British scientists repeatedly embarrass their Government with truths. UK Government obstructs due process. Clinton and the US nerve agent cover up. UK Court’s disgraceful behaviour on Skripals’ blood test. Putin is now the Statesman and May and Johnson the international pariahs. Government attacked Russia based on lies, distortions and scientific nonsense, ignored international convention, humiliated Britain, debased our Intelligence Services, embarrassed our Allies and destroyed our international status. Any country wishing to re-establish international credibility would force May, Johnson and Williamson to resign without delay.
A DIPLOMATIC AND INTELLIGENCE DISASTER
A Former OSCE Vice president Willy Wimmer is sadly justified in saying:
“I think we would call this state a mafia state because it is against all European and international rules and regulations how the British government has behaved in a criminal case with regard to another country.”
Like other countries Wimmer recalls the spin of the Blair years over Iraq when our intelligence services – once regarded highly even by the Russians! – got such a bad reputation for flawed intelligence.
“And that is why I think as long as the British don’t behave in a proper, legal, international way, I think we all should believe that this is another British lie, at least to go for war against Russia,”
“This is a blow to European solidarity and this is a blow to the European Union as well as NATO. They will never do it again”
The situation is now so bad that May, Williamson and Johnson must go immediately so that the UK can start the slow process of rebuilding our international reputation.
UK GOVERNMENT OBSTRUCTION IN THE SKRIPAL CASE
The May Government has refused:
- to let the Russians see the agent which they are accused of using
- to let the Russians communicate with their own national Yulia Scripal
- to get confirmation from the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons before acting against Russia
- to get Russian expert scientific help (even from highly respected Russian scientists like Professor Igor Rybalchenko who worked with the West to clean up after the Soviet collapse)
- to even allow the Scotland Yard investigation to conclude before acting against Russia
- to consult Skripal family members before taking blood samples according to UK law
UK Government obstruction and illegalities could have seriously affected the Skripals’ recovery. As the Sheffield University academics McKiegue and Robinson report in their latest analysis of the Scripal case:
“Although it is possible that the blood test would not be able to identify definitively a molecular structure such as A-234, this inability to determine the leaving group applies only to physiological samples. If environmental samples (ie on the Skripals’ door knob as the UK Government claims – RA) have tested positive, Porton Down should have been able to identify the original molecule precisely.
By not quickly releasing the identity of the compound detected the UK Gvt could have prevented other labs that have undertaken toxicity studies advising treatment of benefit to the Skripals”
UNACCEPTABLE COURT DECISION ON SKRIPALS’ BLOOD TESTS
In a High Court Judgement on a request for blood samples to be taken from the Skripals Mr. Justice Williams granted the Official Solicitor’s request without consulting the family as required under the relevant Act of Parliament on the grounds:
“Given the absence of any contact having been made with the National Health Service Trust by any family member, the absence of any evidence of any family in the UK and the limited evidence as to the possible existence of family members in Russia I accept that it is neither practicable nor appropriate in the special context of this case to consult with any relatives of Mr Skripal or Ms Skripal who might fall into the category identified in s.4(7)(b) of the Act”
It was also erroneously stated in Court that the Skripals had a 1% chance of survival. Both these statements were a disgrace.
Sergey Skripal’s niece – who lives in Russia with the rest of Sergey Skripal’s family including his 90 year old mother – had been interviewed by the BBC and could not get any information about her relatives. And shortly afterwards we learned that Yulia Scripal was in fact recovering very quickly and was talking.
Now of course (5th March) we know that she has actually talked to her cousin in Moscow and told her that not only she but her father was doing well! (“Daddy is fine and I am coming home”)
This all shows an unprecedented set of lies by the authorities. Perhaps the rapidly recovering Skripals were an embarrassment to the British Government’s “story” and too much in tune with Vladimir Putin’s claim that any “military grade nerve agent” from Russia would have killed them instantly.
BRITISH EXPERTS EMBARRASSED BY THEIR GOVERNMENT
The UK Government case has repeatedly been qualified by leading British experts – like Black, McKiegue and Robinson and of course the present Head of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Gary Aitkenhead, who has just said that there is no direct link to Russia from the Scripal poisoning thus exposing the lies of Boris Johnson who said in public “Porton Down was absolutely categorical. There is no doubt” (that the Russian State was the source).
Then the political spin doctors appeared with a “Whitehall source” saying Mr Aitkenhead had
‘not realised what he has said……..The scientists’ job is to determine what the chemical is. Intelligence agencies and other bodies ascertain where it is from. There is no other explanation than this has come from the Russian state.’
At the end of the video of the Aitkenhead press conference – with no reference to a specific question – and in a desperate last minute attempt to implicate Russia – Aitkenhead states (certainly prompted by his Government “minders” in order to counter his main statement) that making this nerve agent required:
“extremely sophisticated methods to create , something probably only within the capabilities of a state actor.”
