Will U.S. Strike Syria?; Congress to Pres.: Consult us on Syria
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is a U.S. strike on Syria now a forgone conclusion? I'm John Berman, and this is THE LEAD. The world lead, undeniable, that's the word that Secretary of State John Kerry just used to describe the suspected chemical attack in Syria. The question now, is the president going to act? The national lead, 150,000 acres and growing fast, a massive wildfire burning through one of our natural wonders, imposing a serious threat to life back here in civilization. And the sports lead, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie getting his Howard Stern on, taking over the airwaves and hosting a sports radio show. Did the governor miss his real calling as a shock jock? I'm John Berman, filling in for Jake Tapper, who is off today. Good afternoon, everyone. We begin with the world lead and breaking news. With four U.S. navy warships parked in striking distance of Syria, the U.S. is now sending its most aggressive message yet to that regime. Inspectors from the United Nations are in the country trying to determine whether chemical weapons were used in an attack last week. Plus, from the way Secretary of State John Kerry is talking, it seems the U.S. has already come to its own conclusion about what happened.</s>JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. But any standard, it is inexcusable, and despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.</s>BERMAN: Undeniable and a moral obscenity. On August 20, 2012, President Obama said that the use of -- quote -- "a whole bunch of chemical weapons in Syria" would be a red line. Now almost exactly a year later, tens of thousands of lives have been lost. Secretary Kerry now says the president is talking with members of Congress and key allies to make an informed decision on a response. Meanwhile, half of Americans can't even find the country on a map. That is not an exaggeration. Recent polls show overwhelmingly that Americans simply do not want to get involved in Syria. It should be noted also that Secretary Kerry's tough language came before inspectors from the United Nations could return any findings from Syria. Those inspectors ran into some danger of their own while examining one of alleged sites of this latest chemical attack. Our own Frederik Pleitgen is covering all of this for us in the capital of Syria, Damascus -- Fred.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, it was a pretty tough day for the U.N. weapons inspectors but they said also quite a productive day. Their car came under fire right after they left from the hotel they were staying at. They said all of this happened in the buffer zone between the area that is controlled by the government and the area that is controlled by the rebels. It's hard to say who exactly could have been behind that sniper attack. The government, of course, blames the rebels, saying it was -- quote, unquote -- "terrorists who did this," whereas the rebels issued a statement saying they believe it was a government sniper who was behind all this. Now, after getting a new car when their first car was disabled, they then managed to get on the ground to that Mouadamiya district, which is in the southwest of Damascus. And there they were able to visit a field hospital. And the video showed them gathering samples. It's not exactly clear what was inside those plastic bags, but we could see them gathering samples. And they also said they were able to speak to some of the victims of the alleged gas attack and find out from them what exactly happened and also what that gas did to them, what it did to their bodies, what the effects of all of this were. Now, the U.N. says it was a very productive day, that they gathered a lot of very valuable evidence. The Assad regime, for its part, still continues to deny that its forces used chemical gases on the front lines. Bashar al-Assad himself gave an interview to a Russian newspaper, saying it would be ludicrous for his forces to use such gases on the front line when is his own soldiers were there as well. However, of course, we know the U.S. is not buying it. John Kerry came out with a very, very powerful speech earlier where he said he was absolutely disgusted by the videos he's been seeing on social media, that he was moved as a father seeing those dead children and especially seeing one image of a father holding his dead child into the camera and breaking down in tears. He said -- quote -- that the attack was "undeniable," so some very strong statements coming from the U.S. The Syrian government, for their part, again, continues to stick by its line that it wasn't them and warned the U.S. of an intervention, saying Syria will fight back, but they haven't said how exactly they would do that, John.</s>BERMAN: All right, Frederik Pleitgen in Damascus. Our thanks to Fred for that. I want to bring in Richard Haass. He's the president on the Council on Foreign Relations, also the author of "Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America's House in Order." Richard, let me ask you this. Based on the tone of Secretary Kerry's statement which he made just an hour ago, which was a tone we frankly have not heard before, the strength of that tone, very powerful words on Syria, is it safe to say it would be shocking if the U.S. did not take some form of military action?</s>RICHARD HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Secretary Kerry went far out on a limb, both in the content and, as you say, John, the tone. So, sure, I would frankly be surprised and then some if the United States now did not probably together with a few other countries take some military action.</s>BERMAN: What kind of action would you advise? You have written that a cruise missile attack you think would be the way to go.</s>HAASS: Yes, something that did not put American aircraft within range of the fairly extensive Syrian air defense system. You're probably looking at sea launch cruise missile, probably some airborne cruise missiles, but something along those lines I think would be the most natural sort of response for the United States to launch at this point.</s>BERMAN: And we have doubled our capability in the region with four warships, as opposed to two now near Syria. A senior official tells CNN that any strike that the U.S. might conduct is not meant to topple Assad, simply because the opposition wouldn't be ready to take over. So the question here is, why bother? Is some kind of attack, even with these cruise missiles, as you suggest, really anything more than a therapeutic bombing?</s>HAASS: Well, actually I think it's quite important for two reasons. One is chemical weapons have been used. It is important to underscore the principle, the norm, the taboo that these weapons ought to have, that no one, Syria or anybody else, now and forever more should be able to use such weapons, much less biological or nuclear weapons, with impunity. Secondly, the United States said that any use of such weapons would constitute a game changer, would cross a red line. Any time you throw down a diplomatic gauntlet, your words have repercussions, not simply for the immediate situation, but in this case in Iran and North Korea and around the world. So I think it's essential that the United States act. That said, I don't think we ought to be getting involved centrally in the Syrian civil war. I don't think the United States should become a protagonist in that situation. If we want to help the opposition, the best way to do it is through considerable arming of those elements of the opposition with agendas we can support. So I think there's an important distinction between what we need to do to signal our unhappiness over the use of chemical weapons, but also to put a ceiling on what we're doing so we don't get enmeshed in what I think could become a quagmire.</s>BERMAN: We -- you talked about the tone of the statement from Secretary Kerry, the language he used, undeniable. He called it a moral outrage. He also said that to deny that a chemical attack took place would be cynical and amount to a cover-up. There is one powerful nation that is saying it sees no evidence of a chemical attack. That is Russia. So, the question is, what message is the secretary of state now sending to Russia with his words and could this even further damage U.S./Russia relations, I suppose if that's even possible?</s>HAASS: Well, relations are, shall we say, in the deep freeze. What I think the secretary of state was signaling to Moscow is that we're simply going to bypass the United Nations Security Council. And the United States will find potentially other organizations, be it NATO, be it the Arab League, or will simply put together an informal grouping of nation, a so-called coalition of the willing that will support this effort both diplomatically and militarily. So, essentially, if Russia wants to stick to what the secretary of state properly called essentially an outrageous position, it will find itself diplomatically isolated and on the sidelines.</s>BERMAN: That was a model the U.S. used before when it attacked in the Kosovo conflict in the late '90s.</s>HAASS: Absolutely.</s>BERMAN: Richard Haass, thanks so much. Great to have you here. Appreciate it.</s>HAASS: Any time.</s>BERMAN: Coming up on</s>THE LEAD: It is one of the largest wildfires in California history, a fire the size of Chicago and this thing is getting bigger by the minute. Now residents of San Francisco, which is two hours away, have real reason to worry. All about the Rim fire. We will explain. Plus, a costly mistake -- why the federal government had to destroy $30 million.