Trump gives Putin rare rebuke
President: There will be ‘big price to pay’ for alleged gas attack on civilians in Syria
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump vowed Sunday there would be a “big price to pay” for an alleged poison gas attack that killed dozens of Syrian civilians and issued a rare public rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin for backing Syrian President Bashar Assad in the country’s vicious civil war.
Trump’s condemnation of the apparent chemical assault on the rebel-held Syrian town of Douma raised the prospect of U.S. military retaliation almost a year after he ordered a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base following a similar poison gas attack — a move that won Trump widespread praise.
Trump’s homeland security adviser, Thomas Bossert, said Sunday that he “wouldn’t take anything off the table” regarding a possible military response to the illicit use of chemical agents and what he called “horrible photos” of its victims, including young children.
Trump’s secretary of state and national security adviser both were forced out in recent weeks, so the issue is likely to be the top agenda item for John Bolton, a vocal supporter of using military power who is expected to take office Monday as national security
adviser.
Russia’s aggressive military intervention in Syria more than two years ago helped turned the course of the civil war in Assad’s favor, and together with Iran, Moscow has emerged as a central power in determining Syria’s — and the region’s — postwar order.
“Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world.”
In a highly unusual negative reference to the Russian leader by name, Trump added: “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!”
The White House later appeared to moderate Trump’s certainty about the Douma attack. After Trump spoke by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider alAbadi, a White House statement said they had discussed “possible chemical attacks near Damascus.”
In his own tweet, Vice President Mike Pence demanded a change in Assad’s “barbaric behavior” but noted that responsibility for what he called a “likely chemical attack” had not yet been confirmed.
In Douma, Syrian opposition activists and the Civil Defense White Helmets, a volunteer organization, described how entire families were found suffocated in their homes after the gas attack.
Activists and first responders released horrific images of the tiny slumped bodies of dead or dying children slumped bodies that were widely circulated on social media.
Assad’s government denied responsibility, as it has in the past, and Russia on Sunday called accounts of a poison gas attack “bogus.”
The prospect of U.S. military action comes days after Trump — to the dismay of some senior advisers and the surprise of Pentagon officials — indicated he was considering a quick pullout of several thousand U.S. troops from Syria, which is in the eighth year of a grinding multisided civil war.
The White House later said U.S. troops would stay to defeat the remaining pockets of the Islamic State group, but multiple reports said Trump made clear that he wants the Pentagon to withdraw forces by next fall and hand over long-term stabilization of the war-ravaged country to Arab allies.
After British authorities had accused Moscow of using a lethal nerve gas against a former Russian double agent and his daughter in southern England last month, for example, Trump spoke to Putin by phone and invited him to the White House.
No summit has been scheduled, but the White House said later that it has not been ruled out.
Then, on Friday, the administration finally announced sanctions mandated by Congress last year on members of Russia’s ruling elite for Russian cyberattacks and meddling in foreign elections, including the divisive 2016 presidential campaign.
The group included 17 Russian government officials, a state-owned weapons trading company and seven of the country’s richest businessmen.
Several of those put on the sanctions list had links to Trump’s campaign or to his associates who have come under scrutiny in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The group includes the wealthy son of a childhood friend of the Russian president and a billionaire who married his daughter.