The Chemical Atrocity That Never Was

Peter Hitchens writes: 

Compare and contrast. 

Here is Mr Eliot Higgins.

He dropped out of a media studies course, is a keen video gamer and once worked in the ladies' underwear industry.

He runs a website called Bellingcat, which (what luck!) is partly financed by the United States government through its 'National Endowment for Democracy'. 

His pronouncements on the war in Syria and many other things are treated respectfully by many media.

He was recently accorded a pretty generous personal interview by the BBC World Service. 

Now here is Mr Ian Henderson.

He is a chemical engineer and a military veteran, who served in the artillery of his country's army, with considerable practical experience in ballistics.

He worked first for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from 1997 to 2005, having risen to the post of inspection team leader.

Then he left the OPCW (which prefers its staff to work on brief contracts rather than for life) and went to work in the chemical industry.

Very unusually, because of a shortage of expertise, he was rehired by the OPCW in June 2016. 

He was there until May 2019 when he was suspended from duty following the leaking (not by him) of some of his work on the alleged poison gas attack in Douma, Syria. 

He did some tough jobs. He was the OPCW team leader who developed and launched the highly intrusive inspections of the Barzah scientific centre, just outside Damascus.

He has been, personally, to the scene of the alleged poison gas attack in Douma, which was used as a pretext for a joint French, British and American missile strike on Syria in April 2018.

Last week he gave brief but devastating evidence to a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, in which he said that the findings in the final OPCW report on Douma 'were contradictory, were a complete turnaround' from what the on-the-spot investigators had understood during and after their inspection.

He added: 'By the time of the release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.' 

Media, who are quick to take seriously Mr Higgins and his Bellingcat organisation on this subject, have totally ignored this astonishing testimony. 

I think they have the whole thing upside down. Listen to Ian Henderson. He knows what he is talking about.