some people wonder if the russians planted this, trying to pin point the finger anywhere but at the bashar al-assad his regime. the organization responsible for the treaty banning chemical weapons has not issued an official statement. it was reported in february that 99% of the declared stockpiles of cw had been moved from syria after president obama s diplomacy. declared raises the question, how much did they declare? it is definitely on the list of banned agents, and sarin is the unofficial view of the church. their view is the sarin that was used. the rebels do not have sarin,
just rhetoric, and i understand that. that s why i believe it should not be in there to broker the deal. reporter: a use of force vote in the senate is on hold now. let s bring in a.b. stoddard and editor and congressional columnist for the hill. good evening. good to be with you, shep. a fascinating 24 hours. 24 hours ago the president wanted to strike syria. all of a sudden secretary of state says he gives it up and then the russians tell us that they will, the syrians agree that they will, and now inspectors are going to go get 200,000 pounds, as estimated by the united nations, of chemical weapons out of there in the middle of a civil war out of syria. that sounds doable. members are not only skeptical about the terms that russians will set for this deal and terms will keep shifting and changing. they could actually, if vladamir putin is feeling squirrely tonight during the middle of president obama s address to the
offer has to proceed with this. he has told senators today in meeting with them face to face that he believes the threat of the strikes were what brought the deal together. they have to see it through, so the next couple of weeks will be very critical for president obama. he gets the pause, and he gets the delay, but if he wants to keep a strike on the table as a credible and serious threat and try to keep the congress behind him on that, that s a very tall order because not many people expect that once the delay has happened that it is really going to end in a fruitful negotiation and the actual handover of weapons that can be destroyed. he needs some support to push through any sort of legislative initiatives over the next years of his presidency. his poll numbers are tanking. would you think he needs a subject change. yes, he does, and, unfortunately, this speech tonight and this pause is not going to change the subject. we re going to be talking about syria for weeks to come be
getting ahold of these chemical weapons and then using them, not just against syrians, but potentially against americans. i believe that to be the greatest threat to the homeland here. reporter: also today, lawmakers were urged to investigate two unconfirmed reports that alleged al qaeda fighters got their hands on small amounts of sarin. on june 1st the iraqi government said that they busted a cell of five al qaeda members who were actually to plan to use sarin nerve gas in iraq, in europe and even north america. that s what the iraqi government claimed. now, i don t know the full details of those investigations or how they pan out, but those are the kinds of things i d keep your eye on. reporter: and the senior democrat on the committee warning retaliation even for a limited strike seems inevitable. in this committee we must try to provide an understanding of the possible homeland security implications of military action because understanding the potential blowback is as
government and russian government have been talking about this possibility of intervening and getting assad to turn over his chemical weapons, but, frankly, it was going nowhere fast, and then yesterday secretary kerry, i m told, accidentally sort of in their words of one official burped it out, really wasn t supposed to say, it off the talking points and, yes, the state department even clarified he didn t really mean to make news but what happened that made this different is the russians responded quickly and said, yeah, we ll try to get assad to give up his chemical weapons, and now i m told that s why the administration decided to pounce and say, well, look, if the russians are willing to step up, maybe we ll have a deal here although they are realistic behind me tonight in that building that as we say we re not real sure if the russians can be trusted. that s how it came together. a burp led to a detailed plan for the syrian government to give up the weapons used to murder its pe