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Inspectors Leave Syria as U.S. Defends Plan for Attack
Obama Will Seek Congressional Vote on Syria
(about 5 hours later)
The White House on Saturday moved to shore up domestic and international support for a possible military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack on its own people, as United Nations inspectors left Syria.
WASHINGTON — President Obama stunned the capital and paused his march to war on Saturday by asking Congress to give him authorization before he launches a limited military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other top aides to President Obama scheduled conference calls for Saturday afternoon with members of the United States Senate, where there was deep skepticism in both parties about the prospect of American involvement in another war in the Middle East, even the limited cruise missile strike under consideration.
In a hastily organized appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town for more than a week. Mr. Obama said he believed he has authority to act on his own but did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan.
The back-to-back calls to the Democratic and Republican conferences were arranged to fulfill Mr. Obama’s promise to consult with Congress as he contemplates military action, but there was no sign that the White House planned to seek a Congressional vote authorizing the use of force. In addition to Mr. Kerry and Mr. Hagel, both former senators, Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, and Susan E. Rice, the president’s national security adviser, will participate.
Mr. Obama’s announcement followed several days of faltering support for military action in Congress as well as in foreign capitals.
The calls come just hours after United Nations weapons inspectors left Syria for Lebanon early Saturday morning, in effect clearing the way for a strike. American officials had made clear they would hold off using force until the inspectors departed safely but had no intention of waiting until they had delivered a formal report on the use of chemical weapons, citing their own intelligence conclusions that President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack, which killed more than 1,400 people in the eastern suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
On Thursday, Britain broke with its longtime American ally as its Parliament voted against a military attack on Syria. On Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Syria’s patron, argued that it was “simply utter nonsense” to believe Syria’s government would launch such an attack and challenged the United States to present any evidence to the United Nations.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has made clear he would block any authorization of force by the United Nations Security Council, stepped up his opposition to such a retaliatory strike on Saturday, dismissing the suggestion that Syrian authorities were behind the Aug. 21 attack as a provocation. Given that the Syrian Army had the advantage in a grinding civil war that has so far killed 100,000 people, Mr. Putin told reporters in Vladivostok that “to say that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons is utter nonsense.”
“I am convinced that it is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to involve other countries in the Syrian conflict, who want to gain the support of powerful members in international affairs, primarily, of course the United States,” Mr. Putin said in his first public remarks since reports of the chemical attack emerged. “I have no doubts about it.”
Privately, some American officials acknowledged mistakes over the past week in their buildup for a strike, leading British lawmakers to reject participation on Thursday. It is unclear when Mr. Obama realized that the British vote would go against him, but it was not until Friday afternoon that the White House released what it said was evidence of chemical weapons use by the Assad forces — nearly 24 hours after Parliament had voted rather than beforehand, when it might have been used to build a coalition against Mr. Assad.
At home, Mr. Obama had come under criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Some lawmakers had maintained that the United States should stay out of a civil war that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, or at least should wait for Congressional or United Nations backing. Others complained that the limited strike envisioned by the president would be ineffectual, especially after days of virtually laying out the plan of attack in public.
Deprived of the support of Britain, America’s most stalwart wartime ally, the Obama administration scrambled behind the scenes to build international support elsewhere for a strike that might begin as early as this weekend. Officials were still holding out hope that at least one Arab country might publicly join the military coalition.
The debate came as the region braced for an attack that Syrian officials told regional news media they were expecting “at any moment” and were ready to retaliate against. United Nations weapons inspectors left Syria for Lebanon early Saturday after four days of efforts to investigate the Aug. 21 attack. American officials had made clear they would hold off using force until the inspectors departed safely but had no intention of waiting until they had delivered a formal report.
The White House got a boost on Friday from an ally that has had a long, tortured diplomatic relationship with the United States, and that vehemently opposed the American-led war in Iraq. In France, President François Hollande offered vigorous support for military action in Syria, saying that the Aug. 21 attack “must not go unpunished.” The French endorsement led Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday to praise France as “our oldest ally” — a reference to a partnership that goes back to the American Revolution and a not so subtle dig at the country’s neighbor across the English Channel.
