White House all but sure Syria used chemical weapons – but needs to be sure
Since August, President Obama has laid down use or transfer of Syria’s chemicals weapons as a 'red line.' The White House letter puts the US closer to acknowledging such a line has been crossed.
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The White House position comes amid a flurry of varying assertions and assessments of reported cases of chemical weapons being used in Syria this year. This week a senior Israeli military intelligence officer declared that Mr. Assad’s forces have used chemical weapons on a number of occasions this year. This came after Britain and France sent a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon underscoring the urgency of investigating cases where evidence pointed to some use of chemical weapons.
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A senior French official speaking on condition of anonymity Thursday said France has “no national evidence” proving use of chemical weapons – suggesting that the evidence coming out of Syria could be from interested parties and could not been independently verified.
Since shortly after a reported March 19 attack with chemical weapons on communities outside Aleppo and Damascus, some British officials have said they obtained soil samples from at least one of the sites.
On Thursday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in comments in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, that the US now suspects that Assad has used chemical weapons on a “small scale.” But he went on to say that the finding was based on “varying degrees of confidence” in US intelligence agencies, wording that mirrored the White House statement.
But even Secretary Hagel’s statement reflected a considerable ramping up of the administration’s public posture on the chemical-weapons issue. Just a day earlier, Hagel had cited what amounted to “suspicions” of chemical-weapons use and said the US would not be rushed, by allies or anyone else, in making its own assessment of evidence.
In its letter, the White House said that “given the stakes involved,” it is essential that a conclusion be reached based on facts and evidence.
And with the letter talking about “corroborated facts” and “some degree of certainty,” there was clear reference to the Iraq war and to the path down which a faulty assessment of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction took the US.
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