Craig MURRAY
I have now received confirmation from a
well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to
identify the nerve gas as being of Russian manufacture, and have been
resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down
would only sign up to the formulation “of a type developed by Russia”
after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise
formulation.
The Russians were allegedly researching,
in the “Novichok” programme a generation of nerve agents which could be
produced from commercially available precursors such as insecticides
and fertilisers. This substance is a “novichok” in that sense. It is of
that type. Just as I am typing on a laptop of a type developed by the
United States, though this one was made in China.
To anybody with a Whitehall background
this has been obvious for several days. The government has never said
the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in
Russia. The exact formulation “of a type developed by Russia” was used
by Theresa May in parliament, used by the UK at the UN Security Council,
used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most tellingly of all,
“of a type developed by Russia” is the precise phrase used in the joint
communique issued by the UK, USA, France and Germany yesterday:
This use of a military-grade nerve agent, of a type developed by
Russia, constitutes the first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe
since the Second World War.
