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4/13/18, "Trump attacks Syria," Joe Lauria, Consortium News
"President Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria as a team of experts from
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was about to
arrive on Saturday to determine whether a chemical weapons attack had
even occurred, Joe Lauria reports."
"“I ordered the United States armed forces to launch precision
strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapon capabilities of
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad,” Trump said from the White House.
The strikes were carried out together with Britain and France,
he said. CNN reported explosions at a research facility near Damascus.
At a news conference later, Pentagon officials said this “phase” of the
missile strikes against three targets were completed and “no additional
attacks are planned.”...
A team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons was on its way to Syria after accepting an
invitation from the Syrian government to study soil and other samples in
Duma, the Damascus suburb where the alleged attack took place.
It’s not clear whether the U.S.-led operation would complicate their mission as the team was due to arrive later on Saturday. It is also not certain
whether the timing of the U.S.-led attack was intended to prevent the
team from gathering evidence.
Trump had earlier in the week, in perhaps his strangest Tweet yet,
threatened to send “smart” and “clean” missile strikes into Syria to
attack “Animal Assad.” He also blamed Russia for supporting Assad, which
may have been intended to get critics, who accuse him of being a Putin
puppet, off his back. Indeed this latest display of American militarism
may also be driven by Trump’s anti-Russian critics.
Trump had backed off his threat when it was revealed that his aides had not yet agreed to the attack.
In April 2017 the U.S. fired 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian
airbase that Washington [or at least Trump] believed was used to carry out a chemical
attack. U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis later said the U.S. did not
have concrete evidence that Syria was responsible."...
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Saturday, April 14, 2018
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