U.N. Pushes Back at U.S. Calls to Abort Syria Inspection Mission

[morningfog]

BEIRUT—United Nations weapons inspectors arrived at one of the sites of last week's presumed chemical weapons attacks outside Damascus, spurning U.S. calls for the team to stop their mission as American officials said they are inching closer to a decision for a military strike.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon rebuffed the U.S. request to withdraw the inspectors and "stood firm on principle," according to a person familiar with the matter, ordering his team to continue their work establishing whether chemical weapons or toxins were responsible for the estimated hundreds of deaths of Syrian civilians.

* * *

The American message to Mr. Ban as of Sunday was that the U.S. believed there wasn't adequate security for the U.N. inspectors to visit the affected areas to conduct their mission, a senior official in Mr. Obama's administration said. The administration also told the U.N. that the U.S. didn't think the inspectors would be able to collect viable evidence due to the passage of time and damage from subsequent shelling, this person said.

The suspected chemical weapons attacks occurred Wednesday, but the Syrian government gave permission to the U.N. team to access one of the areas on Damascus's outskirts only on Sunday.

The U.N. has held firm against the U.S., with one official saying evidence of a chemical attack would still exist. Chemical traces could be found in survivors and vegetation for months, chemical-weapons experts said. The U.N. team in Damascus was there to investigate a suspected chemical weapons attack conducted months earlier in northern Syria.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323407104579036173795495190.html

[Arctic Dave]

1. What the...

How far down the rabbit hole did Obama fall?

[morningfog]

2. I found this quite strange.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. Are any of these inspectors called Hans Blix?

Déjà vu all over again.

[kentuck]

4. Sounds similar to when Bush pulled the inspectors out of Iraq...

...and said we knew they had WMDs, even though we could find nothing, and continued to prepare for war against them.

[KittyWampus]

5. this is already out of date because the UN Inspectors did go and got shot at 1st attempt.

[morningfog]

6. The point is the US tried to halt the investigation.

[KittyWampus]

7. the point is, Assad stalled for 5 days and shelled meanwhile.

[Mojorabbit]

11. No that is not the point. The point is as stated above. nt

[TomClash]

8. They arrived and began work

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/world/middleeast/syria-assad.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[pampango]

9. And were ordered out by the regime after 90 minutes.

UN inspectors ordered out by regime after 90 minutes. Were meant to stay for six hours ...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/un-chemical-weapons-syria-90-minutes

[TomClash]

10. It seems Dr. Akram's numbers increased fourfold since yesterday

Q: How are the survivors of the Wednesday attack? How many people are receiving medical treatment in the hospital that you work at? What types of treatments are they receiving?

A: The number of patients is around 600 in Arbin Field Hospital, most of whom were admitted during the first few hours after the attack. They were discharged from the hospital with minor symptoms. None of them are still in the hospital. The treatment adminstered consisted of washing the victims' bodies with a lot of water, respirators to facilitate breathing, and then extraction of mucus from their respiratory tracts. The last step is to give them atropine and hydrocortisone.

http://www.syriadirect.org/sas/36-interviews/732-something-happened-to-their-brains-says-doctor-treating-chemical-gas-victims

Not sure he is the best source.

[pampango]

12. He may not be the best source. It will be interesting to see if this is corroborated. n/t

[JRLeft]

13. This all about an oil pipeline.

[Catherina]

14. Thank heavens we have that resounding success right next door to show off those doubters n/t