Porton Down experts unable to verify 'precise source of novichok'

a reply to: crayzeed

Or Johnson misunderstood what he was told. Novichok IS a chemical agent with a Russian origin. That may be what he was told and he thought it meant this particular sample was definitely from Russia.

a reply to: Xcalibur254
I said the US "hoovered" all the chemicals not Russia. If you believe the US dismantled the Testing and research plant without collecting the "goods" you are very naive. Plus as TruBrit said to know what Novichok was you have to have a sample and also no country and I mean no country will ever admit to having any chemical warfare agents.

a reply to: oldcarpy

Go boil your head.

A sure sign of when someone has lost the argument they turn to abusive comments.

Would you like to comment on Boris Johnson getting up to his tricks again?

I won't hold my breath.

Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading the public by wrongly claiming Porton Down experts had identified Russia as the source of the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning. The foreign secretary came under pressure as it emerged the Foreign Office also deleted a tweet stating that scientists had concluded the novichok used in the attack had been “produced in Russia”. In fact, as the Porton Down chief executive acknowledged on Tuesday, the defence laboratory had been unable to pinpoint the “precise source” of the deadly agent.

uk.news.yahoo.com...

www.independent.co.uk... l

a reply to: crayzeed

And I was asking why you would assume the US would "hoover up" all the remaining chemicals but not assume Russia would do the same when they originally abandoned the facility when the USSR fell.

As for the second part of your post, in 2016 Iranian scientists synthesized five Novichok variants for analysis and submitted the results to the OPCW. And that's without mentioning Mirzayanov's tell all that pretty much outlined everything about Novichok.

So it's definitely reasonable Porton Down would be able to identify the compound without having any.

originally posted by: oldcarpy
a reply to: spy66


if there was "immense political pressure" on Porton Down, it didn't work, did it?

It sure dident......

a reply to: oldcarpy

First, your response to the Glock analogy is entirely erroneous. In investigative process, the path is clear. If you do not have evidence tying a specific individual, to a specific crime, physical evidence of some manner or another, there is no case for anyone to answer. Modus operandi alone is not probable cause, leave alone grounds for conviction. The mistake made by the British government here, is that if this were a regular investigation into a regular crime, committed by a felonious individual as opposed to a state, then the fact is that the police would have NOTHING to base a charge on at this point. They have no smoking gun, they have no gunshot residue on the hand of the alleged shooter, they have no video evidence to tie any individual to the crime committed.

Now, you can argue around that issue if you like, but there is no escaping it. The British government have NO business sidestepping the due process involved in a situation like this. Their comments should have been withheld until investigations by the Porton Down team and international partners had been completed. As shown by the fact that the Foreign Office is now having to go around deleting its Tweets to save face, the British government have showed absolutely no sophistication whatsoever in dealing with this matter, and have shown themselves up to be overly reactionary, but not in the least bit intelligent in doing so.

What the British government said has not been any such thing as carefully worded by the standards appropriate to this situation, and if the British government has evidence of wrong doing on Russia's part, it will HAVE to be made public in order to press forward with any legitimate actions against Russia, either through the international courts, through the UN or otherwise.

Either way, if the government wants either its own people, or those around the world, to believe what they are saying, especially in light of the sheer amount of lies, deceptions, double talk and backstabbing they have been doing to their own people of late, they are damned well going to HAVE to show their work.

a reply to: TrueBrit


The fact is that neither you nor I know what evidence the Govt has but obviously we can safely assume from the fact that so many other countries backed us after receiving a security briefing - they were obviously satisfied that there was a prima facie case.

As for "sidestepping the due process", how so? We have invited the OPCW to investigate, following "due process" and there is an ongoing Police investigation so evidence will not be released at this stage because - "due process".

Russia has demanded to be involved in a joint investigation. Its like a suspected murderer demanding to be jointly involved with the Police investigation..

a reply to: alldaylong


Yes, he has some explaining to do, I entirely agree.

a reply to: oldcarpy

With respect, the ability of any British government to convince international partners of something does not actually speak to whether that thing is real or not, as with the Iraq chemical weapons issue, for example. Dodgy dossiers is what our government has been known for ever since, the lies are staggering in their import, and overwhelming in their number.

Here is an interesting article in the Times reporting on a "Whitehall source" saying that they had "intelligence" pinpointed the location of the covert Russian lab" that produced this nerve agent and that they knew of it's existence before the Salisbury incident:-

The Times

You cant read the whole article unless you subscribe but I just thought I would flag this up.

Flame away.

a reply to: TrueBrit


Oi! - don't "with respect me"!

The dodgy dossier thing was Blair under Labour, you can't just generalise about "our government" and dismiss everything they say as lies.

Russia does not lie?

Here is an interesting article from the Times quoting Whitehall sources about what intelligence they had, before the Salisbury incident. Obviously intelligence sources will not be disclosed publicly but we can assume that this evidence was part of the security briefings that persuaded so many other countries of Russia's likely involvement.

