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CRISIS IN SYRIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

Serial No. 113–32 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

PETER T. KING, New York 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan, Vice Chair 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

DONDALD M. PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

FILEMON VELA, Texas 

STEVEN A. HORSFORD, Nevada 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

GREG HILL, Chief of Staff 

MICHAEL GEFFROY, Deputy Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk 

I. LANIER AVANT, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Michael T. McCaul, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 1 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 3 

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland 

Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 3 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 5 

WITNESSES

The Honorable Christopher Shays, Former Representative in Congress From 

the State of Connecticut: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8 

Major General Robert H. Scales, Jr. (Ret. U.S. Army), Former Commandant 

of the U.S. Army War College: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 11 

Mr. Thomas Joscelyn, Senior Fellow, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 14 

Mr. Stephen Biddle, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Defense Policy, Council on 

Foreign Relations: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 17 

(1) 

CRISIS IN SYRIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR 

HOMELAND SECURITY 

Tuesday, September 10, 2013 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in Room 311, 

Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Michael T. McCaul [Chairman 

of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives McCaul, Smith, King, Miller, Meehan, 

Duncan, Marino, Barletta, Stewart, Hudson, Daines, Brooks, Perry, 

Sanford, Thompson, Jackson Lee, Clarke, Higgins, Richmond, 

Payne, O’Rourke, Gabbard, Vela, and Horsford. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Committee on Homeland Security will 

come to order. 

The committee is meeting today to examine the crisis in Syria 

and the implications for the homeland. The Chairman wishes to remind our guests today that demonstrations from the audience, including the use of signs, placards, and T-shirts, as well as verbal 

outbursts, are a violation of the Rules of the House and will result 

in a removal from the hearing room. I now recognize myself for an 

opening statement. 

For 2 years, Americans have known a brutal war is being waged 

in Syria. The atrocities witnessed almost a month ago shocked the 

world and have demanded tough choices from the United States. 

However, horrific acts should not spur unwise reactions, and we 

must thoroughly examine the realities of military intervention in 

a civil war. Today we gather to examine both the Assad regime and 

the opposition forces that are caught in a bloody civil war. Specifically, we will look at what role America might play in this deadly 

conflict and what a military strike against Syria could mean for 

our National and Homeland Security. 

Yesterday, Syrian President Assad said the United States should 

expect everything in response to military strikes in Syria, and last 

week the United States intercepted an order from Iran to militants 

in Iraq to attack the U.S. embassy in Iraq and other American interests. On the same day, the FBI warned the possibility of U.S. 

military action could escalate cyber attacks by pro-Syrian or other 

aligned actors. 

Ultimately, the United States must weigh the ripple effects of its 

actions. Many Members of Congress have made the point that 

America’s credibility is on the line, while others have maintained 

that the administration’s wavering response to Assad’s brutal tac-
2 

tics over the past year cannot be fixed with an unbelievably small 

military action, as Secretary Kerry described the strikes yesterday. 

What America must determine is what its support for either side 

means and the consequences for the United States. An unbelievably small intervention as described by the Secretary could elicit 

an unbelievably damaging chain of events for the United States. 

Make no mistake, punishing Assad is a noble mission. Based on 

the briefings we have received, it is conclusive that he used chemical weapons against his own people. But damaging the regime’s 

command and control posts will have the effect of helping the 

rebels. The Assad regime’s decades of oppression have undoubtedly 

brought this revolution, but the moderate resistance has been infiltrated with some of the fiercest Islamist fighters in the world. 

Our country strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons. 

They are some of the most egregious methods of warfare known to 

mankind. The Assad regime has used them for many months and 

has killed many innocent people. Americans have great compassion 

for the victims. However, as we look at the Syrian crisis, we must 

be realistic and take into account the fact that the resistance movement is now dominated in some regions by a host of Islamist extremist factions such as al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate. While the 

administration contends that we can support the rebels and differentiate between the moderate and extremist wings, the reality 

is that they are now working together. Any U.S. military strike 

against the Assad regime will also benefit the extremists fighting 

him, who will undoubtedly use Assad’s weapons against American 

allies and interests and possibly even our homeland if given the 

chance. 

This is all put in unique focus as we observe this week both the 

anniversaries of the attacks in Benghazi and those on September 

11, 2001. Al-Qaeda perpetrated both attacks, and there is serious 

concern that if Assad falls, the extremist wings of the rebel movement will fill the vacuum and take over Assad’s arsenal of chemical 

weapons. Sadly, in places like Libya and Egypt, we have seen that 

dictators are rarely replaced by moderates. 

This fact is why my main concern has been and remains the security of Assad’s chemical weapon stockpiles. We have known of his 

growing arsenal for decades, and the President’s strike plan will 

not secure them. Securing these weapons will take an international 

coalition that will ensure they can neither be used by Assad or the 

extremist elements of the rebel forces. 

Since the strikes will not accomplish this goal and could draw 

our country into a prolonged and major conflict, I remain concerned 

about the President’s widely-telegraphed plan. Today I hope we can 

discuss the ripple effects of our action or inaction in the Syrian conflict, and I appreciate the witnesses for sharing their expertise here 

today. 

After years of indecision, the President has sent this decision to 

Congress, and our deliberation will help shape the way forward. 

With that, the Chairman now recognizes the Ranking Member 

for his opening statement. 

[The statement of Chairman McCaul follows:] 
3 

STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL T. MCCAUL

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

For 2 years, Americans have known that a brutal war is being waged in Syria. 

The atrocities witnessed almost a month ago shocked the world—and have demanded tough choices from the United States. However, horrific acts should not 

spur unwise reactions, and we must thoroughly examine the realities of military 

intervention in this civil war. 

Today we gather to examine both the Assad regime and the opposition forces that 

are caught in a bloody civil war. Specifically, we will look at what role America 

might play in this deadly conflict and what a military strike against Syria could 

mean for our National and homeland security. 

Yesterday, Syrian President Assad said the United States should ‘‘expect everything’’ in response to military strikes in Syria, and last week, the United States 

intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy in 

Iraq and other American interests. On the same day, the FBI warned that the possibility of U.S. military action could escalate cyber attacks by pro-Syrian or other 

aligned cyber actors. 

