McCain: US Administration ‘Partially to Blame’ for Chemical Attack in Syria

Ed Markey rebuked Haley’s call for regime change, saying that would require a major military effort on the part of the US.

“I think it probably was partially to blame …”

Days later, after a chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians that the USA blames on Assad’s regime, the Trump administration sharpened its rhetoric and launched several dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, marking the first US military effort against the Assad government.

Haley said that Trump’s administration has “multiple priorities” and “getting Assad out is not the only priority”.

More than 320,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with a crackdown by Assad against antigovernment protesters.

Once the threat from Isis has been reduced or eliminated, “I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilising the situation in Syria”, Tillerson said.

Tillerson stopped short of accusing Russian Federation of direct involvement in planning or carrying out the attack, saying he had not seen “any hard evidence” to suggest Moscow was an accomplice to Assad. “Secondly, we don’t see a peaceful Syria with Assad in there”.

Haley added that what the USA government considered an inappropriate response from Moscow prompted the ongoing investigation into Russia’s role in the chemical attack.

Russia’s government has angrily denounced the missile strike as an act of unwarranted aggression, and denied that Assad’s forces carried out the attack with the banned nerve gas sarin.

“It was a very deliberate, very proportional, and very targeted strike undertaken in response to the chemical weapons attack”.

The USS Porter was one of two destroyers that fired a total of 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield in retaliation for a chemical attack that killed scores of civilians this week.

A reporter from the state-run Russia-24 outlet posted a video of activity on the Syrian airbase, with a caption that read, “Return to work at Shayrat”.

The suspected chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun on Wednesday left 89 people dead.

Turkey remains committed to a ceasefire in Syria, but Russian Federation must stop insisting that Bashar al-Assad should remain in office, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday. It was also unclear on Saturday morning where the strikes had been launched from.