains, an objective of the Neoconservative policy network. These geopolitcal concepts were presented in various writings of the Neocons iver the years so there was nothing secret about their concepts. The US easily smashed Iraq during the first Gulf War and Saddam did not significantly rebuild his military strength after.

            In the US there is a substantial general and academic literature on the second war, politics, intelligence, role of the Neocons, and the like. As to the first Gulf War under Bush pere, the 25 year rule for classification of secret documents is expiring so the process of declassification of documents for this administration is now underway. Thus, historians will begin to have authoritative government documents to work from now and over the next few years.

        • Bayleaf

          No it wasn’t. Iraq was a colossal failure but not of intelligence. It was a policy decision to go to war, and the intelligence was cherry-picked to fit the desired goal. That old spin doesn’t work any more.

          • SA

            Kempe
            Thanks for that. Of course an establishment enquiry will divert the blame to people who are unidentifiable and cannot defend themselves.
            “Chief among these flaws were “an analytical process that was driven by assumptions and inferences rather than data”, failures by certain agencies to gather all relevant information and analyze fully information on purported centrifuge tubes, insufficient vetting of key sources, particularly the source “Curveball,” and somewhat overheated presentation of data to policymakers.”
            Nothing changed then”an analytical process driven by assumptions and inferences rather than data.” Extracted from the link you provided.
            So this is exactly what happened in the Skripal case.
            So you would like us all to believe that the US and U.K. spend billions in intelligence services that are essentially flawed and cannot even analyse data and thier source properly? And I have given up on Wikipedia as an impartial source some time ago.

          • Kempe

            ” So you would like us all to believe that the US and U.K. spend billions in intelligence services that are essentially flawed and cannot even analyse data and thier source properly? ”

            No which is why I believe it highly probable that there is intelligence concerning this case that has not been made public. In his posts on the Skripal case Craig has referred to information passed to him by FCO contacts which is not in the public domain. Obviously the PTB have this information and very likely other material too.

          • SA

            My point is that whatever will be produced will not nescessarily serve the exposure of the truth but to bolster what our government wants us to believe and this was proven beyond doubt in the case of Iraq WMD case. Nothing has changed and to use the excuse that flawed intelligence in 2002 has now been rectified is so much wishful thinking.

          • saluspopuli.org

            B, The so-called intelligence was cooked to fit the policy. Various things were done to do this including unprecedented visits by vp Cheney to CIA hq. the neocon network that had penetrated the admin particularly the Pentagon. Cherry picking and stovepiping techniques were used. An office, OSP, was set up to subvert normal processes and facilitate the cooking process. Bolton, a Neocon ally, at State had a major role. There are a number of books on all this such as “Assassins Gate” that go into the politics of the decision. The yellow cake and aluminum tubes nonsense came from Neocon circles. Similar process in UK with the Blair Dossier fabricated by Mr. Rubin with assistance from the Herzliya think tank complex in Israel. Bush and Blair most likely finalized the decision to go to war in April 2002 at the Crawford Summit. From the until March 2003 the politics were influenced by cooked intelligence. Depending on semantics, one can say that it was not an intelligence failure per se. The politicians forced the intelligence to be manipulated to suit. The idea of war against Iraq had already been floated to Bush by his campaign foreign policy team. Condi Rice was straightforward about a possible war against Iraq in her Foreign Affairs magazine piece in early 2000, January perhaps it was. The politicians used the intelligence failure meme to cover themselves for launching the war.

            https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cooked_intelligence
            A short summary of the cooking process is here:

        • StephenF

          Just to support everyone above – Iraq wasn’t an “intelligence failure” in the meaning that it wasn’t an honest mistake or negligence by intelligence services. On the contrary – intelligence did exactly what they were asked to do: cooked up “evidence” to support invasion of Iraq, dismantling Iraqi state. installing a puppet government, and fomenting chaos in the Middle East through emergence of ISIS. So in political terms, it was a “success”.

          Of course, it was still a huge failure in terms of protecting the real interests of the American, British, Iraqi and all other common people. But then again, establishment/deep state are not concerned with those.

    • James Charles

      Does the ‘secret evidence’ cover this?
      ‘ . . .   he began his letter to the Times . . . with;“may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury” ‘
      “ The Times published a letter from Stephen Davies (Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust) on the 16th March. ‘Sir, further to your report (‘Poision Exposure Leaves Nearly 40 needing Treatment’), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.’ ”

    • Crackerjack

      Just watching Sky do a reconstruction (sic) and rhey say Bailey got poisoned at the Bench. Utterly laughable

    • Piotr Grozny

      On the TV news Yulia’s recovery seemed to be ascribed to the brilliance of the treatment rather than the weakness of the poison. Also the journalist interviewing the US Ambassador to Russia did ask him if he was certain, the reply was that he was certain because 25 other countries were also convinced which strikes me as a circular argument.

