The intel report on Syria is saying the case for the Assad regime using chemical weapons is “not a slam dunk.”
As previously reported by The Inquisitr , when Obama and Hillary Clinton were senators even a solid intel report on Syria would have caused them to oppose a military strike unilaterally ordered by the Presidential office.
While the French support President Obama ordering a strike on Syria , the British oppose Syrian intervention and around 80 percent of Americans want Obama to seek Congressional approval for a Syria strike . When speaking in public President Obama has been emphatic that the Syrian Assad regime had chemical weapons:
“We have concluded that the Syrian government in fact carried these out. And if that’s so, then there need to be international consequences.”
But the actual intel report on Syria is not so certain, with US intelligence officials saying the case for Syria’s chemical weapons is “not a slam dunk.” This phrasing is a reference to then-CIA Director George Tenet’s belief that the case for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was a slam dunk in 2002.
Ironically, during the occupation of Iraq the military discovered many small caches of chemical weapons but some people now claim that most of Saddam’s missing WMDs are in Syria . Another irony is that the Obama administration prefers the strategy of Donald Rumsfeld, who wanted a limited strike and not the Iraq occupation. Interestingly, even Donald Rumsfeld says an attack on Syria can’t be justified right now.
The major difference in the case of Syria is the existence of the chemical weapons. The intel report on Syria apparently doesn’t doubt whether the WMDs exist in Syria, or whether they were used. But the situation on the ground in the Syrian civil war is so chaotic that intelligence officials are no longer certain where the chemical weapons might be stored or whether the Assad regime explicitly ordered chemical weapons attacks on his own people.
Based upon the intel report on Syria, should President Obama order a military strike on potential chemical weapons storage facilities?