Video: Dickerson: Is Assad "scared straight" by threat of U.S. force?

Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton share stage: 2016 preview? 0:46 September 11, 2013

Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton share stage: 2016 preview?In Philadelphia, a possible glimpse of the 2016 presidential candidates together. Jeb Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton shared the same stage when he honored her with the Liberty Medal for her career in pubic service. Charlie Rose reports.

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Kerry: "We know" Assad ordered Syria chemical attack, "what are we going to do about it?"

London Secretary of State John Kerry's frustration was visible Monday after days of lobbying other nations to support President Obama's call for punitive military strikes against the Syrian government.

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Speaking to reporters in London at the tail end of a foreign trip which saw him take the U.S. government's case to both friends and foes at the G-20 summit in Russia and in Europe, Kerry reiterated the Obama administration's absolute certainty in its own evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs.

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"We know that his regime gave orders to prepare for a chemical attack," said Kerry. "We know by tracing it physically where the rockets came from and where they landed," he added, saying still-secret intelligence showed rockets being fired from regime-controlled areas into the opposition held eastern Ghouta suburbs.

"The evidence is powerful, and the question for all of us is what are we going to do about it," said Kerry.

The White House has shared its evidence with U.S. lawmakers, but it's unclear who else has seen the satellite imagery and heard the intercepted phone calls which make President Obama and his cabinet so certain Assad ordered the attack.

Russia, a close ally to the Assad regime, has said its own analysis of earlier alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria suggested the rebels fighting against Assad had used deadly chemical agents, including sarin gas.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov welcomes his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem, left, prior to talks in Moscow, Sept. 9, 2013.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking Monday in Moscow alongside his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem, called on the U.S. to focus its attention and efforts on an expected round of diplomacy and negotiations in Geneva, "and not into preparations for military action."

"We believe in a peaceful settlement to the conflict, but if strikes happen, we would have a different stance," warned Lavrov, suggesting the window for a diplomatic solution to the crisis could actually close if the U.S. went ahead with strikes.

Kerry argued the contrary in London, saying negotiations were not possible with an Assad regime that he said felt it could carry out attacks like the one in Ghouta "with impunity".

Assad himself has given his first television interview since Obama sought congressional approval for strikes in Syria, telling "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose on Sunday that the U.S. and its allies should "expect every action" in retaliation to a strike.

On Monday, Kerry dismissed the Assad regime's repeated denials that it was to blame for the Ghouta attack.

"This is a man without credibility," Kerry said of the Syrian president.

The Secretary of State stressed that "we're not talking about war" with the plans for an "unbelievably limited" strike on Syrian military targets. "We're not going to war."

Asked by CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan whether there was any way, at this stage, for Assad to stop an attack by the U.S., Kerry said the Syrian leader "could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week. Turn it over. All of it. Without delay, and allow a full and total accounting before that, but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

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Video: Assad speaks

Assad speaks 8:25 September 9, 2013

With Syria in the cross-hairs of a possible US military strike, we are hearing from Syria's President, Bashar Al Assad. Pamela Falk, CBS News Foreign Affairs Analyst, joins UTTM to discuss the interview he did with CBS This Morning's Charlie Rose.

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Assad: U.S. does not have "a single shred of evidence" of chemical weapons attack

(CBS News) Syria's President Bashar Assad denied his regime's use of chemical weapons in a wide-ranging interview with CBS News' Charlie Rose. Assad issued a chilling warning for theU.S. to "expect everythingin response to a potential strike on Syria and repeatedly told Rose the Obama administration lacks irrefutable evidence to back up charges of chemical weapons use. 

The White House says more than 1,400 Syrian civilians were killed in a chemical weapons attack outside Damascus on August 21 using sarin gas.

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Assad said he had no knowledge of the chemical attack allegedly carried out by his own military, and took aim at Secretary of State John Kerry for making the charges without "a single shred" of evidence.

"We-- we're not in the area where... the alleged chemical attack was happened, as is alleged. We're not sure that anything happened," Assad insisted.

"Our soldiers in another area were attacked chemically, our soldiers. They went to the hospital, as casualties because of chemical weapons. But in the area where they said the government used chemical weapons, we only had video and we only have pictures and allegations. We're not there. Our forces -- our police, our institutions don't exist. How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidences? We're not like the American administration. We're not social media administration or government. We are the government that deals with reality."