Ultimately, the United States must weigh the ripple effects of its actions. Many 

Members of Congress have made the point that America’s credibility is on the line, 

while others have maintained that the administration’s wavering response to 

Assad’s brutal tactics over the past year cannot be fixed with an ‘‘unbelievably 

small’’ military action, as Secretary Kerry described the strikes yesterday. 

What America must determine is what its support for either side means, and the 

consequences for the United States. An ‘‘unbelievably small’’ intervention, as described by the Secretary, could elicit an unbelievably damaging chain of events for 

the United States. 

Make no mistake, punishing Assad is a noble mission. Based on the briefings we 

have received, it is conclusive that he used chemical weapons against his own people. But damaging the Regime’s command-and-control posts will have the effect of 

helping the Rebels. The Assad Regime’s decades of repression have undoubtedly 

wrought this revolution, but the moderate resistance has been infiltrated with some 

of the fiercest Islamist fighters in the world. 

Our country strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons. They are some of 

the most egregious methods of warfare known to mankind. The Assad Regime has 

used them for many months, and has killed many innocent people. Americans have 

great compassion for the victims, however as we look at the Syrian crisis, we must 

be realistic and take into account the fact that the resistance movement is now 

dominated—in some regions—by a host of Islamist extremist factions such as al 

Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate. 

While the administration contends that we can support the rebels, and differentiate between the moderate and extremist wings, the reality is that they are now 

working together. Any U.S. military strikes against the Assad Regime will also benefit the extremists fighting him who will undoubtedly use Assad’s weapons against 

American allies and interests and possibly even our homeland if given the chance. 

This is all put in unique focus as we observe this week both the anniversaries 

of the attacks in Benghazi, and those on September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda perpetrated 

both attacks, and there is serious concern that if Assad falls, the extremist wings 

of the rebel movement will fill the vacuum and take over Assad’s arsenal of chemical weapons. Sadly, in places like Libya and Egypt, we have seen that dictators are 

rarely replaced by moderates. 

This fact is why my main concern has been, and remains, the security of Assad’s 

chemical weapon stockpiles. We have known of his growing arsenal for decades— 

and the President’s strike plan will not secure them. Securing these weapons will 

take an international coalition, and will ensure that they can neither be used by 

Assad or the extremist elements of the rebel forces. 

Since the strikes will not accomplish this goal and could draw our country in to 

a prolonged conflict, I remain concerned about the President’s widely-telegraphed 

plan. 

Today, I hope we can discuss the ripple effects of our action or inaction in the 

Syrian conflict, and I appreciate the witnesses for sharing their expertise. After 

years of indecision, the President has sent this decision to Congress, and our deliberation will help shape the way forward. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for holding today’s hearing. 

I also want to thank the witnesses for appearing here today. 
4 

I agreed not to object to the Chairman’s motion to seek unanimous consent to convene this hearing without the required 7-day 

notice. I agreed to this unusual request because of the subject matter of this hearing and the need for this panel to fulfill its unique 

jurisdictional mission in assuring that the American people know 

about the potential homeland security implications of the United 

States military intervention in Syria. 

But before we discuss the homeland security implications, we 

should begin with the basic facts: The current civil war in Syria 

began 3 years ago as a popular uprising against the Assad regime. 

The popular uprising has developed into an armed rebellion and 

may now be considered a civil war. In the last 3 years, over 

100,000 Syrians have been killed; more than 2 million people have 

fled Syria; and 4 million have been forced to flee from their homes 

but remain in Syria. The United States has provided approximately 

$1 billion in humanitarian assistance. 

Also, in the last 3 years, Israel has used missile attacks to the 

Assad regime on three separate occasions. The Syrian Government 

has used chemical weapons in small-scale attacks on several occasions. Iran and Hezbollah have lent their support to the Assad regime and the opposition forces have grown to include al-Qaeda affiliates or associates. 

Long-standing religious and regional divisions fuel this complicated conflict. Neither the United Nations nor the traditional allies have agreed to use military force to intervene. As these facts 

demonstrate, the situation in Syria is tragic. 

Mr. Chairman, there is no doubt that this House will have a robust debate about whether the United States should pursue military action in Syria. However, in this committee, we must try to 

provide an understanding of the possible homeland security implications of military action because understanding the potential 

blow-back is as important as understanding the current situation 

on the ground. While the undertaking may be somewhat speculative, we must attempt to provide some insight on the potential 

threats. 

First, there is some concern that a military attack against Syria 

may spur retaliatory actions by Iran and Hezbollah against the 

United States, U.S. embassies, or U.S. interests abroad. Second, 

there is concern that Syria or its allies may engage in retaliatory 

attacks against U.S. allies in the region, including Israel, Turkey, 

and Jordan. Because about 15 to 25 percent of the opposition forces 

are associated with an affiliate of al-Qaeda, there is some concern 

that a strike that weakens Assad may ultimately benefit al-Qaeda. 

Each of these scenarios is possible, but none is self-executing or immediate. 

At this point, we know that the most likely effect on homeland 

security is the action that has already occurred. Mr. Chairman, the 

risk of cyber attacks may be heightened in the wake of U.S. military action in Syria. It has been widely reported that the Syria 

Electronic Army, a hacking group loyal to the Assad regime, has 

launched cyber attacks that have disrupted the website of U.S. 

media and internet companies. In a few cases, those attacks completely disabled major media enterprises, including The New York 

Times. We have been told that this group does not have the capac-
5 

ity to launch attacks capable of disrupting critical infrastructure, 

but we all know capacity can change. 

So, Mr. Chairman, as we consider action in Syria, I think this 

Congress should consider the action necessary to protect our citizens from the most likely near-term repercussion of military intervention in Syria, a massive cyber attack. This committee has made 

several attempts to safeguard the cyber environment, yet our efforts have been rejected by my colleagues on the other side of the 

aisle. 

Mr. Chairman, I urge you to once again attempt to move your 

leadership to assure that a meaningful cybersecurity bill can come 

to the House floor in the face of the risk of retaliation from the 

SEA. We must resolve our known cybersecurity vulnerabilities. 

Again, thank you for holding this hearing, and I yield back. 

[The statement of Mr. Thompson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER BENNIE G. THOMPSON

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

I agreed not to object to the Chairman’s motion to seek unanimous consent to convene this hearing without the required 7-day notice. I agreed to this unusual request because of the subject matter of this hearing and the need for this panel to 

fulfill its unique jurisdictional mission in assuring that the American people know 

about the potential homeland security implications of United States military intervention in Syria. 

