RUSSIA: PUTIN WARNS U. S. NOT TO STRIKE SYRIA!!

Putin warns U.S. not to strike Syria, dismisses case against Assad as ‘rumors’

By Will Englund, Published: September 4 E-mail the writer

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday warned the United States and its allies against launching a unilateral military strike against Damascus, saying the West’s case against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

In an interview published Wednesday by the Associated Press, Putin said Russia is developing a plan of action in case the United States does attack Syria without United Nations approval, but he declined to go into specifics.


In recent history, presidents have not sought congressional approval for limited military action.

He said Russia — Syria’s most stalwart ally — has frozen the shipment of certain parts for S-300 anti-aircraft missiles that it had agreed to sell to Assad’s regime.

Putin said that if the United States and its allies could provide sufficient evidence that Assad’s forces carried out a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21 in a Damascus suburb, Russia would consider allowing United Nations action against Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies have “high confidence” that Assad’s government was responsible for the attack, based partly on knowledge of regime officials’ conversations about it and the tracking of movements of regime personnel before and after the strike.

But Putin told the Associated Press that he remains skeptical, in part because it seems unlikely that Assad would risk international repercussion by using long-banned chemical weapons to kill hundreds of men, women and children.

“It ought to be convincing,” Putin said. “It shouldn’t be based on some rumors and information obtained by the special services through some kind of eavesdropping, some conversations and things like that.”

Russia has blocked U.S. and British efforts to have the U.N. Security Council take action against Syria for the attack. British Prime Minister David Cameron backed off efforts to join the United States in possible missile strikes after encountering strong resistance at home. In France, however, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his country is prepared to act in conjunction with the United States.

If the United States decided against military involvement, “this type of action wouldn’t be possible, and so we would have to consider the Syrian question in another way,” Fabius said in an interview with France Info Radio on Wednesday, hours ahead of a scheduled debate in parliament about France’s potential involvement in Syria.

President Francois Hollande does not need consent from lawmakers to order military action. But opinion polls in recent days suggest that a move against Syria is unpopular among the French public.

Fabius said it was “possible” that Hollande, whose party has a strong majority in parliament, would hold some sort of vote about whether to act. But he said that nothing would be done until “the president has all the elements in his hands.”

The global response to Syria is bound to be a major topic as the leaders of the Group of 20 countries gather outside St. Petersburg for a summit Thursday and Friday, even though the meeting is supposed to be about economic growth.