The Associated Press
PALM BEACH, Fla.–The United States blasted a Syrian air base with a barrage of cruise missiles last night in fiery retaliation for this week’s gruesome chemical weapons attack against civilians.
President Donald Trump cast the U.S. assault as vital to deter future use of poison gas and called on other nations to join in seeking “to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”
It was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump’s most dramatic military order since becoming president just over two months ago.
The strikes also risk thrusting the U.S. deeper into an intractable conflict that his predecessor spent years trying to avoid.
Announcing the assault from his Florida resort, Trump said there was no doubt Syrian President Bashar Assad was responsible for the chemical attack, which he said employed banned gases and killed dozens.
“Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women, and children,” Trumped declared.
The U.S. strikes–some 59 missiles launched from the USS Ross and USS Porter–hit the government-controlled Shayrat air base in central Syria, where U.S. officials say the Syrian military planes that dropped the chemicals had taken off.
The missiles targeted the base’s airstrips, hangars, control tower, and ammunition areas, officials said.
Trump approved the strikes without approval from Congress or the backing of the United Nations.
The White House said about two dozen lawmakers from both parties were briefed on the actions.
Syrian state TV reported a U.S. missile attack on a number of military targets and called the attack an “aggression.”
The U.S. assault marked a striking reversal for Trump, who warned as a candidate against the U.S. being pulled into the Syrian civil war that began six years ago.
But the president appeared moved by the photos of children killed in the chemical attack, calling it a “disgrace to humanity” that crossed “a lot of lines.”
U.S. officials placed some of the blame on Russia, one of Syria’s most important benefactors.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in Florida with Trump, said Moscow had failed in living up to a 2013 agreement that was intended to strip Syria of its chemical weapons stockpiles.
“Either Russia has been complicit or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of the agreement,” Tillerson said.
About 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles targeted an air base in retaliation for the attack America believes Syrian government aircraft launched with the nerve agent sarin mixed with chlorine gas.
The president did not announce the attacks in advance, though he and other national security officials ratcheted up their warnings to the Syrian government throughout the day yesterday.
U.S. officials portrayed the strikes as an appropriate, measured response and said they did not signal a broader shift in the Trump administration’s approach to the Syrian conflict.
Still, the assault risks plunging America into the middle of Syria’s conflict–complicating the safety of the hundreds of U.S. forces fighting a separate campaign against the Islamic State group in the north of the country.
If Assad’s military persists in further gas attacks, the Trump administration logically might pursue increased retaliation.
Russia and Iran, Assad’s allies, pose other problems.
Russian military personnel and aircraft are embedded with Syria’s, and Iranian troops and paramilitary forces also are on the ground helping Assad fight the array of opposition groups hoping to topple him.
Before the strikes, U.S. military officials said they informed their Russian counterparts of the impending attack.
The goal was to avoid any accident involving Russian forces.
