Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States, after weeks of stalling, has
acknowledged that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical
weapons in attacks on Sunni rebels.

The administration of President Barack Obama said the U.S. intelligence
community determined that Assad was believed to have fired CW munitions
at rebel strongholds in 2013. Officials said Assad’s military employed
sarin, one of the most toxic of CW agents.

“The intelligence community has been assessing information for some time on this issue, and the decision to reach this conclusion was made within the past 24 hours,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.

“I have been in close contact with senior officials in Washington since then to discuss this serious matter.”

The assertion by Hagel on April 25 came two days after the Israeli
military released a determination that Assad’s forces attacked the rebels
with CW on several occasions over the last two months. Earlier, Britain and France relayed evidence of CW attacks — first reported on March 19 — to the United Nations Security Council.

“We do believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very
likely have originated with the Assad regime,” Hagel said during a briefing
in the United Arab Emirates on late April 25.

Officials acknowledged that the administration came under heavy pressure
by Congress to either confirm or deny the foreign reports of Assad’s CW
attacks.

They said Hagel also encountered anger from Arab states, particularly Saudi
Arabia, for refusing to make a determination despite soil samples and
examination of the purported victims in Syria.

The White House has delivered the U.S. intelligence assessment to
leaders of the House and Senate. The White House letter came in response to
several leading members of Congress who demanded an intelligence assessment
on whether Assad used CW over the last two years of the civil war.

“Our intelligence committee does assess with varying degrees of
confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale
in Syria, specially the chemical agent sarin,” the White House letter,
signed by Miguel Rodriguez, director of the Office of Legislative Affairs,
read. “This assessment is based in part on physiological samples.”

The letter did not say what actions the administration would take in
wake of the CW determination. As late as January 2013, Obama had warned that
Assad’s use of CW could trigger military intervention.

“The president of the United States said that if Bashar Assad used
chemical weapons, it would be a game changer, that it would cross a red
line,” Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services
Committee, said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that red line has been
crossed.”

  Chuck Hagel, Hagel confirms Israeli finding on Syria’s use of chemical weapon, sarin gas, Sen. John McCain, UN Security Council