i think that s the important point because they don t quite certain what they hit in terms of whether or not it was chlorine and sarin. they believe both were produced there but they re not giving a clear answer on what the red line is. and you all flipped on this, is the trigger now the use of chlorine gas, chlorine plus a nerve agent. that s a key question. but that was a bit of a victory lap. they were very pleased with their operational success, but they have not totally destroyed bashar al assad s ability, capability to deliver chemical weapons in a battle space that remains very complicated and very active. guys? hans nicoles at the pentagon. appreciate it. thanks, hans. i want to bring in a member of the foreign affairs committee and former u.s. ambassador to syria, robert ford. thank you, both, for joining us on this saturday morning. congressman, you have been sitting next to us this entire time. yes. listening to that press conference from the pentagon. your reactio
environment. lucas? the syrian government is saying they shot down over a dozen tomahawks. are they lying? for the people at home, can you explain the deconfliction. give a heads up to the russians and deconflicted. dana, you want to avoid conflict, but you lodged a dozen tomahawk missiles into the country. can you explain that? our mission stays the same, it s to defeat isis. but, assad s actions were beyond the pale. again, we will do our, we will 100% and we are supporting envoy demystera. we will continue to do that because we ant a political resolution to the syrian conflict, but civilized nations can t let what happened in syria stand. so, with that, i m going to
i can t speculate on what could happen. what i will tell you is, this, we took action and what happens next is in, is the decision of assad. do you expect retaliation? so, i can t speak to that, but i can tell you we are ready for it. we are postured in the region and globally. we are on the balls of our feet and ready for anything. tony? a couple questions. was this the least of the options crafted? how many options were put together and is this the one with the least amount of damage? i will tell you, i can t comment on options we present to the president, it s a choice he makes. i m not able to discuss that. i will tell you, of all the options looked at a way to minimize, you balance always, minimizing collateral damage to get maximum effect. these are three targets that hit the sweet spot and do that.
who escorted them and what type of service air missiles were shot out and getting back to the russian defenses, if their defenses weren t employed, were russian radars at all employed where they pinged the u.s. aircraft? i ll take the first one. last year, the focus on on the delivery. this time, we went, the strikes went to the very heart of the enterprise, to the research to development, to storage. we are very confident that we have significantly crippled assad s ability to produce these weapons. let me answer. b-1s are joint stand off missile. that was the weapon they used. b-1s were acocompanied by fighters. it s the normal way to protect the bombers as the french and
addressed the nation. the purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons. reporter: he calls them precision strikes. syria confirming damage to a missile research center in damascus and two chemical weapons sites in homs. within an hour it was over. this is a one-time shot that sent a very strong message to desuede him, deter him from doing this again. reporter: u.s. officials said care had been taken to avoid russian and civilian casualties. this morning, a defiant walk to work by syria s president, assad. loyal supporters protesting outside has russia and iran condemn the attacks. britain defending them. this was not about