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Subscribe to RSSThe world is watching Syria very closely, worried that a desperate Bashir al-Assad might use his chemical weapons against his own people or his neighbors. The U.S. and other nations have warned Assad against launching a chemical attack, but they consider a preemptive strike against Assad's weapons to be high-risk. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Thursday that intelligence about Syrian chemical weapons "raises serious concerns" that the regime of Bashar Assad may use them against the country's own citizens.
"The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching very closely," Panetta said. "And the president of the United States has made it very clear, there will be consequences — there will be consequences if the Assad regime makes the terrible mistake by using these chemical weapons on their own people."
His comments came a day after U.S. officials told NBC News that the Syrian military had loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, into aerial bombs that could be dropped from dozens of fighter-bombers. The defense chief, who was speaking at a news conference at the Department of Veterans Affairs, would not elaborate on what the potential consequences would be.
A member of the regime in Damascus, however, dismissed the assertions Thursday, saying he feared the United States and other Western powers could be trying to find a "pretext for intervention" in Syria's civil war, Reuters reported.
Sarin is an extraordinarily lethal agent. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds with a single sarin attack on Halabja in 1988.
Assad's deputy foreign minister Faisal Maqdad said Thursday that they would never kill Syrians with chemical weapons, dismissing the Western intelligence reports as "theater."
"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Maqdad said, according a Reuters report that cited his comments on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of the pro-Assad Hezbollah movement.
"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he added.
"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria," he said.
Aref Hretani / Reuters
Children run along a street damaged by what activists said was a Syrian Air Force airstrike in the Aleppo district of Salaheddine on Wednesday.
Panetta echos Obama 'red line' warning
"The intelligence we have raises serious concerns" that Damascus was considering using chemical weapons, Panetta said Thursday.
"Without commenting on the specific intelligence ... we remain very concerned, very concerned that as the opposition advances, in particular on Damascus, that the regime might very well consider the use of chemical weapons."
A group of United States senators, including John McCain, discuss reports that the Syrian government has begun to prepare chemical weapons.
Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.
Four U.S. Senators on Thursday urged President Obama to send a strong message to Assad.
"We urge the President of the United States to make whatever military preparations are necessary to show Assad that the United States is fully willing and able to impose the consequences that he has spoken of in the event these weapons are used," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), speaking first. "For deterrence to work it must be based on a credible threat."
He appeared with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.).
"We are all saying to President Obama, who has stated that there will be drastic consequences for Assad and his government if they use chemical and biological weapons, we’re with you," said Lieberman. "There’s strong support across Congress if the president takes the strong action that’s necessary to prevent a very, very — historically horrific — humanitarian disaster in Syria.
There are limited options for military intervention by the United States in Syria. It has one of the most robust air defense systems in the world — supplied by key ally Russia — but one option could be sending cruise missiles to attack regime targets.
Pentagon sources tell NBC News that the Syrian military is awaiting final orders to launch chemical weapons against its own people after precursor chemicals for deadly sarin gas were loaded into aerial bombs. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.
Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit the imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.
Slideshow: Syria uprising
Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order
Syria regime 'reeling, armed to the teeth' with chemical weapons
More weapons in Syria could trigger 'all-out war'
The 20-month-old battle between Assad and opposition forces has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met in Dublin on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to restart a U.N. peace process for Syria. Prior to the meeting, she said she expected to raise the chemical weapons threat.
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Clinton has said that in addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed President Obama's recent vow to take action if Syrian President Bashar Assad uses chemical weapons during the ongoing clashes within his country. U.S. officials are also concerned about the rising influence of extremist groups within Syria. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.
U.S. officials said Washington was considering blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused by other rebels of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria and is suspected to have ties to al-Qaida.
In other developments reported by Reuters:
- Syrian state TV said a\n explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday.
- Activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.
- Rebels say they have surrounded an air base two-and-a-half miles from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.
- Rebels said they were battling soldiers on the road to Damascus International Airport, 12 miles out of the capital, where several airlines have canceled flights due to security concerns.
Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue. "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors," he said. Rebel and state claims about the military situation cannot be verified independently. But residents inside the capital say the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Just nuke their chemical weapons depot's. That will vaporize all the Sarin and a few Syrians as well!
Just give Assad a big dose of flatus gas collected from all our President, his cabinet, the congress and senate and that will persuade him to leave Syria.
