Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S. set to act swiftly on Syria, Trump says
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump vowed Monday that the United States would take swift action in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on civilians in Syria, amid hurried diplomacy that signaled allied military strikes may be imminent.
As he began an evening meeting with military leaders at the White House, Trump promised to “make a decision tonight or very shortly thereafter.”
He said, “We have a lot of options militarily, and we’ll be letting you know pretty soon. Probably after the fact.”
“It will be met and it will be met forcefully,” he said of the suspected chemical attack. “When I will not say because I don’t like talking about timing.”
The Trump administration, backed by France and Britain, began making a circumstantial case that Syria and its Russian and Iranian partners bear direct responsibility for the weekend deaths of more than 40 people in the opposition-held town of Douma, outside the Syrian capital, Damascus.
“It was an atrocious attack. It was horrible,” Trump said at the start of a Cabinet meeting Monday that was one of
several White House gatherings where possible military action was discussed.
Options include the sort of airstrikes Trump ordered a year ago in response to a similar chemical attack blamed on Syrian President Bashar Assad or a wider and riskier assault.
“We are studying that situation extremely closely. We are meeting with our military and everybody else, and we’ll be making some major decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours,” Trump said.
“We are very concerned when a thing like that can happen,” Trump said in a somber tone. “This is about humanity. We’re talking about humanity. And it can’t be allowed to happen.”
Trump said “nothing is off the table” in responding to the attack.
Asked by a reporter if he had any doubt who was behind the attack, Trump said: “To me there’s not much a doubt, but the generals will figure it out.”
Asked if President Vladimir Putin of Russia, with whom Trump has sought to forge a friendship, bears responsibility, the president said: “He may and if he does it’s going to be very tough, very tough. Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will, everybody will.”
The White House was feeling pressure from France to act, lest President Emmanuel Macron do so first, according to a Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe sensitive international interactions. Macron, who spoke Sunday with Trump by telephone, has repeatedly declared that the use of chemical weapons by Syria’s government would be a red line and pledged to strike weapons sites connected to such attacks.
The White House had earlier suggested that the United States and France could act together, saying that during the phone call, Trump and Macron had agreed to “coordinate a strong, joint response.”
France was not the only European ally to express anger over the attack. “If confirmed, this is yet another example of the Assad regime’s brutality and brazen disregard for its own people and for its legal obligations not to use these weapons,” Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain said during a visit to Denmark. “If they are found to be responsible, the regime and its backers — including Russia — must be held to account.”
Any military action by the United States, France, Britain or others would be predicated on claims that Syria deliberately targeted civilians, which Syria denies.
“We’ll be looking at that barbaric act and studying what’s going on. We’re trying to get people in there,” Trump said, referring to the site of the attack. “As you know, it’s been surrounded. So it’s very hard to get people in because not only has it been hit, it’s been surrounded. And if they’re innocent, why aren’t they allowing people to go in and prove?”
Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan spoke by phone Monday with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Sullivan and Johnson agreed that based on reports in the media and from the ground, “this attack bore hallmarks of previous chemical weapons attacks by the Assad regime,” the British foreign office said.
Speaking Monday before meeting with the emir of Qatar, Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would not rule out any kind of response to the reported latest incident in Syria.
“The first thing we have to look at is why are chemical weapons still being used at all when Russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons,” he said. “Working with our allies and our partners from NATO to Qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue.”
There have been 10 chemical attacks reported in Syria this year, including the Douma incident, according to the Syrian American Medical Society.
Two Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyers are in the Mediterranean Sea and would be able to get within striking range within hours to days. When Trump ordered the retaliatory strike against Syria for a chemical weapons attack at almost the exact same time last year, it was carried out by two destroyers firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Al Shayrat airfield, the suspected source of that chemical attack.
RUSSIA: IMAGES ‘STAGED’
At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and her French and British counterparts challenged the U.N. Security Council to resume an independent investigation of Syrian chemical weapons use.
“History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria,” she said. “Either way, the United States will respond.”
The United States urged the Security Council to adopt a resolution that would condemn the continuing use of chemical weapons in Syria “in the strongest terms” and establish a new body to determine responsibility for chemical attacks. The draft resolution, obtained by The Associated Press, was circulated ahead of an emergency Security Council meeting.
The Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the chemical attack, and the council president said experts were working on a resolution on the continuing use of chemical weapons in Syria, but sharp differences remain between Russia and the U.S. and its allies.
The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in his most dire warning since taking the job four years ago, warned the Security Council that recent grave events have drawn national, regional and international actors “into dangerous situations of potential or actual confrontation.”
Vasily Nebenzia, Russia’s U.N. representative, told the Security Council that images of the dead in Douma were staged and “fake news.” He accused Washington of employing slander, hawkish rhetoric and blackmail beyond what was practiced during the Cold War.
“Do you understand the dangerous threshold to which you are bringing the world?” he asked.
Both the Russian and Syrian envoys promised to cooperate with investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons if they go to Syria to take samples and talk to victims.
The organization said it has opened an investigation. In a statement, it said a fact-finding mission was gathering information from all available sources to establish whether chemical weapons were used.
Nebenzia told the Security Council that experts from Russia’s military radiological, biological and chemical unit went to the site and found no chemical substances on the ground, no dead, and no poisoned people in hospitals.
Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian ambassador, predicted they would find no evidence that chemical weapons were used.
“Syria does not possess chemical weapons of any kind,” he said. “We condemn their use, at any time and under any circumstances.”
ISRAEL BLAMED
The White House deliberations came as Russia and the Syrian military blamed Israel for a pre-dawn missile attack on a major air base in central Syria, saying Israeli fighter jets launched missiles from Lebanon’s airspace. A group that monitors Syria’s civil war said the airstrikes killed 14 people, including Iranians active in Syria.
The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency initially said that attack on the T4 air base was likely “an American aggression,” but Pentagon spokesman Christopher Sherwood quickly denied the United States was behind the strike, and the agency then dropped the accusation, blaming Israel instead.
It was the second such airstrike this year on the Syrian air base, known as T4. Israel hit the base in February, after it said an Iranian drone that violated Israeli airspace took off from it.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said two Israeli aircraft targeted the base Monday, firing eight missiles. It said Syria shot down five of them while the other three landed in the western part of the base. Syrian state TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying that Israeli F-15 warplanes fired several missiles at T4.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry had no comment when asked about reports of the airstrikes. The Jewish State typically does not comment on its airstrikes in Syria, which have been numerous in Syria’s civil war.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war through a network of activists on the ground, said 14 died, including Iranians and three Syrian officers.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that Israel had not notified Russia of the airstrike, even though there may have been Russian military advisers at the base, which he described as “a cause for concern for us.”
Information for this article was contributed by Anne Gearan, Carol Morello, John Wagner and Missy Ryan of The Washington Post; by Robert Burns, Zeke Miller, Matthew Lee, Ken Thomas, Catherine Lucey, Josh Lederman, Edith M. Lederer, Jonathan Lemire, Zeina Karam, Bassem Mroue, Nataliya Vasilyeva, Tia Goldenberg, Josef Federman and Albert Aji of The Associated Press; and by Peter Baker of The New York Times.