they want to leave themselves face if assad decides to react, if he decides to carry out another attack, they need room to escalate, frankly. if they were to have to respond again. they have to leave something on the table. they decided that even though senator john mccain and lindsey graham today had been calling for the trump administration to take out assad's air force, to eliminate the air force so they can't barrel bombs his people again, so he can't ever conduct eight chemical weapon strike. he has missiles that he can launch chemical weapons with. this was a warning, this is a warning to assad to not do this again. they left themselves m for the . >> jennifer griffin from the pentagon tonight. thank you. i've just gotten word from the associated press is beirut where