The title of the Morning Jolt newsletter implies it will include news that jolts you, and it’s quite likely you’re no longer so surprised to learn that a clear, emphatic presidential assurance, such as “Assad gave up his chemical weapons”, doesn’t turn out to be true. Once again, “all statements from Barack Obama come with an expiration date. All of them.”
Still, if Assad starts gassing Syrians again, it will make this boastful White House statement from last year look even more ridiculous — and indicate that this president is far too trusting when it comes to Middle Eastern regimes on the issue of weapons of mass destruction… which he’s determined to repeat in his dealings with Iran.
U.S. Intelligence: Assad May Use Those Chemical Weapons Obama Said He Didn’t Have
Barack Obama, speaking at the White House, May 14 of this year, discussing Syria:
Assad gave up his chemical weapons. And that’s not speculation on our part. That, in fact, has been confirmed by the organization internationally that is charged with eliminating chemical weapons.
The news, today:
U.S. intelligence agencies believe there is a strong possibility the Assad regime will use chemical weapons on a large scale as part of a last-ditch effort to protect key Syrian government strongholds if Islamist fighters and other rebels try to overrun them, U.S. officials said.
Analysts and policy makers have been poring over all available intelligence hoping to determine what types of chemical weapons the regime might be able to deploy and what event or events might trigger their use, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Last year, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad let international inspectors oversee the removal of what President Barack Obama called the regime’s most deadly chemical weapons. The deal averted U.S. airstrikes that would have come in retaliation for an Aug. 21, 2013, sarin-gas attack that killed more than 1,400 people.
Since then, the U.S. officials said, the Assad regime has developed and deployed a new type of chemical bomb filled with chlorine, which Mr. Assad could now decide to use on a larger scale in key areas. U.S. officials also suspect the regime may have squirreled away at least a small reserve of the chemical precursors needed to make nerve agents sarin or VX. Use of those chemicals would raise greater international concerns because they are more deadly than chlorine and were supposed to have been eliminated.
A White House letter to Congress, April 25, 2013:
The president has made it clear that the use of chemical weapons_ or transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups – is a red line for the United States of America. The Obama administration has communicated that message publicly and privately to governments around the world, including the Assad regime.