But before we discuss the homeland security implications, we should begin with 

the basic facts. The current civil war in Syria began 3 years ago as a popular uprising against the Assad regime. The popular uprising has devolved into an armed rebellion and may now be considered a civil war. In the last 3 years, over 100,000 

Syrians have been killed; more than 2 million people have fled Syria, and 4 million 

have been forced to flee from their homes but remain in Syria. 

The United States has provided approximately $1 billion in humanitarian assistance. Also, in the last 3 years, Israel has used missiles to attack the Assad regime 

on three separate occasions; the Syrian government has used chemical weapons in 

small-scale attacks on several occasions; Iran and Hezbollah have lent their support 

to the Assad regime and the opposition forces have grown to include al-Qaeda affiliates or associates. Long-standing religious and regional divisions fuel this complicated conflict. 

Neither the United Nations nor our traditional allies have agreed to use military 

force to intervene. 

As these facts demonstrate, the situation in Syria is tragic. Mr. Chairman, there 

is no doubt that this House will have a robust debate about whether the United 

States should pursue military action in Syria. 

However, in this committee, we must try to provide an understanding of the possible homeland security implications of military action because understanding the 

potential ‘‘blow-back’’ is as important as understanding the current situation on the 

ground. While this undertaking may be somewhat speculative, we must attempt to 

provide some insight on the potential threats. 

First, there is some concern that a military attack against Syria may spur retaliatory actions by Iran and Hezbollah against the United States, U.S. embassies, or 

U.S. interests abroad. Second, there is concern that Syria or its allies may engage 

in retaliatory attacks against U.S. allies in the region, including Israel, Turkey, and 

Jordan. Because about 15–25% of the opposition forces are associated with an affiliate of al-Qaeda, there is some concern that a strike that weakens Assad may ultimately benefit al-Qaeda. Each of these scenarios is possible but none is self-executing or immediate. 

At this point, we know that the most likely effect on homeland security is the action that has already occurred. Mr. Chairman, the risk of cyber attacks may be 

heightened in the wake of U.S military action in Syria. It has been widely reported 

that the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a hacking group loyal to the Assad regime 

has launched cyber attacks that have disrupted the websites of U.S. media and 

internet companies. In a few cases, those attacks completely disabled major media 

enterprises, including The New York Times. We have been told that this group does 
6 

not have the capacity to launch attacks capable of disrupting critical infrastructure, 

but we all know, capacity can change. 

So Mr. Chairman, as we consider action in Syria, I think this Congress should 

consider the actions necessary to protect our citizens from the most likely near-term 

repercussion of military intervention in Syria—a massive cyber attack. This committee has made several attempts to safeguard the cyber environment. Yet, our efforts have been rejected by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Mr. Chairman, I urge you to once again attempt to move your leadership to assure that a 

meaningful cybersecurity bill can come to the House floor. In the face of the risk 

of retaliation from the SEA, we must resolve our known cybersecurity 

vulnerabilities. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Let me thank the Ranking Member for as 

usual your cooperative manner and bipartisan spirit in waiving the 

rule so we can have this hearing here today. I can’t tell you how 

much I appreciate that. 

Second, it is very timely that you bring up the cyber issue. I, too, 

agree that the longer we fail to act the more danger we put this 

Nation in jeopardy of. We do have a draft cyber bill that, as I mentioned earlier, I am presenting to you, and our intention is to file 

and introduce this bill this week. So we thank you again. 

Other Members are reminded that opening statements may be 

submitted for the record. 

We are pleased to be joined by four distinguished witnesses to 

discuss this important topic today. One, a colleague, a friend of 

mine, served in the House for many years, the Honorable Chris 

Shays. Mr. Shays represented the southwest region of Connecticut 

from 1987 to 2009 in the United States Congress. He is now a distinguished fellow in public service at the University of New Haven. 

A moderate Republican, who is socially progressive and fiscally 

conservative, Shays has a strong record of reaching across the aisle 

to solve our Nation’s problems. Shays co-chaired the Commission 

on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bipartisan commission charged with evaluating and improving America’s wartime 

contracting. He chaired the Oversight and Government Reform 

Subcommittee on National Security and Emerging Threats and 

International Relations, playing a major role in reforms that followed September 11. 

At the forefront of the fight against terrorism before it was popular, Shays was instrumental in creating the Department of Homeland Security. He was the first Member of Congress to travel to 

Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, returning numerous times 

to help secure better protective body armor and bomb-resistant vehicles for our troops. 

Often traveling outside the umbrella of the military, he worked 

closely with the Iraqi people and NGOs, such as Save the Children 

and Mercy Corps. Following each trip, Shays outlined a series of 

observations and recommendations for then-President Bush, Defense Secretaries Rumsfeld and Gates, and others in the administration. 

Our next witness is General Robert Scales. He is one of America’s best-known and most-respected authorities on land warfare. 

He is currently president of Colgen, Incorporated, a consulting firm 

specializing in issues related to land power, war gaming, and strategic leadership. Prior to joining the private sector, Dr. Scales 

served over 30 years in the Army, retiring as a major general. General Scales served in command and staff positions in the United 
7 

States, Germany, and Korea and ended his military career as commandant of the United States Army War College. 

Thanks for being here. 

Next is Mr. Thomas Joscelyn, senior fellow at the Foundation for 

Defense of Democracies. Mr. Joscelyn is a terrorism analyst and 

writer living in New York. Most of his research and writing has focused on how al-Qaeda and its affiliates operate around the world. 

He is a regular contributor to the Weekly, Daily and Worldwide 

Standard and their on-line publications. He is also a senior editor 

of the Long War Journal. His work has been published by National 

Review on-line, the New York Post, and a variety of other publications. 

Finally, we have Dr. Steven Biddle, a professor of political 

science and international affairs at the George Washington University. His work has been published in Foreign Affairs, the Journal 

of Politics, The New York Times, and the Washington Post. Professor Biddle has served on the Defense Policy Board and holds an 

appointment as adjunct senior fellow for defense policy at the 

Council on Foreign Relations. 

The witnesses’ full written statements will appear in the record. 

