Scenes used by the BBC that it later admitted were staged. Former United Nations prosecutor Carla del Ponte, British journalist Peter Hitchens and scenes of destruction in Syria IDSI COLLAGE
Scenes used by the BBC that it later admitted were staged. Former United Nations prosecutor Carla del Ponte, British journalist Peter Hitchens and scenes of destruction in Syria IDSI COLLAGE


It was a lethal lie that killed thousands. BBC News last month was forced to admit the lies it spread and stood behind for three years: a BBC documentary video used all over the world, made in April 2018, showed children and civilians gasping and being chaotically hosed down, with an announcer narrating breathlessly that these were the horrors perpetrated by Syria's Assad government. It reported opposition witnesses alleging aerial drops of chemical weapons barrels that killed more than 40 people and injured hundreds more.

This video and narrative was quickly used by the United States, the United Kingdom and France to justify launching over a hundred missiles into Syria a week later without any evidence, just one day before an investigation by the OPCW, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Why the hurry?

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