U.S. fleshes out case on Syria

Obama says limited strike is on table

President Barack Obama pauses after answering questions from members of the media during his meeting with Baltic leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 30, 2013. Speaking about Syria, the president said he hasn't made a final decision about a military strike against Syria. But he says he's considering a limited and narrow action in response to a chemical weapons attack that he says Syria's government carried out last week. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
President Barack Obama pauses after answering questions from members of the media during his meeting with Baltic leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 30, 2013. Speaking about Syria, the president said he hasn't made a final decision about a military strike against Syria. But he says he's considering a limited and narrow action in response to a chemical weapons attack that he says Syria's government carried out last week. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The Obama administration Friday presented a case for a strike on Syria, with President Barack Obama saying he is considering a “limited” attack and Secretary of State John Kerry saying the evidence is “clear” and “compelling” that the government of President Bashar Assad had used poison gas against its citizens.

Obama and Kerry spoke as the administration released an unclassified intelligence report on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

“Read for yourselves the evidence from thousands of sources,” Kerry said in laying out the administration’s case for strikes on Syria. “This is the indiscriminate, inconceivable horror of chemical weapons. This is what Assad did to his own people.”

Kerry said 1,429 people were killed in the chemical attack, including more than400 children. In addition to the dead, the report said about 3,600 patients “displaying symptoms consistent with nerve agent exposure” were seen at Damascus-area hospitals after the attack.

The assessment did not explain its large casualty count, far in excess of an estimate from international aid group Doctors Without Borders, which has reported 355 were killed.

The White House released a four-page intelligence summary that said the government has concluded that the Assad government had “carried out a chemical weapons attack” outside Damascus, on the basis of human sources as well as communications intercepts. The suggestion that the opposition might have been responsible “is highly unlikely,” the assessment said.

The president said he is continuing to consult with Congress and allies in other countries and that any attack would not involve U.S. troops on the ground in Syria.

“We’re not considering any open-ended commitment. We’re not considering any boots-on-the-ground approach,” Obama said before meeting with Baltic leaders in the White House. He has “not made any decisions” about what actions the United States will take in Syria.

Pentagon officials have moved warships and other military assets closer to Syria in preparation for a possible attack, which officials have said would most likely involve the use of cruise missiles.

The Syrian government on Friday said the U.S. claims are “flagrant lies” akin to the faulty assertions before the Iraq invasion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. A Foreign Ministry statement read on state TV said that “under the pretext of protecting the Syrian people, they are making a case for an aggression that will kill hundreds of innocent Syrian civilians.”

The administration has “high confidence” in the intelligence, Kerry said, vowing that the government had carefully reviewed the evidence to avoid the kind of intelligence failures that preceded the Iraq war.

“We will not repeat that moment,” he said.

As the U.S. presented its case for action, United Nations chemical-weapons inspectors in Syria were still conducting research to ascertain whether chemical munitions were in fact used in the attack in Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

A spokesman for Ban Kimoon, the U.N. secretary-general, said he had given the five permanent members of the Security Council “an overview” of the inspector mission’s work Friday and that the inspectors intended to leave Syria today with their samples and other information.

The spokesman, Martin Nesirky, also said Ban would confer today with Angela Kane, his top disarmament official, who was returning from Syria. He declined to say what the inspectors had concluded or when they might complete their report.

“We’re not giving a timeline on that except to say they are doing this as swiftly as possible,” he said.

The time for questions about what happened in Syria has passed, Kerry said.

“The question is whether we - we collectively - what are we and the world going to do about it?” Kerry said. Taking action in the face of the use of chemical weapons “matters deeply to the credibility and the future interests of the United States,” he said.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain had asserted a similar position, and the British had been expected to join the Americans in a possible military strike. But in a surprise vote Thursday, British lawmakers rejected Cameron’s plan, opposing what they called an ill-advised rush to military action that recalled Britain’s alliance with America in the Iraq War.

On Friday, NATO’s chief said for the first time that the alliance isn’t considering military action in Syria.

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier in the week that the use of chemical weapons “is unacceptable and cannot go unanswered. Those responsible must be held accountable.” But on Friday he said NATO has no plans to intervene in Syria, which would require the approval of all 28 of its members.

Germany also voiced opposition to launching a military strike at this time.

“We are pressing for the United Nations Security Council to reach a common position and for the U.N. inspectors to conclude their work as soon as possible,” said German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. Referring to German participation in a military strike, he said: “Such participation was not requested of us, and neither are we contemplating it.”

Obama acknowledged Friday that many people are “war weary” and wary about military action in the aftermath of the Iraq war. “A lot of people think something should be done,” he said, “but nobody wants to do it.”

But the United States will be sending a message to the world if it does nothing, he said.

“It’s important for us to recognize that when over a thousand people are killed, including hundreds of innocent children, through the use of a weapon that 98 or 99 percent of humanity says should not be used even in war, and there is no action, then we’re sending a signal,” he said.

PREPARATION DETECTED

In the three days before the Aug. 21 attack, U.S. intelligence agencies detected signs of activities by the Syrian authorities “associated with preparations for a chemical weapons attack,” the assessment said.

Syrian chemical-weapons personnel were operating in the suburb of Adra from Aug. 18 until early on the morning of Aug. 21. On that date, it said, a “Syrian regime element prepared for a chemical weapons attack,” including the use of gas masks.

Spy satellites detected rocket launchings from government-controlled territory 90 minutes before the first reports of a chemical-weapons attack. The intelligence agencies said they had identified more than 100 videos related to the attack, many showing large numbers of bodies with physical signs consistent with nerve agents, and they added that the Syrian opposition “does not have the capability to fabricate all of the videos.”

