i think it is important for mr. assad to know the international community, three of the five permanent members of the un security council acted in concert to punish his book -- chemical weapons facilities and make it clear he was beyond the bounds even know of warfare. -- even of warfare. it is important to send that message. i do believe that strike, for that purpose did not require congress to approve it ahead of time. if we had another goal, like replacing assad or something much more ambitious, then i think it would require congress to approve that mission. world, we cannot expect the congress to give a prior approval for every cannonball or missile the military may need to shoot to send a message or deal with a particular problem. somewhere in there is a gray line. i can't define exactly where that is. i think this was below it but this war against terrorism is above it. we will just have to work our way through the circumstances to figure out where to draw the line. >> do you think the u.s. has a strategy in syria?

how he can't continue to support mr. assad when they're using this kind of terrorist attack against their own civilians and it's got to be an international body. it just can't be american soldiers on the ground conducting an operation because you have to define what you're trying to do. and what you're trying to do in syria is we've seen so far ambassador -- i'm sorry, secretary tillerson had a directly opposite response of the president just last week before he was fired about what the end state was in syria. so the administration has to get their act together in terms of what they're attempting to accomplish in that part of the world with respect to mr. assad and with respect to mr. putin. >> robin, as you mentioned, president trump as recently as this past week was talking about getting the u.s. out of the syria conflict. and senator john mccain says that lack of commitment and him acknowledging he wants to put out may have emboldened assad and his allies. do you agree? >> i think there's no question that president assad in

his televised address an ounce in the strikes mr trump accused russian president putin personally of failing to avoid that the syrian president bashar al assad used his chemical weapons russia's u.s. ambassador in washington mr one ton of saw this precisely as a personal insult to the russian president which russia russia couldn't accept he said russian lawmakers let him get a job out of however who is the deputy head of russia's foreign affairs committee here in moscow sad that russia was likely to call for a meeting of the united nations security council the chairman of the international affairs committee of russia at the house of parliament cost ten thousand cars that chuff he sat at the strikes were a violation of international law and probably designed to prevent investigators from the global chemical weapons watching from doing their work yuri is should you mention something a very important that. the russians in syria did not use their air defense systems but should the u.s. conduct any additional strikes how might russia respond.

that will depend on mr assad pretty decide to use more chemical weapons in the future but right now this is a one time shot and i believe that it sent a very strong message to dissuade him to deter him from doing this again ok clear of what's the strategy here is the intention to keep damascus and moscow guessing about what washington's intentions are. hi brian well the immediate goal is to punish assad for these chemical weapons attacks and to send a strong message that the international community will not stand by as a government gases its own people it's not clear however what the long term strategy here really is and it's certainly not regime trained and it seems like these strikes are unlikely to change the balance of power or the situation on the ground in syria remember this is a deeply complicated proxy war we heard a trumpet there speaking about backing from russia and iran for the assad government and ad hoc strikes do not appear to be part of a coherent long term strategy in this regard what's more even a week ago we heard a very different trumpet singing a very different tune

president trump has called mr. assad, quote, an animal for his suspected role in chemical attacks. >> great britain has about in close contact with the u.s. and with france over the past few days to coordinate this. prime minister theresa may says the strikes should come as a surprise to no one. >> she emphasized they are not about regime change but to send a clear message that using chemical weapons will not be tolerated. >> this evening i have authorized british armed forces to conduct coordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the syrian regime's chemical weapons capability and deter their use. we are acting together with our american and french allies. in douma last saturday, a chemical weapons attack killed up to 75 people, including young children in circumstances of pure horror. the fact of this attack should surprise no one. >> france was quick to issue a response to the air strikes too. >> according to french president emmanuel macron the red line set by france in may 2017 has been crossed. so i ordered the fre

i believe mr. assad and mr.utin now have -- are tee deterred from using them both in the future. >> juliet, do you agree with that that they are now deterred and beyond that, if that is true their deterred from using any chemical weapons, but what do we do from this point on? because it doesn't solve anything with the leader of that country with bashar al assad. >> exactly right. i think what we saw, at least friday night, was the challenges from going sort of a tactical campaign which was that. that was essentially to take out some sights and make a statement about the use of a chemical weapon to a more strategic mission. and that mission has a problem which is the general architecture of what is going on in syria which is assad is in power and the russians are supporting him has not changed and will not change without more engagement by the west which is something we and nor our allies want to do. i think what you're going to see is just a focus on chemical weapons as sort of this area where the west is going

