Watching Syria’s War
Published: August 28, 2013
Multimedia
Areas Affected by the Alleged Chemical Attack in Syria
Opposition groups said that rockets carrying chemical weapons hit the
towns of Ain Tarma, Zamalka, Jobar and Muadamiya shortly after 2 a.m.
Wednesday. Victims were taken to clinics in neighboring towns.
Syrian Kurds Flee to Northern Iraq
Authorities and aid groups in northern Iraq scramble to accommodate the
thousands of Syrian Kurds seeking shelter from the conflict in Syria.
Hosni Mubarak’s Path From Presidency to Prison and Beyond
A look back at the tumultuous political career of Egypt’s ousted leader.
Watching Syria’s War
After Chemical Attack, Father and Son Are Reunited
A man is overcome with emotion as he is reunited with his young son, who
he thought had been killed in a chemical weapons attack last week on
the Syrian town of Zamalka.
From Opinion
Op-Ed Contributor
Israel Should Not Take Action on Syria
By NAHUM BARNEA
Any outcome in Syria could be extremely dangerous for Israel’s security.
WASHINGTON — The evidence of a massacre is undeniable: the bodies of the dead lined up on hospital floors, those of the living convulsing and writhing in pain and a declaration from a respected international aid group that thousands of Syrians were gassed with chemical weapons last week.
Related
Times Topic: Conflict in Syria
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Amid Chaos, Israelis Take a Stoic View (August 29, 2013)
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Britain to Wait on Weapons Report Ahead of Syria Strikes (August 29, 2013)
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Key Questions on the Conflict in Syria (August 28, 2013)
Related in Opinion
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Editorial: More Answers Needed on Syria (August 29, 2013)
U.S. Facing Test on Data to Back Taking Action on Syria
By MARK MAZZETTI and MARK LANDLER
With botched intelligence about Iraq casting a long shadow, the Obama
administration is preparing to release information it says will show
proof of a large-scale chemical attack by the Syrian military.
Reuters
United Nations chemical
weapons experts on Wednesday met with residents of a neighborhood that
was said to be the target of a chemical attack last week.
By MARK MAZZETTI and MARK LANDLER
And yet the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the
most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003,
when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed
case for war to the United Nations Security Council using intelligence —
later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs.
More than a decade later, the Obama administration says the information
it will make public, most likely on Thursday, will show proof of a
large-scale chemical attack perpetrated by Syrian forces, bolstering its
case for a retaliatory military strike on Syria.
But with the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow
over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House
faces an American public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the
Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties
angry about the prospect of an American president once again going to
war without Congressional consultation or approval.
American officials said Wednesday there was no “smoking gun” that directly links President Bashar al-Assad
to the attack, and they tried to lower expectations about the public
intelligence presentation. They said it will not contain specific
electronic intercepts of communications between Syrian commanders or
detailed reporting from spies and sources on the ground.
But even without hard evidence tying Mr. Assad to the attack,
administration officials asserted, the Syrian leader bears ultimate
responsibility for the actions of his troops and should be held
accountable.
“The commander in chief of any military is ultimately responsible for
decisions made under their leadership,” said the State Department’s
deputy spokeswoman, Marie Harf — even if, she added, “He’s not the one
who pushes the button or says ‘go’ on this.”
Administration officials said that communications between military
commanders intercepted after Wednesday’s attack provided proof that the
assault was not the result of a rogue unit acting against orders. It is
unclear how much detail about these communications, if any, will be made
public.
In an interview on Wednesday with the PBS program “NewsHour,” President Obama
said he still had not made a decision about military action. But he
said that a military strike could be a “shot across the bow, saying
‘stop doing this,’ that can have a positive impact on our national
security over the long term.”
The bellicose talk coming from the administration is unnerving some
lawmakers from Mr. Obama’s party, who are angry that the White House
seems to have no inclination to seek Congress’s approval before
launching a strike in Syria.
