Trump vows ‘big price’ for Syrian attack

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Sunday promised a “big price” to be paid for what he said was a chemical weapons attack that choked dozens of Syrians to death the day before, and a top White House official said the administration would not rule out a missile strike to retaliate against the government of President Bashar Assad.

In a tweet, Trump laid the blame for the attack partly on President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the first time since his election he has criticized the Russian leader by name on Twitter. Putin’s forces have been fighting for years to keep the Assad government in power amid Syria’s brutal civil war.

Trump also left no doubt he believed the assessment of aid groups that Assad’s military had

used chemical weapons to inflict the carnage Saturday in Douma, a rebel-held suburb of Damascus. The attack left at least 42 people dead in their homes from apparent suffocation and sent many others to clinics with burning eyes and breathing problems.

“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria,” Trump wrote. “Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!”

Thomas Bossert, Trump’s Homeland Security adviser, said he and the rest of the president’s national security team had been in talks with Trump late Saturday and early Sunday about how to respond. Asked specifically about the possibility of a missile strike, Bossert did not rule it out.

“I wouldn’t take anything off the table,” Bossert said on ABC’s “This Week.” “These are horrible photos; we’re looking into the attack at this point.”

That raised the prospect of a strike along the lines of one the president ordered almost exactly a year ago after a sarin gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun that killed more than 80 civilians. In that strike, the U.S. military dropped 59 Tomahawk missiles on the Al Shayrat airfield.

Trump may be considering such a strike even as he has expressed his desire in recent days to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, where they are seeking to eliminate the last vestiges of the Islamic State. White House officials said Trump would have a meeting and dinner tonight at the White House with senior military leaders.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Trump should make good on what the president appeared to be threatening on Twitter.

If the president “doesn’t follow through and live up to that tweet, he’s going to look weak in the eyes of Russia and Iran,” Graham said on “This Week.” “This is a defining moment.”

“You need to follow through with that tweet,” he added. “Show a resolve that Obama never did to get this right.”

In his tweets, Trump also criticized former President Barack Obama for failing to take military action against Assad’s government when it used chemical weapons in 2013. Obama had threatened that any use of unconventional weapons would cross a “red line” for the United States.

At the time, though, Trump had argued fiercely against U.S. intervention in Syria. In more than a dozen messages on Twitter in 2013 and 2014, he argued the nation’s civil war was “not our problem” and that U.S. troops should “stay out.”

In a statement Saturday night, the State Department called the situation in Douma an “alleged chemical weapons attack” and said the reports about it were “horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community.”

The statement took Moscow to task, saying it had breached international obligations and calling into question its commitment to weapons nonproliferation.

“The Assad regime and its backers must be held accountable and any further attacks prevented immediately,” it said. “Russia, with its unwavering support for the regime, ultimately bears responsibility for these brutal attacks, targeting of countless civilians and the suffocation of Syria’s most vulnerable communities with chemical weapons.”

But while members of his administration have often been harshly critical of Putin, Trump has in general spoken warmly of his Russian counterpart.

U.S. officials said the process was underway to confirm whether the Syrian government had used chemical weapons and, if so, what kind.