Will MH17 be our 9/11? (14) The Dutch intelligence assessment

This article is a translation of "Wordt MH17 ons 9/11? (14) Het oordeel van de Nederlandse inlichtingendiensten"

As with many other instances of ‘deep politics’, the politics of the ‘deep state’, on the issue of MH17 I have been a doubter first, and never have I proposed a finished alternative account. There are too many ‘unknowns’. This also holds for the original 9/11, or the Charlie Hebdo murders I have commented on again recently.

There are however more and more examples in which the politically sensitive conclusions of the Dutch Safety Board’s Report and the Dutch government’s appreciative reception of the report, are contradicted by authoritative sources.

The moment the materials for a completely alternative view, based on official Western sources, are available, is clearly drawing closer. We must begin to assemble those who have the information and the integrity to compile this alternative report. Here I submit what the Dutch intelligence agencies have had to say on the issue.

The reason why an alternative assessment cannot be left lying is because the core of the US/NATO/Dutch position is to let the uncertainties linger, so that the media, led by the most irresponsible ones, can continue to keep ‘Putin’ in the dock. That already began when Secretary of State Kerry, in his initial accusation relied, amazingly, on social media, and not on the vast intelligence apparatus the US has deployed in space, in the ether, in the air, online, and on the ground. Let ‘Putin’ take the rap!

The reasons so far for not believing the Western stance that resonates in the DSB Report, are the following.

First, basing ourselves only on indisputable facts, because radar data remain under wraps. The Russians have only supplied the final, not the raw data; from Ukraine, none are available due to maintenance; from the US, they are available but remain secret.

Secondly, the DSB investigators have not asked for the records of Ukrainian air traffic control; but these have reportedly been impounded by Ukrainian security, the SBU, a criminal organisation.

Next, there are the German government responses to questions by Die Linke in parliament, which speak without reservations about a SA-3 missile and a second object. This was sent to but ignored by the DSB team.

To this we can add the official report of Dutch intelligence.

Now why would they speak out in a way that runs counter to the US/NATO/Dutch position? Because there was widespread criticism of the failure to warn of the danger, an aspect that the DSB Report extensively deals with. Well before that publication, the services, AIVD (domestic intelligence) and MIVD (defence intelligence), therefore made an effort to exculpate themselves.

And in so doing they also made some statements that effectively exculpate the Russians and the ‘separatists’ (I will follow this incorrect label for convenience sake) from bringing down MH17.

In the Review Report of the combined intelligence services the anti-aircraft capabilities of the potential culprits are compared.

The Russians of course have the most up-to-date and sophisticated systems. When on 14 July 2014, three days before the MH17 disaster, an Antonov 26 transport plane was shot down the Kiev authorities claimed this was by a Russian missile since the separatists did not have such systems. The Report however concludes from the details of the wreckage that the Antonov was not downed by a powerful system; it was hit in one engine and only then crashed on the ground, and prisoners were taken. Moreover a direct Russian hit would have been a ‘game-changer’, that is, a major international crisis would have ensued. This holds even more strongly for MH17.

Then the separatists. Since they according to Kiev did not have systems that could reach a target at 6,200 meters, the Antonov must have flown at a considerably lower altitude when it was shot down (near Lugansk). There is no information the Russians supplied a Buk-class system (SA-11) to the separatists (who did not even have medium-range anti-aircraft missiles). The separatists had been trained in the use of short-range and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS), but not in the use of heavier types. On 29 June separatists captured a base holding Buks but these were not operational and could not be used by them. In one public source it was claimed that advanced anti-aircraft systems had arrived at a collection point in Russia but even this source maintained they had not (yet) been delivered to the separatists.

Now all this—the missing radar and air traffic control data, the German government account, and the Dutch intelligence report, are known. But they count only for those who ignore the DSB Report and social media such as ‘Bellingcat’, a website of which so many media (in the Netherlands, the supposed newspaper of record, NRC Handelsblad, the NOS TV channel, etc.) keep relaying the often absurd assertions (the most recent one, about the identities of the crew of the Russian Buk unit). The same website also came up with the story of a single launcher (not the accompanying radar and command vehicles without which it cannot attack an aircraft because the missile is controlled by the radar; this is repeated in the Dutch intelligence review), which drove in from Russia and back again, but not after the crew with their Moscow accents! had chatted with locals, etc. etc.

One is reminded of Hitler’s claim that after endless Polish harassment, German troops on 3 September 1939 finally ‘returned fire’.

Because that is the sort of war propaganda we must compare this with.

Kees van der Pijl