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‘Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. ... No child of God should ever suffer this horror.’
The United States launched a wave of cruise missiles at a Syrian chemical site last night in retaliation for a sarin nerve gas attack that left more than 80 civilians dead, as President Trump followed through on his threat to act against dictator Bashar Assad’s regime.
More than 50 devastating $1.5 million Tomahawk cruise missiles, each capable of destroying reinforced structures and leaving massive craters, were launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross in the Mediterranean Sea, targeting a Syrian air base that is believed to hold chemical weapons.
Trump last night said the strike on Syria was in the “vital national security interest” of the U.S. “to deter the spread of deadly chemical weapons.”
“Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer this horror,” Trump said from his Mar-aLago winter White House.
“I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types,” he said. “Years of previous attempts at changing Assad have failed and failed terribly. Tonight I call on all civilized nations to seek an end to all bloodshed and to all perils of all kinds.”
Syrian state TV called the missile attack an “American aggression.” Just before the attack, Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy Vladmir Safronkov warned of “negative consequences.”
“We have to think about negative consequences ... and all the responsibility if military action occurred will be on shoulders of those who initiated such doubtful and tragic enterprise,” Safronkov said. When asked to explain the negative consequences, he said, “Look at Iraq. Look at Libya.”
The missiles hit the governmentcontrolled Shayrat air base in central Syria, where U.S. officials say the Syrian military planes that dropped the chemicals had taken off from. The U.S. missiles hit at 8:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time yesterday — early morning today in Syria. The missiles targeted the base’s airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said
The decision to use cruise missiles spared the U.S. from attacking Russian air defenses — as fighter bomber attacks would have required — thus reducing the risk of tensions with President Vladimir Putin or retaliation against the more than 1,000 U.S. troops fighting the Islamic State in Syria and 6,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
U.S. officials placed some of the blame on Russia, one of Syria’s most important benefactors. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Florida with Trump, said Moscow had failed in living up to a 2013 agreement that was intended to strip Syria of its chemical weapons stockpiles.
“Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of the agreement,” Tillerson said. In an ominous sign for Assad, his primary foreign sponsor, Russia, apparently embarrassed by news coverage of dozens of dead and dying men, women and children, said yesterday its support for the secondgeneration dictator is “not unconditional.” Military officials said Russia was warned of the missile strike to reduce the risk of Russian casualties. Tillerson and other top national security figures were hastily called to a meeting yesterday to discuss military options. At the Pentagon, meanwhile, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff gathered for a meeting in the office of the chairman, Gen. Joseph Dunford.
Consequences of inaction weighed heavily on Trump, who noted that former President Barack Obama failed to act on his own “red line” after a Syrian chemical attack in 2013, instead inviting Russian intervention in the war that has bolstered the Assad regime.
Yet Trump as a presidential candidate had warned against involvement in the Syrian civil war.
But on Wednesday, he said this week’s attack crossed “a lot of lines” — not just Obama’s “red line” of chemical weapons. Trump had a particularly emotional response to photos and video of dead children, and he said yesterday, “I think what happened in Syria is a disgrace to humanity.”
Asked if Assad should remain in power, he said, “He’s there and I guess he’s running things so something should happen.”
In seven years of civil war, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria, while millions have flooded into Turkey, Lebanon, Greece and deeper into Europe, triggering political crises there while providing a conduit for terrorists.
The strike came as Trump was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping for meetings focused in part on North Korea’s nuclear program. Trump’s actions in Syria could signal to China he isn’t afraid of unilateral military action.