[D66] Dutch report into Ukraine jetliner disaster continues cover-up

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http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/10/mh17-s10.html

Dutch report into Ukraine jetliner disaster continues cover-up
By Robert Stevens
10 September 2014

The Dutch Safety Board’s (DSB’s) preliminary report into the crash of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) is being portrayed by imperialist
governments and their media spokesmen as confirmation that anti-Kiev
rebels in eastern Ukraine shot the plane down with a Russian-supplied
Buk surface-to-air missile.

While claims of indirect Russian responsibility for the destruction of
MH17 are at the heart of the US-NATO propaganda over Ukraine, the report
says nothing of the sort. In fact, it does not even state that the
aircraft was shot down. MH17 crashed on July 17, in the war zone of
eastern Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew members lost their lives.

The DSB’s report states that, in accordance with the stated “sole
objective” of “the prevention of similar accidents and incidents,” it
does not “apportion blame or liability in respect of any
party”—something that the capitalist media downplays or ignores.

The only basis on which the media can again repeat their assertions that
pro-Russian separatists were responsible is the report’s statement that
“The damage observed in the forward section of the aircraft appears to
indicate that the aircraft was penetrated by a large number of
high-energy objects from outside the aircraft” (emphasis added).

But the report never once identifies what it means by “high-energy
objects.” It also claims that, even though enough of the wreckage was
recovered to confirm that the aircraft appears to have been particularly
badly hit above the level of the cockpit floor, DSB investigators
supposedly failed to recover or study any of the objects that penetrated
the plane.

The report as issued is equally compatible with radar and satellite data
presented July 21 by the Russian military, indicating that a Ukrainian
SU-25 fighter jet was in the immediate vicinity and ascending towards
MH17 as it was shot down. Missiles and machinegun rounds fired by an
SU-25 are also “high-energy objects.” This possibility has not been
addressed, let alone refuted by Kiev, Washington or anyone else involved
in the investigation.

On August 9, the Malaysian New Straits Times published an article
effectively charging the Kiev regime with shooting down MH17. It stated
that evidence from the crash site indicated that the plane was shot down
by a Ukrainian fighter with a missile followed by heavy machine gun
fire. The report was subsequently ignored by the world’s media.

In the days immediately following the tragic incident, the accusations
now repeated ad nauseam were used to ramp up a confrontation with
Russia, including punitive sanctions and NATO military manoeuvres.

Since then, at least up until yesterday, an extraordinary silence
descended over the affair. Now, once again, without any evidence, the
world’s population faces a new barrage of propaganda from Washington and
Kiev and their accomplices.

Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, for example, said, “The findings
are consistent with the government’s statement that MH17 was shot down
by a large surface-to-air missile.”

Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said the report “leads to the
strong suspicion that a surface-to-air missile brought MH17 down, but
further investigative work is needed before we can be certain.”

The BBC’s transport correspondent Richard Westcott stated that, whereas,
“This report doesn’t say flight MH17 was knocked from the sky by a
missile,” it “pretty much rules out anything else.”

In fact, not one word of anything reported regarding the fate of flight
MH17 can be taken at face value. All of those involved in the
investigation and its coverage have a vested interest in asserting
Russia’s responsibility, at least indirectly, for the plane being shot down.

The 34-page DSB report is based upon an investigation in accordance with
the statutes of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), an
agency of the United Nations. Ukraine requested the Netherlands
undertake the investigation on July 23, 2014, a week after the crash.

According to ICAO guidance, “a preliminary report shall be submitted to
appropriate States and to ICAO within 30 days after the occurrence.”
But, because it was a “complex investigation,” the DSB states that “the
date of publication of the preliminary report was extended by
approximately three weeks.”

A full report will not be made until sometime within a year of the
investigation being launched.

The preliminary findings were based on an analysis of photographs
collected by various sources, radar footage obtained from Ukraine and
Russia and initial reports from Ukrainian and Malaysian crash
investigators. Due to the area of the site remaining a war zone, the DSB
said access to the site of the wreckage by international air safety
experts had not yet been possible and it was their intention to visit
the site when it was safe to do so.

The DSB does not address the absence of any satellite imagery or radar
data, or any other evidence supplied by US intelligence agencies, which
operate the most powerful global surveillance network. It is
implausible, to say the least, to imagine that Washington’s vast
apparatus was paying no attention to the war zone of eastern Ukraine,
which is also a regular flight path for many commercial airline flights.

Moreover, the US was heading a 10-day NATO exercise in the adjacent
Black Sea, which concluded the day MH17 was downed. This operation
specifically involved commercial traffic monitoring with sophisticated
electronic intelligence and “reaction to asymmetric threat warnings,
anti-submarine warfare and artillery firing.”

In sharp contrast, following the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, photographs of the area taken by a French
satellite were delivered to the investigators within hours. The US
Department of Defence and NASA also provided the investigation with
high-resolution photographs from spy satellites.

Despite Russia continually requesting that the US administration supply
the investigation with the images and data it obviously possesses
relating to the MH17 crash, it has refused to do so.

Noting that it was not credible that the US did not possess detailed
knowledge of the circumstances of the crash, the WSWS wrote on August
18, “If the evidence that is in Washington’s hands incriminated only
Russia and the Russian-backed forces, it would have been released to
feed the media frenzy against Putin. If it has not been released, this
is because the evidence points to the involvement of the Ukrainian
regime in Kiev and its backers in Washington and the European capitals.”

A separate criminal investigation into the crash is being carried out by
the Dutch prosecution service at The Hague, involving 10 Dutch
prosecutors and 200 police officers. In this case, the criminal
investigators have given no time scale as to when their investigation
will be completed.

Critical information regarding the fate of MH17 is likely being
withheld. A leaked document dated August 8 and obtained by the Russian
website Live Journal and translated into English by the Global Research
web site is reportedly a non-disclosure agreement signed by the four
nations involved in the MH17 investigation—Ukraine, the Netherlands,
Australia and Belgium. Under its terms, all intermediate results of the
ongoing investigation will be classified. The document includes a
stipulation that publication of the investigation’s final results would
only take place if Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium
arrived at a consensus.

The International Business Times (IBT) noted, “The nations involved
signed the agreement, the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] of Ukraine then
ratified the agreement, after which Malaysian authorities were allowed
to join the investigation.”

The IBT report cited Russian prosecutor-general Yuri Boychenko saying,
“Any one of the signatories has the right to veto the publication of the
results of the investigation without explanation.”