Syria - RT coverage

White House: Evidence against Assad not ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ but passes ‘common-sense test’

The White House says it has no “irrefutable” evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind the August gas attack in a Damascus suburb, but that a “strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence” suggests the government is responsible.

RT,

9 September, 2013

"We've seen the video proof of the outcome of those attacks,” White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough told CNN, speaking of the multiple clips which show victims of the suspected sarin attack in a Damascus suburb on August 21.

“All of that leads to a quite strong common-sense test irrespective of the intelligence that suggests that the regime carried this out. Now do we have a picture or do we have irrefutable beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence? This is not a court of law and intelligence does not work that way,” he said.

McDonough made appearances on leading US talk shows in an effort to garner support for proposed military action against Syria ahead next week’s congressional vote in which most lawmakers seem to be opposed to a US-led strike.

In an interview with NBC, the Chief of Staff stressed that“nobody is rebutting the intelligence; nobody doubts the intelligence.”

The US says it has intercepted conversations involving Syrian officials during which they take responsibility for the attack. However, Washington has not made the conversations public.

The Obama administration has also referred to its satellite and signals intelligence, as well as military communications, as proof that the regime was preparing to use poisonous gas just days before the alleged attack took place.

Yet the administration has refused to let the public see the evidence allegedly connecting Assad to the crime - even though ample amounts of satellite imagery was released earlier by the US in order to demonstrate the consequences of the attacks by the Syrian regime’s military.

Bodies of children wrapped in shrouds as Syrian rebels claim they were killed in a toxic gas attack by pro-government forces in eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus on August 21, 2013.(AFP Photo / Shaam News Network)

Experts question US evidence

With the evidence at hand, experts are struggling to agree on what really happened and are reluctant to place blame.

It is hard to explain why Assad would use chemical weapons on his own people at a time when his troops were doing so well on the ground - especially since UN observers were nearby at the time of the attack – former British military officer Charles Heyman told AP.

"We can't get our heads around this - why would any commander agree to rocketing a suburb of Damascus with chemical weapons for only a very short-term tactical gain for what is a long-term disaster," he said. Heyman edits ‘The Armed Forces of the UK,’ an authoritative bi-annual review of British forces.

The death toll numbers released by the US were also questioned. The Obama administration said that 1,429 people have died in 12 locations mostly east of Damascus. And although that number closely corresponds with figures from the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, only 395 names of victims were released by the organization upon request.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that it counted victims by name and the current total is at 502. The organization questioned the US numbers and asked the administration for information regarding what the higher death toll figure is based on.

At the same time, Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported that German intelligence has evidence that Bashar Assad may not be personally behind the chemical attack. He even blocked requests from his military commanders to use chemical weapons, the German media outlet reported, citing unidentified, high-level national security sources.

The report is based on findings from phone calls intercepted by German surveillance deployed off the Syrian coast and run by the country’s BND intelligence service.

The Syrian president himself unexpectedly emerged to state his case to a US audience during an interview to CBS, which is scheduled to be aired on Monday.

“There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people,” he was reported as saying.

The US has dismissed Assad’s comments.

"It doesn't surprise us that someone who would kill thousands of his own people, including hundreds of children with poison gas, would also lie about it," deputy spokesperson at the National Security Council, Bernadette Meehan, told NBC News.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also dismissed Assad’s statements, saying on Sunday that "the evidence speaks for itself.” The comment was made during a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas regarding the July 29 resumption of Israel-Palestine peace talks, Reuters reported.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.(AFP Photo / Alexander Nemenov)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s most powerful ally, used the G20 summit in St. Petersburg to accuse the rebels of staging the attack.

Putin stressed that setting precedents of military action outside a UN Security Council resolution would mean that the world’s smaller countries can no longer feel safe against the interests of more powerful ones.

At the end of the summit, only 12 of the G20 countries supported Washington’s position regarding a military intervention.

Three days’ op: Reports that Pentagon aiming at heavier Syria strike

Despite stiff opposition at home and abroad to any military solution to the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, the Pentagon is preparing for a much broader attack on Syria than it originally had planned, the Los Angeles Times reports.

RT,

7 September, 2013

The revised plan calls for three-days of cruise missile attacks followed by a second wave of attacks on targets that the initial salvos failed to destroy, anonymous sources told the daily.

Two US officers also alleged that the White House “requested an expanded target list in recent days to include many more than the 50 or so targets on the initial list.”