The inspectors were heading to The Hague with blood and urine samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as soil samples from areas where the attacks took place. They were due to deliver the sample to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Saturday afternoon.
Late on Friday, the Russian government condemned the threats of military action and said any strike not authorized by the United Nations Security Council would be a violation of international law. “Even U.S. allies are calling for a ‘pause’ to wait for the completion of work by the group of United Nations experts to get an objective picture of what happened,” Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement.
The samples will be divided so each can be sent to at least two separate European laboratories for testing, according to United Nations officials, but experts said the testing would not be completed for several days at the earliest.
Mr. Kerry said the United Nations could not respond to the Syrian chemical weapons attack because of Russia’s veto authority on the Security Council, which prevents the Council from galvanizing “the world to act, as it should.”
Angela Kane, the United Nations disarmament chief, briefed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday. While the inspectors were assigned to determine whether a chemical strike took place, it was not their mandate to assign culpability. Martin Nesirky, a United Nations spokesman, said that Ms. Kane’s team would give Mr. Ban its conclusions “as soon as it has received the results of the laboratory analysis of its samples.”
Mr. Kerry also said that the decisions made in other countries were not foremost on the president’s mind. “President Obama will ensure that the United States of America makes our decisions on our own timelines, based on our values and our interests,” he said in forceful remarks from the State Department that presented the administration’s rationale for an attack.
Obama administration officials argued that the United Nations findings would be redundant, since American intelligence had already concluded, based on human sources and electronic eavesdropping, that Mr. Assad’s government was responsible for launching nerve agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
Shortly after Mr. Kerry spoke, Mr. Obama insisted that he still had not made a decision about what action the United States would take in Syria, but he did say he was considering a “limited, narrow act.” He ruled out any operation involving American ground troops.
An intelligence summary released by the White House on Friday said 1,429 people were killed, including at least 426 children. The summary concluded with “high confidence” that the Syrian government had carried out the attack.
In the midst of the hawkish statements, Mr. Obama acknowledged the deep skepticism in the country — reflected in Congressional support that is tepid at best in both parties — about the necessity of a military strike.
In Damascus, residents described an atmosphere of quiet suspense as they waited and prepared for an American attack. They described new troop movements as the government placed more security forces in schools in central Damascus, the prominent al-Akram mosque in the well-off Mezze district, a women’s cultural center in the neighborhood of Abu Roumaneh and in residential buildings near a cluster of security buildings in the Kafr Souseh district.
The president said he appreciated that there was a “certain weariness” after the war in Afghanistan and a suspicion about military action in the aftermath of the Iraq war. But, he said, “a lot of people think something should be done, but nobody wants to do it,” and the United States would send the wrong message to the world if it did nothing.
There were signs elsewhere in Syria, too, that times were not normal. “I noticed a serious change,” said Maya, 29, who drove from the coastal city of Tartus to Damascus, a route that in recent months usually required passing at least 10 government checkpoints. “I saw only one checkpoint on the whole road.”
The decision about whether to use force, Mr. Kerry said, was a test of American standing in a world in which other nations might be tempted to pursue or use weapons of mass destruction.
Col. Qassim Saadeddine, a spokesman for the rebel Supreme Military Council, said opposition groups in various parts of the country had been issued contingency plans for attacks — some to coincide with and others to follow any American strike — to take advantage if government forces were weakened or distracted.
Iran was first on the list of nations, Mr. Kerry said, and might take mistaken lessons from the chemical attack in Syria if the United States failed to respond.
But he said the council, the armed wing of the main exile opposition body, had been given no information from the United States or any other country that might participate in the strike.
“This matters also beyond the limits of Syria’s borders,” Mr. Kerry said. “It is about whether Iran, which itself has been a victim of chemical weapons attacks, will now feel emboldened in the absence of action to obtain nuclear weapons.”
In Washington, Mr. Obama struggled to rally the public and its elected representatives. Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Hagel and Ms. Rice scheduled back-to-back conference calls for Saturday afternoon with the Democratic and Republican conferences in the Senate. Joining them were General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence.
