so that becomes this real serious issue and one of the things you look at is wind direction, wind speed, things of that nature at the time of the strike so potentially you mitigate those kind of effects. we know that the allies, u.s. and its allies here, were working very closely to make sure that there was no russia presence in any of the targeted zones. president trump just tweeting now again saying so proud of our great military which will soon be, after the spending of billions of fully approved dollars, the finest our country has ever had. there won t be anyone or anything even close. with russia now saying this was an aggressive action, what do you expect in terms of a response from them? and what the president is saying there, that our military, obviously, fully equipped to handle whatever come what may. do you have confidence in that
right now talking about syria. want to read what he s saying. a perfectly executed strike last night. thank you to france and the united kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine military. could not have had a better result. mission accomplished. of course, he is talking about the u.s., uk and france just pounding syria with missiles overnight. targeting three sites associated with the research and storage of chemical weapons. we ll talk about those last two words, mission accomplished in that tweet in just a moment. the u.n. security council meets in just a few hours and a nato meeting is scheduled for this afternoon. two defense officials say three u.s. ships participated in the air strikes, although the u.s. and its allies would not say how many missiles they used. the president had this message for syria s allies. watch. to iran and to russia, i ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women
we ll bring that to you live, of course. also, the u.n. security council holding an emergency meeting at 11:00. and a nato meeting scheduled for this afternoon. smerconi smerconish is with you now. this is cnn breaking news. i m michael smerconish in philadelphia. we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. we have breaking news this morning. we re standing by for a pentagon briefing on the air strikes on syria. the united states, uk and france assessing the success of the coorinated raid targeting sites associated with the syrian regime s chemical weapons program. the u.s. and its allies blame syria for a chemical attack on douma just over a week ago. president donald trump and theresa may said such action could not go unchallenged. the president tweeting this morning, a perfectly executed strike last night. thank you to france and the united kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine
power. military, economic and diplomatic. u.s. officials said they hit three targets, including a biological warfare research site and two sites near homes. one a sarin gas production facility. the other a storage site and command post. we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment and our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. cruise missiles were among the weapons used and british tornado jets, u.s. b-1 bombers and war ships also part of the strike. we had 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. the strike comes less than a week after a suspected chemical weapons attack on syria s rebel-held down of douma. graphic footage shot by rescuers and activists show victims, including children dead and injured. cnn has not been able to verify
see you this morning. dozens of missiles strike three targets in syria as the u.s. and its allies hit the country to try to take out its chemical weapons store. details on the military strategy ahead. plus british prime minister theresa may says the strike on syria is not aimed at regime change. we ll talk about that with ryan crocker, former u.s. ambassador to afghanistan, pakistan, iraq and syria. stay close. n life, we tend to start small. less of this. cut back on that. but if it feels like a lot of effort for a little gain, change that. start with something that makes a big difference. .your student loans. refinancing with sofi could save you $30,000. it s an easier way to reach your life goal sooner. we ve helped over 195,000 people. we want to help you too. find out how much you can save in just two minutes at sofi.com/save.