The agencies also said they had intercepted the communications of a senior Syrian official who “confirmed that chemical weapons were used by the regime on Aug. 21 and was concerned with the U.N. inspectors obtaining evidence,” the assessment said.

As for the motive for the attack - which occurred just days after the U.N. team had arrived in the country - the report asserts that Syrian troops were carrying out what had become established policy.

“The Syrian regime has used chemical weapons over the last year primarily to gain the upper hand or break a stalemate in areas where it had struggled to seize and hold strategically valuable territory,” it said. “We assess that the regime’s frustration with its inability to secure large portions of Damascus may have contributed to its decision to use chemical weapons on Aug. 21.”

The intelligence produced sharply differing responses from members of Congress.

Republican Sens. John Mc-Cain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Obama needs to go further than he seems to be planning. “The goal of military action should be to shift the balance of power on the battlefield against Assad and his forces,” they said in a statement.

But Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said if the president believes in a military response to Syria, “it is his responsibility to explain to Congress and the American people the objectives, strategy, and legal basis for any potential action.”

More than 100 of the 435 lawmakers in the House, including 18 of his fellow Democrats, signed a letter this week saying that Syria doesn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. and calling on Obama to seek congressional approval before taking any military action.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said the military is ready to execute any decision by Obama. On Friday, he said the U.S. will continue to try to build an international coalition despite resistance in the U.S. and elsewhere and the lack of a mandate for a military strike at the U.N. Security Council.

Russia, Syria’s longtime backer, has long opposed military intervention of any sort, and China has pushed for more diplomacy and urged that no decision be made until the results of the investigation by U.N.inspectors are revealed.

On Friday, Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to President Vladimir Putin of Russia, said Russia is “actively working to avoid a forceful intervention in Syria,” the Interfax news service reported.

The United States had not shared intelligence showing that Assad was behind last week’s chemical weapons attack, Ushakov said, and “we do not believe it.”FRENCH SUPPORT

Meanwhile, President Francois Hollande of France on Friday offered strong support for international military action in an interview with Le Monde, the French daily newspaper.

The chemical attack “must not go unpunished,” Hollande said. “Otherwise, it would be taking the risk of an escalation that would normalize the use of these weapons and threaten other countries.”

A military strike against government targets would have a “deterrence value” and push Assad toward a negotiated “political solution” to the conflict, Hollande said.

Although Hollande has presented no specific evidence linking the Syrian government to the attacks, he has spoken confidently of its culpability. Parliamentary approval is not required for French military action, and Hollande has said his government is “prepared to punish” those responsible.

The government of Turkey, an outspoken opponent of Assad, added its voice Friday to those who have concluded that Assad’s forces used the weapons. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, said in a televised statement that Turkish intelligence sources had what he called “healthy information” that implicated the Syrian government.

By contrast, Iranian officials reminded the world that they were targeted with Iraqi chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s and said Assad’s government had assured them that it had never used such munitions.

“Iran, as a main victim of use of chemical weapons, is against any kind of usage of this inhuman warfare,” said Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaee. He urged other countries to let the U.N. inspectors in Syria complete their work, and he indirectly criticized the United States and France for moving missile-armed warships closer to the Syrian coast.

“We are against any foreign military intervention, which will damage the efforts aimed at finding a political solution for the conflict in Syria,” Khazaee said. “We believe that missiles have never been peace messengers in the Middle East and the rest of the world.”

In Syria on Friday, residents of Damascus stocked up on food and other necessities in anticipation of strikes, with no evident sign of panic.

One man, 42-year-old Talal Dowayih, said: “I am not afraid from the Western threats to Syria; they created the chemical issue as a pretext for intervention, and they are trying to hit Syria for the sake of Israel.”

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group linked to a network of anti-regime activists, said Friday that an incendiary bomb struck outside a school in northern Syria earlier this week, killing one man and injuring at least seven people.

In neighboring Jordan, which has seen an influx of refugees from the Syrian civil war, hundreds of people rallied in the capital Friday, denouncing the push for military intervention as a continuation of “American aggression” in Arab and Muslim countries.

The demonstration, led by Jordanian leftist and nationalist parties, drew about 1,000 people onto the streets of downtown Amman after noon prayers.

Participants also protested a reportedly growing U.S. military presence in northern Jordan in recent days, chanting: “No to American dogs on Jordanian soil.”

The United States has bolstered Jordan’s border defenses in light of the rising violence in Syria over the past two months, delivering several F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile batteries in June and, most recently, a fleet of drones.

On Friday, an increased mobilization along the Jordanian-Syrian border entered its third day, with the Jordanian military placing its forces in a state of emergency, according to a Jordanian military officer based in the border area who was not authorized to speak to the media.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael D. Shea, David Jolly, Scott Sayare, Rick Gladstone, Alan Cowell, Andrew Roth, Alison Smale,Victor Homola and Sebnem Arsu of The New York Times; by Jan M. Olsen, David Espo, Elaine Ganley, Angela Charlton, Zeina Karam, Albert Aji, Julie Pace, Josh Lederman, Donna Cassata, Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor and Bradley Klapper and staff members of The Associated Press; by Roger Runningen, Margaret Talev, Michael C. Bender, Heidi Przybyla, Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Nicole Gaouette, Gopal Ratnam, Sangwon Yoon and Robert Hutton of Bloomberg News; and by Joby Warrick and Taylor Luck of The Washington Post.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/31/2013

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