Sec. Panetta is always a day late and a dollar short. Both the President and Sec. Clinton warned Syria yesterday. Actually, he is never a dollar short since he always claims "the sky is falling" every time a minor cut in defense spending is mentioned. Hopefully, the President has a new appointment for DOD in mind?
Hillary clinton,Obama,and Panetta,...respond in lightning Speed..
Will send an F.T.D.Floral Bouquet (Forget-me-nots)
A Big Yellow Happy Face Smiley Balloon
A fruit basket...
and an apology card..that plays.."Yankee doodle dandy",..when opened..
This is like when the Obama Administration warns Iran about not developing nuclear weapons,
totally meaningless, right?
Oh really?!? . . . you would never kill your own people with poisonous gas, but you have absolutely no problem with snipers lying in wait on rooftops to put bullets in their heads -- women and children alike -- anything that moves . . . what a load of @!$%#! . . . Use your Sarin gas you idiotic fools, but don't for one second think the sane world will idly stand by while you murder innocent people. Assad and the rest of his mafia-style family better take heed and get their collective asses out of Syria, or die. You would think a educated man like Assad would realize he's about to meet his Waterloo.
However you are perfectly ok with the Muslim Brotherhood/Terrorists killing innocent people with bombs, snipers and anything they can get their hands on as they "purge" neighborhoods?
I am certain obam is already working on our apology, a monetary offer of assistance and bringing the perpetrator of the new anti-Islam film to justice.
He is going to handle this the same way he does everything else, give a speech, hop on a plane and go somewhere else. We wil know when all hell breaks lose when odumbo appears in Vegas. Thats is is favorite bug-out location during a crisis.
Its Syria, its not our problem. The liberals tell us we should not attack countries that have attacked us then why even consider involving ourselves in a Country that has not attacked us?
Just stop covering the story... we are not going to do crap.
I have not heard a peep from the so called liberals about WMDs. Just a week ago they were still chanting death to Bush II and Cheney for War Crimes and lies about WMDs. Apparently, Obama has a much better sense of smell and therefore if he says there are WMDs there must be WMDs
Watch Israel; it is election time which requires the candidates to exhibit their anti-muslim bona-fides by just a little bombing and killing. It never fails.
obama,clinton and now penetta......reminds me of a pollock joke.
What the threesome that is screwing our nation..LOL
Pwease ...Pwease.. Mr.Assad..pwease don't Be a Bad man..?
We pwahmas we'll help you..top it...O tay..?
We've been Vewee concerned..for .....OVER Two years now.....yes..weally...Vewee concerned..
How much more slander and blasphemy are we going to allow in this failing country as even our leaders are leading us into damnation. The O-Abomination they are pushing into our faces, our eyes burning with lies and deceptions yet the American people just go on like nothing is happening. Are we all so truly blinded that we cannot see the plagues this government is spreading in our lands of so called freedom. With their constant warmongering in other lands, costing the American tax payer billions of dollars in a broken society. Our children and military going again to die for people who hate this country and who use this country at wile for their deception, greed and warmongering mentalities. The American public having no say who dies or who lives, how many more trillions of dollars these wars will put our country into debt. Then you got a lying king and his minions who have only been waiting for these wars to start but in his election deceptions, they keep it silent until they can make gain on their investments into death. Myself I wash my hands from this criminal government that we seem to be blinded by and I truly think the people have been fooled by some demon if not the anti Christ himself as his whole purpose on this earth is the lie and cheat while making great deceptions that the people are bliss too. Then they advertise the falsehood of their new making of wars so they can again go in and aid our enemies, pay our enemies who hate us billions of dollars in military aid, one great big proof of this deceptions and warmongering investments, EGYPT now and O-Abominations favorite special interest group, or should we call them his Investment group, the Muslim brotherhood which in my revelation is his people, Not WE THE PEOPLE, this being our birth rights according to our heritage and past forefathers, O-Abomination has none of that to speak of in his lies and for some reason these men marvel, one at another for their great failures. All who are drinking and being merry with this lying dictator as he commands them as stewards to his deceptions and he put every mans money in the sake for him while their mouth sings praise only for the entitlements they receive. How then have they all stolen from the ones who work hard in the kingdom and receive only wars and debt for their rewards? Behold if you can see where this fund is coming from and being spent on everything that is not good and clean, your cities full of corrupted addictions from it. It puts this once great country back into bondage and this king has many slaves bowing down to his every deception and O-Abomination.
Pull the Libyan Stunt - take a picture of a rebel with a plastic toy gun in his hand with tears in his eyes and NATO will be there in a heartbeat. Other than that, Libya was a game of laser tag compared to what has been happening n Syria.