The Times

a reply to: oldcarpy

And again, Whitehall officials have been deeply involved in lies and corruption, weapons sales and other questionable activities on behalf of the government and its corporate partners. There were Whitehall douches involved with the lies which lead to the Iraq war, there were Whitehall douches involved in the programs which saw our nation purchase and distribute weapons, gear and training to "rebel" (read proxy army terrorist groups) in the Middle East for years and years...

It does not matter whether we are talking about Boris Johnson or some nameless functionary, commenting from a walnut paneled room in London somewhere, that only other civil servants would ever have heard of, leave alone seen with their own eyes... There is nothing in what that article claimed, which amounts to anything like evidence. Its the same crap we have heard in other situations.

Government:
"Oh, we have evidence of chemical weapons production, by the way."

People:
"I don't buy it."

Whitehall and the intelligence agencies:
"Heres a grainy satellite photograph of a series of buildings, which could literally be anything, but we are saying are chemical weapons manufacture locations."

People:
"Oh, well now I have something to look at, I believe you!"

Its bloody nonsense, and there is nothing probative in what the Whitehall goon said at all.

Ooops - I already posted that link in this thread. Sorry.

a reply to: oldcarpy

No worries... These things happen.

And just an aside.

When I say "With respect..." it means that while I understand the point you are trying to make, and respect your right to make it and your candour, I disagree with the point you are making, and the logic chain which led to your deploying it. If I meant "Haha, screw you chump, prepare for a serious drubbing", I would say as much.

a reply to: TrueBrit


Thanks - it's just a bit of a thing in my game.

Just because Blair lied to the House and the Country about WMD's it does not mean that you can just dismiss anything that our intelligence services come up with.

You cannot know for sure that it's all just "bloody nonsense". You may believe that, you cannot know it.

originally posted by: MindBodySpiritComplex

I am sooooo confused. Surely we (THE WEST) had irrefutable proof that Russia did it. Else we would not have expelled those diplomats, called for sanctions, risked further escalation, etc. That's how democracies work, right? First you find proof and then you act...

Our government is a joke, i've been saying this for a long time, Darth May has been towing the official line, which seems to be...



..this has been going on for a while now since that rather interesting US election, after which of course Clinton blamed her failure on Russia (as a side note I was in a small town in NE Scotland yesterday and saw a Free Books section run by The Salvation Army and there was Hillary's recent "What Happened[?]" book, wherever it was bought from originally had the bargain bucket £3 sticker on it too, nobody wants it)

So there is no actual proof it was Russia? As I suspected! My government has screwed up, they have taken us a step closer to Cold War with Russia (and possibly carried this out) i have no confidence in them and I'm sure a lot more people think the same after this. More than that though, not only has Trump screwed up in the same way (in a bigger way, very Trump-like) but interestingly he seems to have done a complete U-turn on his previous, pro-Russian stance, why? Who knows, maybe he fell for bumbling Boris Johnsone's brand of BS when relating to the investigation into the poison attack, maybe there are people pulling the strings and he's finally bending him to their will. I doubt we will ever know.

But there are more countries who have screwed up Albania, Austrialia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany Hungary, Ireland, Itally, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden & Ukraine should all hang their heads in shame...

a reply to: oldcarpy

The fact that Blair, Cameron and May have ALL been lying for years about the nature of the conflict in the Middle East, have knowingly contributed to the continuing crisis and proxy war in the region, and have been utterly unwilling to simply cease those operations and arrest those responsible for their upkeep, as well as abusing the rights of citizens at home, with invasions of their privacy, the fact that the intelligence services are complicit in the same, means that their word cannot be trusted on face value, and if they wish the support of the people in doing ANYTHING (which they damned well ought to need to get anything done at all), they are going to have to actually start PROVING their words are based in fact, not yet another propaganda arc.

They made the bed in which they must now lay down, and must accept the consequence of their abuse of this countries people by way of dishonesty and skullduggery, without complaint or excuses. It may not be right to dismiss the word of the officialdom out of hand, but its a damned sight more dangerous to swallow it without being privy to the evidence they claim to have.

a reply to: TrueBrit


Yes, but there was an assassination attempt in a public place on our soil using a nerve agent. That much I trust you will accept. So, a bit more concrete than supposed WMD's in Iraq?

a reply to: djz3ro


Well, actually Russia is pretty bad. Rampant corruption and criminal activity in the highest places, state sponsored assassinations (Litvinenko et al), rigged elections, murdering political opponents, shooting down civilian airliners, annexing Crimea, etc.

a reply to: oldcarpy

Well, there was an attempted murder, with a very potent and unusual weapon.

But whether it is an attempted assassination or not, rather depends on who did it and what their motivations were, and without wishing to be a bore, we cannot trust the word that we are given by our own government on this matter, or any other matter. We cannot trust the government or its representatives period, because they have been acting for so long in direct contravention of the will of the majority in this country, lying to us, stealing from us, and allowing others to steal from us, and even starving tens of thousands of us to death over the last ten years.

There is not one thing we can trust our government to do properly, or be honest about, and the fact that this is the conclusion that has been reached, not just by me, but by the overwhelming majority of human beings living in this country, is the fault of those responsible for the lying and the cheating, and the dismantling of this country by degrees for corporate gain.