This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/world/middleeast/syria-assad.html

The article has changed 25 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 19 Version 20
Kerry Accuses Syria of Chemical Weapons Attack Kerry Cites Clear Evidence of Chemical Weapon Use
(about 2 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week was undeniable and that the Obama administration would hold the Syrian government accountable for a “moral obscenity” that had shocked the world’s conscience. WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that the use of chemical weapons in attacks on civilians in Syria last week was undeniable and that the Obama administration would hold the Syrian government accountable for what he called a “moral obscenity” that has shocked the world’s conscience.
In some of the administration’s most strident language, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of cynically seeking to cover up the use of the weapons, and he rejected its denial of responsibility for a “cowardly crime.” In some of the most aggressive language used yet by the administration, Mr. Kerry accused the Syrian government of the “indiscriminate slaughter of civilians” and of cynical efforts to cover up its responsibility for what he called a “cowardly crime.”
Mr. Kerry’s remarks, in a prepared statement he read at the State Department, reinforced the administration’s toughening stance on the Syria conflict, which is now well into its third year, and he suggested that the White House, in consultation with Congress and America’s allies, was moving closer to a military response. Mr. Kerry said President Obama “will be making an informed decision about how to respond to this indiscriminate use of chemical weapons.” Mr. Kerry’s remarks at the State Department reinforced the administration’s toughening stance on the Syria conflict, which is now well into its third year, and indicated that the White House was moving closer to a military response in consultation with America’s allies.
Other signs of Western momentum toward a possible military response also took shape on Monday. Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, cut short a holiday to deal with Syria; the foreign ministers of Britain and Turkey suggested that bypassing the United Nations Security Council was an option, and France’s foreign minister said doing nothing was unacceptable. News media in Cyprus, where Britain maintains a military air base that is less than 100 miles from Syria’s coast, reported stepped-up flight activity there in recent days, although that may not have been unusual. Administration officials said that although President Obama had not made a final decision on military action, he was likely to order a limited military operation — cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the Mediterranean Sea at military targets in Syria, for example — and not a sustained air campaign intended to topple Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, or to fundamentally alter the nature of the conflict on the ground.
Mr. Kerry’s statement appeared to brush aside warnings by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and his most important foreign backer, Russia, against any Western military action. In the coming days, officials said, the nation’s intelligence agencies will disclose information to bolster their case that chemical weapons were used by Mr. Assad’s forces. The information could include so-called signals intelligence — intercepted radio or telephone calls between Syrian military commanders.
“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity,” Mr. Kerry said. “By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.” Officials said it was conceivable that military action could still be averted by a dramatic turnabout on the part of the Assad government, or by the Russian government that has been supporting it. But they said there were few expectations that this would happen.
Mr. Kerry also said the Syrian government’s refusal to allow immediate access to the attack sites last Wednesday, followed by the continued shelling of those areas, were telling indicators that it was trying to hide responsibility. Even though the Syrian government permitted a United Nations team of investigators, who had been in the country, to investigate starting Monday, he said, the government’s authorization was “too late” to be credible. Although the United States was consulting with allies, administration officials said they had largely abandoned hopes of obtaining any authorization for action in the United Nations Security Council, given the all-but certain veto from Russia.
“Our sense of basic humanity is offended not only by this cowardly crime but also by the cynical attempt to cover it up,” Mr. Kerry said. Other signs of Western momentum toward a military response also took shape on Monday. Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, cut short a holiday to deal with Syria, and the foreign ministers of Britain and Turkey suggested that bypassing the United Nations Security Council was an option. France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said inaction was unacceptable.
The secretary of state spoke hours after the United Nations inspectors saw one attack site, despite shooting from unidentified snipers that disabled their convoy’s lead vehicle. The inspectors still managed to visit two hospitals, interview witnesses and doctors and collect patient samples for the first time since the attack last week that claimed hundreds of lives. “The only option I do not envisage is to do nothing,” Mr. Fabius told Europe 1, a French radio station. France has been a close ally of the rebels seeking Mr. Assad’s ouster in the country’s civil war.
UNited Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement after the assault that he had instructed his top disarmament official, Angela Kane, who was visiting Damascus, to register a “strong complaint to the Syrian government and authorities of opposition forces” to ensure the safety of the inspectors. There was no indication that any inspection team member had been hurt. News media in Cyprus, where Britain maintains a military air base that is less than 100 miles from Syria’s coast, reported stepped-up flights there in recent days, although such activity may not have been unusual.
Mr. Kerry spoke hours after United Nations inspectors were finally allowed access to one of the attack sites, despite shooting from unidentified snipers that disabled their convoy’s lead vehicle. The inspectors still managed to visit two hospitals, interview witnesses and doctors and collect patient samples for the first time since the attack last week that claimed hundreds of lives.
