Moving a step closer to possible American military action in Syria, a
senior Obama administration official said on Sunday that there was “very
little doubt” that President Bashar al-Assad’s military forces had used
chemical weapons against civilians last week and that a Syrian promise
to allow United Nations inspectors access to the site was “too late to
be credible.”
The official, in a carefully worded written statement, said that “based
on the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were
killed or injured, witness accounts and other facts gathered by open
sources, the U.S. intelligence community, and international partners,
there is very little doubt at this point that a chemical weapon was used
by the Syrian regime against civilians in this incident.”
The statement, released on Sunday morning on the condition that the
official not be named, reflected a marked shift in tone after President
Obama’s meeting at the White House on Saturday with his national
security team, during which advisers discussed options for military
action.
The president, who warned a year ago that the use of chemical weapons by
Syrian government forces would be a “red line,” has faced criticism
from Congressional Republicans and others for failing to respond more
forcefully to evidence of earlier, smaller-scale chemical attacks. Mr.
Obama, who inherited two costly wars — in Iraq and Afghanistan — has
been extremely reluctant to commit American military forces, even in the
form of missile strikes, to another tangled conflict in the Middle
East.
But on Sunday, the White House seemed to take a harder line, dismissing
the Syrian promise of possible access by United Nations inspectors. That
raised at least the possibility that a strike on Syrian targets would
come soon, perhaps using cruise missiles fired from ships off shore.
Early Sunday, the White House said Syrian officials had refused to let
the inspectors see the site of the attack. But Syrian television
subsequently reported that there was an agreement to allow access
beginning on Monday. The administration official who released the
statement said the offer, even if sincere, might be meaningless because
of the time that had already passed since the attack.
“The evidence available has been significantly corrupted as a result of
the regime’s persistent shelling and other intentional actions over the
last five days,” the official said.
The official, however, did not suggest that Mr. Obama had decided to
take action. “We are continuing to assess the facts so the president can
make an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate
use of chemical weapons,” the official said.
But by labeling as “indiscriminate” the attack on Wednesday in a
Damascus suburb, which reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, the
official suggested that the United States viewed the latest assault as
different from the smaller suspected chemical attacks that had not
provoked American military action.
The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons, and on Saturday
it said its soldiers had found chemical supplies in areas seized from
rebel forces. Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, accused the
rebels of using the weapons, but few analysts believe they have the
supplies or ability to do so.
In response to Washington’s comments, Moscow cautioned against a rush to
judgment. A spokesman for the foreign ministry, Aleksandr K.
Lukashevich, said that those who advocated an armed response to any
chemical weapons attack — without citing the United States or other
countries — were prejudging the results of the United Nations
inspections.
“In these conditions, we again resolutely call on all those who are
trying to impose the results of the U.N. investigations and who say that
armed actions against Syria is possible to show common sense and avoid
tragic mistakes,” Mr. Lukashevich said in a statement released on Sunday
evening on the ministry’s Web site.
Syria warned that any American military action would “create a ball of
fire that will inflame the Middle East,” according to The Associated
Press. And Iranian state news media quoted the Tehran government as
saying that any intervention by Washington would have severe
consequences.
Israel sharpened its message on Sunday, suggesting that the use of such
weapons in the region should not go without a response.
“This situation must not be allowed to continue,” Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu said, referring to the Syrian civilians “who were so
brutally attacked by weapons of mass destruction.”
“The most dangerous regimes in the world must not be allowed to possess
the most dangerous weapons in the world,” he said.
Some Israelis have argued that international intervention in Syria would
distract the world from the crucial effort to prevent a nuclear Iran.
But there is a growing sense among Israelis that Syria is now a test of
how the world might respond to Iran as it approaches the capability of
making a nuclear weapon.
“Assad’s regime has become a full Iranian client, and Syria has become
Iran’s testing ground,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “Now the whole world is
watching. Iran is watching, and it wants to see what would be the
reaction on the use of chemical weapons.”
In Washington, several lawmakers said on Sunday that they now expected
limited military action to punish Syria or deter chemical attacks.
But lawmakers who appeared on Sunday talks show said it would be
reckless to insert ground troops into a war in a region already in
turmoil, and there was a general call for any action to be taken under
the broadest possible international auspices.
“I hope the president, as soon as we get back to Washington, will ask
for authorization from Congress to do something in a very surgical and
proportional way,” Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican
on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But Representative Eliot Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the
House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the situation might be too urgent
to wait for Congress, which does not return from its summer recess until
Sept. 9. Mr. Engel suggested that there were many options for air
attacks launched from outside Syrian airspace.
Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a member of the Armed
Services Committee, said any military option should be carefully
circumscribed. “We can’t let ourselves get into a situation where this
becomes a springboard for general military operations in Syria to try to
change the dynamic” of the hostilities there, Mr. Reed said on CBS’s
“Face the Nation.” “This has to be an international operation. It can’t
be a unilateral American approach.”
On Saturday, Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group, said
that on the morning of the reported attack, medical centers it supported
near the site received about 3,600 patients showing symptoms consistent
with exposure to toxic nerve agents.
Of those, 355 died, the group said.
The
statement was the first issued by an international organization working in
Syria
about Wednesday’s attack. Anti-government activists have said that
hundreds of people were killed when government forces pelted the area
with rockets spewing poisoned gas.
Doctors Without Borders said it could not confirm what substances caused
the symptoms it reported on Saturday or who was responsible for the
attack, but its report appeared to lend credibility to other accounts by
witnesses and to the opposition’s estimates of the number of dead.
The aid group said the symptoms were reported by three medical
facilities it supported in the area of the reported attack. The group’s
statement said that during three hours on Wednesday morning, the clinics
received patients who had symptoms indicating exposure to a chemical
nerve agent, including breathing problems, dilated pupils, convulsions,
foaming at the mouth and blurred vision. Many of the medics in the
centers also experienced some symptoms, said Stephen Cornish, one of the
group’s executive directors. One of the medics died.
“When you put these elements together,” Mr. Cornish said, “what it suggests to us is a neurotoxic agent.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday that it had
confirmed the deaths of 322 people in the attack, including 54 children,
82 women, 16 people who could not be identified and dozens of rebel
fighters. The group, based in Britain, said its activists had visited
the area, spoken to residents and collected medical reports and videos
indicating that most of the people dead were killed by exposure to toxic
gas.
Pentagon officials said Saturday that Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would leave for Jordan this
weekend to attend a long-scheduled meeting of regional military chiefs
at which the situation in Syria was certain to be discussed. Pentagon
officials also said that the Navy had increased its presence in the
eastern Mediterranean Sea to four destroyers, each carrying long-range
Tomahawk cruise missiles similar to those launched in past American
attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The Navy historically has deployed two destroyers in the eastern
Mediterranean, but it had added one more over recent months. The Navy’s
commander in the region added a fourth, at least temporarily, by
delaying a scheduled return to port for one warship and accelerating the
arrival of its replacement.
Scott Shane reported from Washington and Ben Hubbard from Beirut,
Lebanon. Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem,
Steven Lee Myers from Moscow, and Michael R. Gordon, Brian Knowlton and
Thom Shanker from Washington.
edited by niema.
