Hundreds of children. We begin with the latest from National Security correspondent jennifer griffin. Live at the pentagon. Reporter at this point in time the only person that knows what the president is going to say in the rose garden moments from now is the president himself and his small circle of his National Security team. Here at the pentagon, again, those warships have been at the ready for days. You heard defense secretary hagel say days ago on his trip to asia that they were ready to go. They were awaiting orders from the president. But will is not a sense at this moment in time that a strike is necessarily imminent. In fact, again, reading the tea leaves here, those options that have been presented to the president , and we can report that there were at least three options presented to the president , one would include doing nothing at all militarily. One would include a possible 2472hour strike mission. And we are also told that there is a plan that would include up to 96 hours of strikes against Syrian Regime targets. We know from statement it is president , secretary of state ke rry, made in recent days they are not going to attempt regime change. We know no buildup of forces in the gulf. Excuse me, eastern med terrain yeah that would suggest that there going to be boots on the ground or any sort of strikes that would last more than a few days time. We will be talking about this, obviously, over the last few days. How long we heard all of these destroyers and vessels in the mediterranean are on standby, how long would it take for once the word comes down, would it be almost immediately . Im told that, in fact, once the positions of the targets are placed into the tomahawk missiles most likely this is a mission that would involve numerous tomahawk missiles fired from destroyers or other naval assets in the area, that in fact, it would probably take if those targ receipts already placed into the tomahawks, it is just a matter of minutes. You just you can literally persia button. But if as we reported in recent day it is targets are shifting because you know that assad regime has been emteagptying ou based on position it is president is making with the security officials, it would take probably up to two hours before you would see anything. Without it take that but it is not a long period of time. They have been at the ready and are at the ready. Again, those plans have presented to the president for days now. One more thing before we head to ed henry at the white house. We know technology involved here has come leaps and bounds in recent years. You can put missile, Cruise Missile, not only on a house, but in whatever window inside of that house. You can pinpoint it. There is a challenge here about not only human shields, assad moving people to targets that may be of choice. But also not killing rebels. One, people that the u. S. Is supporting. Talk about that for just a second. Absolutely the difficulty in getting involved in a civil war. It is what many of the war planners have presented to the president. This is have you the ability with tomahawks to strike within a fivemeter range. However, first of all, they are still making regime conscript in those buildings. There will be no such thing as firing a tomahawk without some sort of Collateral Damage. Lets head over to the white house. Chief White House Correspondent, ed henry, standing by. Good afternoon. As you have been noting, president making remarks less than 15 minutes now in the rose garden. Why the rose garden and not the oval office . We are told by the white house official this is an address to the nation. This is not officially announcing, according to the white house official. Commencement of military operations. Instead it is the president giving the American People, giving the world, an update on where hes in his dlibation and where we are with the situation on the ground in syria. Obviously the u. N. Weapons inspectors have wrapped up their work. They are waiting here inside the white house for that to finish before any potential military operation could begin. Number one. Number two, as you have been saying, there were more briefings here today at the white house via conference call. Where you had top National Security officials, adviser to the president , here, briefing there Conference Calls, senate democrats, senate republicans, told by the congressional senior congressional producer, that house members are going to get a briefing as well from the National Security aide sunday. We are told, of course, the arab league is expected to meet on sunday as well. Just putting all the pieces together, we are going hear from the president to let him say what he is going to say. But since the white house official is saying that the president is giving an update on where we are, he could be saying that as hes briefing, consulting with congress, waiting to hear from the arab league, hes carefully going through this. He wanted to do things multilaterally, not on a unilateral basis. After that vote in the British Parliament a couple of nights ago, he got a serious blow in terms of his efforts to bring allies together. He has to be very careful to not look like he is rushing into a military operation here. Ed henry live at the white house. We will head back just before the president speaks. Lets bring in our panel here. Fox news sunday anchor Chris Wallace. Fox news military analyst oliver north. Discuss what they think about the president s upcoming address. As you heard ed there, chris, it is not we are hearing from white house officials on background that an announcement of military action that is taking place right. I kind of figured that because it is too early. You know. Will is a considerable time difference. It is still only early evening in damascus. When the u. S. Launches these kinds of my i will strikes, they like do it in the middle of the night when there are fewer people on the streets and less likelihood of Collateral Damage. We have all been reading tea leaves as to when the