Trouble is this is completely contradicted by his fellow scientists. It does not need great sophistication nor does it need a “State sector” to create it. In their latest Update on Novichoks Piers Robinson and Paul McKeigue (University of Sheffield) make clear that
“Published studies showed that these compounds can be synthesised at bench scale (enough for an assassination) in other countries.”
The British Foreign Office itself has now had to admit it issued false statements. The Russian Embassy rightly asked why a FO Tweet of 22nd March:
“Analysis by world leading experts at the Defence and Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia”
had suddenly disappeared! What an international humiliation.
USA COVERS UP ITS NOVICHOK WORK: HILARY CLINTON QUASHES DISCUSSION
As McKiegue and Robinson report:
There is evidence that the US knows about the compounds mentioned but has concealed that knowledge. A public database record showing the USArmy at the Edgewood chemical defence lab had synthesised the compounds in 1998 has been deleted (compound A 234)
The US discouraged the discussion of the matter at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons
“In a cable of 3 April 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton instructed the US delegation to the Informal Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Australia Group (a group of US-allied countries set up in 1985 to control the export of precursors of chemical weapons) that one of five US objectives for the meeting was to:-
– Avoid any substantive discussion of the Mirazayanov book “State Secrets: An Insider’s View of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program” or so-called ‘Fourth Generation Agents.’
– If AG participants raise the issue of Vils Mirazayonov’s book “State Secrets: An Insider’s View of the Russian Chemical Weapons Program,” the Del should:
– Report any instances in which the book is raised.
– Not/not start or provoke conversations about the book or engage substantively if it comes up in conversation.
– Express a lack of familiarity with the issue.
– Quietly discourage substantive discussions by suggesting that the issue is ‘best left to experts in (national) capitals.’
Taken together with the deletion of the record for A-234 submitted by Edgewood to the NIST Mass Spectral library, this suggests that the US and UK governments are concealing what they know about the A-230 series of compounds, for reasons that are not clear.”
MANY POSSIBLE SOURCES OF THE ATTACK
We know that there is much direct evidence of rogue elements within international science and intelligence services that deadly poisons have been used by Non Russian and non State agents. A US scientist mailed anthrax spores. A poison which killed a banker through his telephone receiver was sold by a Russian agent because he was short of money! Novichok related compounds have been dealt with in Iran, the UK and the USA and British scientists have confirmed that they can be “bench made” in sufficient amounts for assassinations. So the British Government’s continual reference to “weapons grade agent” and “only in State military laboratories” is nonsense.
Now we are reminded that there was a fake “sting” run by German Intelligence to smuggle Polonium 239 – two grams of which are sufficient to kill thousands. On 10 August 1994, Bavarian police arrested Justiniano Torres, a Columbian national, on his arrival at Munich on a flight from Moscow. Torres carried 363.4 grams of Plutonium 239 in his suitcase. The whole exercise had been set up by a German paid agent called Rafa who miraculously disappeared when the smugglers were arrested. He had been paid DM 100,000 by the German Secret Service.
The Plutonium 239 endangered all the crew and passengers of the flight from Moscow. As we have noted already the post Soviet period was a dangerous time as chemical and nuclear materials manufactured and stored in various parts of the Communist Soviet Union were easily acquired and sold by rogue elements in scientific, secret service or mafia circles.
PUTIN NOW THE STATESMAN, MAY AND JOHNSON THE INTERNATIONAL PARIAHS
“I believe Russia’s efforts in liquidating its chemical weapons will serve as an example for other countries,” President Putin said “The United States unfortunately hasn’t met its required deadlines in liquidating their chemical weapons, using a ‘lack of finances’ as an excuse”. In the light of the evidence above of an American cover up, this is a damning statement.
Asked on 4th March if Russia was expecting an apology from Britain for the failure to back up their accusations of the attempted State murder of the Skripals Vladimir Putin said in a clam and statesmanlike tone:
“We are not waiting for anything. All we are expecting is that common sense triumphs, and that international relations stop being harmed, as they have been in recent times. This doesn’t just concern the attempted murder of Skripal, but other aspects of international relations.”
It is appropriate that Putin said this at a joint press conference with Turkish and Iranian leaders in Ankara, where the fate of the Middle East will be decisively influenced – as British and American interventions have proved disastrous for those states, their peoples and especially for Christians. As a result the West has never been so powerless in the Middle East.
With whom would you feel safer as Leader of your country? May or Putin? Johnson or Lavrov? Defence Secretary Gavin “the Russians should shut up and go away” Williamson? Britons are a first rate people led by fourth rate adolescents prancing on a world stage which their blunderings make more dangerous by the day.
