02/09/2013 15:28
Sarin gas used in Syria attack, Kerry says
The Obama administration asserted Sunday for the first time that the Syrian government used the nerve gas sarin to kill more than 1,400 people in the world’s gravest chemical weapons attack in 25 years as the White House intensified pressure on a skeptical Congress to authorize punitive military strikes against Damascus.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry said new laboratory tests showed traces of sarin, an extremely toxic nerve agent, in blood and hair samples collected from emergency workers who responded Aug. 21 to the scene of an alleged chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs.
In an interview blitz on five Sunday television news shows, Kerry said the fresh forensic evidence strengthened an already compelling case for taking military action against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and he predicted that Congress would vote to give President Obama that authority.
“I can’t contemplate that the Congress would turn its back on all of that responsibility and the fact that we would have, in fact, granted impunity to a ruthless dictator to continue to gas his people,” Kerry said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Those are the stakes.”
But many lawmakers, including some who had previously pushed for a harder line against Assad, said the White House would have a tough time drumming up support for intervention in Syria’s seemingly intractable civil war.
On Saturday, however, Obama stunned much of the world by announcing that he had decided to hold off for the moment and that he would first seek formal backing from Congress. On Sunday, he dispatched a stream of national security officials to Capitol Hill for classified briefings to lawmakers who interrupted their summer recess to rush back to Washington.
Obama warned Assad a year ago not to use chemical weapons against his own people, saying such a move would cross a “red line” that could force the United States to intervene militarily. On Aug. 21, a torrent of grisly videos surfaced on the Internet, depicting mass casualties from a nighttime attack outside Damascus that rebel groups said involved poison gas.