Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said the US wouldn’t hesitate to hold the “source of the bad behavior” accountable if Syria uses chemical weapons again – and wouldn’t rule out the use of military force.
“We’ll have to analyze once the activity takes place. We pray that it doesn’t,” Pompeo said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “But we’ll do our intelligence, our forensics. We’ll do our hard work. And we will hold accountable those that are responsible for violating this fundamental principle, this idea that chemical weapons are fundamentally different than other types of weapon systems.”
NBC anchor Chuck Todd asked whether Russia or Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is to blame.
“The president is very clear. We will go to the source of the bad behavior,” Pompeo, the former CIA director, answered.
He went on to note that the US joined with European allies to impose sanctions on Russia after British officials blamed the Kremlin for using a military-grade toxin to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in March in Salisbury.
“The president is deadly serious to make sure that chemical weapons don’t become the norm in the way nations act around the world,” Pompeo said.
“Have we ruled out using a military response?” Todd asked.
“We’re not going to rule out a single thing,” Pompeo responded.
The US in April 2017 launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield after Assad bombed civilians with nerve gas, killing scores of his people, including many women and children.