      • Mary Paul

        Professor Leonid Rink one of the creators of Novichok nerve agents told RIA News Agency the other day that he doubted Russia was behind because everyone caught up in it was still alive. He said “such outrageous incompetence” by Russian secret services would have been ” unacceptable and laughable.”

  • saluspopuli.org

    So, how will the Bolton appointment impact on US interaction with the OPCW? Bolton’s first day as National Security Adviser is said to be April 9, according to press reports.

    And how will he handle the Skripal Case? Or issues involving WMD?

    The Intercept just published an interesting piece on Bolton and OPCW:

    ….”“John Bolton is a bully,” José Bustani, the retired Brazilian diplomat and former head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, told me when I reached him by phone in Paris earlier this month.

    There are a number of people who claim to have been bullied or intimidated by Bolton — including Bustani. The latter’s criticisms of the famously mustachioed hawk have been public for many years now, but some of the details of his tense encounter with Bolton at the OPCW have never been reported before in English…..”

    https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/

  • Mary Paul

    The Metropolitan Police ‘s Anti Terrorist Squad were asked to run the local enquiries in Salisbury. (They are gradually returning on the ground areas to the local Wiltshire Police. ) I have to say the generalized marauding about, issuing of incorrect and misleading statements and possibly even inventing witnesses is all part for the course where the Met is concerned. There was one famous demo in London where it was discovered many had removed their official numbers from their uniforms, so that members of the public would not be able to identify them to make a complaint.

    • Paul Hunter

      In the 1970s I went on a CND demo in London. I was one of the first there and before it started I got talking to one of the organisers who told me the police would deliberately underestimate the size of the gathering. I was very young and affronted by his suggestion and I said I didn’t believe the police would be so dishonest, so he said “OK you can be one of the official counters then”. To cut a long story short we lost track at over 100,000. The denouement is that that evenings TV reports all said it was “poorly attended” with the official statement from the police that there were no more than 10,000 people.

  • Canexpat

    I sometimes wonder whether I should be fitted for a tinfoil hat, but am I imagining the prominence given in most MSM news reports to the ages of Skripal and his daughter? 33 and 66 apparently have great significance when it comes to Satanic groups and a quick search of the web returns multiple hits detailing the background and importance of certain numbers in numerology.

    “…so 11 is the essence of all that is sinful, harmful, and imperfect.” [Ibid., p. 100] Thus, while 11 is very important, multiplication’s are also important, such as 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, and 99.” [“The Occult Power of Numbers”, W. Wynn Westcott p.100]

    I really should stop listening to the voices 🙂

    • Rhys Jaggar

      You can find plenty of other interpretations. 22 is said to represent the madter builder, in the sense of someone seeing the whole picture and designing well with that knowledge.

      33 is of course the age Jesus was crucified.

    • bj

      Personally, I am freaked out by the number 1. I mean every other number and 1 itself is divisible by 1. There murt be some dark meaning in that. Also I am freaked out by 0. Because no number seems allow itself to be divided by 0. It’s scary. And o yeah, infinity, that’s scary too.

      • glenn_nl

        Indeed, bj. When there’s only a single unit of anything, that gets you a total of 1 too. And another freaky thing is the first time anything happens – absolutely anything at all, that is occasion number 1 on which it occurs. It’s actually rather spooky, because in addition to all this, when your down to the last unit of _anything at all_ – guess what – there’s only 1 of them remaining.

    • John Goss

      Don’t know about all the occult stuff though I know it has lots of followers, Canexpat. One thing that did occur to me was the first copper’s name the unforgettable Nick Bailey. May be a coincidence but if it is Old Nick Bailey it could either be Old Nick or the Old Bailey. Who makes this stuff up?

      Meanwhile my latest ponderings which I publish in the good faith that our secret service friends will not delete it as they did with my piece on Glushkov. Or was it the mods?

      https://johnplatinumgoss.wordpress.com/2018/03/28/skripal-case-─-a-whale-of-a-lie-─-codename-beluga/

      • glenn_nl

        John: Are you actually saying that GCHQ or whatever reads your blog, finds something so incredibly revealing and dangerous there, that they delete it? Seriously?

          • glenn_nl

            User error is the primary cause of stuff getting erased in an unwanted fashion. It’s rather hard to believe that a spy is put to work full time (on a three-shift basis!) looking after (with all due respect) fairly obscure blogs, and then hurriedly removing potentially damaging information, while leaving the site itself alone, and the author at liberty to recreate it again immediately should they so wish.

            Did you discover the murder by yourself, before the police found out? Are you seriously saying you got this information first hand, and it was actually a scoop?

            It’s important to avoid paranoia, like some of our more imaginative friends (such as Trowbridge, Paul Barbara and so on) who think that typos weren’t of their own making, but rather the full-time spy crew dedicated to them edited the post after the event, for reasons best known to themselves.

            Some people around here even think spooks move their cursor around mysteriously, or cause blocks of text to disappear even as they are typing. I mean, come on.