The Chairman now recognizes Congressman Chris Shays for an 

opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, 

FORMER REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE 

OF CONNECTICUT 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Chairman McCaul and Ranking Member 

Thompson and all the other distinguished Members of this important committee. I see some familiar faces and new faces, and it is 

really an honor to be in your presence. 

The Cold War is over, and the world is a more dangerous place. 

There is no place more dangerous than the Middle East. Yet, in 

spite of this, we have had no meaningful National conversation to 

help us understand this part of the world and its impact on us here 

at home, so it can’t be surprising as a Nation that we are now uncertain and divided by about what to do in Syria. 

When I took a delegation of Congressmen to the Middle East 

shortly after we invaded Iraq in 2003, we ended our trip meeting 

with the relatively new Syrian president. At our meeting, President 

Assad asked us, what are you hoping to achieve in Iraq, and why 

do you think what you are doing will give you the results you 

want? 

Ironically, we could ask these same questions about our present 

focus on his country. What are we hoping to achieve in Syria, and 

why do we think doing what we are planning on doing will give us 

the results we want? 

When it comes to foreign policy in the Middle East in particular, 

it appears we live in a strategy-free world. You are being asked to 

allow the President of the United States to use force, a tactic, when 

we have no clear sense what the strategy and mission is behind the 

tactic. 

The Syrian Government crossed a red line in the use of chemical 

weapons for which the world community needs to respond, not just 

the United States. The debate centers on whether or not to support 
8 

the President’s request to use force to punish the Assad government and provide a disincentive to other countries to use chemical 

weapons. We are also being told the President and the United 

States will lose face if we fail to take decisive military action. 

The conclusion by the President and his administration and leaders on both sides of the aisle that the United States needs to take 

decisive military action with or without support from other countries would be a serious mistake with long-term consequences. 

What should be our primary concern, that chemical weapons 

were used by the Syrian Army, or that Syria has chemical weapons 

that could fall into the hands of radical elements sympathetic to alQaeda and other terrorist organizations? A military strike will do 

nothing to address that issue and would exacerbate it by accelerating the transfer of chemical weapons to people who would do 

us harm. The overriding question must be, who has control of these 

chemical weapons and how do we make sure that they do not fall 

into the hands of radical terrorist organizations that could and 

would do harm to the United States and other countries? 

Rather than focusing on destroying elements of the Syrian government forces and choosing sides in a truly brutal civil war, our 

focus should be on how do we get these chemical weapons out of 

Syria and into the hands of the United States and/or Russia that 

have the capability to neutralize these weapons and, frankly, have 

successfully cooperated with each other to do that very thing over 

the last 2 decades? 

I traveled with Senators Nunn, Lugar, Bob Graham, Domenici, 

Mikulski, and Bingham, Representative Spratt and our present 

Deputy Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, throughout vast parts of 

Russia in May 2002 and saw first-hand this impressive cooperation. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has 

reduced the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons because the United States and Russia recognized the need to do this 

and did it. 

We need to engage the world community, particularly Russia, to 

persuade Assad to give up his chemical weapons with the same motivation inspired by Nunn and Lugar and the same laser intensity 

of our 41st President, President George H.W. Bush, when he assembled the coalition to confront Saddam Hussein after Saddam’s 

occupation of Kuwait. 

I believe President Obama can rise to the occasion, seize this opportunity, avoid the use of military force and help restore our Nation’s leadership. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shays follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

The Cold War is over, and the world is a more dangerous place. There is no place 

more dangerous than the Middle East. Yet in spite of this, we have had no meaningful National conversation to help us understand this part of the world, and its impact on us here at home. So it can’t be surprising as a Nation, that we are now 

uncertain and divided about what to do in Syria. 

When I took a delegation of Congressmen to the Middle East shortly after we invaded Iraq in 2003, we ended our trip, meeting with the relatively new Syrian 

President. At our meeting President Assad asked us, ‘‘What are you hoping to 
9 

achieve in Iraq? And why do you think doing what you are doing will give you the 

results you want?’’ 

Ironically, we could ask these same questions about our present focus on his country. ‘‘What are we hoping to achieve in Syria? And why do we think doing what we 

are planning on doing will give us the results we want?’’ 

When it comes to foreign policy, and the Middle East in particular, it appears we 

live in a strategy-free world. You are being asked to allow the President of the 

United States to use force, a tactic, when we have no clear sense what the strategy 

and mission is behind the tactic. 

The Syrian Government crossed a red line in the use of chemical weapons for 

which the world community needs to respond, not just the United States. 

The debate centers on whether or not to support the President’s request to use 

force to punish the Assad government, and provide a disincentive to other countries 

to use chemical weapons. We are also being told the President and the United 

States will lose face if we fail to take decisive military action. 

The conclusion by the President and his administration, and leaders on both sides 

of the aisle, that the United States needs to take decisive military action, with or 

without support from other countries, would be a serious mistake with long-term 

consequences. 

What should be our primary concern?... that chemical weapons were used by 

the Syrian army?... or, that Syria has chemical weapons that could fall in the 

hands of radical elements sympathetic to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations? 

A military strike will do nothing to address that issue, and would exacerbate it 

by accelerating the transfer of chemical weapons to people who would do us harm. 

The overriding question must be, who has control of these chemical weapons? And 

how do we make sure they do not fall into the hands of radical terrorist organizations that could do harm to the United States and other countries? 

Rather than focus on destroying elements of the Syrian government forces, and 

choosing sides in a truly brutal civil war, our focus should be on how do we get 

these chemical weapons out of Syria, and into the hands of the United States and/ 

or Russia that have the capability to neutralize these weapons, and have successfully cooperated with each other to do that very thing over nearly 2 decades. 

I traveled with Senators Nunn, Lugar, Bob Graham, Domenici, Mikulski, and 

Bingham, Representative Spratt, and our present Deputy Secretary of Defense, Ash 

Carter, throughout vast parts of Russia in May of 2002, and saw first-hand this impressive cooperation. The Cooperative Threat Reduction, known as the Nunn-Lugar 

program, has reduced the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical because the 

United States and Russia recognized the need to do this, and did it. 

We need to engage the world community, particular Russia, to persuade Assad 

to give up his chemical weapons with the same motivation inspired by Nunn and 

Lugar, and the same laser intensity of our 41st President George H. W. Bush, when 

he assembled the coalition to confront Saddam Hussein after Saddam’s occupation 

of Kuwait. 

