Obama warns Syria about arms
Use of chemical weapons in country’s civil war will be a “game changer,” U.S. president says
WASHINGTON— U.S. President Barack Obama warned Syria on Friday that its use of chemical weapons would be a “game changer,” but made clear he was in no rush to intervene in the Syrian civil war on the basis of evidence he said was still preliminary.
Speaking a day after the disclosure of U.S. intelligence that Syria had likely used chemical weapons against its own people, Obama mixed tough talk while calling for patience as he sought to fend off pressure for a swift response against Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and interna- tional law,” Obama told reporters at the White House as he began talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah.
“That is going to be a game changer,” he said. But Obama stopped short of declaring that Assad had crossed “a red line,” and described the U.S. intelligence evaluations as “a preliminary assessment.”
While some more hawkish lawmakers have called for a U.S. military response and for the arming of anti-Assad rebels, several leading congressional voices urged a calmer approach after Secretary of State John Kerry briefed them.
“This is not Libya,” said Nancy Pelosi, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, referring to the relative ease with which a NATO bombing campaign helped overthrow Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. “The Syrians have anti-aircraft capability that makes going in there much more challenging.”
U.S. officials said on Thursday the intelligence community believes with varying degrees of confidence that Assad’s forces used the nerve agent sarin on a small scale against rebel fighters. Obama had warned earlier that deployment of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would trigger unspecified consequences, widely interpreted to include possible U.S. military action. Aides have insisted that the Democratic president will need all the facts before he decides on action, making clear he is mindful of the lessons of the start of the Iraq War more than a decade ago. Then, the Republican administra- tion of president George W. Bush used inaccurate intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq in pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that did not exist.
U.S. officials said the evaluation that Syria probably used chemical weapons was based in part on “physiological” samples, but have refused to say exactly where they came from or who supplied the material. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the evidence so far of Syrian chemical weapons use was not an “airtight case” and declined to set a deadline for corroborating reports.
Obama and his aides also appeared intent on deflecting pressure for swift action by stressing the need for a comprehensive U.N. investigation on the ground in Syria — something Assad has blocked from going forward.
The United States has resisted being dragged militarily into Syria’s conflict and is providing only nonlethal aid to rebels trying to overthrow Assad.