president is going to do this. Will was one leak we read that the u. N. Inspector, weapons inspectors, left syria earlier this morning. They are out of the country. As the u. N. Spokesman said there are a thousand u. N. Personnel in the country. The president leaves for europe, sweden, then for russia for a summit on tuesday. It seems like this is there is a small window. The arab league had a meeting scheduled for tuesday. It has been moved up to tomorrow. House members supposed to be briefed tomorrow with the president announcing a strike while a lot of people have not been fully briefed. There are a lot of puzzles there. Seems like there may be a small window. Maybe the president wants to give more of a sense to the country, im really thinking about this and im trying to get International Support and really trying to consult with congress to make it a little bit easier when he pull it is trigger. At this point after john kerrys very forceful speech yesterday, it is unimaginable to me that hes not going to take military action at some point over the next few hours. It is interesting to watch this develop in that we are now talking about it for about five days. And they have been talking about it for even longer. The problem is, all of the talk and the problem is, of course, the targets are now shifting and moving. Theres month doubt assad, at the direction of those who are running this civil war, in tehran, have moved all kinds of strategic assets out of the way of the attack. It is very difficult with Cruise Missile programs. You have two hours to get there. If they know that they launched, had start moving things even then. It is very difficult for us to hit something thats under way. Second of all, the people who really are running this world are in tehran. They have been running the war for a better part of a year. It has been their operation. And so those who conduct this chemical attack, from everything we heard from the United Nations and from the intelligence, debriefed in this country, it was a chemical attack launch by forces loyal to assad. If thats the case, and it turns out to be absolutely true, this missile attack isnt going to change any of that dynamic. And so you have to ask yourself whats the next thing that will happen. The strategy of firing Cruise Missiles as an answer to a problem has never worked. It didnt work for bill clinton when he fired at saddam hussein. Didnt work when he fired them into a tent camp in afghanistan. Didnt work when he fired them into a pharmaceutical plant. Before the clinton strikes, do you remember any sense from president clinton that how many times president obama said that this is going to be a limited action. Thats is not going to be a iraq or expanded. We heard a lot about that. How limited it will be. In fact, when clinton fired both in desert fox and shots he fired into afghanistan, the citation he made was about that 1986 when we attacked qaddafi for what he did in berlin. People will look back at what we did in those days. Ronald reaganding call members of congress, brought them in to his confidence and told them what we were going to do. Literally the night before. The plan was worked out very quietly for almost two weeks. Between the 27 and 15th of april when the actual attack took place. And some of that liaison was to send special emissary to iran to meet for overflight rights. He turned us down which no one knew until the actual day of. Now have all this international talk, all of the targets exposed and all here is what are options are. It will be limited and not boots on the ground. You have to ask yourself, what is the next thing thats going to happen . Firing Cruise Missiles is not strategy. We live in a different time. 24 7 news, twitter and facebook. Everything else. It is tough to be a leader of a military action of any type during that environment because people are secondguessing from the second that you even talk about anything. It is a challenge for this president. Either way he goes. It is. I have to say that yesterday was fascinating. What a disconnect between the very powerful speech by john kerry in which he talked about assad as a thug and murderer who had gassed thousands of his own people and could not be allowed to act with impunity but then within minutes, the president speaks and the in the cabinet room and talks about limited action, short time, punitive, not regime change. And you have to ask yourself, he is a murderer and a thug, we are not going to allow to gas his people with impunity but we are going to allow him to kill 100,000 of his people with impunity as long as he doesnt do it with chemical weapons, he does it with bombs and guns. Thats part of the disconnect here. If hes as much of a threat, assad, as john kerry, secretary of state said he was, we are now told is acting as of something of a hawk, leading advocate in the war council of the president , then why is the president talking about kind of fighting with one arm tied behind our back . Meanwhile the sungs talking about this as well. James rosen has the u. N. Angle. James . Spokesman for the u. N. Is saying today that any suggestion that the United Nations by withdrawing the chemical weapons inspectors from the ground in syria and getting them out today, they have reached safety, any suggestion that that move by the u. N. To pull the inspectors is in essence allowing the United States to proceed with a military operation and stepping aside for that purpose to spokesman for the u. N. Calls that grotesque. And notes that many, many u. N. Workers, thousands, are still in syria delivering humanitarian relief and aid of one kind or another. Now that we know with some degree of certainty that this speech by the president in the rose garden, just a few minutes from now will not be dealing with an imminent military strike, it is safe to say the president has several audiences, the American People, of course, congress, and the rest of the populations of the arab world, allies and our adversaries around the world, for this