working to set the conditions for the united nation s backed geneva process to succeed and we look forward to working with united nations envoy to syria, in an effort to maintain transparency, mckenzie will provide a detailed overview of the actual operations. thanks. ladies and gentlemen, good morning. i m going to spend the next couple minutes talking of the military details and the strikes last night. could i get the first graphic up, please. as you heard from the president of united states and directly from this room, secretary mattis and dunford. they conducted a proportional, precision, coordinated strike in response to the syrian regime s use of chemical weapons. this combined strike was directed against three distinct chemical weapons targets. i m going to show them to you in
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
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
is we continue to hope and urge and we are confident that the u.n. process will move forwar, x but our mission remains to defeat isis. there is work to be done, but we ll do it. right here. i m going to ask questions. first, were you ready, yesterday, to engage russian targets in case russia responded to that effect? second, you keep talking about the current syrian chemical problem. can you give us an idea about the size of this program in comparison to what the regime had before dismantling it? what is percentage? and third, you are talking evidence of chemical weapons attack. we haven t seen any evidence, really, is what you are seeing, however there s an organization on the ground that will conduct and investigation. why didn t you wait for that
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