          • John Goss

            Within eight hours of the announcement that Glushkov’s death was murder I first broke the news in respect of making the association between the murder of Glushkov and Lugovoi in the light of the Litvinenko palaver for which both inquests into Litvinenko’s death were abandoned in favour of another whitewash inquiry. Dr David Kelly’s murder springs to mind.

            “Now here’s the rub. According to an article in OffGuardian an individual tried to help Glushkov escape from hospital and avoid justice. That individual was Andrei Lugovoi. The OffGuardian article which everyone should read says:

            “It also turns out that Lugovoi not only had a close association with Berezovsky right up to the moment of Litvinenko’s death, but was also convicted by a Russian court shortly after Berezovsky fled Russia of trying to arrange the escape of Nikolai Glushkov, one of Berezovsky’s close associates, from a hospital where he was in pre-trial detention on a fraud charge.”

            For those who did not follow the Litvinenko farce Lugovoi was one of the two people accused of killing Alexander Litvinenko, the other being Dmitry Kovtun. According to our media, and Sir Robert Owen who pronounced in the Litvinenko Inquiry, these were KGB agents, when in fact they were small-time criminals and friends of Litvinenko, Berezovsky and other oligarchs.”

          • glenn_nl

            Ah, understood – you made the connection, rather cleverly actually. I (rather stupidly) thought you were claiming to break the news about his actual murder.

          • John Goss

            glenn_nl thanks. Although I get accused of not being critical of Russia it would not surprise me if the FSB were behind the death of Glushkov. But all this Skripal nonsense is precisely that, though I don’t discount they may be ill. I wish them total recovery and hope they can throw some light on what happened.

    • Crackerjack

      Yep. Pointed out the other day that the Estonian FO response revealed that they know as much as we do aka fuck alll

      It’s fucking ludicrous isn’t it? A PowerPoint in bullet points revealing that we set on this course because…..

      Russia invaded Georgia. Lie
      Russia invaded Ukraine. Lie
      Russia shot down the Malasian airliner. Lie

      Beyond belief had we not ready 1984. A degree of irony there

      • SA

        And most of the allegations about cyberattacks are also based on no facts at all, just deductions based on assumptions. The longer the list of lies grows, the more deductions can be made.
        It would be interesting to make a slide showing what proven aggression the countries that have signed up to this, have also been involved in, with of course the leadership of the US. The slideshow will run to hundreds of slides and none of it would be conjecture.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      Well, if I had seen that I would have sent back the tartest of tart replies along the lines that any judge who directed a conviction based on that evidence should be dewigged with indecent haste……

  • durak

    “This is what those EU countries got to see. ”

    Most of it unverifiable… and much of it fiction.

    It is like some ‘A’ level presentation by sixth formers.

    • SA

      If this was a scientific presentation it would be rejected offhand for lack of verifiable evidence ( and no Wikipedia please).

    • Rhys Jaggar

      Excuse me, sixth formers can do much better than that.

      They just cannot go to Oxford to do PPE if they do….

  • durak

    How will they buy off Yulia?

    Passport and cash?

    Denying the Russians access to their own citizen…. Very disturbing.

    • Kempe

      Well allowing the No.1 suspect in what could yet turn out to be a double murder access to the victims. What could possibly go wrong?

      • SA

        And this theory that the Russian embassy is no1 suspect is based on what exactly Mr Kempe?

        • SA

          Even in criminal law, a suspect to murder is allowed access to information obtained against them. If no access is granted to the ‘attempted murder suspect’ then the law still gives access to this suspect( who by the way remains innocent until proven guilty) to the data that causes this suspicion.

          • Kempe

            Information yes but I’ve never heard of anyone accused of attempted murder or assault being allowed to visit the victim in hospital.

            Whether you accept the evidence or not the Russians are still the only suspects; unless you have evidence to the contrary.

          • SA

            Kempe
            According to law the accuser has to show evidence to accuse someone and not the other way round as You state that I or anyone has evidence to the contrary.

          • StephenF

            “Russians are still the only suspects” – utter nonsense. Russians are only suspects because May pointed her finger at them, and other U.S. lackeys followed. There are plenty of other, more plausible suspects, starting from UK itself, which
            – had a ton of reasons to undercut Russia (its geopolitical enemy),
            – had a history of supporting false flag chemical attacks (Syria),
            – had know-how and capacity to produce novichok,
            – had a chemical weapon facility right next to Salisbury,
            – actually conducted chemical warfare exercises ON SALISBURY PLAIN, RIGHT BEFORE SKRIPALS WERE POISONED, CALLED “TOXIC DAGGER” no less! (OMG are they for real? yes they are!)
            https://www.gov.uk/government/news/exercise-toxic-dagger-the-sharp-end-of-chemical-warfare

            Combine that with the incredibly fudged up “investigation”, complete lack of evidence against Russia, complete lack of benefit for Russia, and UK’s blatant refusal to cooperate with Russia in any way, and we have a WINNER! No. 1 suspect = UK (and its U.S. masters).

