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.

Play Video

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.

14 Photos

"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.

/ AP

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."

View the original article here

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.

Complete coverage of the Syria Crisis

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."

View the original article here

Assessing "red lines" as Obama mulls Syria attack

A year after drawing a "red line" at the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, President Obama has spent the week teetering on the cusp of military intervention.

Play Video

It has taken last week's very public and graphic killing of 1,429 Syrians, according to a U.S. intelligence estimate released Friday, for the Obama administration to create a strategy to match the president's August 20, 2012 rhetoric.

What Mr. Obama said last year was: "We have been very clear to the [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. ... That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

While the president didn't specifically lay out last year what the consequences were for Assad if he crossed Mr. Obama's "red line," it's clear the world will find out soon as the administration spent Friday publicly making the case for a potential military strike on Syria.

The genesis of the term "red line" was immortalized in the chorus of Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Tommy." Referencing the 1854 Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, Kipling wrote, "But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll," describing the thin line of crimson coated Sutherland Highlanders soldiers, outnumbered and awaiting the enemy's charge.

Variations of the phrase have been used frequently in the past - "line drawn in the sand," deadlines, ultimatum - the effectiveness of such warnings resting on a country's resolve to follow through. The first real use of "red lines," in terms of territory, was the product of struggle between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News.

Other, unspoken "red lines" include the creation of nuclear forces, on both sides during the Cold War.

And most famously, per John Kerry's strongly worded condemnation of the Assad regime on Friday, the international community decided 100 years ago, "in response to the utter horror and inhumanity of World War I, that the civilized world agreed that chemical weapons should never be used again," a statement that leaves little room for interpretation.

"Red lines" have proven to be an effective deterrent but they also denote that everything short of the line is permissible, making it difficult to enforce in the face of determined and skillful opponent, the Washington Institute's Jeff White told CBS News.

Play Video

White compared the current U.S.-Syria tete-a-tete to "salami slicing"; the Assad regime inched closer and closer to the "red line" after a year of no reaction to numerous other alleged chemical attacks.

"The line moved from red to pink," White said. "When you start waffling and wobbling on what the 'red line' means and what you will do to enforce it, that will show weakness."

Cordesman notes that the term is always ambiguous. "No matter how you do it, it will always be somewhat arbitrary. It will always be something that can be argued, can be evaded, there will always be the question of: is this a strong enough event?"

While "red lines" have been effective as deterrents, they're not necessarily effective diplomacy tactics, especially when there is no strategy or end goal effectively communicated.  In recent days, what has been most clearly and repeatedly communicated publicly by Obama is his deliberate - some say too deliberate - decision-making process in terms of how to react the alleged Syrian chemical attack.

"So what I've said is that we have not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place," he said on PBS NewsHour on Wednesday.  On Friday, as well, the president repeated that he's "not made a final decision about various actions that might be taken to help enforce that norm."

The "international norm" against the use of chemical weapons has not been reflected in international response, however, in part due to the current perception of the United States.

"There are doubts about our credibility, our willingness to act, about even what our ability is to transform a strategy into action," Cordesman told CBS News. "It is a matter of neutrals, enemies and allies all over the world. So, in many ways this president faces a test that's far more serious than people who simply focus on the ripple effects in this region."

Cordesman points to Russia, bordered by Islamist countries and Islamist violence, as a country vulnerable to our decisions - decisions we have made against their advice.

Other international entanglements contributing to this sentiment: leaving Iraq without any military capability to fight Iran and leaving Afghanistan without having achieved any major strategic goals. Kerry reiterated these sentiments today: "It matters to our close friends Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon...It is about Hezbollah and North Korea, and every other terrorist group or dictator that might ever again contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction."

View the original article here

Alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria

CBS News Copyright © 2013 CBS Interactive Inc.
All rights reserved.

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Assessing "red lines" as Obama mulls Syria attack

A year after drawing a "red line" at the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, President Obama has spent the week teetering on the cusp of military intervention.

Play Video

It has taken last week's very public and graphic killing of 1,429 Syrians, according to a U.S. intelligence estimate released Friday, for the Obama administration to create a strategy to match the president's August 20, 2012 rhetoric.

