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Italian FM Bonino warns of ‘selective intelligence’ on Syria
By Mick Krever, CNN
Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino on Wednesday injected a heavy dose of scepticism into the debate over whether the West should intervene in Syria in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
“Selective intelligence has already been a cause of some other intervention, which didn’t prove very positive,” Bonino said, referring to the war in Iraq.
“I strongly believe that chemical weapons are a crime against humanity and what happened is really unacceptable, and the responsible have to be brought to be accountable,” she said, but added that it is not “wise” to intervene without United Nations Security Council approval.
“It’s also worrying that people are already preparing a coalition of the willing even before tabling a resolution at the UN,” she said. “Frankly, I don’t know what they – this coalition is really willing to do. Punish Assad? Ending the conflict? I don’t know. It’s totally not clear to me.”
Former Israeli intelligence chief: Trust Kerry on Syria
By Mick Krever, CNN
Former Israeli intelligence chief General Amos Yadlin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday that the world can rest assured that any American claims that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons are accurate.
“The American intelligence community is very, very careful after Iraq, 2003. And I know personally most of them. I know personally General Clapper, with the DNI,” Yadlin said from Jerusalem. “When I hear the determination of Secretary Kerry, I know that the intelligence is very solid. When he says that Assad has done it, I think that the American public and the international community should trust that this is a very reliable intelligence.”
Before the alleged chemical attack outside Damascus last week, Israeli intelligence overheard Syrian military commanders discussing moving chemical weapons to the area of the attack, CNN learned from diplomatic sources. That intelligence was shared with the United States.
CNN on the ground in Damascus
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen speaks with CNN's Hala Gorani from Damascus, Syria, where there are fresh allegations of a chemical weapons attack.
Will U.S. respond to alleged Syria chemical attack?
"The president has been clear, the secretary has been clear, that the use of chemical weapons is absolutely unacceptable," U.S. State Department Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki told CNN's Hala Gorani on Wednesday.
It now seems as though that red line in the Syrian conflict may have been crossed, again, this time outside the capital, Damascus.
Psaki said the U.S. was calling for "unfettered" access for an investigative team to look into the incident, but also said that she did not "want to look into a crystal ball" and predict what the U.S.'s response might be should the use of chemical weapons be confirmed.
"We’ve been clear that boots on the ground is not part of the options being considered, but all options remain on the table," Psaki said. "I'm not going to outline those here."
Click above to watch Gorani's full interview with Psaki.
Expert: alleged Syria chem. attack ‘has to have been a military’
By Mick Krever, CNN
It is “more and more likely” that chemical weapons were used in an attack outside Damascus, a Chemical, biological, and nuclear threat analyst told CNN’s Hala Gorani on Wednesday.
“Initially what I thought is that it could well be a concentrated riot control agent,” Gwyn Winfield said. But “as the footage has sort of gone on, it looks more and more likely that some kind of organophosphate – so that is some kind of nerve agent – has been used.”
Survivors, portrayed in videos posted online, are “showing more sort of typical chemical warfare agent signs and symptoms.”
Winfield was not able to identify what type of agent may have been used, but said that it did not appear to be a “pure weapons-grade” attack.
Plea from Syrian-American doctor
Editor's note: The following is a message sent to CNN's Amanpour by Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American doctor who has appeared on the program in the past.
"More than 70% of [Homs'] inhabitants are forced out and the rest are being squeezed. There are daily shelling of the largest neighborhood (Alwaar) where most of the previously displaced people went to. The population of Homs including my family feel desperate.
"This is of course part of the larger picture of Genocide in Syria, but no one is talking about it except for your program. The public should know that this [is] the first Genocide in the Twenty First Century and the worst since Rowanda [sic]. You should also be critical of the silence of our administration and the international community. The UN has the Responsibility to Protect the Syrian people and they are not discharging their legal duty.
A cry for help from Homs
CNN's Hala Gorani, in for Christiane Amanpour, speaks with Syrian activist Abu Rami in the besieged city of Homs.
Syria: A dire situation grows more dire
“The situation is looking more and more dire by the day,” Roula Khalaf, Middle East Editor for the Financial Times, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
She was speaking of Syria, where the U.N. now estimates 5,000 people are killed each month and from which 6,000 refugees flee every day.
“The regime is making gains on the ground,” Khalaf continued. “The whole idea that you make a political solution much more achievable if you alter the balance of power on the ground, we're not seeing that. We're seeing in fact the balance of power being altered in favor of the regime rather than in favor of the rebels.”
Click above to see the full conversation with Roula Khalaf, including why Bashar al-Assad is gleeful about the political chaos in Egypt.
EXCLUSIVE: Amanpour and Robert Gates
The former head of both the CIA and Pentagon, Robert Gates, weighed in on the events surrounding fugitive leaker Edward Snowden in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“If you can’t ultimately trust people then you’re in real trouble,” Gates told Amanpour. “And the consequence of that is you will have a narrowing and a narrowing of the information that’s made available to people for analysis, and for decision making, as people try to protect that information. And you will be back in the same kind of situation that we apparently had prior to 9/11, where you don’t have the ability for people with the broad enough access to connect the dots.” FULL POST
Hague: UK has not decided on arms for Syrian opposition
By Mick Krever, CNN
The United Kingdom has not yet decided whether to send weapons to Syria’s opposition forces, Foreign Secretary William Hague told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“I was absolutely instrumental in getting the EU to lift the arms embargo,” Hague said. “But also said at the time … that we wouldn’t be doing so at this stage.”
Arms, Hague added, are not the only way to aid the opposition. FULL POST
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