Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview broadcast Wednesday, Sept 25, that he does not discount the possibility of a U.S. military attack even though threatened action was forestalled when he agreed to give up chemical weapons.
Assad also said in an interview broadcast by Venezuela's state-run Telesur network that his government has confessions from rebels that they brought chemical weapons into the civil war-wracked nation. According to the broadcast's Spanish dubbing, Assad said all evidence pointed to rebel responsibility for the attack.
He said that Syrian authorities had uncovered chemical arms caches and labs and that the evidence had been turned over to Russia, which brokered the deal that helped persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to pull back from threatened military action over an Aug 21 gas attack that killed civilians in a Damascus suburb.
In a speech at the UN on Tuesday, Obama said he would not use military force to depose Assad. But Washington and Moscow remain at odds on how to hold Syria accountable if it does not live up to its pledge to dismantle its chemical weapons stockpile.
Assad predicted during the 40-minute interview that “terrorists would try to block access of UN inspectors who enter Syria to secure the government's chemical arsenal.”
While Assad said he had evidence that countries including Saudi Arabia were arming Syrian rebels, he said he had no proof that any particular country had supplied them with chemical weapons.
He was also asked about the apparent thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran, his government's chief patron in the region.
Assad called the development positive but added that he did not consider it to mean that Tehran's leaders trust Washington. He said it was important that the U.S. stop pressuring Iran not to have nuclear technology.
Assad also accused the Obama administration of lying to U.S. citizens by claiming it has proof that Assad's government was responsible for the Aug 21 gas attack.
Interviewed by China's state television CCTV in Damascus on Monday, Assad said he was not concerned about the draft resolution and that China and Russia would "ensure any excuse for military action against Syria will not stand."
"I am not concerned. Since its independence, Syria has been committed to all the treaties it has signed. We will honor everything that we have agreed to do. And more importantly, I want to say, by submitting the draft to the UN Security Council, or by urging the U.S. and Russia to agree on a deal, the U.S., France, and Britain are just trying to make themselves winners in a war against a Syria which is their imaginary enemy," Assad was quoted as saying.
In an interview on the Fox News television channel earlier this month, Assad said his government would dispose of its chemical weapons arsenal and it would take about a year. "I think it is a very complicated operation technically and it needs a lot, a lot of money. Some estimated about a billion for the Syrian stockpile," he said.
He said the Syrian army was advancing in the area at the time and had no need to fire rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin, as the United States says it did. "The whole story doesn't even hold together. It's not realistic. So, no, we didn't. In one word, we didn't use any chemical weapons in Ghouta," he said, speaking English.