  • Billy Bostickson

    Well I never!

    As I have been saying on this forum and elsewhere for the last two weeks and after emailing and tweeting various media channels in the UK and Russia to raise the question of Julia’s boyfriend and Mother, it finally is happening., now even the Daily Mail is getting on to it in detail:

    Russia ‘is protecting’ identity of Yulia Skripal’s mystery boyfriend – whose mother ‘is linked to Moscow’s secret service’ – after it’s claimed double-agent’s daughter was poisoning target

    Fiancé’s name is understood to be known to several major Moscow newspapers (I told them!)
    Identity of his mother, said to have secret service links, also not been revealed

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5557625/Russia-protecting-identity-Yulia-Skripals-mystery-boyfriend.html

    The cover up is evident from how RT reported on Victoria’s interview with the BBC by deleting one important comment, which was: “But the first version that I said was that it was directed at Julia, and not at him”

    https://www.rt.com/uk/422545-skirpal-family-poison-hospital/

    “Viktoria Skripal said that, while she was unsure who was responsible for the nerve-agent attack, she did say that her uncle had never expressed fears for his safety and did not consider himself to have any enemies.
    “Who did it? I don’t really know. Our side say it was the British secret services, the British say it was the Russians. I don’t know and I don’t want to hazard a guess.
    “Even if the special services did it – why is it so clumsy? I believe that it was beneficial to some third party to quarrel between the two countries. Someday we will get answers to all the questions.”

    BBC Transcript
    https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-43559446

    BBC : He did not hint that someone might be dissatisfied with his actions?
    VS: Well, who? Even if the special services did it – why is it so clumsy? I believe that it was beneficial to some third party to quarrel between the two countries – Russia and Britain.

    ****But the first version that I said was that it was directed at Julia, and not at him. *****

    Someday we will get answers to all the questions.
    BBC: Do you think you will ever find out what really happened?
    VS: I do not. My children – maybe. None of the countries will open up to the end of the map.

    I wonder why? 😉 Everybody, Russians and British are trying to hide the name of her boyfriend and his mother, each one for different reasons. It has been quite amusing.

    The allegations were first made on mashtv 2 weeks ago, but absolute silence regarding his name.

    We found it, not too difficult, now we are waiting to discover the mother’s name and professional experience.

    Anybody want to help?
    Fluent Russian and understanding of information gathering from Russian social networks and residential information required.
    No payment, sorry, we are amateurs!

    • marvellousMRchops

      So if this ends up being the final version of the truth (I hesitate to use the word ‘actual’) then it was the Russians that did it and MayBot and Bojo were right all along?

      • Billy Bostickson

        That is why TM insisted on carefully using the phrase “or Russia lost control of its chemical weapons”

        The Brits knew from the very start about the package, the boyfriend and the mother-in-law, but they chose to create a theatrical farce to expose and embarrass Putin at election time.

        It has backfired, revealing both the Russians and The British as a dirty pack of warmongering crooks and liars.

        Bakunin was right! 🙂

        Russian newspaper that published the story which the DM based its story on:

        http://www.mk.ru/politics/2018/03/25/otravlenie-sergeya-skripalya-my-nashli-strannogo-boyfrenda-yulii.html

        Google Chrome Right Click Translate to English

        • Piotr Grozny

          There seems some merit in this theory. The facts are consistent with the poison being some 25 year old degraded Novichok. The question should be addressed, why try to kill Julia in Britain rather than Russia, was it too risky to attempt this in Russia.

        • Pyotr Grozny

          Boris, Teresa and Gavin managed to engineer a huge last minute increase in Putin’s vote.

          Can you explain about the package? Is it more likely that someone flew in from Moscow with the poison, or that the poison was already here in Britain. Same questions for the assassin, were they already here or did they fly in?

          Certainly the recovery of Julia undermines the official story. It has more credibility when we thought she was just being kept alive on life-support, but this is undermined by Julia’s recovery.

          • Billy Bostickson

            Good questions, I’m not sure of the answers, it’s all conjecture until certain facts are on the table, if they ever are…

            I’ve just been following my hunch based on Victoria Skripal and Tamara’s initial claims which seemed innocent at the time and not scripted, also their claims were buried both by the British and Russian media for 2 weeks for obviously different reasons. For the British, it gave them an opportunity to milk the spectacle for all it was worth. For the Russians, it avoided political embarrassment and revelations concerning their Novichok stocks, kept as a deterrent to any incursion by NATO close to their borders, given NATO’s superiority in tactical nuclear weapons.

            All this drama about who is the bad guy and point scoring, denials, posturing is pure State bullshit.