I believe President Obama can rise to the occasion, seize this opportunity, avoid 

the use of military force, and help restore our Nation’s leadership. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you, Chris Shays. 

Next the Chairman recognizes General Scales. 

STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT H. SCALES, JR. 

(RET. U.S. ARMY), FORMER COMMANDANT OF THE U.S. ARMY 

WAR COLLEGE 

General SCALES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on the 

subject of the crisis in Syria. 

An American missile strike against Syria might well affect American security. We have seen in the past that half-measures, ineffective strikes, and shots across the bow against diabolical enemies 

have often resulted in tragic counter-strikes against American interests at home and abroad. President Reagan ordered an air strike 

against Libya in 1986. In time, Qaddafi retaliated with terrorist 

bombings that killed hundreds of Americans aboard Pan Am Flight 

103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. President Clinton ordered retaliation 
10 

strikes against terrorists who bombed American embassies in Africa. The terrorists, unaffected by these missile strikes, were 

emboldened to attack the USS Cole in 2000 and, sadly, later, the 

World Trade Center in 2001. 

A missile strike that does not result in regime change in Syria 

or defeat the Syrian Army can only have a similar impact. Failure 

to defeat Assad will embolden the Syrians to retaliate against our 

homeland as well as Americans abroad. In fact, Assad has already 

telegraphed his intentions to retaliate, possibly with chemical 

weapons. 

While a revenge strike against Syria might endanger the homeland, such an action will have virtually no impact on the Syrian regime or the course of this bloody sectarian war. Assad will likely 

survive. He and his murderous regime will only continue to butcher 

his people. 

The proposed firepower strike violates every principle of war, to 

include surprise, mass, and a clearly-defined and obtainable strategic objective. As the Nation takes a knee, the Syrian Army will 

continue to hide, dispersion, camouflage, and secret his strategic 

systems among the population. What might have degraded Assad’s 

force 2 weeks ago will certainly not have the intended effects as we 

delay and continue to telegraph our military intent. 

Sadly, the principal motive for risking Americans lives in Syria 

is our ‘‘responsibility to protect’’ all of the world’s innocents. This 

is not about threats to American security. In fact, members of this 

administration take great pride in the fact that their motives are 

driven by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, the Sudan, and Kosovo, 

and not by any systemic threat to our own country. Are we really 

willing as a Nation to put the lives of our soldiers at risk to serve 

a purpose unrelated to our vital National interests? 

This administration states that a strike is necessary to maintain 

American credibility in the face of threats from enemies, such as 

Iran. Killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront 

us. The Iranians have already gotten the message and have internalized our amateur approach and lack of resolve. 

In the past, we have used a firepower-only strategy against the 

Serbs and the Libyans. But Syria is not Libya or Serbia. Perhaps 

we have become too used to fighting third-rate armies. As the 

Israelis learned in 1973, these guys are tough and mean-spirited 

killers with nothing to lose. 

It is important to remind ourselves that strikes against Syria 

will involve the Nation in a sectarian civil war. Such conflicts are 

by their very nature the most intractable, ruthless, long-lasting, 

and bloody of any form of warfare. If the past is prologue, thirdparty involvement in civil wars never ends well for any of the participants. 

These strikes can only end badly for our country. We have no legitimate strategic end-state in mind. A strike delivered for the purpose of sending a message will only inflame a region that does not 

think well of American motives after 10 years of war in the Middle 

East. Other nations might wish us well in this endeavor, but none, 

other than France, thinks well enough of our strategy to risk the 

lives of their soldiers. 
11 

We may wish to end this with a shot across the bow, but history 

shows time and again that war is the most unpredictable of all 

human endeavors. Once the dogs of war are unleashed, even for 

the most noble of motives, the consequences can only be unpredictable and likely to end tragically for this Nation. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of General Scales follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. SCALES, JR. 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to address you on the subject ‘‘Crisis in Syria: Implications for Homeland Security.’’ 

An American missile strike against Syria might well adversely affect American security. We have seen in the past that half-measures, ineffective strikes, and ‘‘shots 

across the bow’’ against diabolical enemies have often resulted in tragic counterstrikes against Americans’ interests at home and abroad. President Reagan ordered 

an air strike against Libya in 1986. In time the Libyans retaliated with a terrorist 

bombing that killed hundreds of Americans aboard Pan Am flight 103 over 

Lockerbie, Scotland. President Clinton ordered retaliation strikes against terrorists 

who bombed American embassies in Africa. The terrorists, unaffected by these missile strikes, were emboldened by attack the USS Cole in 2000 and later the World 

Trade Center in 2001 that killed thousands of innocent Americans. 

A missile strike that does not result in regime change in Syria or the defeat of 

the Syrian Army can only have a similar impact. Failure to defeat Assad might well 

embolden the Syrians to retaliate against our homeland as well as Americans 

abroad. In fact Assad has already telegraphed his intention to retaliate, possibly 

with chemical weapons. There is an old military adage that certainly conveys in 

these circumstances: ‘‘If you want to kill the snake cut off the head not the tail.’’ 

Limited strikes over a limited time against limited strategic objectives in Syria will 

only cut the tail and embolden the snake to strike back. 

While a revenge strike against Syria might endanger the homeland such an action 

will have virtually no impact on the Syrian regime or the course of this bloody sectarian civil war. Assad will likely survive. He and his murderous regime will only 

continue to butcher his people. The proposed firepower strike violates every principle of war to include surprise, mass, and a clearly-defined and obtainable strategic 

objective. As the Nation ‘‘takes a knee’’ the Syrian Army will continue to hide, disperse, camouflage, and secret his strategic systems among the population. What 

might have degraded Assad’s forces 2 weeks ago will certainly not have the intended 

effects as we delay and continue to telegraph our military intent. 

Sadly the principal motive for risking American lives in Syria is our ‘‘responsibility to protect’’ the world’s innocents. This is not about threats to American security. In fact members of this administration take pride in the fact that their motives 

are driven by guilt over slaughters in Rwanda, The Sudan, and Kosovo and not by 

any systemic threat to our own country. Are we really willing as a Nation to put 

the lives of our soldiers at risk to serve a purpose unrelated to our vital National 

interests? The American people have answered this question. The polls indicate that 

the American people do not believe that the risks are worth the rewards. 

