アサドは化学兵器の命令を下していなかった ードイツの新聞報道
ドイツの新聞ビルトが伝えるところでは、アサド自体は化学兵器のしよう命令を下していなかった。これはドイツの諜報機関が傍受した情報によるとされている。それによると、軍部はもっと多くの地域での化学兵器の使用を主張したのだが、それをアサドは止めたのだという。
極度の国際緊張が走るなか、このニュースはやはり考えさせるものがある。アメリカ、イギリスの首脳部が「アサドが化学兵器を使用して大量の殺害をしたことは疑うことのできない事実である」と主張し続けているが、この根拠は白日のもとに明らかにされているわけではないということである。「絶対に間違いがない」と言われても、一方的な断定は普通の裁判では通用しない話である。国際紛争のこうした状況下にあって、裁判は機能しない。プーチンは「反乱派がサリンをまいた」と主張している。そして上記のニュースである。
介入がなければ内乱はますます激化を続けるだろう。しかし、介入をすれば戦線領域がいまよりも拡大することも確かである。こうしたなか、ケリー長官もさすがに、国連の調査団の結果をみて、とか国連決議を待つとかいった発言に後退している。いずれにせよ、試されているのは超大国アメリカ一人での判断と行動で国際紛争を処理できないという事態の出現である。このことが最も重要な意味をもつ問題だと思う。
大英帝国の崩壊は、最終的にはスエズ危機で生じた。スエズの奪回を目指して上陸したイギリス軍だが、かたやソ連から「ロンドンに原爆を落とす」という脅し、かたやアイゼンハワーから「何も知らされないでいた」との怒りのまえに、イーデンはなすすべがなくイギリス軍を撤退させたのである。以降、植民地開放は燎原の火のごとき広がりをみせて大英帝国はあえなく崩壊したのである。
いまのシリア危機はアメリカの世界支配の終わりではないが、一国支配状態の終わりを示している・・・そういう気がしてくる。
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Assad did not order Syria chemical weapons attack, says German press
Bild am Sonntag cites high-level German surveillance source suggesting Syrian president was not personally behind attacks
• Simon Tisdall and Josie Le Blond in Berlin
• The Guardian, Monday 9 September 2013
A anti-Syria strike demonstration in LA. German paper Bild am Sonntag has cited information saying the Syrian president did not personally order chemical attacks, but this does not exonerate his regime. Photograph: David Mcnew/Getty
President Bashar al-Assad did not personally order last month's chemical weapons attack near Damascus that has triggered calls for US military intervention, and blocked numerous requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons against regime opponents in recent months, a German newspaper has reported , citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.
The intelligence findings were based on phone calls intercepted by a German surveillance ship operated by the BND, the German intelligence service, and deployed off the Syrian coast, Bild am Sonntag said. The intercepted communications suggested Assad, who is accused of war crimes by the west, including foreign secretary William Hague, was not himself involved in last month's attack or in other instances when government forces have allegedly used chemical weapons.
Assad sought to exonerate himself from the August attack in which hundreds died. "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people," he said in an interview with CBS.
But the intercepts tended to add weight to the claims of the Obama administration and Britain and France that elements of the Assad regime, and not renegade rebel groups, were responsible for the attack in the suburb of Ghouta, Bild said.
President Barack Obama is urging the US Congress to approve military action to deter the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons and degrade its ability to pursue the two-and-a-half-year civil war against rebel forces.
But Obama is facing stiff resistance from Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives, who fear involvement in another Middle East war, and from Assad's main ally, Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has said any military strikes conducted without prior UN approval would be illegal.
Speaking in Paris on Sunday during a European tour to rally support for military action, John Kerry, US secretary of state, said Washington did not rule out a return to the UN security council to seek backing for military strikes, once UN inspectors have completed an on-the-ground investigation of the 21 August attack. Their report is expected by the end of the week.
Obama's main European ally, François Hollande of France, is under increasing pressure to seek a UN mandate for any military action in the face of opinion polls suggesting up to 64% of French people oppose air strikes. In a bid to gain the support of fellow EU countries, Hollande pledged at the weekend to take the UN investigatory report into consideration before acting. Hollande also suggested he might seek a UN resolution, despite previous Russian and Chinese vetoes.
"On President Hollande's comments with respect to the UN, the president (Obama), and all of us, are listening carefully to all of our friends," Kerry said after meeting Arab League ministers. "No decision has been made by the president."
"All of us agreed – not one dissenter – that Assad's deplorable use of chemical weapons, which we know killed hundreds of innocent people … this crosses an international, global red line," Kerry said.
Kerry's meeting with Arab ministers, including from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, followed talks in Lithuania with European foreign ministers, who blamed the attack in Syria on Assad but, aware of overwhelming public hostility to an attack, refused to endorse military action. Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, who faces a general election in two weeks, led the charge to caution.
Only 12 of the G20 countries which held a summit in Russia last week have backed the US position.
The German intelligence findings concerning Assad's personal role may complicate US-led efforts to persuade the international community that punitive military action is justified. They could also strengthen suspicions that Assad no longer fully controls the country's security apparatus.
Addressing a closed meeting of the German parliamentary committee last week, the BND chief Gerhard Schindler said his agency shared the US view that the attack had been launched by the regime and not the rebels. But he said the spy agency had not have conclusive evidence either way, German media reported.
Schindler said that BND had intercepted a telephone call in which a high-ranking member of Hezbollah in Lebanon told the Iranian embassy in Damascus that Assad had made a big mistake when he gave the order to use the chemicals, the magazine Der Spiegel said.
Schindler added that German intelligence believed Assad would likely remain in power for some time – irrespective of any potential US-led military intervention - and that the civil war could drag on for years.
