ASSAD SAYS HE DOESN’T DISCOUNT U.S. MILITARY ATTACK POSSIBILITY
September 26, 2013 – 09:12 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview
broadcast Wednesday, Sept 25, that he does not discount the possibility
of a U.S. military attack even though threatened action was forestalled
when he agreed to give up chemical weapons.
Assad also said in an interview broadcast by Venezuela’s state-run
Telesur network that his government has confessions from rebels that
they brought chemical weapons into the civil war-wracked nation.
According to the broadcast’s Spanish dubbing, Assad said all evidence
pointed to rebel responsibility for the attack.
He said that Syrian authorities had uncovered chemical arms caches
and labs and that the evidence had been turned over to Russia, which
brokered the deal that helped persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to
pull back from threatened military action over an Aug 21 gas attack
that killed civilians in a Damascus suburb.
In a speech at the UN on Tuesday, Obama said he would not use military
force to depose Assad. But Washington and Moscow remain at odds on
how to hold Syria accountable if it does not live up to its pledge
to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile.
Assad predicted during the 40-minute interview that “terrorists would
try to block access of UN inspectors who enter Syria to secure the
government’s chemical arsenal.”
While Assad said he had evidence that countries including Saudi Arabia
were arming Syrian rebels, he said he had no proof that any particular
country had supplied them with chemical weapons.
He was also asked about the apparent thaw in relations between the
U.S. and Iran, his government’s chief patron in the region.
Assad called the development positive but added that he did not
consider it to mean that Tehran’s leaders trust Washington. He said
it was important that the U.S. stop pressuring Iran not to have
nuclear technology.
Assad also accused the Obama administration of lying to U.S. citizens
by claiming it has proof that Assad’s government was responsible for
the Aug 21 gas attack.
Interviewed by China’s state television CCTV in Damascus on Monday, the
Syrian capital, said he was not concerned about the draft resolution
and that China and Russia would “ensure any excuse for military action
against Syria will not stand.”
“I am not concerned. Since its independence, Syria has been committed
to all the treaties it has signed. We will honor everything that we
have agreed to do. And more importantly, I want to say, by submitting
the draft to the UN Security Council, or by urging the U.S. and
Russia to agree on a deal, the U.S., France, and Britain are just
trying to make themselves winners in a war against a Syria which is
their imaginary enemy,” Assad was quoted as saying.
In an interview on the Fox News television channel earlier this month,
Assad said his government would dispose of its chemical weapons arsenal
and it would take about a year. “I think it is a very complicated
operation technically and it needs a lot, a lot of money.
Some estimated about a billion for the Syrian stockpile,” he said.
He said the Syrian army was advancing in the area at the time and
had no need to fire rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin, as
the United States says it did. “The whole story doesn’t even hold
together. It’s not realistic. So, no, we didn’t. In one word, we
didn’t use any chemical weapons in Ghouta,” he said, speaking English.