behind? well, look, just to be clear, what that expression was about was about the run-up to the intervention in libya and it was used to explain how the obama administration was advancing its goals at the u.n. the argument was that people were tired of war, it was very, very difficult to get a u.n. resolution to authorize the strike in libya and the way to do it was if the u.s. hung back and pushed other actors forward, especially arab countries and the phrase was if we lead from behind here, it s a lot easier for us to get that u.n. resolution than if the u.s. is out in front. now, that became a pretty big talking point to obama s critics. is he leading from behind here on syria? look, i think he s very, very reluctant to use force in syria for a lot of good reasons. and i think i can t see how you can criticize him for taking this last opportunity to see if you could peacefully disarm assad, but i do think that this
no certainty he was at the compound. some officials even recommended against the raid by navy s.e.a.l.s. now, a spokesman for the tre director of national intelligence says there will be disagreements about these matters but the only thing that really matters is the formal assessment that would be delivered to the white house. however, another senior administration official a short time ago told me the confidence level in being able to track the chemical weapons in his words, is going down. wolf? that is not encouraging. thanks very much, barbara starr at the pentagon. the specter of the iraq war certainly looms over this crisis in syria, especially for those opposed to a u.s. military strike. cnn political commentator, the new yorker correspondent ryan lizza suggests president obama is in the same situation roughly as president bush was back in 2002. ryan is joining us here in the situation room. a fascinating article you wrote
assad possessing weapons. so who is if we get assad to sign the chemical weapons treaty, if we get him to declare all of his weapons and start the disarmament process, what happens when he starts doing what saddam did, picking fights with the inspectors over what sites they can visit, not fully declaring everything. someone is going to have to enforce, police this compliance regime. that will be the u.s., the uk and the french. that s going to push us into a place where we are going to be talking about military action for simple noncompliance, simple possession of chemical weapons, not used. i think that s one part of the debate that s gotten overlooked. you wrote that powerful article a couple years ago all of us remember in which you quote a white house official as saying this president is quote, leading from behind. yeah. it s generated a huge amount of buzz, as you well know, ever since. in this particular crisis with syria, as far as you can tell, is the president leading
previous commitment but what if he is a contender? how he stacks up will depend a lot on whether another also-ran, former secretary of state hillary clinton, decides to give it another shot. i have a very hard time imagining joe biden running against hillary clinton for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it s very difficult for i think a candidate starting from where he does to beat her. reporter: one thing i can tell you is that we will be keeping a close eye on vice president biden while he s in iowa this weekend. i should add that on monday, he s set to visit the port of charleston in south carolina. south carolina, as you know, is also an early voting state. make of that what you will. usually iowa, new hampshire, then south carolina. a lot of us who cover politics are very familiar. good report. when the diplomatic spotlight is on syria s chemical weapons right now, where are they? do we really know where they are? we have details just ahead. plus, 20 p
will be a overwhelming overwhelming report that the chemical weapons was used, even though i cannot publicly say at this time. reporter: his spokesman tried to reel it back. the report is not released. i m not privy to the information yet. reporter: but ban ki-moon added that bashar al assad had committed many crimes against humanity, and would face a process of accountability. the u.n. inspectors report into the 21st august gas attacks will i m told come out on monday and be detailed enough for others to work out who was behind the attacks that was not the inspectors job to do so. many are asking if syria s sudden move to join the chemical weapons convention unconditionally unveiled here on thursday is trying to repeat that report. the u.n. s lawyers are checking syria s letter to them about joining the convention to be sure that it says the right things. now if it does, in 30 days, u.n. inspectors could be inside syria.