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he had instructed his top disarmament official, Angela Kane, who was visiting Damascus, to register a “strong complaint to the Syrian government and authorities of opposition forces” to ensure the safety of the inspectors after the assault. There was no indication that any member of the inspection team had been hurt.
Mr. Ban’s spokesman, Farhan Haq, told reporters at a regular daily briefing at United Nations headquarters in New York that the assailants, who had not been identified, fired on the first vehicle in the convoy, which was “hit in its tires and its front window.”Mr. Ban’s spokesman, Farhan Haq, told reporters at a regular daily briefing at United Nations headquarters in New York that the assailants, who had not been identified, fired on the first vehicle in the convoy, which was “hit in its tires and its front window.”
“Ultimately it was not able to travel further,” Mr. Haq said. “Ultimately,” he said, “it was not able to travel farther.”
Antigovernment activists posted videos online of United Nations inspectors in blue helmets arriving in the Moadamiya area, southwest of the capital, where they were shown entering a clinic and interviewing patients. Antigovernment activists posted videos online of United Nations inspectors in blue helmets arriving in the Moadamiya area, southwest of the capital, where they were shown entering a clinic and interviewing patients.
Moadamiya is a rebel-held suburb where antigovernment activists reported the smaller of two suspected chemical attacks last Wednesday. Videos posted then showed patients in a rebel field hospital apparently having trouble breathing. The visit by the United Nations inspectors to the Damascus suburb, in a half-dozen vehicles escorted by Syrian security forces, came shortly after Mr. Assad denied that his forces had used poison gas.
The visit by the United Nations inspectors to the Damascus suburb, in a half-dozen vehicles escorted by Syrian security forces, came shortly after President Assad denied accusations that his forces had used chemical weapons against his own citizens. In an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, published on Monday, Mr. Assad said accusations that his forces had used chemical weapons were an “outrage against common sense” and warned the United States that military intervention in Syria would bring “failure just like in all the previous wars they waged, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day.”
In an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, published on Monday, Mr. Assad said such accusations were illogical and an “outrage against common sense.” He warned the United States that military intervention in Syria would bring “failure just like in all the previous wars they waged, starting with Vietnam and up to the present day.” Obama administration officials said that Mr. Kerry’s statement was calculated to rebut the claims made by Syria and its longtime patron, Russia, that the rebels were somehow responsible for the chemical weapons attack, or that Mr. Assad had made an important concession by giving the United Nations investigators access.
Mr. Assad’s choice of a Russian newspaper to air his views seemed to reflect Moscow’s strong support for the Syrian leader after last week’s attacks. Mr. Kerry noted that on Thursday he told Walid al-Moallem, the Syrian foreign minister, that if the Assad government had nothing to hide it should provide immediate access to the attack site.
On Sunday, a spokesman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, said that those who advocated an armed response to any chemical weapons attack — without citing the United States or other countries — were prejudging the results of the United Nations inspections. “Instead, for five days, the Syrian regime refused to allow the U.N. investigators access to the site of the attack that would allegedly exonerate them,” Mr. Kerry said. “Instead, it attacked the area further, shelling it and systematically destroying evidence.”
“In these conditions, we again resolutely call on all those who are trying to impose the results of the U.N. investigations and who say that armed actions against Syria is possible to show common sense and avoid tragic mistakes,” Mr. Lukashevich said in a statement released on the ministry’s Web site. He said: “The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable. And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.”
In an interview Monday with Europe 1, a French radio station, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, said “all options” were still open in crafting an international response, but “the only option I do not envisage is to do nothing.” France has been a close ally of the rebels seeking Mr. Assad’s ouster in the country’s civil war. For Mr. Kerry, the statement brought his relationship with Syria full circle. As a senator in 2009, he met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to explore the possibilities of engagement.
Mr. Fabius said there was no doubt that chemical weapons had been used and outside powers would negotiate a “proportionate response” in the “days to come.” On Capitol Hill, top House and Senate Republicans called on the administration to confer with lawmakers before any military strike and to make the case to a skeptical public. The White House on Monday reached out to Speaker John A. Boehner after Mr. Boehner’s office noted publicly that he had not heard from the president on Syria.
In the welter of diplomatic maneuvering, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the Milliyet newspaper it would join an international coalition against Mr. Assad if the United Nations Security Council could not reach a consensus. Turkey is a strong supporter of the rebels, “The speaker made clear that before any action is taken there must be meaningful consultation with members of Congress, as well as clearly defined objectives and a broader strategy to achieve stability,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner.