            Excuse me, if I quote Bakunin:

            “The State, therefore, is the most flagrant, the most cynical, and the most complete negation of humanity. It shatters the universal solidarity of all men on the earth, and brings some of them into association only for the purpose of destroying, conquering, and enslaving all the rest. This explains why, since the birth of the State, the world of politics has always been and continues to be the stage for unlimited rascality and brigandage, brigandage and rascality which, by the way, are held in high esteem, since they are sanctified by patriotism, by the transcendent morality and the supreme interest of the State. This explains why the entire history of ancient and modern states is merely a series of revolting crimes; why kings and ministers, past and present, of all times and all countries — statesmen, diplomats, bureaucrats, and warriors — if judged from the standpoint of simple morality and human justice, have a hundred, a thousand times over earned their sentence to hard labour or to the gallows. There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: “for reasons of state.”

        • Bayleaf

          If the Daily Fail and others are now running with this new “limited hangout”, we can be sure that it has already been passed by the Ministry of Truth. Clearly, the last “Putin dunnit” line didn’t gain enough traction with the general public, and might have actually backfired on the British government, so they’re scrambling for a Plan B.

          The initial hasty rush to judgement, obvious lies and misleadingly-worded statements from politicians and even the court, together with the uniformity with which all the mainstream media parrot the same messages, have the British state’s fingerprints all over it.

          The boyfriend theory is both unconvincing and evidence-free nonsense that is being desperately promoted in the hope that more people will fall for it than the previous nonsense they were peddling. I don’t buy it.

        • bj

          After the alleged attack, and since the theory was that it was a fast working nerve agent, did the UK ever seal its borders, in an effort to apprehend possible suspects that might be fleeing the country?

          If not, why not and wouldn’t that have been standard procedure in a case like this, that has also been described as ‘terrorism’.?

          Questions, questions…

          • SA

            To thus day I have not seen any indication that the police are looking for a potential killer at large, armed with weapons of mass destruction, merely reassurances that there is no danger to the general public.

    • sg

      It paints a very nice story that could wrap it up without too much embarrassment on either side. I am not buying it because how did the teams find all of the traces of the A-234 type nerve agent and how did they both suffer the same symptoms at the same time. She wouldn’t have come through customs without being and having her luggage searched, especially considering who she was and where she was coming from.

      • G.Bng

        Yes, “how did they both suffer the same symptoms at the same time” is imo the fly in the ointment for the door handle being the contaminator or could it be that after attending the Skripals at the scene the policeman inadvertently, (advertently doesn’t bear thinking about), contaminated the door handle when he went the house that evening.

        Certainly if the door handle is ground zero there seem to be just two possibilities and neither make sense, i.e. either both touched the door handle within minutes of each other, (the 2nd obviously receives much less poison), and then for 2 plus hours go about live normally driving into the centre, taking a stroll to feed ducks and kiddies, have a drink in the pub before going to Zizi’s for lunch after which they stroll around the corner to sit on a bench where at the same time both fall ill as the nerve agent takes effect despite the difference in age, sex, and general health as well as in the quantity of nerve agent received.. Or second option whereby each touch the handle at a different time, say with half an hour or more in between, yet despite the difference in time, both manifest the effects of the poison at exactly the same time.

    • GK

      So far there are not much discussion about Julias boyfriend in Russian. The theory that mother in law whanted her dead is not credible. Question like why kill her abroad when it is less risk to do it in Russian. If the information about the findings of poison on the door is true then the theory is even more unlikely. Is it possible that mother in law could send a pakage with Julia but send some one to smear the door with poison is highly unlikely.
      If Julia had the poisen/agent with her to UK then I would believe more that she brought it to her father.
      The fact the he loves money and are knowd to take great risk. To spy on Russian for money is one of the risk he took.

      https://sputniknews.com/world/201803281062977635-uk-russia-skripal/

      http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-43343805/russian-exile-skripal-targeted-by-criminal-gangs

      • Pyotr Grozny

        The hypothesis that Julia is the main target does not rest on the mother-in-law theory, the first may be valid without the second. Possibly it appeared less risky to have her bumped off here than in Moscow, after all the assailants haven’t been apprehended yet.

    • StephenF

      This “killer mother-in-law” theory is even more outlandish than “Russian hit squad” painting Skripal’s door with Novichok while remaining totally invisible to all neighbourhood surveillance cams.

      The only question that needs to be asked in order to completely debunk this crap is: why the hell wouldn’t this “angry mom” pull the hit back in Russia, where Julia lives? Second question (but by now we’re already beating a dead horse) – why use this incredibly deadly, and supposedly secret, nerve agent, when literally any other killing method would have sufficed? When May and Johnson blame Putin, they say novichok was used specifically as a “calling card”; as stupid as that reason sounds, it’s not even applicable to the “angry mom” theory, since she would definitely not be interested in using a method so “surely” tracking back to Russia.

      TLDR: complete and utter baloney.

    • Ultraviolet

      Actually, looking at the comments on the Mail story linked above, I think British voters are learning. Almost all the top rated comments at the time of writing are utterly derisive of the official narrative.