What Mr. Obama said last year was: "We have been very clear to the [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. ... That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

While the president didn't specifically lay out last year what the consequences were for Assad if he crossed Mr. Obama's "red line," it's clear the world will find out soon as the administration spent Friday publicly making the case for a potential military strike on Syria.

The genesis of the term "red line" was immortalized in the chorus of Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Tommy." Referencing the 1854 Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, Kipling wrote, "But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll," describing the thin line of crimson coated Sutherland Highlanders soldiers, outnumbered and awaiting the enemy's charge.

Variations of the phrase have been used frequently in the past - "line drawn in the sand," deadlines, ultimatum - the effectiveness of such warnings resting on a country's resolve to follow through. The first real use of "red lines," in terms of territory, was the product of struggle between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News.

Other, unspoken "red lines" include the creation of nuclear forces, on both sides during the Cold War.

And most famously, per John Kerry's strongly worded condemnation of the Assad regime on Friday, the international community decided 100 years ago, "in response to the utter horror and inhumanity of World War I, that the civilized world agreed that chemical weapons should never be used again," a statement that leaves little room for interpretation.

"Red lines" have proven to be an effective deterrent but they also denote that everything short of the line is permissible, making it difficult to enforce in the face of determined and skillful opponent, the Washington Institute's Jeff White told CBS News.

Play Video

White compared the current U.S.-Syria tete-a-tete to "salami slicing"; the Assad regime inched closer and closer to the "red line" after a year of no reaction to numerous other alleged chemical attacks.

"The line moved from red to pink," White said. "When you start waffling and wobbling on what the 'red line' means and what you will do to enforce it, that will show weakness."

Cordesman notes that the term is always ambiguous. "No matter how you do it, it will always be somewhat arbitrary. It will always be something that can be argued, can be evaded, there will always be the question of: is this a strong enough event?"

While "red lines" have been effective as deterrents, they're not necessarily effective diplomacy tactics, especially when there is no strategy or end goal effectively communicated.  In recent days, what has been most clearly and repeatedly communicated publicly by Obama is his deliberate - some say too deliberate - decision-making process in terms of how to react the alleged Syrian chemical attack.

"So what I've said is that we have not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place," he said on PBS NewsHour on Wednesday.  On Friday, as well, the president repeated that he's "not made a final decision about various actions that might be taken to help enforce that norm."

The "international norm" against the use of chemical weapons has not been reflected in international response, however, in part due to the current perception of the United States.

"There are doubts about our credibility, our willingness to act, about even what our ability is to transform a strategy into action," Cordesman told CBS News. "It is a matter of neutrals, enemies and allies all over the world. So, in many ways this president faces a test that's far more serious than people who simply focus on the ripple effects in this region."

Cordesman points to Russia, bordered by Islamist countries and Islamist violence, as a country vulnerable to our decisions - decisions we have made against their advice.

Other international entanglements contributing to this sentiment: leaving Iraq without any military capability to fight Iran and leaving Afghanistan without having achieved any major strategic goals. Kerry reiterated these sentiments today: "It matters to our close friends Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon...It is about Hezbollah and North Korea, and every other terrorist group or dictator that might ever again contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction."

View the original article here

Assessing "red lines" as Obama mulls Syria attack

A year after drawing a "red line" at the Syrian government's alleged use of chemical weapons, President Obama has spent the week teetering on the cusp of military intervention.

Play Video

It has taken last week's very public and graphic killing of 1,429 Syrians, according to a U.S. intelligence estimate released Friday, for the Obama administration to create a strategy to match the president's August 20, 2012 rhetoric.

What Mr. Obama said last year was: "We have been very clear to the [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. ... That would change my calculus. That would change my equation."

While the president didn't specifically lay out last year what the consequences were for Assad if he crossed Mr. Obama's "red line," it's clear the world will find out soon as the administration spent Friday publicly making the case for a potential military strike on Syria.

The genesis of the term "red line" was immortalized in the chorus of Rudyard Kipling's 1892 poem "Tommy." Referencing the 1854 Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War, Kipling wrote, "But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll," describing the thin line of crimson coated Sutherland Highlanders soldiers, outnumbered and awaiting the enemy's charge.

