BANDER SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) -- U.S. forces are now ready to act on any order by President Barack Obama to strike Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, center, talks before Indonesian soldiers who are prepared for the U.N. peacekeeping mission, after his meeting with Indonesian Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro in Jakarta, Indonesia, Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. Credit: AP
The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned within range of targets inside Syria, as well as U.S. warplanes in the region, Hagel said in an interview with BBC television during his visit to the southeast Asian nation of Brunei.
Hagel also predicted that U.S. intelligence agencies would soon conclude that last week's deadly attack on civilians in a Damascus suburb was a chemical attack by Bashar Assad's government.
"I think it's pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria," he said. "I think the intelligence will conclude that it wasn't the (Syria) rebels who used it, and there'll probably be pretty good intelligence to show is that the Syria government was responsible - but we'll allow the time to come together to provide that information."
Obama asked the Pentagon to give him "all options for all contingencies," Hagel said, and "we have done that."
"We are prepared. We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take," Hagel said.