Didn't Obama and Hillary draw a line in the sand "Don't move those Chemical Weapons" a few weeks/months ago? Those chemical weapons have been moved.
Now they draw a new line in the sand "Don't use those chemical weapons".
What line is next?
Hopefully not Hillary's panty lines - I shudder at the thought
ok..? well.? this line then..?
well alright..then..this one..?
Hey Hillary..Hey..we got any "lines " left.... to cross..?
Where did I put my majic marker..?
I don't get how this all works. Fire bullets, bombs, tanks, helicopters, jets, you name it and kills hundreds: Eh who cares.
Fire chemical weapons: Hey you better not! Does it truly matter what way they choose to kill each other?
Syria is a puppet of Iran. We should let them both know that using gas will result severe consequences and then DO IT!! Everyone treats our threats as a joke because they know we will not follow through with anything more than a political "time-out". Bill Clinton said "I feel your pain". Barrack Obama should say "feel this kind of pain" and send them a tape of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. If you don't respect us, you'd better fear us!
Syria is already using chemical weapons....READ HERE! Article posted today 12/6
For months, Dr. “X” and his wife have watched the news and worried. Their families live in Damascus and its suburbs, and they are now virtually homebound by escalating violence between the Syrian government and rebel forces. Millions more Syrians have been displaced.
Dr. lives in “X”, where he is a pulmonologist and intensive care physician. He had sent money and prayers, but “you always feel like you’re not doing enough,” he said. “You always feel that you want to go there, and you want to help, with myself. I wanted to give with my hands.”
The Dr. left on Thanksgiving for Idlib, in northwest Syria on the Turkish border, where thousands of refugees have gathered in tents and a school building has been transformed into a field hospital. Volunteers there ring the school’s bell to summon doctors when a new wave of injured people arrive, some from cities and towns nearly 150 miles away.
In his nine days there, Dr. said he helped with basic medical needs and to insert breathing tubes in patients. The hospital’s only ventilator, cobbled together from parts of other machines, was used nearly 24 hours a day in an operating room led by one young surgeon and an anesthesiologist -- “heroes,” Dr. said. Most injuries were gunshot wounds or from bomb blasts and building collapses.
While the Syrian government has said it would not use chemical weapons and world leaders have warned the Assad regime that such measures would prompt intervention, Dr. said he believes the line may have been crossed already. Some who arrived at the hospital with serious burns said a plane had flown over their town dropping a powdery substance.
“Why would somebody have third-degree burns” from that? Dr. said. “I mean these are simple villagers. The most severe [case] was a woman in her 70s.”
As he worked in the hospital on the morning of Nov. 28, Dr. said he heard an odd noise. He and other volunteers figured that the electricity had cut out and a generator had kicked on. Then, someone told them to get out. A plane was buzzing overhead, he said. Dr. stood outside and watched as it circled. Two bombs missed the hospital and refugee camp, while a third hit an area of unoccupied tents, he said.
Dr. said the Syrian people feel isolated, without allies. They believe that Russia and Iran are arming President Bashar Assad, and without support from the international community, the opposition is out-gunned. Those fighting to oust him “are willing to continue, and they will, but they are so disappointed that they were left alone,” Dr. said.
He worries, too, about when the fighting is over. So much has been destroyed. “There is no infrastructure,” he said.
Panetta is a NWO puppet and is using the chemical warfare as an excuse to invade Syria along with al Qaida which the US is funding. False flag just like the mortars going from Syria to turkey which the US is responsible for
And just where did they get the Chemical weapons in the first place? IRAQ maybe?????? Oh yea they didn't exist.
Maybe you could get some kids in your neighborhood to teach you how to use the Internet to get information so you won't have to rely on Fox. If you really want to find out when and how Syria got chemical weapons.
Jim, yes we all know that, if it is on the "Internet" it has to be absolutely true. Thanks for the brilliance.
Jim, hmm - there have been several intelligence reports backing up the San Antonio Kid's assertion. Maybe you should do some research and quit trying to look up Rachel Maddow's skirt
to be honest.....not sure who to believe here.....truth is always the 1st causality of war......Assad is an a-hole no doubt....but the rebels....could be worse. The nerve gas they mention is no thing to laugh or joke about. If ya get hit by this your better off dead..surviving such an attack is worse than death. check out the poor bastards in Irac who got a wiff of this stuff...sad thing is the US sold sadam this stuff to use on Iran.. there is your weapon of mass destruction. we did not want him to use US made nerve gas on any body but Iran. That is why we went in and took him out. that and of course the oil that we don't see. lol Our leaders here make us look like such tools.....soon as ya think its getting better the new leaders make things worse. Its gonna get a hell of a lot worse till a real leader can unite the US again. I don't see it happening for a long time. if at all.
