FROM NEW YORK TIMES
Obama Will Seek Congressional Vote on Syria
Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
President Obama made a statement on Saturday about Syria as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. looked on in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington.
By PETER BAKER and ANNE BARNARD
Published: August 31, 2013 194 Comments
WASHINGTON — President Obama stunned the capital and paused his march to war on Saturday by asking Congress to give him authorization before he launches a limited military strike against the Syrian government in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.
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DOCUMENT: U.S. Assessment of Syrian Use of Chemical Weapons
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Ammar Dar/Reuters
An oxygen mask was applied last week to a man in Syria after what an American intelligence summary released on Friday described as a chemical weapons attack.
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In a hastily organized appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama said he had decided that the United States should use force but would wait for a vote from lawmakers, who are not due to return to town for more than a week. Mr. Obama said he believed he has authority to act on his own but did not say whether he would if Congress rejects his plan.
Mr. Obama’s announcement followed several days of faltering support for military action in Congress as well as in foreign capitals.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia argued that it was “simply utter nonsense” to believe Syria’s government would launch such an attack and challenged the United States to present any evidence to the United Nations.
“I am convinced that it is nothing more than a provocation by those who want to involve other countries in the Syrian conflict, who want to gain the support of powerful members in international affairs, primarily, of course the United States,” Mr. Putin said in his first public remarks since reports of the chemical attack emerged. “I have no doubts about it.”
Mr. Obama came under criticism at home as well, and from both sides of the political spectrum. Some lawmakers maintained that the United States should stay out of a civil war that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, or at least should wait for Congressional or United Nations backing. Others complained that the limited strike envisioned by the president would be ineffectual, especially after days of virtually laying out the plan of attack in public.
The debate came as the region braced for an attack that Syrian officials told regional news media they were expecting “at any moment” and were ready to retaliate against. United Nations weapons inspectors left Syria for Lebanon early Saturday after four days of efforts to investigate the Aug. 21 attack. American officials had made clear they would hold off using force until the inspectors departed safely but had no intention of waiting until they had delivered a formal report.
The inspectors were heading to The Hague with blood and urine samples taken from victims of the attack, as well as soil samples from areas where the attacks took place. They were due to deliver the sample to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on Saturday afternoon.
The samples will be divided so each can be sent to at least two separate European laboratories for testing, according to United Nations officials, but experts said the testing would not be completed for several days at the earliest.
Angela Kane, the United Nations disarmament chief, briefed Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday. While the inspectors were assigned to determine whether a chemical strike took place, it was not their mandate to assign culpability. Martin Nesirky, a United Nations spokesman, said that Ms. Kane’s team would give Mr. Ban its conclusions "as soon as it has received the results of the laboratory analysis of its samples."
Obama administration officials argued that the United Nations findings would be redundant, since American intelligence had already concluded, based on human sources and electronic eavesdropping, that Mr. Assad’s government was responsible for launching nerve agents in the eastern suburbs of Damascus.
An intelligence summary released by the White House on Friday said 1,429 people were killed, including at least 426 children. The summary concluded with “high confidence” that the Syrian government had carried out the attack.
In Damascus, residents described an atmosphere of quiet suspense as they waited and prepared for an American attack. They described new troop movements as the government placed more security forces in schools in central Damascus, the prominent al-Akram mosque in the well-off Mezze district, a women’s cultural center in the neighborhood of Abu Roumaneh and in residential buildings near a cluster of security buildings in the Kafr Souseh district.
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