Secretary Kerry and other Obama administration officials insist they have intelligence showing it was Assad's forces who fired rockets into a region controlled by the rebels on Aug. 21. Assad emphatically denied the charge, and pointed to Russian evidence claiming the contrary. He went on to compare Kerry's claims to Colin Powell's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"He presented his confidence and he presented his convictions," Assad said of Kerry. "It's not about confidence, it's about evidence. The United-- sorry, the Russians have completely opposite evidence that the missiles were thrown from area where the rebels controlled. That reminds me -- about what Kerry said -- about the big lie that Colin Powell said in front of the world on satellites about the W.M.D. in Iraq before going to war when he said, 'This is our evidence.' Actually, he gave false evidence. In this case, Kerry didn't even present any evidence. He talks, 'we have evidence,' and he didn't present anything, not yet. Nothing so far... not a single shred of evidence."

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Bashar Assad tells Charlie Rose U.S. should "expect every action" in response to Syria strikes

President Bashar Assad warned Sunday that if President Obama decides to launch military strikes on Syria, the U.S. and its allies should "expect every action" in retaliation.

"You should expect everything. Not necessarily from the government," Assad told "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose in his first television interview since Mr. Obama sought congressional approval for military action.

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In a clear reference to his allies in Iran and the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, Assad warned that his government is "not the only player in this region."

"You have different parties, you have different factions, you have different ideology. You have everything in this region now," said Assad, who has been accused by the White House of killing 1,400 of his own people in an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburbs.

Asked by Rose whether any retaliation for U.S. strikes could include the use of chemical weapons, Assad -- whose government has never confirmed officially that it even has chemical weapons -- said it would depend "if the rebels or the terrorists in this region or any other group have it. It could happen, I don't know. I am not fortune teller."

Rose said Sunday on the "CBS Evening News" that the Syrian dictator was "remarkably calm" during the interview as he addressed the claims that he had gassed his own people.

Excerpts from Rose's interview with Assad will air at 7 a.m. Eastern on "CBS This Morning." The interview will air in its entirety Monday night on "The Charlie Rose Show" on PBS.

Assad's government has blamed the Aug. 21 attack in Damascus' eastern Ghouta suburbs on opposition forces which have been battling to topple him from power for more than two years.

Russia has also suggested the rebels could have been behind the attack, and Moscow continues to urge the U.S. to delay any military action at least until a team of United Nations inspectors issues its report on the incident after collecting samples and evidence on the ground in Ghouta. The report is expected by mid-September, but will offer conclusions only on which chemical agents were used and how -- not on which side used them.

The Obama administration believes the evidence is already clear, based on secret intelligence allegedly showing Assad regime troops preparing for and even carrying out the attack on Ghouta using missiles tipped with chemical warheads, and intercepted communications between regime officials on the day of the attack.

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But while the White House has shared that intelligence with some members of Congress, and has managed to convince a few skeptical lawmakers, its public case for punitive action against Assad is based largely on circumstantial evidence.

U.S. officials and their allies around the world insist the Ghouta attack could only have been carried out by the Syrian government because only the Syrian military possesses the missiles, chemical agents and know-how necessary to successfully deliver a deadly toxin like sarin gas on such a wide scale.

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Secretary of State John Kerry has spent days trying to garner international backers for any U.S. military action in Syria, but he's managed to get firm commitments only from France and Saudi Arabia.

Kerry said Sunday in London that Saudi Arabia was supportive of a U.S-led strike and was convinced Assad was behind the Ghouta attack -- and he expected other Arab countries to issue statements of support on Monday, reported CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan.

But few were expected to say they would join in a military strike.

Kerry got a similarly hesitant response from the European Union on Saturday, which urged the world to send "a clear and strong response," but asked the U.S. to delay any action until the U.N. weapons inspectors finish their report.

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Video: Eye Opener: Obama says Assad must be punished

Eye Opener: Obama says Assad must be punished 1:58 August 29, 2013

Eye Opener: Obama says Assad must be punishedPresident Obama says he's still weighing his options for an attack on Syria and plans to brief high-ranking members of Congress. Also, America's biggest drugstore chain, Walgreens is being accused by Missouri's Attorney General of overcharging at the register. All that, and all that matters, in today's "Eye Opener." Your world in 90 seconds.

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