For months, Dr. "X" and his wife have watched the news and worried. Their families live in Damascus and its suburbs, and they are now virtually homebound by escalating violence between the Syrian government and rebel forces. Millions more Syrians have been displaced.
Dr. lives in "X", where he is a pulmonologist and intensive care physician. He had sent money and prayers, but "you always feel like you're not doing enough," he said. "You always feel that you want to go there, and you want to help, with myself. I wanted to give with my hands."
The Dr. left on Thanksgiving for Idlib, in northwest Syria on the Turkish border, where thousands of refugees have gathered in tents and a school building has been transformed into a field hospital. Volunteers there ring the school's bell to summon doctors when a new wave of injured people arrive, some from cities and towns nearly 150 miles away.
In his nine days there, Dr. said he helped with basic medical needs and to insert breathing tubes in patients. The hospital's only ventilator, cobbled together from parts of other machines, was used nearly 24 hours a day in an operating room led by one young surgeon and an anesthesiologist -- "heroes," Dr. said. Most injuries were gunshot wounds or from bomb blasts and building collapses.
While the Syrian government has said it would not use chemical weapons and world leaders have warned the Assad regime that such measures would prompt intervention, Dr. said he believes the line may have been crossed already. Some who arrived at the hospital with serious burns said a plane had flown over their town dropping a powdery substance.
"Why would somebody have third-degree burns" from that? Dr. said. "I mean these are simple villagers. The most severe [case] was a woman in her 70s."
As he worked in the hospital on the morning of Nov. 28, Dr. said he heard an odd noise. He and other volunteers figured that the electricity had cut out and a generator had kicked on. Then, someone told them to get out. A plane was buzzing overhead, he said. Dr. stood outside and watched as it circled. Two bombs missed the hospital and refugee camp, while a third hit an area of unoccupied tents, he said.
Dr. said the Syrian people feel isolated, without allies. They believe that Russia and Iran are arming President Bashar Assad, and without support from the international community, the opposition is out-gunned. Those fighting to oust him "are willing to continue, and they will, but they are so disappointed that they were left alone," Dr. said.
He worries, too, about when the fighting is over. So much has been destroyed. "There is no infrastructure," he said.
I am just wondering what would have been the case had Israel not attacked the nuclear N. Korean site in Syria which was under construction a few years ago. If we let Israel handle these ME developments AHEAD of time, we would not be reading about chemicals, biological or nuclear threats from Iran or Syria.
not our problem..not our problem ..not our problem
No boots on the ground. I agree. Probably should be worried about who ends up with the nerve gas, however.
It'll be our problem when Syrian sarin nerve gas falls into al Qaida's hands and is used in a football stadium.
Still think its not our problem?
Yeah I do because any nerd in his basement can make this stuff. Unsecured borders bother you any? Remember when those cult folks in Japan used it on subway? Mold! Household mold can become chemical weapon.
Syria is also thought to have VX. Try to make THAT in your basement.
VX is derivative of nerve gas'es; Soman, Sarin, Mustard and Prussic acid from WWI. It is a pesticide in another form. US signed treaty in 1997 to dispose of it. "The U.S. Army has plans to dump large quantities of VX nerve gas waste product into the Delaware River."
Let them all kill eachother......There will be that many less people that hate us
I am so sick and tired of this B.S.
Stop the Propaganda.
Stop with the Secret stuff (sources say ) hearsay.
Expose the source. Expose the secrets in this case. Show us what is truth and where it comes from before another word or any action is taken. The Leaders of our country should NOT hide the facts on this.
What the hell ailes these people who represent us? The world is so sick and I am sick and tired of the way important things are manipulated. I don't trust anyone now or anymore. I have been down this road one time tomany. Fool me twice.
Fix the problems right here in this country NOW. We MUST move Forward.
C'mon people.
It is the same playbook America has used for years.
We have to intervene because -------- (insert country name here) has WMD and is going to use them.
Therefore we are going to MAKE WAR.
STOP THE ENDLESS WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
America has been at war for most of the last 100 years...it is big business for us
C'mon dude..tha was ONLY Bush who was the war monger....c'mon man...wheres your outrage at Obama???????? Loser