Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
US ready for Syria strike but Britain retreats
White House releases chemical weapons report
PARIS/ WASHINGTON: The United States made it clear last night that it would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the “brutal and flagrant” chemical weapons attack that it says killed more than 1 400 people in Damascus last week.
“We can not accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale,” President Barack Obama told reporters at the White House.
He said the United States was still in the planning process for a “limited, narrow” military response that would not involve “boots on the ground” or be open-ended.
Earlier, Secretary of State John Kerry said it was essential not to let Syria get away with the attack, partly as a sign to those who might consider using chemical weapons in the future. He said the US was joined by allies including France, “our oldest ally,” in its determination to act.
“History would judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turned a blind eye to a dictator’s wanton use of weapons of mass destruction,” Kerry said in a televised statement delivered at the State Department.
“If a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad can gas thousands of his own people with impunity,” it would set a bad example for others, such as Iran, Hezbollah and North Korea, Kerry said.
“Will they remember that the Assad regime was stopped from those weapons’ current or future use? Or will they remem- ber that the world stood aside and created impunity?” Kerry said.
Kerry laid out a raft of evidence he said showed Assad’s forces were behind the attack, and the US government released an unclassified intelligence report at the same time including many of the details.
The report said the August 21 attack killed 1 429 Syrian civilians, including 426 children.
The intelligence gathered for the US report included an intercepted communication by a senior official intimately familiar with the attack as well as other intelligence from people’s accounts and intercepted messages, the four-page report said.
France said yesterday it still backed military action to punish Assad’s government for the attack despite a British parliamentary vote against a military strike.
An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, a close Assad ally, seized on Thursday’s British “no” vote which set back US-led efforts to intervene against Assad, saying it reflected wider European worries about the dangers of a military response.
Assad’s government has repeatedly denied carrying out the chemical weapons attack, blaming rebels who it suggested were trying to provoke US intervention.
Syrian state television, which did not carry Kerry’s speech live, reported that Kerry said the “first and last” aim of any action the Obama administration will carry out in the Middle East was to “guarantee the security of Israel”.
Any military strike looks unlikely at least until UN weapons inspectors leave Syria today.
Kerry said their report would only confirm that chemical weapons were used, and he made clear that would not change much for Washington since “guaranteed Russian obstructionism” would make it impossible for the UN to galvanise world action.
“The primary question is really no longer, what do we know? The question is, what are we – we collectively – what are we in the world going to do about it?” Kerry said.
He said the president had been clear that any action would be “limited and tailored” to punishing Assad, that it would not be intended to affect the civil war there and that Washington remained committed to a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
The timing of any strikes may be complicated by Obama’s departure late on Tuesday for Sweden and a G20 summit in Russia. He was not expected to order the strikes while in Sweden or Russia.
Kerry made clear Washington would not be swayed from acting either by the opinions of other states: “President Obama will ensure that the United States of America makes our own decisions on our own timelines, based on our values and our interests.”
Kerry was speaking the day after British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to win parliamentary backing for military action in Syria.
Finance Minister George Osborne, one of Cameron’s closest allies, accepted that the vote had raised questions about Britain’s future relations with its allies.
“There will be a national soul-searching about our role in the world and whether Britain wants to play a big part in upholding the international system,” he said.
French President Francois Hollande told the daily Le Monde he still supported taking “firm” punitive action over an attack he said had caused “irreparable” harm to the Syrian people, adding that he would work closely with France’s allies.
Hollande is not constrained by the need for parliamentary approval of any move to intervene in Syria and could act, if he chose, before lawmakers debate the issue on Wednesday.
“All the options are on the table. France wants action that is in proportion and firm against the Damascus regime,” he said.
Britain has traditionally been the most reliable military ally of the US. However, the defeat of a government motion authorising a military response in principle underscored misgivings dating from how the country decided to join the USled invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Russia, Assad’s most powerful diplomatic ally, opposes any military intervention in Syria. – Reuters