Variations of the phrase have been used frequently in the past - "line drawn in the sand," deadlines, ultimatum - the effectiveness of such warnings resting on a country's resolve to follow through. The first real use of "red lines," in terms of territory, was the product of struggle between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told CBS News.

Other, unspoken "red lines" include the creation of nuclear forces, on both sides during the Cold War.

And most famously, per John Kerry's strongly worded condemnation of the Assad regime on Friday, the international community decided 100 years ago, "in response to the utter horror and inhumanity of World War I, that the civilized world agreed that chemical weapons should never be used again," a statement that leaves little room for interpretation.

"Red lines" have proven to be an effective deterrent but they also denote that everything short of the line is permissible, making it difficult to enforce in the face of determined and skillful opponent, the Washington Institute's Jeff White told CBS News.

Play Video

White compared the current U.S.-Syria tete-a-tete to "salami slicing"; the Assad regime inched closer and closer to the "red line" after a year of no reaction to numerous other alleged chemical attacks.

"The line moved from red to pink," White said. "When you start waffling and wobbling on what the 'red line' means and what you will do to enforce it, that will show weakness."

Cordesman notes that the term is always ambiguous. "No matter how you do it, it will always be somewhat arbitrary. It will always be something that can be argued, can be evaded, there will always be the question of: is this a strong enough event?"

While "red lines" have been effective as deterrents, they're not necessarily effective diplomacy tactics, especially when there is no strategy or end goal effectively communicated.  In recent days, what has been most clearly and repeatedly communicated publicly by Obama is his deliberate - some say too deliberate - decision-making process in terms of how to react the alleged Syrian chemical attack.

"So what I've said is that we have not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place," he said on PBS NewsHour on Wednesday.  On Friday, as well, the president repeated that he's "not made a final decision about various actions that might be taken to help enforce that norm."

The "international norm" against the use of chemical weapons has not been reflected in international response, however, in part due to the current perception of the United States.

"There are doubts about our credibility, our willingness to act, about even what our ability is to transform a strategy into action," Cordesman told CBS News. "It is a matter of neutrals, enemies and allies all over the world. So, in many ways this president faces a test that's far more serious than people who simply focus on the ripple effects in this region."

Cordesman points to Russia, bordered by Islamist countries and Islamist violence, as a country vulnerable to our decisions - decisions we have made against their advice.

Other international entanglements contributing to this sentiment: leaving Iraq without any military capability to fight Iran and leaving Afghanistan without having achieved any major strategic goals. Kerry reiterated these sentiments today: "It matters to our close friends Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon...It is about Hezbollah and North Korea, and every other terrorist group or dictator that might ever again contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction."

View the original article here

Syrian opposition: "Tens" killed in "poisonous gas" attack

Updated 3 a.m. ET

BEIRUT> Two Syrian pro-opposition groups are claiming government forces carried out a "poisonous gas" attack near the capital Damascus, leaving dozens of people dead.

The two groups quote activists as saying that regime forces fired "rockets with poisonous gas heads" in the attack on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the shelling was intense and hit the eastern suburbs of Zamalka, Arbeen and Ein Tarma.

It says "tens of people" were killed. The Local Coordination Committees said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the shelling. Such different figures are common in the immediate aftermaths of attacks in Syria.

The Israeli website Ynet quotes opposition sources as saying 50 people were killed and 70 wounded, and cites Arab media as saying doctors treating casualties report sarin gas was used.

There was no government comment on the claims and the reports could not be independently confirmed.

The claims come days after a 20-member team of U.N. inspectors arrived in Syria to probe whether either side had used chemical weapons in the civil war there.

View the original article here

Syrian opposition: "Tens" killed in "poisonous gas" attack

Updated 3 a.m. ET

BEIRUT> Two Syrian pro-opposition groups are claiming government forces carried out a "poisonous gas" attack near the capital Damascus, leaving dozens of people dead.

The two groups quote activists as saying that regime forces fired "rockets with poisonous gas heads" in the attack on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the shelling was intense and hit the eastern suburbs of Zamalka, Arbeen and Ein Tarma.