We should not put American lives at risk to make up for a slip of the tongue 

about red lines. This is an act of war done purely for retribution and to restore the 

reputation of a President. This administration states that such a strike is necessary 

to maintain American credibility in the face of threats from enemies such as Iran. 

Killing more Syrians won’t deter Iranian resolve to confront us. The Iranians have 

already gotten the message and have internalized our amateur approach and lack 

of resolve. But by no means should such esoteric excuses for war such as ‘‘credibility’’ or the restoration of National honor ever be a justification for committing an 

act of war against a country that has never threated us in the least. 

In the past we have used a firepower-only strategy against the Serbs and Libyans. 

But Syria is not Libya or Serbia. Perhaps we have become too used to fighting thirdrate armies. As the Israelis learned in 1973 these guys are tough and mean-spirited 

killers with nothing to lose. It’s important to remind ourselves that strikes against 

Syrian will involve the Nation in a sectarian civil war. Such conflicts are by their 

nature the most intractable, ruthless, long-lasting, and bloody of any form of warfare. If the past is prologue, third-party involvement in civil wars never ends well 

for any of the participants. 
12 

As in the past we will fire our missiles and likely kill innocent Syrians for no justifiable strategic purpose. We know how this war will begin but no one in the administration can postulate how it will end. 

For a great power often an effective strategy is to maintain the potential for war 

rather than going to war. Our most respected Soldier-President, Dwight Eisenhower, possessed the gravitas and courage to say no to war 8 times during his presidency. He ended the Korean War and refused to aid the French in Indochina; he 

said no to his former war-time friends when they demanded American participation 

in the capture of the Suez Canal. And he resisted liberal democrats who wanted to 

aid the newly-formed nation of South Vietnam. We all know how that ended after 

his successor ignored Eisenhower’s advice. My generation got to go to war. 

Perhaps after more than half a century we might take a page from the Eisenhower era and accept the premise that saying no is the best of a very bad set of 

strategic alternatives. 

These strikes can only end badly for our country. We have no legitimate strategic 

end-state in mind. A strike delivered for the purpose of ‘‘sending a message’’ will 

only inflame a region that does not think well of American motives after 10 years 

of war in the Middle East. Other nations might wish us well in this endeavor but 

none other than France thinks well enough of our strategy to risk the lives of their 

soldiers. We may wish to end this with a shot across the bow. But history shows 

time and again that war is the most unpredictable of all human endeavors. Once 

the dogs of war are unleashed, even for the most noble of motives, the consequences 

can only be unpredictable and likely end tragically for the Nation. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you, General Scales. 

The Chairman now recognizes Mr. Joscelyn for an opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS JOSCELYN, SENIOR FELLOW, 

FOUNDATION FOR THE DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

Mr. JOSCELYN. Chairman McCaul and Ranking Member Thompson and other Members of the committee, thank you for having me 

here today. 

I come at this with a little bit of a different perspective. I help 

run a website called the Long War Journal, where we track the 

Syrian war on a daily basis amongst other conflict theaters. My 

testimony is going to be primarily about what al-Qaeda and extremist allies are doing in Syria right now, based on everything we 

can see in terms of the evidence, from videos to statements, to 

tracking the bad guys, and then sort of connect that to possible 

threats against us here in the homeland, to try and think about 

what this committee is really interested in, in addressing sort of 

emerging threats to the homeland and sort of being out in front of 

them, and I am going to try to do that very quickly in my statement. 

We were tracking the Syrian war right from the get-go, the rebellion, and we were disturbed in late 2011 and early 2012 when 

Jabhat al-Nusra announced its presence on the battlefield. It was 

clear to us then that it was al-Qaeda, that it was an al-Qaeda affiliate, and all the evidence that has emerged since then makes it 

crystal clear that Jabhatans actually answer to al-Qaeda senior 

leadership in Pakistan. So it is al-Qaeda. It is not just an al-Qaedalinked group, it is not just an al-Qaeda sympathetic group. There 

is a wealth of evidence that this is in fact al-Qaeda. 

They are not the only al-Qaeda group inside Syria. There are actually two al-Qaeda affiliates that fight in Syria today. What they 

have done is they have basically joined forces with a number of extremist groups, who are not al-Qaeda but are sympathetic in one 

way or another to their ideology or their goals. So some of the larg-
13 

est fighting coalitions inside Syria right now, including the Syrian 

Islamic Front, parts of the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front, actually fight on a day-to-day basis with al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Syria. 

This acts as a force multiplier for al-Qaeda’s army basically inside 

Syria. 

Taking a step back for a second, what I want you to keep in 

mind is that al-Qaeda’s goals inside Syria are not just about defeating Assad or attacking Assad’s regime. In Syria, as in elsewhere, 

they want power for themselves. They are trying to build their own 

mini-state on Syrian territory, actually across the border even into 

Iraq. So much of what they are doing in northern Syria right now 

along with their extremist allies is they are basically consolidating 

power. They are actually setting up schools, setting up instructional facilities. They are indoctrinating their ideologies as much as 

they can basically within the Syrian population. 

Now, many Syrians are not actually friendly to al-Qaeda’s ideology. However, what we have seen time and again with al-Qaeda 

is they are actually getting more and more clever in basically finding ways to build popular support. They are in very much a malice 

sort-of grow-an-insurgency mode inside Syria and elsewhere where 

they are trying to build up their popular support among the local 

people. So much of their efforts in northern Syria are devoted to 

that. 

But they are not confined to northern Syria. They actually fight 

throughout the rest of the country. We tracked the fighting in Latakia in the beginning of August, which is an Assad family stronghold. They were leading the charge with other brigades behind 

them. The same could be said through the rest of the country. 

What does this all mean really for possible threats to the U.S. 

homeland? Well, in addition to getting new talent on the battlefield 

in Syria, they are bringing in Western recruits, they are bringing 

in recruits throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East—these 

are all people who could potentially be re-purposed for attacks, either in their home countries or in the West or against us. In addition to that new talent they are bringing in, they have also had 

some old talent come back to the battlefield. These are guys that 

have been freed by the Assad regime in the wake of the rebellion. 

