lima, peru, tackling quite a few subjects there. on the issue, however, on syria, he says, and i m quoting him now, we believe we significantly degraded the ability to produce chemical weapons, and he also said there is a price to pay he repeated that multiple times when talking about syria and its continuation of the use of chemical weapons and the price would be paid. and then he also said that we may determine sarin was used, and since his comment we ve also learned from a senior official briefing reporters, and i m quoting now, saying, quote, we assess that both sarin and chlorine were used in the attack and while the available information is much greater on the chlorine use, we do have significant information that also points to sarin use. i ve got with me global affairs correspondent elise labbot and at the white house boris sanchez. so first to you, elise. first, the inference coming from the vice president that there
may be sarin use and now we re hearing from the senior official saying a combination of chlorine and sarin. why is that significant? well, it s a couple of things. significant because what they do is they mix it. it s mostly chlorine which is kind of weaponize and they mix in sarin to make it more deadly. that s a nerve agent banned by the treaty on chemical weapons. chlorine is not? chlorine is not, however, the weaponization of chlorine is banned under this convention. the u.s. is being very fuzzy. they say we assess. vice president pence said we may come to. they re making a determination based on the evidence they have right now. meaning the visual? meaning the visual. the video they see. the frothy mouths. the horrible images we saw. symptoms consistent with an attack. these people have to be hosed off. they re coming from helicopters and the opposition doesn t have helicopters. no direct chemical evidence samples?
so let s talk more about this statement from secretary of state john kerry that signatures of sarin use were found in syria. kerry says it was collected from good and hair samples at the site of the attack 11 days ago and the video showing the scenes from that attack, very disturbing. 1,400 people in the attack in eastern damascus. 1,400 people. gloria borger asked kerry about the signatures of sarin. we don t contemplate gnat congrethe congress is going to vote no. we believe it s powerful and grows more powerful by the day. i can share with you today blood and hair sample that is have come to us through an appropriate chain of custody from east damascus, from first
sarin on a small scale. they have emphatically denied this. but if it turns out there is unequivocal evidence of sarin use, they have used weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons and so on, obama would have to do something, wouldn t he? i don t know he would have to do something. the argument that he may have made an error in putting that red line in place may be a valid argument. but this is such serious business. i understand the question. i understand that the dilemma that not only the president of the united states is in but our country is in that you say, look, if they use chemical weapons, that s a red line and there ll have to be a price for that. but, again, what do we do? a no-fly zone sounds easy, but the first time an american aircraft is down, an effort to rescue the pilot, i just come back to you have to be careful what you get into because getting out of it is extremely
unequivocal evidence of sarin use, they have used weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons and so on, obama would have to do something, wouldn t he? i don t know he would have to do something. the argument that he may have made an error in putting that red line in place may be a valid argument. but this is such serious business. i understand the question. i understand that the dilemma that not only the president of the united states is in but our country is in that you say, look, if they use chemical weapons, that s a red line and there ll have to be a price for that. but, again, what do we do? a no-fly zone sounds easy, but the first time an american aircraft is down, an effort to rescue the pilot, i just come back to you have to be careful what you get into because getting out of it is extremely difficult. this syrian situation, when i say we need a national debate, we really haven t had a national debate about it. do we think that u.s. interests are such in syria that we need