Trump Informs Congress of Reasons for Strike in Syria

The air and sea strikes were a response to an alleged chemical attack in Douma a week before, which killed at least 42 people and injured hundreds. “We can not allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalized”.

Mara Karlin, a former senior Pentagon official, said: “Let’s not kid ourselves, Mr Assad has no shortage of tools in his destructive and deadly arsenal”.

Assad also stated that the U.S. -U.K. Kori Schake’s on the line with us from London.

In London, British Prime Minister Theresa May was facing criticism over her decision to bypass parliament and take part in the air strikes against Syria.

The White House confirmed last night that the deadly nerve agent sarin and chlorine were both used in Douma, with medics and aid organisations describing “symptoms consistent with exposure to sarin”.

President Bashar Assad appeared on state TV on Sunday as confident as ever, holding meetings with Russian lawmakers.

The Council of the European Union also met on Monday, and issued a statement afterwards strongly condemning “the continued and repeated use of chemical weapons by the regime in Syria, including the latest attack on Douma, which is a grave breach of worldwide law and an affront to human decency”.

Military analyst Qalaat Al Mudiq tweeted a map showing where pro-Assad forces operated following the Western strike.

SCHAKE: That would do it.

The United States, France and Britain have launched a new bid at the United Nations to investigate chemical weapons attacks in Syria, just hours after firing military strikes against Syrian targets. I think that’s a useful way.

“The fact he was making this more normal and that Russian Federation was covering this up, all that has got to stop”.

“Then I left the house, there were already many of our neighbors out on the street”.

Pictures show the before and after images of a research centre and a chemical weapons bunker hit by missiles yesterday. In an apparent slight at Trump, who claimed this week that the new missiles would be “nice, new and smart”, Moscow said some of the equipment was designed as long ago as the 1950s.

But that would imply that the Trump administration has a strategy Syria, or sees a role there for the United States beyond the defeat of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which it does not. They have a strategy that’s a very narrow military focus to the defeat of ISIS. And just as Assad predicted, the US response was limited – leaving his air power, his command and control, and his chemical weapons capability largely intact. They’re willing to watch the horrific humanitarian spectacle of the suffering of the Syrian people. But Israeli officials said the Tiyas air base was being used by troops from Iran and that Israel would not accept such a presence in Syria of its arch foe.

British ambassador Peter Wilson said in The Hague that the United Nations had cleared the inspectors to go but they had been unable to reach Douma because Syria and Russian Federation had been unable to guarantee their safety.

This time we all stayed at home, moreover, we watched the missiles from the roofs and balconies. But do you think that is a mistake?

The photographs show the three sites targetted in Saturday’s airstrikes before and after they were decimated by US, US and French missiles.

KING: Kori Schake served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.