Intercepted Calls Prove Syrian Army Used Nerve Gas, U.S. Spies Say

Editor’s Note: In a
Foreign Policy exclusive
, Noah Shachtman explains how the interception of a phone conversation from a Syrian Ministry of Defense official has made American officials certain that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in a recent attack east of Damascus. The main debate moving forward is whether to let UN inspectors collect soil, blood, and other environmental samples, or whether to strike the Assad regime immediately, Shachtman writes.

Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned. And that is the major reason why American officials now say they’re certain that the attacks were the work of the Bashar al-Assad regime — and why the U.S. military is likely to attack that regime in a matter of days.

But the intercept raises questions about culpability for the chemical massacre, even as it answers others: Was the attack on Aug. 21 the work of a Syrian officer overstepping his bounds? Or was the strike explicitly directed by senior members of the Assad regime? “It’s unclear where control lies,” one U.S. intelligence official told The Cable. “Is there just some sort of general blessing to use these things? Or are there explicit orders for each attack?” 

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