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| Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem speaks during a press conference in Damascus, Syria on Tuesday, August 27, 2013. Syria's foreign minister said Tuesday his country would defend itself using "all means available" in case of a U.S. strike, denying his government was behind an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus and challenging Washington to present proof backing up its accusations. |
DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP) -- Momentum appeared to build Tuesday for Western military
action against Syria, with the U.S. and France saying they are in
position for a strike, while the government in Damascus vowed to use all
possible measures to repel it.
The prospect
of a dramatic U.S.-led intervention into Syria's civil war stemmed from
the West's assertion - still not endorsed by U.N. inspectors - that
President Bashar Assad's government was responsible for an alleged
chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus on Aug. 21 that the group
Doctors Without Borders says killed 355 people. Assad denies the claim.
The
Arab League also threw its weight behind calls for punitive action,
blaming the Syrian government for the attack and calling for those
responsible to be brought to justice.
British
Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament to hold an emergency
vote Thursday on his country's response. It is unlikely that any
international military action would begin before then.
U.S.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said U.S. military forces stand ready to
strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, and
French President Francois Hollande said France was "ready to punish
those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents."
Obama
is weighing a response focused narrowly on punishing Assad for
violating international agreements that ban the use of chemical weapons.
Officials said the goal was not to drive Assad from power or impact the
broader trajectory of Syria's bloody civil war, now in its third year.
Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday the West should be under no
illusion that bombing Syrian military targets would help end the
violence in Syria, an ally of Moscow, and he pointed to the volatile
situations in Iraq and Libya that he said resulted from foreign military
intervention.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his country would use "all means available" to defend itself.
"We have the means to defend ourselves and we will surprise everyone," he said.
At
a news conference in Damascus, al-Moallem challenged Washington to
present proof to back up its accusations and he also likened the
allegations to false American charges in 2003 that Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion of that
country.
"They have a history of lies - Iraq," he said.
Vice
President Joe Biden said there was no question that Assad was
responsible for the attack - the highest-ranking U.S. official to say so
- and the White House dismissed as "fanciful" the notion that anyone
other than Assad could be to blame.
"Suggestions
that there's any doubt about who's responsible for this are as
preposterous as a suggestion that the attack did not occur," spokesman
Jay Carney said.
A U.S. official said some of
the evidence includes signals intelligence - information gathered from
intercepted communications. The U.S. assessment is also based on the
number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed, and
witness accounts. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were
not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.
The
United Nations said its team of chemical weapons experts in Syria had
delayed a second trip to investigate the alleged attack by one day for
security reasons. On Monday, the team came under sniper fire.
If
Obama decides to order an attack against Syria, it would most likely
involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on Syrian military and
communications targets.
Hagel said the U.S.
Navy had four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned
within range of targets inside Syria. U.S. warplanes were also in the
region, he told BBC television during a visit to the southeast Asian
nation of Brunei.
In Cyprus, Defense Minister
Fotis Fotiou said naval traffic in the eastern Mediterranean was very
heavy with vessels from "all the major powers." He also said Cypriot
authorities were planning to deal with a possible exodus of foreign
nationals from Syria.
U.S. military
intervention in Syria was running into fierce opposition from some
members of Congress. A growing chorus of Republican and Democratic
lawmakers demanded that Obama seek congressional authorization for any
strikes against the Assad regime.
Charles
Heyman, a former British officer who edits The Armed Forces of the UK,
said the lack of a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing the use
of force against the Syrian government greatly complicates matters for
the West. He said that may make it difficult for Cameron to win
parliamentary backing.
"It's clear the
governments want some form of military operation, but if the Security
Council doesn't recommend it, then the consensus is that it's plainly
illegal under international law," Heyman said. "The only legal way to go
to war is in self-defense and that claim is difficult to make."
Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, has steadfastly opposed any international action against Syria.
Italian
Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said her country would not back any
military action against Syria unless it was authorized by the Security
Council - even though it considers a chemical attack to be a war crime.
German
Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday that if the Syrian
government were proven to have been behind the gas attack, then Germany
would support "consequences." But with less than four weeks until
national elections, it is unlikely Germany would commit any forces.
Center-left
opposition parties have rejected military intervention without U.N.
proof that the Syrian government was behind the attack. And a senior
member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's party said the
German military was
already at "the breaking point" due to commitments in Afghanistan and
elsewhere.
Support for some sort of
international military response is likely to grow if it is confirmed
that Assad's regime was responsible.
The U.N
confirmed its chemical weapons team's mission faced a one-day delay
Tuesday to improve preparedness and safety after unidentified snipers
opened fire on the team's convoy Monday.
In
Geneva, U.N. spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci said the U.N. inspection
team might need longer than the planned 14 days to complete its work.
She said its goal is to determine what chemical weapons might have been
used in the Aug. 21 attack.
The Obama
administration is making a legal argument for undertaking a military
response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, but
said any action against the Syrian regime is not intended to depose
Assad.
Carney said the United States and 188
other nations are signatories to a chemical weapons convention
opposing
the use of such weapons. Those countries have a stake in ensuring that
international norms must be respected and there must be a response to a
clear violation of those norms, he said.
In a
veiled allusion to difficulties in getting any strong action through the
Security Council, France's Hollande said that "international law must
evolve with the times. It cannot be a pretext to allow mass massacres to
be perpetrated."
He then went on to invoke
France's recognition of "the responsibility to protect civilian
populations" that the U.N. General Assembly approved in 2005.
Obama
discussed Syria on Tuesday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of
Canada, a NATO ally, and in recent days with Cameron, Hollande and
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Harper's
office said he agreed with the assessment that the Assad regime used
chemical weapons against its own people, and called it an outrage that
requires a "firm response," without defining what that might entail.
In
supporting calls for action against Syria, the 22-member Arab League,
which is dominated by Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, provides
indirect Arab cover for any potential military attack by Western powers.
At
an emergency meeting, the Arab League also urged members of the
Security Council to overcome their differences and agree on "deterrent"
measures.
"The council holds the Syrian regime
totally responsible for this heinous crime and calls for all involved
in the despicable crime to be given a fair international trial like
other war criminals," the Arab League said in a statement.
Heyman
predicted a possible three-phase campaign, with the first step - the
encirclement of Syria by Western military assets by air and sea -
already underway.
"Phase two would be a
punitive strike, taking out high-value command and control targets and
communications centers," Heyman said. "That could be done easily with
cruise missiles from ships and aircraft. Phase three would be a massive
takedown of Syrian air defenses. That would have to be done before you
could take out artillery and armor, which is the key to long-term
success."
