The Obama Administration Confirms Chemical Weapons Used In Syria
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The White House confirmed on Thursday that the Syrian government has in fact used chemical weapons against opposition in its bloody 2 year civil war. 
(watchsmart/Creative Commons)
President Obama said that Assad’s Syrian government had crossed a “red line” and promised stronger action from his administration.
Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said that the president will increase “military support” to the Syrian opposition.
The announcement was made just a week before Group of Eight (G8) Summit in Northern Ireland, where Syria will be a focal point of the discussions.
The White House estimated that over a hundred people have died from chemical weapons out of the 90,000 people killed in the civil war so far.
From USA Today:
The White House acknowledged in April that chemical weapons likely had been deployed, but they needed further confirmation before taking action. Obama had called the potential use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar Assad a "red line" that would spur further action by the U.S.
The president "has said the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus and it has," Rhodes said.
The intelligence community estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date, a small fraction of the more than 90,000 that have been killed in the two-year-old civil war. The U.S. assessment is based on laboratory analysis of physiological samples obtained from a number of individuals, which revealed exposure to sarin.
Read the full story here.