In London, William Hague, the British foreign secretary, took a similar approach to an international response. “Is it possible to respond to chemical weapons without complete unity on the U.N. Security Council?” he told the BBC in a radio interview. “I would argue yes it is, otherwise it might be impossible to respond to such outrages, such crimes, and I don’t think that’s an acceptable situation.” Others welcomed the signals from the administration that it was preparing to take action. Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, said Mr. Assad “has crossed more than a red line and the United States must act in the interest of our national and global security.”
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, warned against prejudgment about the use of chemical weapons, saying that the United States and other countries had already mistakenly drawn conclusions by raising the specter of punitive military strikes. As Russia has asserted previously, Mr. Lavrov suggested that the attacks had been orchestrated by the rebels or other nongovernmental forces, saying it was illogical that the Syrian government would have launched an attack that would prompt an international response. In Israel, a senior government official made a similar argument and suggested that Iran would be monitoring how the United States and its allies responded.
Mr. Lavrov warned that any Western intervention would be a “serious mistake,” evoking the experiences of interventions in Iraq and Libya in particular. Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of international affairs, strategy and intelligence, told international reporters at a briefing on Monday morning in Jerusalem that it was “crystal clear” that Mr. Assad’s forces used chemical weapons last week and called the United Nations investigation effort a “joke.”
“If someone thinks that, having bombed the Syrian military infrastructure and having left the battlefield such that the enemies of the regime will seize victory, that all this will end, it’s an illusion,” Mr. Lavrov told reporters at the Foreign Ministry in Moscow. “Even if such a victory is achieved, the civil war will continue. “ Mr. Steinitz said that Iran, which provided arms to the Assad government and sent members of its paramilitary Quds force to fight with the Syrian military, should also be held responsible. “The Iranians are already trying to isolate themselves from the use of chemical weapons,” he said. “This is a kind of hypocrisy.”
He said that bypassing the United Nations Security Council to move militarily against the Syrian government would be “the grossest violation of international law” that would “sharply worsen the situation.” Even as the United States and its allies considered their next steps, the toll from the attack continued to mount.
In the interview with Izvestia, Mr. Assad said, “America has taken part in many wars but could not once achieve its political goals for which the wars were started. Yes, it is true, the great powers can wage wars but can they win them?” Doctors Without Borders reported on Saturday that about 3,600 patients had been treated at three hospitals for symptoms that appeared to stem from exposure to chemical weapons.
He said government troops would have risked killing their own forces if they had used chemical weapons. “This contradicts elementary logic,” news reports quoted him as saying. It is “not us but our enemies who are using chemical weapons,” he said, referring, as he usually does, to antigovernment rebels as “the terrorists.” On Monday, the group said that 70 of the 100 volunteers who had taken care of these patients had also become ill and that one volunteer had died.
In Israel, a senior government official said Monday it was “crystal clear” that Mr. Assad’s forces used chemical weapons last week and called the United Nations investigation effort a “joke.” The official said that Iran, a close ally of the Syrian leader, should also be held responsible. The organization was trying to replenish the depleted stocks of atropine, which is an antidote used to treat victims of chemical attacks, at the hospitals that treated the patients and was also rushing supplies to other medical facilities in Syria.
“The world cannot allow this to proceed,” Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of international affairs, strategy and intelligence, told international reporters at a briefing Monday morning in Jerusalem. “The Iranians are already trying to isolate themselves from the use of chemical weapons. This is a kind of hypocrisy. You cannot be part of this terrible, brutal war and say, ‘Yeah, I participate in the war but I isolate myself, I separate myself from the use of chemical weapons.’ Assad today is almost a total proxy to Iran.” In the latest round of American consultations on Syria, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone on Monday with Prime Minister Kevin M. Rudd of Australia about possible responses to the attack, and Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, met with a delegation of senior Israeli officials for talks that covered Iran, Egypt, Syria and other security issues. The Israeli delegation was led by Yaakov Amidror, the chairman of Israel’s National Security Council and the national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Echoing other Israeli leaders, Mr. Steinitz suggested that the Syria situation was a kind of harbinger regarding Iran’s disputed nuclear program. “If Iran would get nuclear weapons, it’s going to create a new, very dangerous new world, this is a global game-changer,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Ben Hubbard from Beirut, Lebanon; Rick Gladstone from New York; Judi Rodoren from Jerusalem; Alan Cowell from London; Andrew Roth and Noah Sneider from Moscow; and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.

Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington, Alan Cowell from London and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Andrew Roth and Noah Sneider from Moscow, Ben Hubbard from Beirut, Lebanon, Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.