President Barack Obama on Tuesday warned against a rush to judgment on chemical weapons in Syria, but said proof of their use would trigger a “rethink” of his reluctance to use military force.
As critics complain that he let Syria cross a US “red line,” Obama said Washington believed chemical weapons had been used in the country’s vicious civil war but did not know exactly who had fired them.
At a White House news conference, Obama also appeared to set the criteria for a US military intervention as established proof that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime directly ordered the use of chemical weapons.
As more Guantanamo Bay inmates join a hunger strike, Obama also pledged to have another go at closing what he described as the “not sustainable” war-on-terror prison and blamed Congress for the deteriorating situation.
And he praised Russia for its help in investigating the Boston marathon bombings on April 15, which has been blamed on two attackers of Chechen descent, but said “old habits die hard” between US and Russian security services.
Obama faced the press amid rising political pressure over reports by US intelligence that Syrian forces used sarin gas against their foes, despite his previous warnings that deploying chemical weapons would be a “game changer”.