  • Emily

    All this possible humbug that the nasty potential ma in law ‘did it’ and stuck the stuff in the suitcase – explains very little.
    And how were the two contaminated – if they were – without obvious trace?
    Still no answer.
    How they collapsed together and if the poison was in her belongings why was it not in the house or on her.?
    Just more anti Russian propaganda using a new target by looks of things.
    Having failed to pin it on the Russian State the DM looks desperate to me..
    And actually I think the boyfriend has been named somewhere – I just can’t remember where.

    • Billy Bostickson

      Here, I named him, it isn’t the DM, it was Russian news, it’s not new anti-Russian propaganda, it has been an ongoing claim since it was originally alleged by Victoria Skripal and a friend of Julia two weeks ago. All the details have been posted on this forum several times.

      Both the British and the Russians are not revealing his name or his mother’s connections for different reasons.

      At the end we, the people, will see clearly how the British State and the Russian State are both a bunch of crooks and liars.

      Bakunin was right 😉

      • Emily

        To equate the Russian state and British state is nonsense.
        The Russians still have some free speech and freedom of association left.
        We Brits don’t.
        They still have a police force to investigate thuggery and assault.
        Not like the British police who have openly stated their priority is Hate crime – read anti islamic comments – on Facebook
        As for your allegation they have equal interest in this matter – its ludicrous.
        The Russians are not having to lie through their teeth to hide the failing of their government.
        May is the worst PM following her tenure as the worst Home Secretary – in British history.
        She is betraying 17,4 million Brits, her country and Brexit.
        Now here is an excellent theory as to why the Brits did it – the crime and the attack on Russia.
        http://yournewswire.com/poisoned-russian-spy-mi6-trump-dossier/
        This false accusation and warmongering has its roots, not least, in her desperately needing a red herring to cover up her treason, deception and lies.

      • Bayleaf

        All states lie and deceive. That’s a given. However, it does not mean that they are both lying in this case. Instead, the evidence in this case clearly points to British duplicity.

        This boyfriend theory does nothing to explain how both victims were poisoned in a way that caused both of them to succumb *simultaneously* – and no amount of misdirection is going to make this awkward point disappear. If it was a hit in the park, then reports of multiple sites being contaminated are exposed as lies, along with the contamination of DS Bailey on a doorknob.

        A hit in the centre of Salisbury would mean that the perpetrators will almost certainly be caught on a video camera somewhere, yet the police seem to be too busy chasing mirages, as if they don’t want to catch them. How strange.

  • Robert

    I have followed all this, including your helpfully sceptical commentary, with close attention. What puzzles me now is if the evidence is as sketchy as you say, and if the whole idea is so nutty (Russia uses secret nerve agent to attack retired spy in foreign country and doesn’t even manage to kill him – you’re right, it makes no sense) what is that has persuaded more than 20 other states, all of them reasonably sophisticated and quite a few of them not particularly closely aligned with UK interests, to buy into this narrative to the extent of deporting Russain diplomats? You’d need to be a conspiracy theorist on an epic scale to conclude that this is some sort of cooked-up concerted attempt by the west to destabilise Putin. Is it possible that that there is more evidence that we simply don’t know about within the secret state?

    • Pyotr Grozny

      First, it’s open to TM to say to Joe Public that the govt. has evidence which it can’t release on security grounds. She hasn’t come out and said that in any emphatic way. Second why all this ‘of a type developed by Russia’. If you have some secret intelligence which you can’t share come out and say that clearly from the outset and you may have a chance of being believed, if you come out later when the initial story has unraveled you’ve little credibility left.

    • sg

      She wakes up the day after the MET anti terrorism team give up control of the situation to Wiltshire police. Were the MET actual police or spooks conducting the operation and making sure the evidence collected/constructed fitted the required narrative for the local police to take over and make it look transparent. The only legal rights that Russia had was to be part any OPCW investigation and have access to their citizen. Russia were denied both of them Why wasn’t his niece wanting to come and see them in hospital. Her waking up is convenient for our gov’t because now she can say whether she wants to see a Russian diplomat.
      Austria has said openly how much pressure was put them them to expel a Russian by the UK ambassador. All the rest either have a bone to pick with Russia or was scared of the appearance of a split EU. Germany’s action of approving Nord stream 2 the day after expelling 4 Russians speaks volumes.

      • Pyotr Grozny

        If Beitain was capable of putting pressure on EU countries we’d get a better Brexit deal. Maybe it was the US deep state which applied the pressure. Presumably Austria resisted because the Freedom Party are junior partners in govt.

      • Mary Paul

        Met police make the evidence fit the facts but are not very competent at it so reveal as little as possible to press to conceal their incompetence and shaky narrative.

    • Mary Paul

      I tend to agree with you. I have been criticised on here for suggesting there must be some further intelligence underlying the decision of sophisticated countries like France, (who have their own intelligence services around the world and no love lost for the UK,) to sign up. As I recall Present Macron was taking more of a Corbyn line until he got a phone call from Theresa May and then France joined with the UK line.