A four-page intelligence summary released as Mr. Kerry was speaking said that American spy agencies had determined that 1,429 people had been killed in the Aug. 21 attack, carried out in the dead of night in rebel-controlled areas of the Damascus suburbs. Of that number, the report said, at least 426 were children. The numbers were the first accounting of the dead by the American government.
The participation of Mr. Hagel and Gen. Dempsey suggested that the conversation was moving beyond assessing blame for the chemical attack to the specific military options now at hand. Mr. Obama has described a “limited, narrow act” that would not involve ground troops or entangle the United States in the broader civil war in Syria.
The report contained little specific information about the electronic intercepts, satellite images and reports from spies that led intelligence agencies to conclude not only that the attack involved chemical weapons, but that they had “high confidence” the attack had been ordered by senior officials in Mr. Assad’s government. “High confidence,” according to the report, is the “strongest position that the U.S. Intelligence Community can take short of confirmation.”
Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, said he asked for Saturday’s briefings to get a better sense of the administration’s plans and to offer suggestions. “Senator McConnell believes it’s important for the whole conference to have the opportunity to communicate directly with the administration on this important issue,” said Don Stewart, the senator’s spokesman.
The report said that in the three days before the attack, American intelligence agencies began picking up indications that Syrian troops were preparing to use chemical weapons. Just before the attack was launched, according to the report, the troops put on gas masks. It is not clear from the report whether the United States or its allies made efforts to warn rebel groups in the Damascus suburbs.
The White House also agreed to provide a classified briefing on the Syria intelligence in person on Capitol Hill for any lawmakers in town at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
American officials have said there is no information tying Mr. Assad directly to the attack, but the intelligence report said there was a “body of information” leading spy agencies to conclude “regime officials were witting of and directed the attack on Aug. 21.”
An NBC poll found the public deeply split about a possible strike. Fifty percent of Americans opposed military action, while 42 percent supported it. When respondents were told the action would involve only cruise missiles, support grew somewhat, with 50 percent then supporting it and 44 percent being against it. Unlike most issues in Washington today, there was relatively little disparity between Republicans and Democrats on the question.
In one intercepted communication, according to the report, a “senior official intimately familiar with the offensive” confirmed that chemical weapons were used by Syria last week and was concerned that United Nations weapons inspectors might obtain evidence of the attack.
That leaves Mr. Obama facing the prospect of taking military action with less public support than almost any president in almost any instance since Vietnam. Jimmy Carter’s decision to try to rescue hostages in Iran, Ronald Reagan’s invasion of Grenada and airstrikes on Libya, George Bush’s invasion of Panama and liberation of Kuwait, Bill Clinton’s strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo and George W. Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan all drew support of 60 percent and usually much more in the days after they began.
A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said he had given the five permanent members of the Security Council “an overview” of the inspector mission’s work on Friday but declined to specify what — if anything — the inspectors had concluded. Mr. Kerry on Friday dismissed any findings as essentially irrelevant because the inspectors’ mandate was restricted to determining only if chemical weapons had been used, not who launched the attack.
The exceptions were Mr. Clinton’s intervention in Bosnia in 1995, which the public opposed, and Mr. Obama’s airstrikes in Libya in 2011, which had slim majority support. Whether support would grow for a Syria strike in a rally-around-the-flag effect after Mr. Obama issued such an order is unclear at the moment.
A number of Arab diplomats said it was unlikely that they would go further than their previous condemnations of the Assad government.
Peter
Baker reported from Washington, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon. Jackie Calmes contributed reporting from Washington, Steven Lee Myers from Moscow, and Marc Santora from New York.
“Libya was farther away, and that made it easier to support,” said one Arab official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing continuing talks. “With Syria and Iran, you’re talking next door. You have to think about your own self-defense.”
Although a number of Arab leaders have lobbied hard for deeper support for the Syrian rebels, they are reluctant to spend political capital on a limited American airstrike that would not topple Mr. Assad.
“Why would they stick their necks out when this is just meant to teach Assad a lesson?” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar.
Reporting was contributed by Peter Baker, Michael D. Shear, David E. Sanger and Robert Worth from Washington, David M. Herszenhorn from Moscow, and Gerry Mullany from Hong Kong.