It says "tens of people" were killed. The Local Coordination Committees said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the shelling. Such different figures are common in the immediate aftermaths of attacks in Syria.

The Israeli website Ynet quotes opposition sources as saying 50 people were killed and 70 wounded, and cites Arab media as saying doctors treating casualties report sarin gas was used.

There was no government comment on the claims and the reports could not be independently confirmed.

The claims come days after a 20-member team of U.N. inspectors arrived in Syria to probe whether either side had used chemical weapons in the civil war there.

View the original article here

Many women worry about sex after heart attack

After a heart attack, women often worry about the safety of having sex again, and many wish their doctors would talk about the issue more.

So finds a study involving interviews with 17 women who?d survived a heart attack in the past two years. The researchers found that while most rekindled their sex lives within a month of the attack, many also remained fearful about how sex could affect their hearts.

What?s more, few had discussed the issue with their doctors. And when they had, it was the women, not the doctors, who brought the topic up.

?Unfortunately, that?s not surprising,? said Emily Abramsohn, a researcher at the University of Chicago who worked on the study, published online July 24 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

The women, who averaged 60 years of age, were all part of a larger study following heart attack survivors? health. In that study, only 47 percent of men and 35 percent of women said their doctors had talked to them about resuming their sex lives.

Fears around the cardiac dangers of sex may be unfounded, experts say. Many studies have shown that for most heart attack survivors, sex is a low-risk activity. Less than 1 percent of all heart attacks are triggered during sex, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).

Still, doctors may be unsure about what specific advice to give, said Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a cardiologist and director of women and heart disease at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

There are guidelines on the topic, issued just last year from the AHA and the American College of Cardiology. These recommendations offer up some general parameters: Sex is ?reasonable,? for instance, when heart patients can climb two flights of stairs without having chest pain or trouble breathing.

One woman in the new study said her doctor told her just that. The problem, she said, was, ?I couldn?t hardly climb two flights of stairs before I had a heart attack.?

?We need to be able to tell patients more than that,? said Steinbaum, who is also the author of Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum?s Heart Book, which addresses women?s heart health, including sexual activity.

Sex involves emotional and mental well-being, too, Steinbaum noted, and women may have concerns about it even if they feel physically fit. Depression, for instance, is common after a heart attack, and that might affect a woman?s sexual functioning.

?We need to address the emotional and psychosocial issues, too,? Steinbaum said.

Abramsohn agreed that doctors may not know what to say on the subject, and noted that there are also practical obstacles.

In the immediate term, your doctor is concerned with saving your life, she explained. Then, when you?re being discharged from the hospital, the doctor may be focused on your medications or cardiac rehab; any discussion of sexual well-being may get lost.

But it is important for doctors to at least broach the subject, both Abramsohn and Steinbaum said. ?If the doctor brings it up,? Abramsohn said, ?at least the woman will know it?s important to them as well, and that she can talk to her doctor about it.?

The women in this study had suffered a heart attack an average of two years before the interviews. All but one said they?d started having sex again within six months of the heart attack, but ?fear? was common, Abramsohn?s team reports.

Some also said their partners were afraid of hurting them.

So what can women do? ?Know that you?re not alone in having fears surrounding sexual activity,? Abramsohn said. ?And if you are concerned, bring it up with your doctor.?

If you do that but still ?feel you?re not being heard,? Steinbaum said, you can ask for a referral to someone who works with heart patients ? a social worker, psychologist or cardiac rehab nurse, for example.

Cardiac rehab programs, which may be prescribed in the couple of months after a heart attack, involve supervised exercise and counseling on issues like depression and anxiety. A program may not specifically address sexual activity, Steinbaum said, but it may help women feel better, physically and emotionally.

?When you exercise and see that you?re getting stronger, you also gain confidence,? Steinbaum said.

She added that there may also be specific underlying reasons for sexual dysfunction after a heart attack ? not only depression, but medication side effects or abnormal thyroid hormone activity, for example. That?s another reason it?s important to talk about sexual issues with your doctor, Steinbaum pointed out.

?If you don?t feel like you?re getting back to normal after a heart attack,? she said, ?it?s not your fault.?

ON THE WEB: www.heart.org/, the American Heart Association has more on sex and heart disease.

View the original article here