The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. ATTACKS SYRIAN BASE
59-missile strike is response to chemical weapons attack. U.S. notified Russian military before operation began.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday night that the United States had carried out a missile strike in Syria on Thursday night in response to the Syrian government’s chemical weapons attack this week that killed more than 80 civilians.
“Tonight, I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched,” Trump said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he was hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
A senior military official said 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles had hit Al Shayrat airfield in Syria, from which the planes that launched the chemical weapons attack had taken off. The missiles were aimed at Syrian fighter jets and other infrastructure but did not target anything that may have had chemical weapons.
The official said that no Russian planes were at the airfield and that the cruise missiles did not target any Russian facilities.
But CNN reported that Russians were at the base, quoting a U.S. defense official.
The Pentagon informed Russian military officials, through its established deconfliction channel, of the strike before the missiles were launched, the official said, and U.S. officials knew when they did so that Russian authorities may well have alerted the Assad regime.
“With a lot of Tomahawks flying, we didn’t want to hit any Russian planes,” he said.
The cruise missiles struck the airfield beginning around 8:30 p.m. Eastern time — early today in Syria — and the strikes continued for three to four minutes.
According to one military official, the Tomahawks were launched from two Navy warships.
The official said that the cruise missile strike was at the more limited end of the military options presented to Trump on Thursday by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The official said it was intended to send a message to Assad about the American intention to use military force if he continues to use chemical weapons.
It was the first time that the White House had ordered military action against forces loyal to Assad.
The speed with which the Trump administration responded — and remarks earlier in the day by U.S. officials who said that options were still being considered — appeared intended to maximize the element of surprise and sharply contrasted with the methodical scrutiny of the use of force by the Obama administration.
It was Trump’s first order to the military for the use of force — other operations in Syria, Yemen and Iraq had been carried out under authorization delegated to his commanders — and appeared intended to send a message to North Korea, Iran and other potential adversaries that the new commander in chief was prepared to act, and sometimes on short notice.
The airstrikes were carried out less than an hour after the president concluded a dinner with Xi at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump authorized the strike with no congressional approval for the use of force, an assertion of presidential authority that contrasts sharply with the protracted deliberations by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
Unlike Obama, who weighed — and ultimately rejected — the use of a similar strike after Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government used chemical weapons in 2013, Trump moved with remarkable speed, delivering the military strike barely 72 hours after the devastating chemical attack.
Two Republican senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, praised the strike in a statement and called for Trump to go further and to “take Assad’s air force — which is responsible not just for the latest chemical weapons attack, but countless atrocities against the Syrian people —completely out of the fight.”
But the show of force in Syria raises legal questions. It’s unclear what authority Trump is relying on to attack another government. When Obama intervened in Libya in 2011, he used a U.N. Security Council mandate and NATO’s overall leadership of the mission to argue that he had legal authority — arguments that many Republicans opposed.
The attack could also put hundreds of American troops now stationed in Syria in greater danger. They are advising local forces in advance of an assault on the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital.
The missile strike represented a turnaround for Trump, who had advocated greater counterterrorism cooperation with Russia, Assad’s most powerful military backer. Just last week, the Trump administration signaled the U.S. was no longer interested in trying to push Assad from power over his direction of a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and led to the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
But after the chemical weapons attack, Trump said it had crossed “many, many lines.”