Distraction Over – Novichoks is at the Root
Skripal’s Bench
It all started on the 4th of March, 2018. As everyone is familiar with the tale, briefly, the father & daughter Skripals collapsed in Salisbury along with a detective policeman. Within a day or two it had gone hyper-political and hyper-international. Most people had never heard of novichok(s) and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Since that time, the main stream media (MSM) of both East and West has made us all experts.
We have followed the conniving PM May, the downright lies of Boris Johnson, the machinations of Macron as he pulled a Western triumvirate together as his popularity at home in France waned, the bleat-tweets of Trump and the continual denials and promotions of new tales from the Russians.
Through all this, MSM has been seen as the propaganda mouthpieces of the various states that have been mired in this mess. In Russia it’s RT/Sputnik/TASS. In the US it’s Fox & the rest of MSM. In the UK it’s the BBC and the right wing press (i.e. almost all of it!)
To counter this, a small number of independents have been trying to sort out what’s really happened.
Novichok – The Root
BBC say Novichok found and Americans are looking at it
Briefly, the arguments & debunkings have said that novichok:
- does/does not exist
- is easy/hard to make
- was made/not made in Russia
- is now in the hands of USA/Russia/no-one
BBC Reports Novichok
Back in 1999 the BBC may have been more impartial than it is now. This is what Louise Hidalgo said on 9 August, 1999 (co-incidentally the 54th anniversary of the A-bomb on Nagasaki, Japan). A screenshot is at right.
It’s likely, that in the climate of the times following the collapse of the USSR, the tone of the piece is more worried about the fate of the new Uzbek state and its peoples rather than some international conflict involving nerve agents. Certainly, Louise Hildago had an earlier post from the year before in the same area with a worried, humanitarian slant. It’s doubtful that in today’s politicised climate any such clear views would be so tolerated.
Hidalgo says this:
A group of American defence experts have arrived in Uzbekistan to start helping the Uzbeks dismantle and decontaminate one of the former Soviet Union’s largest chemical weapons testing facilities.
US officials say the chemical research institute in western Uzbekistan was a major research site for a new generation of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons, known as Novichok.
Well that’s pretty clear then. Novichok existed in 1999. Americans are looking at it. And again:
The research centre (…) was a major research site for the chemical weapons the Soviet Union still produced. The institute was staffed solely by Russians and it was only when they left in 1993, taking with them much of the equipment and documentation, that what had gone in there slowly began to emerge.
So 6 years elapse between the closure of the site and its dismantling! SIX YEARS!!! Anything could have happened in that time. Any, single, thing. Hidalgo then goes on to detail (without naming) the defector that went to the USA, spilling the Novichok beans. She continues:
The Uzbeks have since worked closely with the Americans, giving them access to sites that in other parts of the Soviet Union are still off limits. For the moment though, the Americans are concentrating on the chemical research institute and of making it safe. Over the next six days a team of 16 defence experts will be at the plant working out how that can best be done.
In essence, even though 6 years have passed, the Americans had full access to all the data and all the sites that remained. They also had/have the creator of Novichok, the defector in this report presumably. Mirzayanov. (n.b. this Wikipedia entry changes quite often)
BBC South-West News on Decontaminations
This lunchtime, the BBC announced that the council and police offices in Salisbury are to close from tomorrow, Friday 20 April 2018 for cleaning. For 8 weeks!. It’s detailed on the local Wiltshire government website. Because of the huge amount of discussion around this topic, the fake news, the barefaced lies from politicians and their supporters, the obfuscations of parallel stories and the involvement of the secret services on all sides, I’m pretty worried that things aren’t what they seem. Here’s what Wiltshire local government have to say:
(…) as part of the decontamination plans announced yesterday. The decontamination work will focus on two locations in Bourne Hill which were sealed off following the incident on 4 March. These locations; the evidence store and two lockers are potentially contaminated and will require testing and the removal of items and cleaning.
Other areas of the building will be cleaned as a precautionary measure.
Both the police and council’s front line services will be relocated locally to enable the work to be carried out.
Tampering
So the potential for subterfuge and the tampering or complete removal of evidence, witness statements, radio logs and more is huge. We have already had the most covert apparatus of state at work for over 6 weeks already and they’ll probably be sifting through evidence, safe and secure behind screens for weeks. For those that say it can’t happen, evidence and collusions have been revealed with The Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, Miner’s Strike (Orgreave), West Midlands Police, Yorkshire Ripper, Hillsborough disaster – these just off the top of my head, the latter only coming clean and with prosecutions still pending 2 months ago.
Clear and Present Danger? Part One
It beggars belief that staff have been working in the building since 4th March, even today. Only tomorrow do they have to move out for a “precautionary measure”. We already know (or have been told) that Novichok decreases in effectiveness over time. So are all the staff okay or not? Was it more dangerous 5 weeks ago? If so, why are they even there at all?
They cannot have it both being dangerous for a working environment and not dangerous. Now where have we seen that sort of logic used before? Hmmm?
Oh yes! Novichok…………………..Simultaneously the most deadly chemical on the planet and yet one that just takes a little time from which to recover. (Both Skripals did not die. Nor the policeman).
Clear and Present Danger – Part Two
As stated above in my own particular way, it’s cack-handed to say that the poisons are dangerous to council workers when they have already been exposed to them for weeks. If there was merit in this it’d been done already.
To compound the issue with a long term closure (every area except the official Registrar’s) just leaves any evidence open to tampering and abuse. No doubt Alistair Cunningham and Paul Mills will say that all precautions will be taken. The trouble is that even if they are honourable men, places like Hatton Gardens and the Brinksmat business, they too took all precautions. They still got robbed.
For the Skripals, the fact that they “apparently” got poisoned with the most deadly substance on the planet, yet survived, shows either a high degree of cunning and planning ingenuity at work or an amateur effort using poison past its sell-by date. You choose.
The “why” of it all is a different matter.
References.
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/news/articles/bourne-hill-services-relocated-whilst-decontamination-work-carried-out
