President Trump said Monday night that Syria’s latest deadly chemical weapons attack will be “met forcefully” by the U.S. military and vowed that Russia or any other country responsible would “pay a price.”
“We have a lot of options militarily and we’ll be letting you know pretty soon — probably after the fact,” the president told reporters during a meeting with his national security team.
The U.S. military appeared to be in position to carry out any attack order. A Navy destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, was in the eastern Mediterranean after completing a port call in Cyprus. The guided missile destroyer is armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, the weapon of choice in the U.S. attack one year ago on an airfield in Syria after a suspected sarin gas attack on civilians.
In an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council late Monday, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called on the council to condemn the Syrian government for the weekend attack in the town of Douma that killed an estimated 60 people, including many children, and injured up to 1,000. She also called on Syria to allow humanitarian aid and medical supplies to reach the victims.
Mrs. Haley blamed Russia, which has veto power on the council, for blocking previous attempts to punish the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Russia could stop this senseless slaughter if it wanted. But it stands with the Assad regime,” Mrs. Haley said.
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Regardless of the Security Council’s decision, she said, “the United States will respond.”
The Syrian and Russian governments on Monday strongly denied a chemical weapons attack had taken place in Douma. The Russian ambassador to the United Nations warned the U.S. and its allies not to use a “fabricated” incident as a pretext for military action.
“Through the relevant channels, we already conveyed to the U.S. that armed force under mendacious pretext against Syria — where … Russian troops have been deployed — could lead to grave repercussions,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia warned.
Russian military officials claimed to have searched the area around Douma on Monday and found no trace of a chemical weapons attack, despite graphic video footage released by Assad regime opponents showing victims, including young children, struggling for breath and foaming at the mouth. The Russians added that they found no patients with symptoms of a chemical attack.
But a Syrian opposition source told The Associated Press that most of the victims of Saturday’s attack had already been buried.
Mr. Trump ordered cruise missile strikes on Syrian forces a year ago, after a similar attack on civilians in Syria’s 7-year-old civil war.
The president met Monday night with Defense Secretary James Mattis and military commanders at the White House. Mr. Trump began the national security meeting by launching into a diatribe against special counsel Robert Mueller, the Justice Department and the FBI for a raid earlier in the day of his attorney Michael Cohen’s office seeking documents related to the hush-money payment of porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Mr. Trump called the raid “a disgrace” and said Mr. Mueller was taking his probe to “a whole new level of unfairness.”
Pivoting to military planning, the president told reporters: “With all of that being said, we are here to discuss Syria tonight. We’re making a decision as to what we do with respect to the horrible attack that was made near Damascus.”
“It will be met forcefully,” the president said. “When I will not say — I don’t like talking about timing.”
Earlier at a Cabinet meeting, the president said, “This is about humanity, and it can’t be allowed to happen.”
Mr. Mattis, asked if he could rule out more airstrikes against Syria, told reporters, “I don’t rule out anything right now.”
The president also said Russia and Iran, whose militaries are supporting the Assad government, bear responsibility for the attack.
“If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” the president said.
Asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin has responsibility, Mr. Trump said, “He may, and if he does it’s going to be very tough, very tough. Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will, everybody will.”
Mr. Putin, in a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, urged “caution” in determining what had happened at Douma.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international watchdog group, confirmed Monday that it had opened a formal investigation into the incident at Douma, which local residents say was sparked when a helicopter dropped a barrel-shaped bomb and a plane simultaneously fired a missile at neighborhoods near the front line of fighting.
Despite Russian and Syrian denials of responsibility for the attack, Mr. Trump said, “to me there’s not much of a doubt.”
Allies such as French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke by phone with Mr. Trump Sunday night, and some Republican lawmakers are urging the president to launch another missile strike against Mr. Assad’s forces to make clear that the U.S. won’t tolerate his use of banned chemical weapons.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said Mr. Trump faces a “defining moment” in his presidency and that Mr. Assad and his inner circle should be considered legitimate military targets as war criminals.
“The world is watching the president. Iran is watching the president. Russia is watching the president. And North Korea is watching the president,” Mr. Graham said Monday on “Fox and Friends.” “This president has the chance to do exactly the opposite of [President] Obama: Send a strong signal that there’s a new sheriff in town and America’s back.”
Mr. Mattis said the U.S. and its allies are examining why Syria still has access to chemical weapons. Mr. Assad agreed during the Obama administration to get rid of his chemical weapons stockpile with Moscow overseeing the process.
“The first thing we have to look at is why are chemical weapons still being used at all when Russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons,” Mr. Mattis said. “And so, working with our allies and partners from NATO to Qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue.”
With Mr. Trump and his military advisers still discussing how to respond late Monday, the Syrian government and Mr. Assad’s Iranian allies claimed Israel was responsible for an airstrike on a Syrian air base in Homs that killed 14 people, including a Revolutionary Guard colonel and three other Iranians at the base. Israel’s government refused to comment on the incident.
The Syrian Foreign Ministry, in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, accused the Israelis of attacking in the wake of a string of battlefield victories by the Syrian government and vowed there would be consequences.
Syria “will not hesitate to exercise its right to defend its territory, people and sovereignty in all the ways guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations and the provisions of international humanitarian law and international law,” the ministry letter read.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Moscow that the U.S. is seeking a long-term military deployment in Syria, despite Mr. Trump’s comments last week that he wants to pull out U.S. forces.
“The U.S. is taking steps not to leave as President Trump said, and leave Syria for others, but to establish a foothold there for a very long time,” Mr. Lavrov said.
In Washington, some critics of Mr. Trump blamed him for encouraging Mr. Assad by announcing last week that he wants to withdraw the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, where they are fighting Islamic State extremists. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders labeled the accusations by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, and some Democratic lawmakers as “outrageous.”
“Look, we’re still there,” Mrs. Sanders said. “And I think that it is outrageous to say that the president of the United States green-lit something as atrocious as the actions that have taken place over the last several days.”
She noted that Mr. Trump ordered the missile strikes against Syria’s military last year. “We’re going to continue looking at all of our options on the table currently.”
The sensitive deliberations by Mr. Trump and his team came on the first day on the job for White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, who argued against missile strikes on Syria in 2013 as punishment for another chemical weapons attack in its civil war. Mr. Trump said with a smile that Mr. Bolton “picked an interesting day” to begin his new job. Mrs. Sanders said Mr. Bolton understands his role.
“He’s certainly here to serve as an adviser, but ultimately, the decisions being made are the president’s, and the comments that he’s made previously are personal,” she said. “He’s here to carry out the president’s agenda.”
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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