At least according to credible reports, according to the Wall Street 

Journal and others, a guy named, just as one example, a guy 

known as Abu Asab al Suri has been freed by the Assad regime. 

Well, this is one of al-Qaeda’s top strategic thinkers. He is a guy 

who actually laid the groundwork for how al-Qaeda should plot 

against the West, actually planning attacks on a smaller scale 

throughout the West. According to the press reporting I have seen, 

he is actually free. There are other guys like that who have rejoined the fight in Syria and are involved with al-Qaeda’s efforts 

there. 

The bottom line, from our perspective, is that while most of alQaeda’s assets will be devoted to the fight inside Syria, over and 

over again we have seen this trend where a small part of their assets are always basically allocated to targeting the West. There is 

a good reason to believe that they will do the same if they are able 

to secure and maintain safe havens in Syria in the future. 
14 

In particular, I want to point you to two troubling reports that 

I think this committee should look into further. One was on May 

30 out of the Turkish press that said that an al-Qaeda in Iraq cell 

of about 12 members was busted and they had a small amount of 

sarin nerve gas themselves in their possession. The following day, 

on June 1, the Iraqi government said that they busted a cell of five 

al-Qaeda members who were actually planning to use sarin nerve 

gas in Iraq, in Europe, and even in North America. That is what 

the Iraqi government claimed. 

Now, I don’t know the full details of those investigations or how 

they panned out, but those are the type of things that I would keep 

my eye on, because the battle in Iraq and Syria is joined together. 

They are always going to basically keep building up their forces to 

wage their insurgency, and they are going to devote some amount 

of that, some amount of their resources to coming after us. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Joscelyn follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS JOSCELYN

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

Chairman McCaul, Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of the committee, 

thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the potential threats to the United 

States emanating out of Syria. Obviously, the situation inside Syria is grim, with 

a despicable tyrant on one side and a rebellion compromised by al-Qaeda and likeminded extremists on the other. In between these two poles are the people who 

originally rose up against tyranny in search of a better life. As we’ve seen time and 

again in this long war, Muslims embroiled in violence in faraway lands are often 

the first line of defense against an ideology and an organization that pose a direct 

threat to the West. There are many Syrian families who deserve the free world’s 

support today, beyond the prospect of limited air strikes. 

We should have no illusions about the nature of the Syrian war. What we are witnessing right now is a conflict that will have ramifications for our security in the 

West. The fighting in Syria and the terrorist campaign in Iraq are deeply linked, 

feeding off of one another in a way that increases the violence in both countries and 

potentially throughout the region. American interests outside of Syria have already 

been threatened by the war. We saw this late last year when al-Qaeda repurposed 

a cell of Jordanian citizens who had fought in Syria for an attack inside their home 

country. They reportedly had the U.S. Embassy in their crosshairs and were planning a complex assault that involved other targets as well. 

In my testimony today, I focus on the threat posed by al-Qaeda and allied groups 

inside Syria, recognizing that al-Qaeda did not start the Syrian rebellion. Moreover, 

there are many groups fighting on the side of the rebellion, making any clear-eyed 

analysis difficult. However, we can distill a number of observations. 

Al-Qaeda and its extremist allies have grown much stronger since late 2011.—AlQaeda does not control the entire rebellion, which is made up of a complex set of 

actors and alliances. However, al-Qaeda and its allies dominate a large portion of 

northern Syria and play a key role in the fighting throughout the rest of the country. These same al-Qaeda-affiliated forces have fought alongside Free Syrian Army 

brigades. There is no clear geographic dividing line between the most extreme fighters and other rebels. For example, al-Qaeda’s affiliates played a key role in the 

fighting in Latakia, an Assad stronghold on the coast, in early August. And within 

the past week we saw al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters lead an attack in Malula, a Christian village not far from Damascus. These are just two examples chosen from many. 

Al-Qaeda has made the fight for Syria a strategic priority.—Ayman al Zawahiri, 

al-Qaeda’s emir, has repeatedly called on jihadists to concentrate their efforts on the 

fight against the Assad regime. But al-Qaeda desires much more than Assad’s defeat. Al-Qaeda wants to control territory and rule over others. This is consistent 

with al-Qaeda’s desire to establish an Islamic Emirate in the heart of the Levant. 

In his book, Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner, Zawahiri discussed at length the 

importance of creating such a state. Al-Qaeda and associated groups have consistently pursued this goal in jihadist hotspots around the globe and this is especially 

true in Syria today. 
15 

Two known al-Qaeda affiliates operate inside Syria: Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (or Levant).—The leaders of both groups have 

sworn an oath of loyalty (bayat) to Ayman al Zawahiri and al-Qaeda’s senior leadership. The heads of these two affiliates openly bickered over the chain of command 

in early April 2013. This forced Zawahiri to intervene, but the head of the ISIS initially rejected Zawahiri’s decision to have the two remain independently-operated 

franchises. It appears that some sort of compromise has been brokered, however, as 

the two al-Qaeda affiliates fight alongside one another against their common enemies, including Kurdish forces in the north. 

Al-Qaeda is not just a terrorist organization.—Al-Qaeda’s leaders are political revolutionaries seeking to acquire power for themselves and their ideology in several 

countries. They have a plan for Syria. Al-Qaeda’s affiliates inside Syria are not just 

fighting Assad’s forces, or committing various other acts of terror. They are seeking 

to inculcate their ideology within the Syrian population. Many Syrians have no love 

for al-Qaeda’s ideology, or its harsh brand of sharia law. But al-Qaeda knows this 

and has adjusted its tactics accordingly. Jabhat al Nusra and the ISIS are providing 

local governance in the areas they control, and are seeking to win hearts and minds 

by making various social services available to the population. This is a continuation 

of a trend that we’ve seen elsewhere, beginning in Yemen, where al-Qaeda in the 

Arabian Peninsula launched Ansar al Sharia as its political face. Ansar al Sharia 

does more than fight al-Qaeda’s enemies. It has provided food, electricity, medical 

care, and various other necessities to Yemenis. Al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Syria have 

copied this strategy in Syria, and are increasing their popular support in some areas 

(especially in the north and east) in this manner. This model is being implemented 

in Raqqah, Aleppo, Deir al Zor. 

Syria has become the central front in the global jihad.—Other al Qaeda-linked 

groups have joined the fight in Syria, thereby strengthening al-Qaeda’s hand. 

