Mattis on Syria - 9-9-2018

SEC. MATTIS:  Syria, ok.

Q:  Yeah.  I mean, over the past few weeks, the Russians have talked, or accused the United States of using, you know, the talk about chemical weapons to strike Syria and (inaudible) assets.  And then, CENTCOM has talked about the Russian disinformation campaign going on in Syria, and sort of that.

SEC. MATTIS:  Yeah.

Q:  If you could talk a bit about that, and how you see that developing, and how concerning that is.

SEC. MATTIS:  Thanks for bringing that -- I should have brought that up in -- in -- in my opening remarks.

We have zero intelligence that shows the opposition has any chemical capability.  We -- we have not seen it used in Syria.  There were some attempts, of course, by ISIS to use it in Iraq.  Those attempts were very sophomoric; basically, generally failures.  You know, a -- a grenade with some kind of mustard agent in it or something, but nothing on the lines of what the White Helmets and the United Nations have seen exposed by the -- the Assad regime's violation of the chemical -- the prohibition on chemical weapons. 

So when we start hearing stories about this, and we have fairly good penetration of many of the opposition groups, and certainly, we have a history now of how many years of a tragic war that did not have to happen, but for Assad, did not have to happen; but for Russia's regrettable vetoes in the United Nations, did not have to happen but for the Iranian's support of Assad's murders.  We have seen the repeated use in this fight by the Assad regime.  

So we have made very clear that by putting out innuendo, that somehow any chemical weapon use coming up in the future could be ascribed to the opposition, well, we want to see the data.  And right now, we have data -- not just American data, not just U.S. data, but international data -- that the Assad regime has done this before, and we are watching very closely for this.  We cannot see anything that indicates the opposition has that capability. 

Q:  Do you see any indications that the Assad regime is getting ready to use chemical weapons in (inaudible).

SEC. MATTIS:  Yeah, I -- I'd prefer not to answer that right now, Idrees.  I would -- I think the best answer to that is: we are very alert.