The details are critical because the original study was utilized by the Obama administration in its accusation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had committed atrocities against civilians.
On Sept. 17, the Times utilized data released by the United Nations to conduct its own analysis pinpointing the origin of a reported chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21. The attack killed hundreds, including children.
The UN report stated its investigation of munitions showed at least two kinds of rockets had been used, an M14 artillery rocket and an unidentified 330-millimeter rocket.
The Times used the UN data and the known distance the rockets can travel – some up to 20 kilometers – to conclude that the origin “pointed directly” to a Syrian military complex.
Reported the Times: “When plotted and marked independently on maps by analysts from Human Rights Watch and by The New York Times, the United Nations data from two widely scattered impact sites pointed directly to a Syrian military complex.”
On Saturday, however, the Times reported on a new study that showed the rockets used had a range of only about three kilometers – far less than the distance assumed by the newspaper’s original analysis putting the Syrian military complex “directly” within range.
The new study was conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore A. Postol and Richard M. Lloyd, an analyst at Tesla Laboratories, a military contractor.
The Times admitted in the new article about the study that its own trajectory analysis from September based on the original UN data could have been wrong. The Times reported the new, smaller range “would be less than the ranges of more than nine kilometers calculated separately by The New York Times and Human Rights Watch in mid-September, after the United States had dropped its push for a military strike.”