mattis: that will depend on mr. assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future and of course, the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that. right now, this is a one-time -- hasd i believe it is sent a very strong message to dissuade him, to deter him from doing this again. >> [indiscernible] we will give you a full brief in the morning, right now we have no reports of losses. reporter: you seen any retaliation from the russians or the iranians, and how long do you think this operation could last? is it a matter of hours, days, or could he go longer than that? gen. dunford: we did have some air missileace to activity from the syrian regime, that is the only retaliatory action we are aware of at this time. operation, wethe have completed the targets that were assigned to central command. those operations are complete. reporter: general dunford or secretary mattis, could you talk more about your concerns that you express

president is going to have to go back in with something that's going to make more of an impression on mr. assad. >> reporter: assad has denied his forces carried out that horrific chemical attack, but today, images were posted by activists on twitter said to show an unexploded barrel bomb, which a man wearing a gas mask said contained chemicals. but the u.s. has also pointed the blame for these attacks on russia. >> russia was the framework guarantor of removing all the chemical weapons, and so, working with our allies and partners, from nato to qatar and elsewhere, we are going to address this issue. >> and martha raddatz with us live tonight from washington. and martha, word tonight that syria, as i mentioned there, is now moving some of its aircraft from some of its bases in anticipation of any possible attack? >> reporter: it looks that way, david. they're repositioning their warplanes and the syrian military is moving into a defensive posture. meanwhile, european officials are warning civilian aircraft to be cautious when flying near syria because of the possible missile strikes. david? >>

mattis: that will depend on mr. assad. should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future, and of course the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition, have every reason assad should he choose to violate that. now, i believe it has sent a strong message to deter him from doing this again. >> we will brief on that in the morning. right now, we have no reports of losses. >> thank you for doing that. have you seen any retaliation from the russians are a rainy or iranians? how long do you think this operation could last? is a matter of hours or days or could it go longer than that? >> we did have some additional surface to air activity from the syrian regime. that is the only retaliatory action we are aware of at the time. the nature of the operation was have completed the targets assigned to the central command. those operations are complete. >> general dunford, could you talk about your concern that you expressed earlier in the week about russian escalation. general dunford, were you able to talk to y

warning, and the president's going to have to go back in with something to make more impressions on mr. assad. >> reporter: the regime denies using chemical weapons and called pictures from the attack fake, but the french president macron says france has proof chemical weapons were used. abc news, washington. >>> new this morning, there's another report of a secret deal involving president trump during the 2016 election. according to a story dropped by the new yorker overnight, the company that owns the national enquirer paid $30,000 to a former doorman at a new york city building owned by president trump. that report says the doorman went to the enquirer to offer a salacious story about then candidate trump in the 2016 campaign, but no story ever appeared, and the doorman signed a contract preventing him from going public. no comment this morning from the white house. >>> pressure is building in missouri for governor eric brightons to resign or face impeachment over sexual assault charges, coming a day after state lawmakers released a report accusing him of forced sexual encounters with a wo

mattis: that will depend on mr. assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future. and of course, the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad, should he choose to violate that. right now, this is a one-time shot, and i believe it sent a very strong message to dissuade him, to deter him, from doing this again. reporter: [indiscernible] sec. mattis: we want to give you a full brief in the morning. right now we have no reports of losses. reporter: thank you. reporter: thank you for doing that. have you seen retaliation from the russians or iranians? and how long do you think this operation would last? is it a matter of hours or days or could it go longer than that? gen. dunford: we did have some initial surface missile activity from the syrian regime, that is the only retaliatory action we are aware of at this time. the nature of the operation, we have completed targets that were assigned from u.s. central command. those operations are complete. reporter: general dunford and also secretary mattis, could you talk a l

specialist who tend to con from the friends of syria group and that group obviously is very eager to see mr assad out many of these samples and many of the testimonies were provided by turkey which is also not the neutral player in that war so if how can you have so much confidence in the process right now when in the past it delivered the results that russia clearly didn't agree with that is a very good question but. look you can trust to the results. only in the case when. i see. according to the chain of custody. that means. an inspector. came to the site. put it in the vial. not just close it but sealed it with a special seal. be broken and then those samples are delivered to. their opened in controlled. environments. records are kept this is exactly. we now already have i think very clear in the western media to suggest that the russia and syria used this initial delay in the ability of the o.p.c. inspectors to access the scene that they used it's basically to clean the area from a technical from a scientific point of view can the o.p.c. w. inspectors establish why that the scene was tampere

specialist who tend to con from the friends of syria group and that group obviously is very eager to see mr assad out many of these samples and many of the testimonies were provided by turkey which is also not the neutral player in that war so if how can you have so much confidence in the process right now when in the past it delivered the results that russia clearly didn't agree with that is a very good question but. look you can trust to the results. only in the case when. sick. according to the chain of custody. that means. an inspector. came to the site. himself put it in the vial. not just close it but sealed it with a special seal. be broken and then those samples are delivered to. their opened in controlled. environments. records are kept this is exactly. now already have i think a very clear in the western media to suggest that the russia and syria used this initial delay in the ability of the o.p.c. inspectors to access the scene that they used this specific lee to clean the area from a technical from a scientific point of view can the o.p.c. w. inspectors establish why that the scene wa

tend to confound the friends of syria group and that group obviously is very eager it's you see mr assad out many of these samples and many of the testimonies were provided by turkey which is also not a neutral player in that war so if how can you have so much confidence in the process right now when in the past it delivered the results that russia clearly didn't agree with that is a very good question but. look you can trust to the results. only in the case when. i see. according to the chain of custody and that means that an inspector. came to the site took the sample himself put it in the vial and not just close it but sealed it with a special seal that can not be broken and then those samples are delivered to. their opened in controlled. environments.

does not wa nt especially the pentagon does not want this to escalate beyond into a conflict with mr assad'sso president trump's base is non—interventionist, doesn't want the us to be interfering in wars, once the us to be focusing on domestic issues and although president trump did paint this as a limited strike and talked about the footprint, america having read the small footprint in syria and wanting to get them at as in this battle but there have been criticism from some of his base that this was already too far. let's cross to moscow to join our correspondent steve rosenberg. as you know well a lot of angry statements coming from moscow to date but is it also mixed with some relief that the strikes were more limited than they could have been? i think so. more limited than they could have been? ithink so. it is more limited than they could have been? i think so. it is quite interesting. moscow is the biggest backer of president assad so it is not surprising that the language coming out of moscow was pretty hard and on, rising so we heard vladimir putin talking about maximum aggression h

that will depend on mr assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future. that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that. but right now this is a one—time shot, and i believe it has sent a very strong message to dissuade him, to deter him from doing this again. we will brief on that in the morning, we will not give you a full, right now we have no reports of losses. thank you for doing that, have you seen any retaliation from the russians or the iranians, and how long do you think this operation will last, is ita think this operation will last, is it a matter of hours or days, or could it go longer than that? we did have some initial surface to air missile activity from the syrian regime, that is the only retaliatory action we are aware of at this time. the nature of the operation, we have completed the targets that were assigned to the united states central command, those operations are complete. could you talk a little bit about your concerns that you have expressed earlier in the we

is to threaten to arm mr assad's opponents with chemical weapons so it's like a nuclear weapons the former president of brazil luis enough you lula da silva has now begun a twelve year prison sentence off to being convicted of corruption against a jail in the city of quota tiba who the sentencing has divided brazil while his supporters are protesting against its many of the celebrations in the guilty should pay for the crimes he's done. did not go without a fight he defied a friday deadline to hand himself into police then on saturday he addressed his supporters outside the metal workers' union headquarters near sell powell much did . the crime that i committed is a crime they don't want me to repeat my crime was to put. black people and poor people in university able them to buy their own home if that is the crime i committed i'd like to say that i will continue to be a criminal i he's the victim he says of a campaign to block him standing on the job as presidential elections elections many believe he would win. since dilma rousseff impeachment we have seen a coup d'etat starting in two t

is to threaten to arm mr assad's opponents with chemical weapons so it's like a nuclear weapons doctors in gaza are struggling to treat hundreds of palestinians entered by israeli forces during friday's protests along the israel border hospitals have declared a state of emergency to a severe shortage of supplies to tell it meet reports from a hospital in gaza. this is an easy it was fear in the ward the patients are in pain but this is silent worry of those around them that is most right. not is the hoody cannot contain his despair he has three sons all three mean to protest yet is the last one to be injured and his condition is the most worry he has a really lost his left leg in an accident a few years ago now his right one is at risk. if you know when. he lost his leg because of the two governments we have one would agree to transfer him and the other would refuse i call on anyone who cares about us please help me get my son out of gaza he needs treatment to please help me save this leg. medleys in the next bed in agonizing pain his mother is angry at all parties. living in gaza is li

mr. bashar assad. the president did not give an ultimateum but put them on notice. the president has been criticized of being soft. clearly he was not in the strike. >> he was not soft at all. and he was confronting the russian and we are waiting to see if they fire back against our missiles and units and it appears they understand that their position in the eastern mediterranean could not hold if they want to confront us. but the principle is simple since the cold war, two super powers have nuclear assets can't clash with each other. and that is impossible and that would be end of planet earth. we need to not use the nukes or chemical weapons. >> talk about the deeper issues was what is going on in syria and why it is mired in a civil war. can you explain what bashar assad is doing to keep the conflict going? >> at issue is the assad dynasty that started the problem. it was a minority and totalitarian and occupied lebanon for 15 years. assad's father suppressed the opposition and classed with the sunni majority and muslim brotherhood. not everyone is the same. when

surrounding him and no talks going ahead a sign that the administration that is still in charge here after mr assad he stepped down earlier this week is pushing back and is not willing to relinquish power we expect this vote to go ahead on tuesday this depression the end saying that if he doesn't get elected in that parliamentary session he and his supporters will boycott the elections on the day on tuesday when his vote is due to go ahead he wants again the opposition movement supporters many many armenians who we've seen in large numbers on the streets of the capital and in different cities around the country in recent weeks to show their support for him that he has the support of the armenian people and where expecting a very interesting day on tuesday next week in the meantime he'll be visiting the region again trying to keep up the momentum but mr kind of the acting prime minister showing that he is in no mood at the moment to simply hand over the reins of power to this opposition movement. romania's president is urging the prime minister to resign saying he wasn't consulted about a plan to re

that will depend on mr. assad. it will depend on the powers that have signed the prohibition. with every reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that. right now this is a one-time shot. we believe it has sent a strong message to deter him from doing this again. we will brief on that in the morning. right now, we have no reports of losses. >> thank you for doing that. have you seen retaliation from the russians are a rainy and -- or iranians? is it hours or days or could it go longer than that? >> we did have an additional surface activity from the syrian regime. that is the only retell a terry action we are aware of at the time. the nature of the operation was ,ompleted targets assigned those operations are complete. >> general dunford, could you talk about your concern that you expressed earlier in the week russianur -- about escalation. were you able to talk to your russian counterpart? what are your concerns about escalation? and are you committed to ask your british counterpart question? i would like to know the sense of your government about whether the situ

and so the president is going to have to go back in that's going to make mor of an imprecision on mr. assad. >> reporter: shat lites showing naval ships. >> the russian military says the claims of a chemical attack are untrue. they released this video saying the russian officers who inspected the site found no evidence such an attack happened at hospitals, and they say they have no burials to report. >>> back in the bay area first responders rescued a person from a car that wept down an embankment. san jose fire officials say the car drove down an overlook and down a hillside. rescuers pulled the man from the car, put him on a gurney and then walked him up the hill and placed him in the back of a peckp truck. he was then taken to a hospital where he reportedly has minor injuries, so he should be okay. santa clara county sheriffs interviewed the man, but so far no word how the car ended up down that hill. >> new details tonight about a hit-and-run crash in oakland that left a 9-year-old girl dead, sadly, a woman still in critical condition at 35th and paxten avenue. witnesses say an suv was

. >> can you rule out taking action, launching air strikes against assad, mr. secretary? >> i don't rule out anything right now. >> joining me now to discuss, chairman of the house armed services committee, republican william mack thornberry of texas. you like the rest of us, you have seen these horrifying pictures, but unlike the rest of us, as chairman of the armed services committee, you're in a position to do something here. what will you do to help protect these children, these civilians inside syria? >> to be clear, the president is the commander in chief and he must order whatever must be done by our military or by our diplomats. congress' job is to make sure they have the tools they need to carry out whatever they choose to do. so these people are clearly butchers. what we saw a year ago when assad used chemical weapons to kill about 100 people was the president responded with a targeted attack against the military units in syria that had carried out that chemical attack. so my opinion is that they ought to consider doing something similar this time with our allie

secretary mattis said that depends on mr. assad. pointing out that if president assad chose to use chemical weapons again, potentially something that could be looked at, additional retaliatory strikes. as far as this operation's concerned, secretary mattis called it a one shot. that the operation is concluded. however, should the regime of president assad use chemical weapons again, military retaliation is back on the table. you saw that this strike was significantly larger than the one that took place in april, 2017. secretary mattis saying twice the number of munitions used, multiple targets, three countries using warships, multiple aircraft involved. potential for additional action should the assad regime continue its use of chemical weapons. >> all right. ryan brown at the pentagon. thank you very much. >>> russia has condemned the u.s.-led military strikes. nic robertson is cnn's diplomatic editor and joins us from moscow. the u.s. and its allies say they took careful steps to first prevent russian casualties and then, of course

the russian government, vladimir putin, is assisting mr. assad in the killing of innocent civilians. that's been happening for years. talking international law, let's be clear about things, annexation is against the law. being a co-conspirator in the use of chemical weapons, which are illegal by international law puts russia as the vice president said, i agree with him, on the wrong side of history in this matter. >> general, one more question, people often look at the situation. they see from the u.s. side appears to be a relatively positive assessment of what happened. if you think assad is a bad guy, gassing his own people and we could go in and take out chemical capacity to do that and not cost many or any lives according to the early assessments. as you know, general, one of the questions, why didn't we do this a long time ago? what is the answer for that? >> well, again, look, back off what's going on in syria. straight lines on the map. you bag together throughout the middle east people who despise each other. assad is a shia muslim, minor

if they don't want to believe it, they're not going to, because they want to back mr. assad and they want to pretend it didn't happen. they did once in 2013, i was there where president putin and president obama met. we agreed we should eliminate the chemical weapons and we had a great achievement, or so we thought then, but we didn't eliminate all the chemical weapons. we eliminated most of them and now we're bag to this disinformation/information, and it makes it difficult to negotiate. i'm not optimist. either one side wins or there's a stalemate and right now there's not. assad thinking he's winning, therefore i'm very skeptical there will be a political solution to this tragic civil war anytime soon. that's ambassador michael mcfaul,hood coming book is published on play the 8th. thank you very much for your time as well. >>> and if hillary clinton is satisfied with the decisions james comey talked about in the investigation into her e-mail use. i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first

>> that will depend on mr. assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future. and of course, the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have every reason to challenge assad, if should he choose to violate that. but right now, this is a one-time shot, and i believe it has sent a very strong message to dissuade him and deter him from doing this again. we'll brief on that in the morning. we want to give you a full brief in the morning. right now we have no reports of losses. >> thank you for doing that. have you seen any retaliation from the russians or the iranians? and how long do you think this operation could last? is a matter of hours or days, or could it go longer than that? >> yeah, we did have some initial surface to air missile activity from the syrian regime. that's the only retaliatory action that we're aware of at this time. and the nature of the operation, we've completed the targets that were assigned to the united states central command. those operations are complete. >> could you talk a little bit more about your concern that you'

mr. assad, you can kill your people from sunrise to sunset, you know. we don't care. have at it.ack them, just as they did, of course, in aleppo. tremendous loss of civilian life. and indeed in the whole east ghouta region. so effectively that's what we're saying. kill them any way you want, just don't use chemical weapons to do it. if -- >> continue your thought. i'm sorry. >> and again, if that's what this is shaping into, a sustained u.s./british/french effort solly against chemical weapons, it might have been better that we didn't even start. >> ambassador crocker, thank you for being with us. >> thank you. >>> quick break. we'll be back. [burke] vengeful vermin. seen it. covered it. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ this is the story of green mountain coffee roasters dark magic told in the time it takes to brew your cup. first, we head to vermont. and go to our coffee shop. and meet dave. hey. why is dark magic so spell-bindingly good, he asks? let me show you. let's go. so we climb. hike. see a bear. wo

somebody in syria, maybe mr. assadto ask the russians why his patrons didn't come to protect him like they promised they would? the strike mission succeeded and ordered to do, degrade syrian chemical weapons capability. if there is another chemical attack in syria the price is going up. as putin is half as smart as he pretends to be they will tell assad's chemical killers to stand down. that is the only thing we could look forward to. melissa: some said this was no big deal for assad. he used the chemical weapons to clear out the last bit of territory he wanted to conquer. that losing these facilities as a result of that was a small price to pay. he wasn't personally hurt by this at all. what do you think of that assessment? >> look, anytime you can take out the kinds of capacity that was taken out in this raid, it has got to hurt their ability to continue what they have been doing. it is not the last of the opposition. there is plenty of opposition left. the iranians know that as well because the iranians desperately