Retired Gen. Jack Keane told America's Newsroom Wednesday the video footage of alleged chemical weapons attacks by Bashar al-Assad's Syrian forces showed he was likely using sarin gas to break the will of the people supporting rebel forces, and Assad was doing so freely because he felt there would be no consequences after the empty threats of President Obama.
Tuesday marked the anniversary of Obama's warning to Syria to not cross a "red line" by using or moving chemical weapons, but over the past year Assad called the president's bluff:
GREGG JARRETT: I looked at the video. We cannot show most of it because it's so horrific. I can describe it. Dead children, their eyes wide open, others struggling to breathe in the throes of death, convulsing. It's just awful. Is Bashar al-Assad, in your judgment, likely using chemical weapons and doing so yet again because he knows, threats notwithstanding from President Obama, there will be no consequences?
JACK KEANE: Absolutely. It's likely, given those videos, this is exactly what it is. Probably sarin gas. When he first used artillery against the population, no reaction. He moved to attack helicopters, he got no reaction. Then he moved to the use of air power, no reaction. Now he's using chemical weapons probably for the third or fourth time. He uses these weapons because obviously they have military value. They do kill people, but equally and probably more importantly for him, they are a weapon of terror and they intimidate the population. He's trying to break the will of the people who are supporting the rebel forces.
JARRETT: Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are supporting Assad, yet the rebels are still there, right?
KEANE: Yeah, interesting enough, one of the reasons I believe for this use of sarin gas in the vicinity of Damascus, is despite the momentum that Assad clearly has in this war now, the rebels are not going away, and he does not have the capability to defeat them. Interesting enough, in recent weeks the rebels have made inroads into neighborhoods in Damascus and have taken them, and I believe there's a correlation between that success the rebels have had in and around Damascus and the use of these weapons as well.