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Press TV has conducted an interview with Pepe Escobar, investigative journalist, about the UN report on the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria which hints at the possibility of manipulation of evidence in militant-held areas.

- You know the United States says it is sure that the Syrian government carried out this chemical attack, Russia says the attack was falsified and now the UN says the attack site may have been manipulated. What really is happening here?

- Manipulation. In short that is what is happening. The Americans have been saying from the beginning they had 99 percent certainty based on Israeli Intel which was probably compromised from the start. This is the Intel that they have from Benny Gantz, the IDF [Chief of Staff] passed to General Martin Dempsey of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They stand by it.

On the other hand we had independent analysts from all over. Even myself I wrote about this as well. The possibility of a false flag attack with kitchen sarin [gas] which was apprehended in Iraq by the Iraqi ministry of defense one month before the attack came the attack in Ghouta was transferred to Jabhat al-Nusra jihadists in Ghouta and it was probably a false flag operation.

This has not been investigated. How can the Americans, the French and the British say they have 99 percent certainty? It is absolutely impossible and this is part of a concerted effort by Washington along with Paris to derail the Geneva Agreement between Kerry and Lavrov even before it’s been implemented.

Because they want a Chapter 7 UN Security Council resolution which has the inbuilt possibility of launching war against Syria in case of noncompliance and they do not specify what kind of noncompliance would that be.

- You know Kerry keeps saying that Syria is not going to be like Iraq, that the US administration has been very careful, is going through every detail. From what you are saying though it does seem very similar to Iraq, doesn’t it?

- Yes it is. In fact they want a resolution very, very similar. It is an Iraqi-style Chapter 7 inbuilt possibility of an attack resolution. It won’t pass the UN Security Council. We already know that. Russia and China will veto it and the Americans, the French and the British, they know it. So probably it is going to be a two-step resolution.

The only possibility to have a resolution now is to have a non-binding resolution. Later on if there is a false flag, if the inspectors are attacked by the rebels for instance, sniper fire, it already happened before, then everybody goes back to the UN Security Council and probably there will be a second resolution.

But for the moment there is no other way apart from a non-binding resolution.

- So then Pepe, how does this affect the situation on the ground in Syria then?

- Well in fact nothing because House of Saud, the Turks' logistical support, the Israelis have people on the ground as well, Qatari special forces they are still there on the ground. The weaponizing of the so-called rebels which is basically myriads of gangs ... these criminals, bandits and foreign mercenary jihadists in fact goes on unabated.

The people who are being trained in Jordan by the CIA, they already crossed the border, they are already near Damascus and the so-called non-lethal weaponizing according to the Obama administration. It has already started.

So the weapons are flowing and the rebels are being reconstituted all over from the Jordanian-Syrian border to the Turkish-Syrian border and to the outskirts of Damascus as well. These people who want war, they won’t give up. It is simple as that.