that this morning? reporter: well, secretary mattis saying, asked specifically whether or not additional strikes, additional military operations could be expected. secretary mattis said that depends on mr. assad. pointing out that if president assad chose to use chemical weapons again, potentially something that could be looked at, additional retaliatory strikes. as far as this operation s concerned, secretary mattis called it a one shot. that the operation is concluded. however, should the regime of president assad use chemical weapons again, military retaliation is back on the table. you saw that this strike was significantly larger than the one that took place in april, 2017. secretary mattis saying twice the number of munitions used, multiple targets, three countries using warships, multiple aircraft involved. potential for additional action should the assad regime continue
as for those chemical weapons, france says this morning, if president assad use s them agai, there will be more military air strikes. i m going to ask you to stick around with us. i m going to bring in hans nichols from the pentagon. i know we are expecting the press conference to get under way for a better assessment of what happens, what was struck, whether it was mission accomplished. help put this in perspective, you have been speaking to sources on the spectrum of potential targets. where does this fall in terms of, was this a large scale operation or a limited strike operation? that s the key question on what sort of rational went into the targeting. i think we are going to learn a lot here in the next couple minutes, mainly on the battle damage assessment, what they think they have accomplished. we have heard from the syrians, they are clear there was damage. another crucial aspect is the success rate of the u.s.
how could it possibly be that vladimir putin did not know that his client, bashar al assad was going to use chemical weapons. chemical weapons that vladimir putin had promised the world no longer existed in syria. how could assad dare to expose the fact that he still had chemical weapons without vladimir putin s permission to do that? general mcmaster s question then raises another question. why. why would vladimir putin authorize the use of chemical weapons in syria? why would president assad use chemical weapons when he was doing a perfectly good job of killing people, bombing hospitals, killing babies without chemical weapons? another vitally important question is did the trump administration do anything to indicate to president assad and president putin that they were so intent on not intervening in syria in any way that putin and assad could get away with anything? a week before the attacks, rex
asked on this program friday night. how could it possibly be that vladimir putin did not know that his client, bashar al assad was going to use chemical weapons. chemical weapons that vladimir putin had promised the world no longer existed in syria. how could assad dare to expose the fact that he still had chemical weapons without vladimir putin s permission to do that? general mcmaster s question then raises another question. why. why would vladimir putin authorize the use of chemical weapons in syria? why would president assad use chemical weapons when he was doing a perfectly good job of killing people, bombing hospitals, killing babies without chemical weapons? another vitally important question is did the trump administration do anything to indicate to president assad and president putin that they were so intent on not intervening in