(WMR)—CIA deputy director Michael Morrell resigned from his post just hours before the Obama White House, through deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, announced that the Obama administration had decided to provide weapons to the Syrian Free Army and its allied groups.
Obama’s pretext for arming the Al Qaeda-linked guerrillas is that U.S. intelligence concluded, after months of saying there was insufficient proof, that Syria used chemical weapons to kill Syrian civilians. The Russian government says it doesn’t believe Obama’s claims, especially after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s infamous lie to the UN Security Council about Iraqi anthrax was used to justify America’s invasion of Iraq.
Among the top allied group of the Syrian Free Army is the Jabhat al Nusra Front, whose leader, Abou Mohamad al-Joulani, recently pledged total allegiance to Al Qaeda’s leader and Osama Bin Laden’s replacement, Ayman al Zawahri.
USA Today quoted Tamer Mouhieddine, spokesman for the Free Syrian Army as follows, “The rebels in Syria have one common enemy—Bashar Assad—and they will collaborate with any faction allowing them to topple his regime.” The Al Qaeda-linked al Nusra Front is leading the efforts against the Assad government in Aleppo, according to Mouhieddine.
Syria’s government responded to Obama’s annnoucement by calling claims that it used chemical weapons “full of lies.”
WMR’s intelligence sources say Morrell has steadfastly argued that there was insufficient proof of claims, mostly emanating from Syrian rebel sources and Israel, that Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons, including sarin gas, on civilians. One of Rhodes’s sources for his claims of Syrian use of chemical weapons was, as stated in the White House statement, “social media oultets from Syrian opposition groups and other media sources.” Some U.S. intelligence sources are mocking Rhodes’s contention by calling Obama’s decision America’s first “war based on Twitter.”
Morrell won high praise for his leadership from Obama during the sex scandal involving CIA director David Petraeus. Morrell served as acting CIA director before Obama named his national security deputy adviser, John Brennan, a known supporter of Salafist and radical Wahhabi causes and groups, as CIA director. WMR has also learned that National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, who opposed U.S. military intervention in Syria, was asked to resign by Obama. Donilon, who is close to Vice President Joe Biden, is being replaced by Syrian military intervention advocate Susan Rice, who has served as ambassador to the UN.
Rhodes, 35, the son of a evangelical Christian father from Texas and a Jewish mother from New York, is taking on a more pronounced role in Obama’s foreign policy decisions. Rhodes’s brother, David Rhodes, is the president of CBS News. The combination of Rice and Rhodes as the number one and two national security advisers to Obama is seen as driving the U.S. military intervention in Syria and driving away seasoned and more experienced individuals like Morrell and Donilon.
The Russian government has joined Morrell and Donilon in their skepticism about Syrian chemical weapons use. President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Yuri Ushakov told RT, “The Americans tried to present us with information on the use of chemical weapons by the regime, but frankly we thought that it was not convincing . . . We wouldn’t like to invoke references to the famous lab tube that Secretary of State Powell showed, but the facts don’t look convincing in our eyes.”
There is more evidence that the Al Nusra Front used chemical weapons in Aleppo and that Assad’s forces never used any chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, especially with Obana calling such first use a “red line” that he would not permit Assad to cross without U.S. military intervention.
WMR has learned that we can expect other high-level resignations form the CIA as the Obama administration turns up the heat on forcing the CIA and other intelligence agencies to “cook the books” on manufacturing intelligence to prove Syria used chemical weapons.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2013 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
