DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources reported Saturday that President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel were weighing three options: One: Striking the Syrian unit which perpetrated the poison gas last Wednesday east of Damascus. Two: Destroying the Syrian army’s three chemical weapons depots. Or Three: Coordinated attacks on the first two targets.
For Options Two and Three, the attack would have to destroy all the poison shells without them exploding and leaking their contents across wide regions of Syria and neighboring Turkey, Israel and Jordan. The Syrian ruler is capable of having the shells’ contents mixed and armed ready for use, thus maximizing the deadly impact of deadly gases across a broad Middle East region.