According to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, President Obama’s declarations about what U.S. intelligence agencies knew about who was responsible for the use of sarin gas in Syria this summer were not based on rock solid evidence.

In fact, according to new reporting publish in the London Review of Books on Sunday, Hersh contends that Obama—like his predecessor George W. Bush did in the case of Iraq—Obama administration “cherry-picked intelligence” surrounding the chemical attack outside of Damascus in order “to justify a [military] strike against” against the regime of President Bashar al Assad.

Hersh reports:

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After extensive interviews with current and former military and intelligence officials, writes Hersch describes how there was “intense concern, and on occasion anger, over what was repeatedly seen as the deliberate manipulation of intelligence” by members of the Obama inner circle.

One of the damaging bits of evidence, according to Hersh, is the absence of the chemical attack in Syria from the White House intelligence briefings in the days surrounding the August incident: