Syrian Government Reportedly Uses Chemical Weapons to Attack Civilians; White House Criticizes Russian Backing of Assad Regime in Syria; Will Congress Authorize Military Use Of Force In Syria?
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: It is Monday, April 9th, 8:00 in the east. And we begin with breaking news. Russia's defense ministry claims Israel carried out air strikes on a Syrian air base after a suspected chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus that killed dozens, including children, an attack that Russia has said is a hoax. Wait until you see the photos. Trump warning Syria that Assad, there is going to be a big price to pay for backing him and for attacking civilians again.</s>ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: And in a rare more President Trump also called out Vladimir Putin by name for backing Assad. The White House is facing several crises overseas as well as here at home as the president's new national security adviser John Bolton begins his first day on the job. And there are questions about Chief of Staff John Kelly's influence inside the White House and the future of embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt. So we have it all covered for us, but let's begin with CNN's Fred Pleitgen live in Damascus, Syria, with the breaking news.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alisyn. Yes, you're absolutely right. The Russians are saying they believe that Israel was behind those missile strikes on a Syrian air base that happened overnight. They say the Israeli warplanes flew over Lebanese territory and fired eight missiles into Syria, and five of those were intercepted and three that hit that airbase killing several people on the ground. The Israelis for their part of not commented yet. And then you have that alleged chemical weapons attack. We have got to warn our viewers that the images they are about to see are extremely graphic and extremely disturbing, but they are still very, very important. Apparently all of this happened at around 8:20 p.m. on Saturday night when a Syrian military helicopter, the opposition says, hovered over that area and dropped several canisters onto the area. People then got extreme respiratory problems and, the opposition says, dozens of people were killed. And we have those horrible images of children laying on the ground, children not able to breath, doctors in chaos really trying to help them as all of this is going on. The Syrian government for its part says it was not behind any sort of attack. They say, yes, they were prosecuting an offensive in that area at the time, but they said the offensive was going so quickly that they did not need any sort of chemicals to further their advances. They also said this attack happened in the rear echelon areas behind the front lines and certainly would not have helped them militarily in any way. So as you can see, a lot of accusations flying out there. One thing that unfortunately we keep seeing in this conflict and we're seeing again with those images as well is that it is civilians once again who are suffering the most here in Syria, guys.</s>CUOMO: Thank you very much, Fred. And people have to be reminded Syria's regime have denied these attacks in the past and they have wound up being hollow denials. President Trump's new National Security Adviser John Bolton hitting the ground running on his first day, some big questions of his desk. He's leading a meeting with key members of the national security council today. Officials say he is likely drawing up plans for military action in Syria. CNN's Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon with more on how the U.S. is preparing to respond if ordered. Barbara?</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Chris, good morning. Those last two words you said, "if ordered," if ordered by the president is the key issue at this hour. But what we do know based on the strikes that happened just a year ago in Syria that the military does not wait to be asked by the president. Options planning, getting options ready for him to look at would already be going on right now. And those options are centered around the key question, what does President Trump want to achieve? Does he want to send a message by striking the chemical weapons targets? Does he want to go further and strike at the heart of Assad's regime? That will dictate the options presented by the president. Those options will look at targets, the chemical weapons, the barrel bombs, tough targets set because those helicopters that deliver them are mobile and can move around. You would have to chase them down and get to all of them. It's not going to end the threat, so you have to be able to look at the targets. You have to decide what weapons you are going to use. U.S. not likely to put pilots into Syria. Expect to see cruise missile attacks once again, and perhaps one of the key questions, enemy forces. You are going to be flying into the face of Russian and Syrian air defenses. Their missiles that could shoot pilots down and shoot missiles down, it will be very tough business. Alisyn, Chris?</s>CAMEROTA: Barbara, thank you for explaining just how complicated all of this is. Let's bring in CNN political analyst John Avlon and CNN national security analyst Gayle Tzemach Lemmon. Gayle has been in Syria twice in the past six months. So Gayle, let me start with you. What do you think the response should be when President Trump says there is a big price to pay? Barbara just laid out how complicated that price would be to extract.</s>GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It is complicated. Syria is really the conflict that has trampled on all of the international norms for seven years. So I think there are three W's, the what. What is the response? The when, which is what is the timeline? And then the third is the will. How committed is the U.S. going to be to staying the course in Syria and to following up on whatever message the Trump administration decides should be sent? But there is no question that the world is watching, and this is the same moment that President Obama had in 2012 when he talked about a red line.</s>CUOMO: So let's look at the politics of it. President Obama did not believe in exactly what Gayle is saying there, that this is not in the U.S. interest, the money, the time, what it would take to change the situation in Syria, so we're going to stay out of that. Trump feels the same way. He was critical of Obama back then for even considering military action. He does not believe in regime change there. He just suggested that we should get out. So how does this play out politically in terms of will, to the third W?</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There is a total contradiction in Trump's policy, as you point out. President Obama famously did not act on Assad crossing that red line in part because he felt he couldn't get anything through Congress. Trump argued that he shouldn't get involved with Syria and Assad at the time, now criticizing Obama for creating the circumstance. But this all comes a week after Donald Trump called for us to withdraw from Syria and had a big conflict with his military brass.</s>CUOMO: Lindsey Graham says may have emboldened Assad and John McCain says may have emboldened Assad to use chemical weapons.</s>AVLON: May have. But obviously hypocrisy is something that doesn't touch this Teflon Don. What the real issue is you have got John Bolton baptism of fire. Day one, Donald Trump wanting to be tough, calling out Putin, deserves some credit for that in a tweet. But what will that action be? And if it's simply a limited strike --</s>CUOMO: Alisyn had sounds from Bolton.</s>CAMEROTA: I still do. We should do it. And Gayle, listen to this, because we do have a window into how John Bolton felt about Syria in 2013 and maybe how he will counsel the president today. So listen to this.</s>JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I would not have referred the matter to Congress. And I think if I were a member of Congress I would vote against an authorization to use force here. I don't think it is in America's interest. I don't think we should in effect take sides in the Syrian conflict.</s>AVLON: That's very much in line with what Trump has been saying, pull out of the region. But that itself creates a vacuum that Putin and Iran and Assad have been allowed to fill, which is the contradiction at the heart of this policy.</s>CUOMO: Gayle, let me ask you something. In that clip from FOX there is a little something on the window in the side that nobody saw. And it said NBC News. This was at the time in 2013. How many people think that President Obama should go to Congress for approval? It was almost 80 percent. They have punted time and time, president to president, giving the ability to declare war in situations basically where there is no direct threat to the U.S. Congress is really supposed to own this and at least be involved in voting on the plan. Do you think that should happen this time?</s>LEMMON: We're going to see because I think it is so important when you look at that Bolton set of comments. That was a half-decade and a half a million lives ago. And I think so much has changed on the ground in Syria since 2013, and you really have seen the rise of this axis of impunity. The Assad regime plus its Russian and Iranian backers who have been all in on the side of the regime. And if you want to look at who is gaining from where we are in this moment in the Syrian conflict, it is certainly not the Syrian people, who have lost time and time again. It is Russia and Iran which have seen the influence on the ground surge and really have reshaped facts on the ground. I remember talking to Obama administration officials back in 2013 when they went to Congress, and Congress wanted no part of these air strikes. They would have had a very difficult time getting it through. But I do think we are in a different moment and it will be up to the Trump administration to really figure out a way forward or whether the impunity which has been the norm in Syria this past seven years really gets to continue.</s>CAMEROTA: When we just had senator Ben Cardin on, he struggled, frankly, to say whether there should be military response right now. He said that he thought Congress should be involved. He thought there should be conversations. Obviously this is complicated. It would be perhaps alarming if somebody had some sort of kneejerk reaction and snap response. But Congress is not being full throated about what to do here.</s>AVLON: We have not had clarity on Syria for years because Congress and the American people are reluctant to get involved in another war in the Middle East. Understandable. At the same time there is moral outrage when chemical weapons are used against civilians as we have seen here. David Cameron, then prime minister of England, went to parliament and couldn't get authorization. That's one of the things that caused Obama to back off. So you've got folks --</s>CAMEROTA: Wasn't it also that Assad said that he was going to hand over his chemical weapons? In September, 2013, it was a surprise development after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had voted to go, then Assad made that move. Turns out he didn't give --</s>CUOMO: Who was supposed to oversee it? Russia. That was the joke at the time for people like Gayle who would understand the situation, were like what kind of deal is this? This is a sham. You're going to have the Russian who have an interest in them keeping the chemical weapons, who just called those pictures of all those kids foaming at the mouth a hoax, they're the ones in charge of whether or not they turn over the chemical weapons. That was worse than doing nothing. Anyway, Gayle, thank you very much. John Avlon, appreciate it. This conversation is going to go on.</s>CAMEROTA: It sure is, because how should the U.S. respond to Syria? So we're going to ask a Republican senator on the Armed Services Committee next.