WASHINGTON - The use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week is undeniable, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday, and President Barack Obama’s administration will hold the Syrian government accountable for what Kerry called a “moral obscenity” that has shocked the world’s conscience.
In some of the most strident language yet by the administration, Kerry accused the Syrian government of cynically seeking to cover up the use of the weapons, and he rejected its denial of responsibility for what he called a “cowardly crime.”
Kerry’s remarks, in a prepared statement he read at the State Department, reinforced the administration’s toughening stance on the Syria conflict, which is well into its third year, and he suggested that the White House is moving closer to a military response in consultation with America’s allies.
“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons, is a moral obscenity,” Kerry said.
“By any standard, it is inexcusable,” he said. “And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.”
Suggestions that reports of the attack have been fabricated are groundless, he said.
“Anyone who could claim that an attack of this staggering scale could be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass,” Kerry said. “What is before us today is real, and it is compelling.”
The Syrian government’s refusal to allow immediate access to the sites attacked last Wednesday is a telling indicator that it is trying to hide responsibility, Kerry said.
Even though a United Nations team was finally permitted by the Syrian government to investigate starting Monday, he said, the government’s authorization was “too late” to be credible.
“Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up,” he said.
Two administration officials said the U.S. is expected to make public a more formal determination of chemical-weapons use today, with an announcement of Obama’s response likely to follow quickly.
The international community appeared to be considering limited action that would punish President Bashar Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping measures aimed at ousting the Syrian leader or strengthening rebel forces.
“We continue to believe that there’s no military solution here that’s good for the Syrian people, and that the best path forward is a political solution,” State Department spokesman Marie Harf said. “This is about the violation of an international norm against the use of chemical weapons and how we should respond to that.”
It ’s unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. The president has spoken frequently about his preference for taking military action only with international backing, but it is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.
Administration lawyers are also examining possible legal justifications based on a violation of international prohibitions on chemical-weapons use, or on an appeal for assistance from a neighboring nation such as Turkey.
The most likely U.S. military action would be to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles off U.S. warships in the Mediterranean Sea. The Navy last week moved a fourth destroyer into the eastern Mediterranean.
Officials said it is likely the targets would be tied to the regime’s ability to launch chemical-weapons attacks. Possible targets would include weapons arsenals, command and control centers, radar and communications facilities, and other military headquarters. Less likely are strikes on chemical-weapons storage areas because of the risk of releasing toxic gases.
The precision strikes would probably come during the night and target key military sites, military experts and U.S. officials said Monday.
Tom Henriksen, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of America and Rogue States, said it seems likely the chemical agent being used against Syrians is sarin gas, a highly lethal nerve agent that the country has been manufacturing and stockpiling since the 1970s. Striking any of the country’s storage or manufacturing facilities, even under the best circumstances, would likely result in thousands of civilian casualties, Henriksen said.
When considering airstrikes against facilities that contain sarin, Henriksen said, officials’ immediate concern would be weather and wind patterns, because sarin is an airborne agent that must be dispensed in aerosol form or vapor droplets.
Military planners at the Pentagon would also consider soil conditions to determine the potential contamination of groundwater and foliage. In addition to immediate civilian casualties, many people who are mildly exposed will suffer severe illness. If they survive, they will likely fully recover and not suffer long-term health problems, Henriksen said.
Outside of human casualties, most of the environmental impact would be severe at the outset of a strike, contaminating water, crops and livestock. The size of the affected area would depend on the amount of sarin released in the strike, Henriksen said.
The president has ruled out putting American troops on the ground in Syria, and officials say they also are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.
The options under consideration are neither new nor open-ended, officials said. The use of “limited stand-off strikes” has long been among the options the Pentagon has provided Obama.
It’s unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the U.N. team is still in the country. The administration may also try to time any strike around Obama’s travel schedule - he’s due to hold meetings in Sweden and Russia next week - so that the commander in chief is not abroad when the U.S. launches military action.
Kerry spoke hours after the U.N. inspectors were finally allowed access to one of the attack sites. Although unidentified snipers disabled their convoy’s lead vehicle, the inspectors managed to visit two hospitals, interview witnesses and doctors, and collect patient samples for the first time since the attack last week that claimed hundreds of lives.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he had instructed his top disarmament official, Angela Kane, who was visiting Damascus, to register a “strong complaint to the Syrian government and authorities of opposition forces” to ensure the safety of the inspectors after the assault. There was no indication that any member of the inspection team had been hurt.
Ban’s spokesman, Farhan Haq, told reporters at a regular daily briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York that the assailants, who had not been identified, fired on the first vehicle in the convoy, which was “hit in its tires and its front window; ultimately it was not able to travel further.”
The Syrian government said its forces provided security for the team until it reached a position controlled by the rebels, where the government claimed the sniper attack occurred. The main Syrian opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Coalition, said members of a pro-government militia known as the Popular Committees fired at the U.N. team to prevent them from going in.