president particularly attuned to literature, audience is also history. There will be an intent to enshrine in International Law and speech may not have been necessary if that action had gone differently in the british house of commons. Chief washington correspondent, james rosen here in washington. Monitoring the United Nations angle. I will show the reaction there and movements that are happening. Essentially right now, you have two parallel tracks going. Israeli military is on high alert. They have moved their iron dome batteries here into position to protect tel aviv. Remember, president assad has said if he is hit he will strike back. Tel aviv will burn and thousands of people line up to get gas masks. Syrians say television is broadcasting all sorts of propaganda in terms of what they will do in retaliation and also showing off a lot of their military might that they have. It is very significant in terms of regional abilities here. Had have a lot of scud missiles they could use to retaliate and obviously have zpangs other military hardware on the goalla heights. They have chemical weapons we heard on the move. One of the things thats grave concern to the israelis here is that over the past five or six days that the discussion in washington has gone on so publicly is that has given a lot of time for the syrians and also the iranians to make threats and at one point they may actually end up having to live up to. Thats something thats awfully scary for the israelis here. Syrians, for their part, are moving a lot of their missile batteries out into fighting positions, particularly up into some of the mountainous areas where it would be difficult for Cruise Missiles to get them. A number of these missiles arent icbms in the sense of american missiles but actually mobile scud launchers much more difficult to target with cruise miss skills and trying to move chemical weapons storerooms around. These things is what the israelis are monitoring as we speak. Obviously everyone here, who is waiting for the news of the u. N. Inspectors, to head out, that was seen as kind of a point in a change in the tenor of what might happen. Interestingly here, every single speech that has been given on this issue by an american official, be it obviously the president s comments, or secretary of state kerrys comments, taken live already as watching the israeli channels in live coverage. Also waiting for the president and seeing what happens with the United States here, obviously could have an Immediate Impact here on tel aviv or the rest of the northern part of israel. All within missile range. Not only the syrians but hezbollah and lebanon which is closely binged to president assad. There is an awful lot of nervous people here. Government of israel says they do no want anyone to panic but are certainly ready and willing to retaliate the attack. Thats the most dangerous statement because of the possible tinderbox that obviously is the middle east. Very quickly, before i head back to ed henry at the white house, you mentioned the nervousness there. Are gas masks being passed out in israel . Have they been preparing in recent days for some sort of attack should there be a retaliation after whatever the u. S. And allies do . Israelis moved their antimissiles into place and manned protecting tel aviv, other main cities that are on standby. Weekend leave for soldiers has been canceled and there have been thousands of people lining up for hours to get their government to issue gas masks. The government gives everyone here a free gas mask but not everyone has one and not everyones canister is up to date. A couple of days ago there were fights over the gas masks. Provide and saturday here as the weekend. So tomorrow morning you can bet those lines will be even longer as people are desperate all over this country to make sure they are prepared. Obviously president assad has shown the willingness to use chemical weapons. No one really thinks here he is willing to use them in israel. But people are certainly very frightened over it. Thank you. Now heading backing to chief White House Correspondent ed henry at the white house. Chris wallace mentioned that the president is traveling next week. As of tuesday. So should some limited action happen, one would think it would be limited enough before he leaves the country . Thats right. Either that or if he comes out now in a few moments and says we immediate more time, we are going to wait for the arab league, we are going to this carefully, part of what he is doing in russia the g20 summit. With key allies like David Cameron of britain. He could also end up huddling with them at that summit and come back next week and do something. Obviously that would be an awful lot of time, would have given assad a lot of time to move his assets, critics would be piling on the president. Thats one option he has. You may hear noise behind me. A sizable protest outside of the northwest gates here. Syrian flags and the large majority of people who are protesting are saying obama, hands off syria. This is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Hes thinking about the history books. Yesterday the president mentioned in the cabinet room remarks that Chris Wallace was talking about that he understands the nation is war we are write and says he is as well. He ended the war in iraq. His critics say too soon. He is trying toned the war in afghanistan. A debate still raging in congress how soon that should be wrapped up. Look, even if the nation is war weary, even if the commander in chief is not sure about another military option, operation, whether that should come in, president s have to make tough decisions. Take that from george w. Bush w who will not enter into the fray of this but understands what president obama is going through. He has been in that oval office. Making these tough calls. There is only a few living americans who will understand how difficult these positidecis are. We are given the heads up of 1 15 eastern time for this statement. As ofte