Top Obama aide presses case for action against Syrian government
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US President Barack Obama’s top aide yesterday pressed the case for “targeted, limited consequential action” to degrade the capabilities of Syrian President Bashar Assad to carry out chemical weapons attacks.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough’s comments came as the White House mounted a major push to win support from a divided Congress and skeptical American public for a military strike.
McDonough asserted that a “common-sense test” rather than “irrefutable, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt evidence” makes the Syrian government responsible for a chemical weapons attack that Obama says demands a military response.
McDonough acknowledged the risks that the US could be dragged into the middle of a brutal civil war and endanger allies such as Israel with a retaliatory attack.
The US is “planning for every contingency in that regard and we’ll be ready for that,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
McDonough was making the rounds of television news shows ahead of Obama’s planned televised address on Syria from the White House tomorrow night.
Asked whether Obama would reveal a direct connection between Assad and the attack, he said: “The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus that have been controlled by the opposition for some time. It was delivered by rockets — rockets which we know the Assad regime has and we have no indication that the opposition has.”
McDonough also cited a DVD compilation, released on Saturday by a US official, of videos showing attack victims.
“We’ve seen the video proof of the outcome of those attacks. 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. So what we do know and what we know the common-sense test says is he is responsible for this. He should be held to account.”
Recent opinion polls show intense American skepticism about intervention, even among those who believe Syria’s government used chemical weapons.
Congress resumes today after its summer break. On Wednesday, the first showdown Senate vote is likely over a resolution authorizing the “limited and specified use” of US armed forces against Syria. A final vote is expected at the end of the week.
A vote in the House of Representatives appears likely during the week after. An Associated Press survey shows that House members who are staking out positions are either opposed to or leaning against a strike by more than a 6-1 margin. The Senate is more evenly divided. Nearly half the 433-member House and a third of the 100-member Senate are undecided.
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