      I agree the various diplomatic memoranda are insubstantial but I assume they are basically for the records and public consumption. Mind you with the Met Policevfrom London leading the inquiry on the ground, I hold little hope of ever getting at the true underlying facts.

      • Crackerjack

        As a member of the Privy Council Corbyn will have seen the evidence May was using and clearly it didn’t convince him. Also, as above, German politicians are asking for evidence and other countries did not go down the expulsion route having seen this “evidence”.

        Frankly I hope there is some secret smoking gun because this country’s reputation (should it actually have one) will be shredded if this turns out to be the shambolic nonsense it appears to be at present

    • Maureen

      US State dept spokesperson Nauert says that the US spent 3 weeks getting cooperation and coordination with their EU and 5 eyes allies
      Will link if you like but you’ll have to wait
      The US has very persuasive ways

  • Sharp Ears

    Craig is referenced here (and his photo).

    Salisbury Incident Report: Hard Evidence For Soft Minds
    by Andrey Fomine / March 29th, 2018

    The UK government’s presentation on the Salisbury incident, which was repeatedly cited in recent days as an “ultimate proof” of Russia’s involvement into Skripal’s assassination attempt, was made public earlier today.
    (p14 of the pdf)
    This 6-paged PDF is a powerful evidence of another intellectual low of the British propaganda machine. Open it and you can tell that substantially it makes only two assertions on the Skripal case, and both are false:

    First. Novichok is a group of agents developed only by Russia and not declared under the CWC” – a false statement. Novichok was originally developed in the USSR (Nukus Lab, today in Uzbekistan, site completely decommissioned according to the US-Uzbekistan agreement by 2002). One of its key developers, Vil Mirzayanov, defected to the United States in 1990s, its chemical formula and technology were openly published in a number of chemical journals outside Russia.

    Craig Murray photo
    Former top-ranking British foreign service officer Craig Murray specifically noted this point on March 17:
    ‘I have now been sent the vital information that in late 2016, Iranian scientists set out to study whether novichoks really could be produced from commercially available ingredients. Iran succeeded in synthesising a number of novichoks. Iran did this in full cooperation with the OPCW and immediately reported the results to the OPCW so they could be added to the chemical weapons database.

    This makes complete nonsense of the Theresa May’s “of a type developed by Russia” line, used to parliament and the UN Security Council. This explains why Porton Down has refused to cave in to governmental pressure to say the nerve agent was Russian. If Iran can make a novichok, so can a significant number of states.’

    /..
    https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/03/salisbury-incident-report-hard-evidence-for-soft-minds/

  • Michael McNulty

    In a story covered by Yahoo News UK, The Telegraph is complaining this now means the Russians have a “nerve-gas hit squad” in Britain which endangers children and passers-by. I don’t read fiction but this evidence-free emotive gush is all getting very dark, very sinister.

    • Pyotr Grozny

      The version I saw said the hit-squad smeared the Novichok gel and then fled the country before it took effect. With all the resources devoted to this it shouldn’t be too difficult to check Russians who left Britain on 3rd/4th March, but I haven’t heard of any investigations along this line. And of course if the assassins did flee that wouldn’t necessarily indicate who ordered the poisoning.

      • Mary Paul

        Mmmm wasn’t Glushkov strangled in south west London a few days later………………

  • Neil

    The use of the disjunctive predicate ‘Novichok OR closely related agent’ is reminisent of the statements from France and Britain on the Khan Sheikoun incident. Where they said they had identified “Sarin or a sarin like substance”. I examined the OPCW report annexes at the time and found as below: See Annexes in this OPCW doc https://www.opcw.org/…/Fact_Finding_Miss…/s-1497-2017_e_.pdf

    SARIN-LIKE SUBSTANCE AVAILABLE ON INTERNET

    Whilst corporate media and western governments insist that Assad gasses his own people and officials say they have toxicology results of exposure to ‘sarin or sarin-like substance’ at Khan Sheikoun; a close reading of the OPCW documents show the positive biomedical results are for an organophosphorus compound – isopropyl methyl phosphonate or isopropyl methyl phosphonic acid. This compound is indeed sarin-like, but is also available for purchase on the internet for commercial use (most probably as a pesticide). How on earth the presence of this compound in toxicology results would thereby specifically demonstrate the culpability of the Syrian government, when it can be bought online, I fail to see.

