File talk:CDD CW Instructions 9-15-2012.jpg

Creation of ODCFS/CVDCS
Syrian ambassador Bashar Al-Jaafari explains some clearly related moves at this same time: Schiller Institute Video, around 38:00 in an proceeding slowly, Jaafari explains how Syrian "opposition activists" founded - in Turkey - an Office of Documenting the use of chemical weapons in Syria. As he says, the OPCW quickly gave consultative status to this office, endorsing it and inviting information they might channel. Jaafari says this perplexed Syrian officials at the time, because they didn't expect any chemical attacks to occur. He says this was in October or maybe September 2012 - notably five months before any chemical attacks (but he starts counting later than I - at March, 2013 (and with contested details) vs. November, 2012, in 2 claimed attacks near Douma, each one killing a "displaced" child from Douma...

Props to William Vanwagenen tweet https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113173170540838912

Who adds further tweets with an article about them in Arabic"I found an article talking about the group mentioned by Jaafari. Est in October 2012 with headquarters in Brussels. Allegedly made up of Syrian army deserters." https://www.raialyoum.com/index.php/مكتب-لتوثيق-الكيماوي-السوري-غاز-الكلو/ https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113401133924380672

In Arabic the name of the group is: مكتب توثيق الملف الكيمياوي في سوريا The words auto-translate as: office - documentation - file - chemical - Syria. I think they put it, or should have, The Office for Documenting the Chemical File in Syria (ODCFS)

https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113402009930031105 --Caustic Logic (talk) 13:16, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

From the Raialyoum article "Syrian chemical documentation office: "chlorine" poison does not fall into the weapons handed over by the regime" April 18, 2014
 * In a phone interview with (Anadolu agency, Turkey?) Nidal Shaikhani, the external relations officer of the Office of Documentation of the Chemical File in Syria, which includes defectors who describe themselves as "independent"... [described chlorine as possibly deadly and easy for the regime to use in its aircraft, etc.] … The [ODCFS] was established in October 2012 to document violations of the regime and its use of chemical weapons in the Syrian regions and to collect evidence and testimonies thereon.
 * So note the same group founded then operated under the same name until at least April, 2014, as the first chlorine reports were making news. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Further bits from VanWagenen: https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113734301416398849 I see CVDCS is in fact the same group established in 2012, in English the Office of Documenting the Chemical File in Syria (ODCFS). Nidal Shikhani was spokesperson of ODCFS, and Aron Lund interviews him in 2017, says he is now manager of CVDCS, still in Brussels.

https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113735072514019328 Shikhani put Lund in touch w a man claiming to be a nurse who witnessed 2017 Khan Sheikun attack.

Cited in both tweets: No Justice for Khan Sheikhoun The Century Foundation, November 6, 2017 — Aron Lund https://tcf.org/content/report/no-justice-khan-sheikhoun/?session=1&agreed=1 “If these weapons are used and the perpetrator of these crimes isn’t held to account, it will develop and grow worse,” the anti-chemical weapons activist Nidal Shikhani told me, arguing that the credibility of international nonproliferation efforts is now at stake. Footnotes describe "Nidal Shikhani, manager of the Brussels-based activist group Same Justice/Chemical Violations Documentation Center in Syria" --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:49, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

US Concerns over CW Stocks
William VanWagenen: [ODCFS launch] might be related to US training rebels to handle ("secure") chemical weapons of the Gov in Dec 2012 as well. https://twitter.com/WVanwagenen/status/1113406106787753984

Cited: https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/articles/2012/12/07/exclusive-us-trains-rebel-brigades-to-secure-chemical-weapons 7 December, 2012
 * The US and its allies have hired contractors to train some Syrian rebel brigades in chemical weapons security, Syria Deeply has exclusively learned from four diplomats, including one US official. … The diplomatic sources say defense contractors hired by the US and its European allies have recently conducted training exercises with Syrian rebel forces in Turkey and Jordan. The programs were intended to prepare brigades to handle chemical weapons sites and materials they might encounter, as Assad troops lose control of over parts of the country. … Over the past week, concerns have spiked over Syria’s chemical weapons, as US officials say Syria is preparing chemical weapons for possible use. 

December 3 was Obama's second noted public statement of the "red line" threat/offer. December 6, as I instantly noted at the time, was the first news-making report of a serious chemical attack, in Daraya, involving people reported choking, some fake purple smoke and, I later learned, a baby may have been killed for this, but was never phoned in (the claim didn't go far, seemed too murky). December 22 was the first CW attack said to kill SAA soldiers - reportedly seven of them, pretty instantly, from some yellow smoke - also in Daraya. By December 23 a distraction was underway in Homs, the first killing seven men and making serious news, with world leaders pondering the question seriously, then shelving it again, as some kind of tear gas mishap. No serious efforts to get the line crossed until March of the net year. --Caustic Logic (talk) 10:57, 7 April 2019 (UTC)