Washington (CNN) -- With a flurry of diplomatic signals and
activity, U.S. officials sought Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a possible
military attack on Syria in response to last week's suspected chemical weapons
attack that Washington blames on President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry
both consulted allies and indicated potential imminent action by a coalition
likely to include key NATO partners and regional powers.
Days after the United States moved warships armed with cruise
missiles into the region, Hagel told the BBC on Tuesday that forces were ready
to carry out a strike if ordered. A senior Defense Department official told CNN
that any strike could be completed "within several days."
"We are ready to go, like that," Hagel told the BBC
reporter.
"The options are there, the United States department of
Defense is ready to carry out those options," the U.S. defense secretary
said.onflict spills over into region
The White House insists President Barack Obama has yet to make a
final decision on how to respond to what U.S. officials characterize as the
worst chemical weapons attack since former Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein
launched a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds in 1988.
On Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the first step
toward a military response in Syria would be the public release of a U.S.
intelligence report on the August 21 event near Damascus that reportedly killed
and wounded thousands.
That was planned to happen on Tuesday, according to a U.S.
official who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Citing Kerry's strong statement Monday that essentially blamed the
Syrian government for what the secretary called an "undeniable"
chemical weapons attack and the expected release of the intelligence report,
the official said the administration was "laying out the case for any
action if and when President Obama decides."
Another official said the intelligence report would include forensic
evidence and intercepted communications among Syrian military commanders.
On Monday, a senior administration official said Obama will be
presented with final options regarding actions against Syria in the next few
days. Assuming the president decides to go ahead with a military response, any
action could come as early as mid-week, though it could be later, the official
cautioned.
Factors weighing into the timing of any action include a desire to
get it done before the president leaves for Russia next week for a summit with
G8 allies, and before the administration has to make a decision on whether to
suspend aid to Egypt because of the ongoing political turmoil there, the
official explained.
The administration also wants it to be a quick response to the use
of chemical weapons, rather than an intervention in Syria's ongoing civil war,
the senior administration official said.
American officials are consulting with allies to ensure they are
supportive of any U.S. action, which the senior administration official said
would be very limited in scope and a direct reaction to the use of chemical
weapons. Representatives of three allied governments involved in those
top-level consultations said the goal is to reach a consensus as soon as
possible.
"No one is talking about a long process," one European
diplomat told CNN.
Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said any U.S. response
would be "a determination on how to respond to a blatant use of chemical
weapons, and it's not necessarily to change the entire situation on the ground
in Syria."
However, Michael Doran, an analyst at the Brookings Institution's
Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said a U.S. strike "can't just be one
and done," but should be part of a plan to remove al-Assad.
"The president has been very reluctant to get involved.
Public opinion has been against it. There's not a lot of support on the
Hill," Doran told CNN on Monday. "And yet, here we are again. Time
and time again, we get dragged further and further in."
The result could be "a Vietnam-type problem, where we kind of
back our way into this, if we don't come up with a plan about how to win,"
he added.
Kerry spoke with his British, Jordanian, Qatari and Saudi
counterparts Monday and with the secretary-general of the Arab League, Harf
said.
"Obviously, the intelligence assessment is ongoing," she
said. "But he reiterated that the president is studying the facts and will
be making an informed decision about how to respond going forward."
Also Monday, a White House official ruled out sending ground
troops to Syria or implementing a no-fly zone to blunt al-Assad's aerial superiority
over rebels fighting to oust his regime.
For almost two years, Obama has avoided direct military
involvement in Syria's civil war, only escalating aid to rebel fighters in June
after suspected smaller-scale chemical weapons attacks by Syrian government
forces.
However, last week's attack obliterated the "red line"
Obama set just over a year ago against the use of Syria's chemical weapons
stocks.
Carney told reporters Monday that Obama was evaluating "a
response to the clear use on a mass scale with repugnant results of chemical
weapons," adding that "there is very little doubt that the Syrian
regime ... used those weapons."
Meanwhile,Kerry said that evidence "strongly indicates"
chemical weapons were used in Syria and that "we know the Syrian regime
maintains custody" of such weapons and has the rockets to use them.
Obama "will be making an informed decision about how to
respond to this indiscriminate use" of chemical weapons, Kerry added,
saying the president "believes there must be accountability" for
those who use them.
Options available to Obama range from ordering limited missile
strikes to continued diplomatic efforts labeled by critics as a
"do-nothing" approach.
Hagel said while visiting Indonesia on Monday that any U.S. action
"will be in concert with the international community and within the
framework of legal justification."
While U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday that the use
of chemical weapons was a crime against humanity and must be punished, certain
opposition by Syrian ally Russia and possibly China undermined the possibility
that the Security Council would support a military mission.
Instead, a limited coalition of NATO partners such as Germany,
France and Britain -- all of which have called for action against Syria -- and
some Arab League members appeared more likely to provide the political backing
needed by Obama to order U.S. missile strikes.
A senior administration official told CNN on Monday that the goals
of any coalition military action would be to show al-Assad that there was a
cost for using chemical weapons while preventing him from doing so again.
In addition, a military strike would seek to degrade the Syrian
regime's capabilities enough to weaken it without causing it to fall to an
opposition considered unprepared to assume power, the official said.
Possible coalition partners include NATO allies Britain, France,
Germany and Canada, as well as regional powers Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates.
Last month, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey provided
Congress with a list of declassified U.S. military options for Syria that
emphasized the high costs and risks of what he said would amount to "an
act of war" at a time of deep budget cuts.
Dempsey's letter, dated July 19, listed U.S. assets in the region
including Patriot missile defense batteries in Turkey and Jordan, as well as
F-16 jet fighters positioned to defend Jordan from possible cross-border
trouble. In addition, the Pentagon has sent four warships armed with cruise
missiles to the region.
According to U.S. officials, updated options offered the president
in recent days included:
• Cruise missiles fired from one of four Navy destroyers deployed
in the Mediterranean Sea. The missiles would be used to strike "command
and control" facilities such as command bunkers, or the Syrian regime's
means of delivering chemical weapons: artillery batteries and launchers. There
is no indication that the missiles would strike actual chemical weapons
stockpiles.
• Military jets firings weapons from outside Syrian airspace. This
option carries additional risks and is considered less likely.
"They have to be careful to do this in concert with our
allies," Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a member of the House
Intelligence Committee, told CNN on Sunday, adding that "I don't think the
White House is going to want to risk American lives by sending pilots over
Syria, so that really limits our options to cruise strikes and think that's
probably where the White House is going to go."
Cruise missile strikes could be "very punishing" on
al-Assad's missile supplies and aircraft without going after the chemical
weapons stockpiles to risk dispersing them, Schiff said.
To Aaron David Miller, a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center, the situation is forcing Obama to shift from being an
"avoider-in-chief" regarding military involvement in Syria.
"It's almost inevitable that the president will authorize
some form of military action," Miller told National Public Radio in an
interview broadcast Monday.
He said he expected a significant response that amounts to "a
warning that lays down this time a red line that the president intends to
enforce, not one that turns pink."
"It cannot simply be a couple of cruise missiles into a
storage shed somewhere," Miller said, adding that the goal was to deter
al-Assad rather than topple him or radically shift the balance in Syria at this
time. "The president's not on the verge of becoming the cavalry to rescue
the country."
Schiff agreed that Obama has little choice but to respond
strongly.
"In terms of the credibility of the White House," he
said, "the cost of not acting now, I think, exceeds the cost of
acting."
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