Rocket attacks using sarin gas, as in the April strikes, require considerable preparation that American intelligence might well have picked up, he said. After Mr. Assad allegedly used chemical weapons in April, the American military fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the air base his government had used to launch the attack. But Mr. Obama stopped just short of ordering a military strike, instead opting to work with the Russian government to identify and destroy Mr. Assad’s cache of chemical weapons. Critics argued that the president’s failure to enforce his own “red line” had emboldened Mr. Assad. They also warned that all of the chemical weapons could not be found and destroyed.

Source: New York Times June 27, 2017 02:44 UTC