U.S. military planners have drawn up more than one option for possible military action against Syria, including a strike similar to last year’s attack in which 59 sea-launched cruise missiles inflicted heavy damage on a Syrian Air Force airfield in Homs.
Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the options now are similar to those presented to President Trump after last year’s chemical attack in northern Syria that killed and injured hundreds of civilians, including women and children.
But officials said the president could decide to choose a more robust option this time, given that Syrian President Bashar Assad didn’t seem to get the message last time.
“While the process of drawing up and presenting the options are similar to last year, I wouldn’t look at this through a soda straw,” said one official familiar with the planning. “It’s up to the president to decide how to respond. It’s up to us to provide the options.”
A Navy source said the U.S. has a number of ships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles in the region, including the USS Donald Cook, a guided-missile destroyer that has just completed a port call in Cyprus, and got underway in the eastern Mediterranean within range of Syria Monday.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters “I don’t rule out anything right now,” when asked about the possible U.S. response.
The secretary also pointed to Russia’s responsibility in the attack.
“The first thing we have to look at is, why are chemical weapons still being used at all when Russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons?” he said. “And so, working with our allies and our partners from NATO to Qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue.”
Last year, the U.S. warned the Kremlin ahead of the strike so that Russia could make sure its planes and personnel in Syria were not in harm’s way.
This time, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow has issued an explicit warning to Washington that any “military intervention” in Syria would be “unacceptable” and would lead to the “most serious consequences.”
The U.S. acted alone in April last year, but this time it could work through a coordinated international response.
Both Britain and France have hinted at possible military action. After British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson spoke by phone to French Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian Monday, Johnson said the two U.S. allies agreed there should be “no impunity for those that use such barbaric weapons.”
Johnson said Monday’s emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York would be “an important next step in determining the international response” and that “a full range of options should be on the table.”
Speaking to reporters at a Cabinet meeting, Trump said he would be making a decision “very quickly, probably by the end of today," about the U.S. response.
“This is about humanity. We're talking about humanity, and it can't be allowed to happen,” Trump said.
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