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    • Neil

      https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/Fact_Finding_Mission/s-1497-2017_e_.pdf
      S/1497/2017
      Annex 2
      page 6
      Annex 2
      RESULTS FROM BIOMEDICAL SAMPLES TAKEN
      IN THE PRESENCE OF TEAM MEMBERS
      At the time the samples were taken, the team noted that one of the 10 casualties appeared to
      have trauma related injuries and further noted that his blood and urine tested negative for
      sarin or sarin-like substances. Seven of the remaining nine blood samples and three of the
      remaining four urine samples tested positive for sarin or a sarin-like substance or related
      metabolites.
      No Patient
      Reference
      Blood Urine
      Sample
      Reference Analysis Results Sample
      Reference Analysis Results
      1 1321 1321/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      N/A N/A
      2 1355 1355/P Nothing detected 1355/U Nothing detected
      3 1305 1305/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      N/A N/A
      4 1304 1304/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      N/A N/A
      5 1353 1353/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      N/A N/A
      6 1356 1356/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      1356/U Isopropyl
      methylphosphonate
      7 1302 1302/P Nothing detected N/A N/A
      8 1354 1354/P Nothing detected 1354/U Nothing detected
      9 1320 1320/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      1320/U Isopropyl
      methylphosphonate
      10 1358 1358/P
      Positive for sarin
      or sarin-like
      substance
      1358/U Isopropyl
      methylphosphonate

    • saluspopuli.org

      N. Yes, indeed, it is useful to review the April 2017 incident. The White House, under McMaster’s direction, manufactured a four page report. Presumably this was done because they could not get the Intelligence Community to cook an appropriate and politically useful intelligence assessment. Thus, a mere White House report. Hardly the result of all source fusion and the like.

      So far, we have not heard any claim by the Trump administration that our IC has made an assessment that supports British claims and ever changing narrative of the Skripal incident. In fact, the US position and expulsion is said to be in solidarity with the UK. Thus, the inducation is that this is political solidarity not backed up by a formal IC assessment. The Continentals seem to take a similar approach…political solidarity not dependent on intelligence assessments.

      Dr. T. Postel, emeritus MIT professor, refuted the White House narrative. We may recall the White Helmets played a role in disseminating information about this incident at KS.

      https://www.globalresearch.ca/assessment-of-white-house-intelligence-report-about-nerve-agent-attack-in-khan-shaykhun-syria/5584867

        • saluspopuli.org

          N. Excellent, thx. PA just posted the following at Pat’s site:

          “1. It’s obvious nonsense brought to you by proven liars.
          2. The point of propaganda is to leave an impression after the details have been forgotten.
          3. To get involved in discussing the minutiae of the story is to help the propagandists’ aims.
          4. Therefore treat it as a badly constructed story that is failing to convince.
          5. Do this by analysing the comments on the news stories which (at least the ones I’ve looked at) show that people are sceptical.
          6. Also mock the meanderings of the story: At the restaurant! In the car! On the doorstep! Incredibly lethal but strangely ineffective. Miraculous recovery of daughter. Baby wipes as effective protection. Reminiscent of White Helmets and their flip flops, rubber gloves and paper masks; but, come to think of it, it’s the same authors in both stories. Who, after so many lies, are becoming overconfident and sloppy.

          It’s a startlingly incompetent theatrical production and should be responded to with contemptuous mockery.”

          http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/03/skripalmania.html

          Theater of the absurd indeed…. Boris and his monkeyshines.

          • Crackerjack

            Wise words but I think we all know how this turns out.

            The OPCW report will mirror PD’s. The substance was a nerve agent of a type developed by the Soviet Union or related compound

            Are you with us or against us?

          • saluspopuli.org

            The April 2017 event in Syria was staged, according to some experts. Thus, it would follow that the “samples” for OPCW were staged. The British founded and funded org in Syria called the “White Helmets” were involved. They operate in terrorist controlled areas as support.

            What do we know about any “samples” for OPCW this time?

            An interesting comment by journalist Rania Khalek at the time of the April 2017 incident:

            …” “Idlib, which is the province in Syria where this attack occurred, it is an area that is under the control of armed groups that are either al Qaida or affiliates of al Qaida,” Khalek adds. “The village in particular that was hit with this alleged chemical weapons attack, it’s under the control of Ahrar al Sham, which is one of the most prominent and extremist groups in Syria.”

            “They are like the Taliban. They impose harsh Islamic law. They kill aid workers. They kill journalists. They kill activists. There is no independent information coming out of these areas at all. All of it is under the control and needs the approval of these armed groups that are in control. So, all of the information that you are getting out of these areas, whether it is from the White Helmets or whether it looks like it’s from what they like to call themselves media activists, that information does not come out without the input of these al Qaida-linked rebel groups.””…

            https://raniakhalek.com/

  • Sebastian

    I retain a forlorn hope that what we’re watching is Boris Johnson leading the world’s “diplomats” in a reenactment of that for some reason hugely celebrated defeat, The Charge Of The Light Brigade: Exactly how long it might take for a liar to be revealed to all as covered in his own ridiculousness remains to be seen.

    As for the top secret “for their eyes only” stuff, The Americans clearly state that they’re in it out of loyalty. If that’s to TM and BJ, or the Neoconservative narrative, or both, is anybody’s guess.

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