“I am still waiting to see what specifically the administration and
other involved partners have to say about a potential military strike,
but I am concerned about how effective such an action could be,” said
Representative Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat who is the ranking
member of the House Armed Services Committee. “I am worried that such
action could drag the United States into a broader direct involvement in
the conflict.”
Despite the Obama administration’s insistence that the graphic images of
the attack go far in making a case for military action in Syria, some
experts said that the White House had its own burden of proof.
Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies said that whatever evidence the administration put forward would
be the American intelligence community’s “most important single
document in a decade.”
The Obama administration, Mr. Cordesman said, needs to use intelligence
about the attack “as a key way of informing the world, of building up
trust in U.S. policy and intelligence statements, and in moving U.S.
strategic communications from spin to convincing truth.”
And yet it appears that the public presentation of the Syria evidence
will be limited. Instead of the theater of Mr. Powell’s 2003 speech —
which included satellite photographs, scratchy recordings of
conversations between Iraqi officials and a vial of white powder meant
to symbolize anthrax — American officials said the intelligence
assessment they are preparing to make public will be similar to a modest
news release that the White House issued in June to announce that the
Assad government had used chemical weapons “on a small scale against the
opposition multiple times in the last year.”
Based on that conclusion, Mr. Obama authorized a limited program of
supplying the Syrian rebels with arms, which have yet to arrive.
As the White House now considers direct military action in Syria,
something it has resisted for two years, Speaker John A. Boehner wrote a
letter on Wednesday to Mr. Obama asking the president to provide a
“clear, unambiguous explanation of how military action — which is a
means, not a policy — will secure U.S. objectives and how it fits into
your overall policy.”
The discussion has even brought in former officials intimately involved
in making the hurried public case for the Iraq war. In an interview with
Fox Business Network, Donald Rumsfeld, who was defense secretary at the
time, said Wednesday that “there really hasn’t been any indication from
the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to
this particular situation.”
Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, has been scathing in his
criticism of Mr. Obama for the opposite reason — that the president in
his view has not taken enough action. Mr. McCain has said that doubts
about military action expressed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, have emboldened the Syrian government to
use chemical weapons and that Mr. Obama, having allowed Mr. Assad to
cross his “red line” on the use of these weapons on previous occasions,
had little standing now.
“Now this is the same president that two years ago said that Bashar
Assad must leave office, and so where is America’s credibility?” Mr.
McCain said on Fox News. “Where is our ability to influence events in
the region? And I promise you that those who say we should stay out of
Syria do not understand that this is now a regional conflict.”
The administration plans to brief leaders in the House and Senate with a
classified version of its intelligence assessment about the attack,
according to Congressional aides.
Americans over all have been skeptical about the United States getting
involved in Syria’s civil war, although surveys show they are more open
to a limited strike on Syrian targets using cruise missiles or drones.
There has not been a major poll released since last Wednesday’s chemical attacks, but a poll published by Quinnipiac University last month
found that 61 percent of people said it was not in the national
interest to intervene in Syria, while 27 percent said it was. By a
similar split, 59 percent opposed providing weapons to rebel forces,
while 27 percent were in favor. But 49 percent of people said they would
support missile strikes against government forces if the strikes did
not endanger American lives, while 38 percent said they were opposed.
It is the fear of the United States getting dragged into yet another
Middle Eastern war that before last Wednesday had animated opposition —
both inside the White House and across the country as a whole — to
American military intervention in Syria.
Even as he now contemplates getting deeper into a war he had long
resisted, Mr. Obama appears to be mindful that the opposition remains.
“We can take limited, tailored approaches, not getting drawn into a long
conflict,” he said Wednesday on “NewsHour.” He added, “Not another
repetition of, you know, Iraq, which I know a lot of people are worried
about.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 28, 2013
An earlier version of this article reversed the percentage of respondents in a Quinnipiac University poll last month who said they were in favor of, and opposed to, providing weapons to rebel forces in Syria. Twenty-seven percent were in favor of providing the weapons, and 59 percent were opposed to it.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 29, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the standing of Representative Adam Smith. He is the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, not the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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