Pentagon planners have several options in the event of an attack: they are pondering over calling in Air Force bombers to be backed by air-to-surface cruise missiles from five warships now on patrol in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, or use an aircraft carrier strike group in the Red Sea, which includes one cruiser and three destroyers.

"There will be several volleys and an assessment after each volley, but all within 72 hours and a clear indication when we are done," said one officer familiar with the planning.

The article admitted, however, that some military officers are skeptical that even a more robust air campaign will do much lasting damage to Assad’s forces. One of the officers told the Times that the planned operation amounted to little more than a temporary "show of force," not enough to turn the tables in favor of Syrian rebel forces.

Reports that the Syria target list was to be expanded first appeared during the G20 summit in St Petersburgh. Obama refuted the rumors at the press conference. US Secretary of State John Kerry suggested on Sunday that Washington might still bring the Syria strike issue to the UN Security Council, but that Obama is still keeping all options on the table.

"On President Hollande's comments with respect to the UN, the president [Obama], and all of us, are listening carefully to all of our friends," Kerry said. "No decision has been made by the president."

Obama has declined to say whether he would order an attack on Syria if Congress votes against military action. However, he did give a preview of his argument in his weekly radio address on Saturday.

"Failing to respond to this outrageous attack would increase the risk that chemical weapons could be used again, that they would fall into the hands of terrorists who might use them against us, and it would send a horrible signal to other nations that there would be no consequences for their use of these weapons," he said.

The US leader is planning an attack of a different sort as he prepares to appeal for public support in the coming days on the nation’s media including ABC, CBS and NBC, the three main broadcast networks, as well as CNN, PBS, and Fox News. He will also make a special address from the Oval Office on Tuesday - something all the channels will broadcast - the day before the Senate is expected to grant or reject authorization to a strike on Syria.

The world’s opinion remains divided on the Syrian action. In its latest remarks, the EU said the Syrian government was the likely perpetrator of the Damascus chemical attack, but that it will not be rushed into any military action before an official UN report is released.

Russia, China and several other countries insist that any action taken on Syria should be first approved by the US Security Council, with President Vladimir Putin calling the Ghouta chemical incident a “provocation” on the part of the rebels and pledging help to Syria in the event of a foreign attack.

US admiral says ships in Mediterranean ‘fully ready’ for potential Syria strike

US Navy destroyers in the Mediterranean are “fully ready” to launch cruise missiles into Syria as part of a US military campaign that would not involve “extraordinary” monetary costs, a top admiral said Thursday.

RT,

6 September, 2013

Admiral Jonathan Greenert said that the US was considering using Tomahawk missiles against Syria at a cost of $1.5mn each. His statement confirmed what no other officials had said publicly – though some had leaked similar information anonymously.

Greenert called the Tomahawks "a really good option" for commanders.

The Navy has four destroyers in the Mediterranean which are capable of launching cruise missiles into Syria. The US also has an aircraft carrier and accompanying warships in the Red Sea, should Washington decide to strike.

The US naval ships deployed in the region "are fully ready for a vast spectrum of operations, including operations that they may be asked to do, from launching Tomahawk missiles to protecting...the ships themselves," the admiral said.

Greenert, a chief naval operations officer who focuses on preparedness of Navy forces, also seemed to confirm the rough estimate made by US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, when he told Congress that a US campaign in Syria would likely cost "tens of millions" of dollars.

"The numbers are nagging but they're not extraordinary at this point," Greenert said at an event held by the conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute.

Comments about the cost of intervention made by Hagel and Greenert reflect a belief that any US strike on Syria would be limited to a few days, though military budget analysts say Hagel’s figure is a low estimate.

"I was surprised when I heard him [Hagel] say tens of millions of dollars. That's low-balling it," Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Reuters.

Much of the cost of a potential Syria strike would go to replacing munitions used. That funding would not be required until after September 30, when the 2013 fiscal year ends.

"If you include the replacement costs of munitions, [an operation against Syria] could cost half a billion, up to a billion dollars depending on the number of targets they go after," he said.

Should US military action in Syria extend beyond current estimates, a supplemental spending measure would have to be approved by Congress. Greenert did not rule out the need for a further spending authorization.

"A supplemental might be the order of the day," he said about a protracted involvement in Syria.

NATO fired 221 Tomahawk cruise missiles during its air war against Libya in 2011. Half of those were fired during the opening phase of the campaign. That intervention cost the US around $1bn in total, according to the Pentagon.