US News

US to send weapons to Syrian rebels as Bill Clinton says Obama risks being a ‘wuss’ on the conflict

FOES: President Bashar al-Assad (above) has regained ground against Syrian rebels.

FOES: President Bashar al-Assad (above) has regained ground against Syrian rebels. (AP)

FOES: President Bashar al-Assad has regained ground against Syrian rebels (above, yesterday). (AFP/Getty Images)

FOES: President Bashar al-Assad (inset) has regained ground against Syrian rebels (above, yesterday). (
)

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will provide military aid to the Syrian rebels after finding conclusive evidence that dictator Bashar al-Assad killed as many as 150 of his own people with chemical weapons, the White House said yesterday.

The sharp change in US policy came amid reports that the Pentagon was planning to arm the rebels and impose a no-fly zone — and that former President Bill Clinton said President Obama risked being remembered as a “wuss.”

Obama has repeatedly said that if Assad used chemical weapons it would cross “a red line” and be a “game changer.”

But as evidence about poison gas emerged earlier this year, the White House rejected a greater US role.

At an unscheduled briefing last night, the White House said Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons “multiple times in the past year.”

“The president has said that the use of chemical weapons would change his calculus, and it has,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.

“Put simply, the Assad regime should know that its actions have led us to increase the scope and scale of assistance that we provide to the opposition,” he said.

But the White House wasn’t saying how and how soon it would act.

The US is stepping up assistance to the beleaguered rebels including aid that would have “direct military purposes on the ground,” Rhodes said.

But he refused to say whether providing “military support” would mean sending weapons. No decision has been made about a no-fly zone, he said.

“We are prepared for all consistencies, and we will make decisions on our own timeline,” Rhodes said.

Just before the announcement, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon has drawn up a plan to fly US aircraft from bases in Jordan to create a zone stretching up to 25 milesinto Syria.

That would create a pocket where rebel forces could be trained and equipped safe from Syrian air-force attacks.

Creating the zone would not require the US to destroy Syrian anti-aircraft batteries, the report said.

The White House announcement came as it was reported that Clinton said “it’s a bad mistake” for Obama not to intervene in the 2-year-old civil war that has killed more than 90,000 people.

Clinton made the remark to Sen. John McCain, a strong supporter of a greater US role, at a private event on Tuesday.

“Suppose I had let a million people, 2 million people be refugees out of Kosovo, a couple thousand die,” Clinton said of the 1999 Yugoslavian crisis in which he intervened.

“You would look like a total wuss, and you would be,” he said.

Last night McCain said he had been told the administration had decided to arm the rebels. The White House had resisted that move because of fears that the arms would fall into the hands of terrorists, who are among the rebels.

Military analysts said earlier this year that the Syrian fighting was becoming a battlefield deadlock. But in recent weeks Assad’s forces have scored a series of victories.