The Progressive would like to offer additional comment on a column published on our website last week headlined, “The Truth Behind the Bombardment of Syria.”
The opinion column by frequent contributor Reese Erlich raised questions about one target hit by the missile attacks launched April 13 by the United States, United Kingdom, and France. It reported, as others have, that there are doubts over whether the target was a weapons facility.
The column also presented arguments on both sides as to whether chemical weapons were used by the Assad air force. It noted that the Assad regime has certainly used chlorine gas to attack rebels in the past. And the Jaish al Islam insurgents, who controlled Douma at the time of the attack, are certainly capable of faking an attack as well as using chemical weapons themselves.
These are valid concerns for inquiry. Hopefully, now that weapons inspectors have been allowed into Douma, there will be some objective evidence.
The column went on to briefly reference an article by journalist Robert Fisk, which was published by the Independent on April 17. Fisk’s article raised doubts about whether the Syrian government had in fact used chemical weapons in the town of Douma, outside of Damascus.
Erlich’s article, published on The Progressive’s website on April 19, did not go into detail about Fisk’s report. It merely referred to it as follows:
“Robert Fisk, a journalist with the British Independent, raised serious questions in his first-hand reporting from Douma. He interviewed a doctor who said people died from a lack of oxygen in underground tunnels, not chemical weapons.”
The cited article briefly described Fisk’s interview with a doctor at the scene, who in Fisk’s words, said the dozens of people who were sickened and killed “were overcome not by gas but by oxygen starvation in the rubbish-filled tunnels and basements in which they lived, on a night of wind and heavy shelling that stirred up a dust storm.”
At no time did Fisk assert that he regarded the quoted doctor’s account as fact. But neither did his article include contrary eyewitness accounts.
The day before our publication of Erlich’s article, an article appeared in the Times of London entitled, “Critics leap on reporter Robert Fisk’s failure to find signs of gas attack.” While it reached no definitive conclusions, the article did note that Fisk’s findings were at odds with those of other observers:
“The Associated Press reported victims saying that there had been a chlorine attack, and that they had been overcome by gas,” the Times article said. “A reporter for the independent press agency based in New York also said a basement where many people died still smelt strongly.”
The Progressive was not aware at of the Times article, published April 18, at the time it published Erlich’s piece, which was about much larger issues concerning the air strike on Syrian facilities.
On Saturday, April 21, two days after Erlich’s piece was published, the claim-debunking website Snopes.com ran another article titled, “Critics Slam Viral Stories Claiming Douma Chemical Attack Victims Died from ‘Dust.’ ”
That article raised the possibility that the doctor Fisk quoted may have been coerced, as has been known to happen in similar situations in the past. It also reported:
“Although Fisk said he interviewed more than 20 people but didn’t quote anyone who witnessed evidence of a chemical attack, crews from both CBS News and Sweden’s TV4 were on the same convoy as Fisk. Both teams found locals who said they had inhaled toxic gas, and one resident led CBS to a canister believed to be used for dispersing gas. Another local led TV4 to the site where many of the victims died.”
The Progressive wishes it had included this critical perspective.