Anti-government activists posted videos online of U.N. inspectors in blue helmets arriving in the Moadamiyeh area, southwest of the capital, where they were shown entering a clinic and interviewing patients. They were expected to resume investigations today.
Moadamiyeh is a rebel-held suburb where anti-government activists reported the smaller of two suspected chemical attacks last Wednesday. Videos posted then showed patients in a rebel field hospital apparently having trouble breathing.
ASSAD TALKS TO RUSSIAN PAPER
The visit by the U.N. inspectors to the Damascus suburb came shortly after Assad denied that his forces had used poison gas against his own citizens, and as divisions between outside powers over how to handle the crisis showed no signs of easing.
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, published Monday, Assad said accusations that his forces had used chemical weapons are illogical and an “outrage against common sense.” He warned the United States that military intervention in Syria would bring “failure just like in all the previous wars they waged, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day.”
Assad’s choice of a Russian newspaper to air his views seemed to reflect Moscow’s strong support for the Syrian leader.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday that the countries calling for military action have assumed the role of “both investigators and the U.N. Security Council” in probing the incident.
Lavrov likened the situation in Syria to the period before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, saying “the use of force without a sanction of the U.N. Security Council is a crude violation of the international law.”
Late Monday, the U.S. State Department said it is postponing a meeting with Russian diplomats on Syria this week.
The meeting at The Hague, Netherlands, was about setting up an international conference to find a political resolution to the Syrian crisis. A senior State Department official said Monday that the meeting between Undersecretary Wendy Sherman and U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford with their Russian counterparts was postponed because of the ongoing U.S. review about purported use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Critics say Assad’s offer of access to the attack sites came too late for inspectors to make an accurate assessment of what happened. The British foreign secretary, William Hague, complained Monday that access was not “unimpeded” since it was limited to a “certain number of hours.”
British officials also said Monday that Prime Minister David Cameron would cut short a vacation in Cornwall, in southwest England, to return to London and lead a meeting of senior ministers Wednesday. His gesture seemed designed to heighten the mood of crisis as outside powers wrestle with Assad’s refusal to bow to the West.
Britain plans to decide today whether to recall Parliament and seek approval for action, according to a person familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said his country will join a “coalition” against Syria if the U.N. fails to act.
And Germany suggested for the first time it may support the use of force if a chemical-weapons attack is confirmed.
“The suspected large-scale use of poison gas breaks a taboo even in this Syrian conflict that has been so full of cruelty,” according to Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Israel’s president, meanwhile, is calling on the United Nations to appoint the Arab League to set up a temporary government in Syria to stop the bloodshed.
Shimon Peres’ comments Monday mark the highest-profile Israeli call for international intervention in neighboring Syria. Israel has been careful to stay on the sidelines of Syria’s civil war, which has killed more than 100,000.
French President Francois Hollande said time is running out for the Syrian regime and airstrikes are a possibility.
“Everything will come into play this week,” he told Le Parisien newspaper. “There are several options on the table, ranging from strengthening international sanctions to airstrikes to arming the rebels.”
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mikdad said that an international attack would trigger “chaos in the entire world.”
“If individual countries want to pursue aggressive and adventurous policies, the natural answer … would be that Syria, which has been fighting against terrorism for almost three years, will also defend itself against any international attack,” he added.
Assad said government troops would have risked killing their own forces if they had used chemical weapons.
“This contradicts elementary logic,” news reports quoted him as saying. It is “not us but our enemies who are using chemical weapons,” he said, referring to anti-government rebels as “the terrorists.”
Chuck Hagel, the U.S. defense secretary, said Monday during a trip to Indonesia that the United States is examining all options but would not act alone. “If there is any action taken, it will be in concert with the international community and within the framework of legal justification,” Hagel told reporters.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the U.S. should use “standoff weaponry” to destroy Syrian airfields, fuel and maintenance facilities.
“If the United States stands by and doesn’t take very serious action - not just launching some cruise missiles - then, again, our credibility in the world is diminished even more, if there’s any left,” Mc-Cain told reporters Monday in Seoul, South Korea.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Gordon, Alan Cowell, Rick Gladstone, Andrew Roth, Noah Sneider, Ben Hubbard and Jodi Rudoren of The New York Times; by Donna Abu-Nasr, Sangwon Yoon, Margaret Talev, Roger Runningen, Gopal Ratnam, Silla Brush,Alaa Shahine, Ladane Nasseri, Robert Hutton, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Mark Deen, Onur Ant and Calev Ben-David of Bloomberg News; by Julie Pace, Matthew Lee, Deb Riechmann, Kimberly Dozier, Lolita C. Baldor, Lara Jakes, Sylvia Hui, RaphaelSatter, Lee Keath, Zeina Karam, Albert Aji, Bassem Mroue, Nataliya Vasilyeva, John Heilprin, Robert Reid and Peter Spielmann of The Associated Press; by Patrick J. McDonnell and Raja Abdulrahim of the Los Angeles Times; by Karen DeYoung,Anne Gearan and Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post; and by Chad Day of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/27/2013