Groups including the Pakistani Taliban (Tekrik-e Taliban) and the Muhajireen (Migrants) Brigade are fighting in Syria. The first group sent fighters and trainers from 

South Asia to Syria, while the second is comprised of Chechens and other foreign 

fighters. Indeed, several thousand foreign fighters from around the globe have 

joined the fight. Countries throughout North Africa and the Middle East have supplied a large number of jihadist recruits. In addition, a significant number of Europeans have traveled to Syria for jihad. 

Some of the more powerful Syrian rebel groups are closely allied with al-Qaeda’s 

affiliates.—Ahrar al Sham and its coalition of like-minded groups, the Syrian Islamic Front (SIF), fight alongside al-Qaeda’s fighters regularly. Brigades belonging 

to another Islamist coalition, the Syrian Islamic Liberation Front (SILF), have coordinated their operations with al-Qaeda’s affiliates and Ahrar al Sham in key battles as well. For example, fighters from Nusra, the SIF, and the SILF overran the 

Taftanaz Airbase in January. The collective strength of these groups is easily in the 

tens of thousands of fighters Nation-wide. 

As the 9/11 Commission recognized, there is a direct connection between terrorism 

‘‘over there’’ and the terrorist threat to Americans ‘‘over here.’’—Most of al-Qaeda’s 

assets are devoted to acquiring power in North Africa, the Middle East, and South 

Asia. However, some portion of their assets is always devoted to terrorist plots 

against the West. Before the 9/11 attacks, most al-Qaeda recruits were trained to 

fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan or as part of insurgencies elsewhere. 

Only a small number of al-Qaeda members were selected to take part in international operations. Since 9/11, al-Qaeda has greatly expanded its overall footprint 

by directing or supporting various insurgencies. This increases al-Qaeda’s potential 

recruits, with a small percentage of them being repurposed for operations against 

the West. We have seen this in Yemen, for example, where al-Qaeda in the Arabian 

Peninsula simultaneously increased its capacity to wage an insurgency against the 

government, while also increasing its ability to launch attacks on the U.S. homeland. Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate, which spawned the Al Nusra Front, has dedicated 

a small part of its resources to attacking the West as well. The Department of 

Homeland Security announced in 2004 that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) was ordered by 

Osama bin Laden to assemble a cell capable of attacking the United States. In 2007, 

failed attacks in London and Glasgow were tied back to AQI. It should be noted that 

during this same time-period AQI was mainly focused on winning territory, not attacking the West. 

Al-Qaeda has talent inside Syria today, including top operatives who currently 

pose a threat to the West.—According to credible press reports, a top al-Qaeda terrorist named Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (a.k.a. Abu Musab al Suri) was freed from 

prison in the wake of the rebellion. Nasar has been tied to al-Qaeda’s terrorist plotting inside Europe, including the networks that executed the 2004 Madrid train 

bombings and the 2005 attacks in London. Nasar played a prominent role in al- 
16 

Qaeda’s operations prior to being detained in 2005 and transferred to Syrian custody. Nasar is a widely influential jihadist thinker and a key advocate of small-scale 

terrorist attacks inside the West. He was reportedly freed by the Assad regime in 

the wake of the current rebellion. One of Nasar’s closest colleagues, known as Abu 

Khalid al Suri, was appointed by Zawahiri to a key position within the region. We 

should wonder what happened to Mohammed Zammar, an al-Qaeda recruiter who 

helped convince the 9/11 Hamburg cell to travel to Afghanistan for training. 

Zammar was once imprisoned by the Assad regime and may very well be free today. 

In addition to this ‘‘old school’’ talent, al-Qaeda has been recruiting Westerners who 

could be used in attacks against their home countries or elsewhere in the West. In 

recent months, European officials have openly worried about this possibility. 

Al-Qaeda’s affiliates are seeking possession of chemical and biological weapons in 

Syria.—On May 30, the Turkish press reported that an al Nusra Front cell had 

been arrested and was found to be in possession of about 2 kilos of sarin gas. The 

following day, June 1, Iraqi officials announced that they had broken up an alQaeda cell that was seeking to launch sarin nerve gas attacks in Iraq, Europe, and 

possibly North America. If the Iraqi government’s claims are accurate, then we already have evidence that al-Qaeda’s affiliates in Iraq and Syria intend to use chemical weapons in an attack the West. I encourage the Homeland Security Committee 

to investigate these claims and ascertain for itself the extent of al-Qaeda’s efforts 

in this regard. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you, Mr. Joscelyn. 

The Chairman now recognizes Dr. Biddle for an opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN BIDDLE, ADJUNCT SENIOR FELLOW 

FOR DEFENSE POLICY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

Mr. BIDDLE. I would like to thank the committee for the chance 

to talk to you today on this critical National question. Clearly, the 

situation in Syria is an outrage, and it is an affront to the conscience of the world, as the President than the Secretary of State 

have argued. Lots of people want to do something about it, and I 

can understand why. 

The problem here is in figuring out what we can actually do that 

would actually secure our aims at tolerable cost without risking 

mission creep and a slide down a slippery slope into much larger 

commitments that would exceed our actual stakes in the conflict, 

and the difficulty in finding a military option that can actually do 

these things lies in an underlying ultimate asymmetry interests 

ourselves and Bashar al-Assad. 

Whereas our stakes are limited, his are not. For Assad, this is 

literally a war of survival, both for himself and for his Alawite community as a whole. This is not a war of survival for us. This is 

going to make it very hard for us to impose our will on Assad at 

a price that we are willing to pay. Sooner or later, we are likely 

to face a choice between standing down with important aims unmet 

or escalating to levels of commitment that outstrip our real interests in the conflict. 

Now, the details on how and why this would work out vary as 

a function of the aims, the nature, and the targets of a possible 

strike. My written testimony deals with these in some detail. For 

now, I will just touch briefly on one particular aspect of this, and 

that is the argument that we need to maintain our credibility following the President’s commitment to escalate if the Syrians used 

chemical weapons and the argument that we can do this by a limited use of force that won’t exceed the American people’s tolerance 

for war-waging. 
17 

1The author would like to thank Julia MacDonald of George Washington University and 

Kevin Grossinger of the Council on Foreign Relations for their assistance in preparing this testimony. 

Certainly, the President did put U.S. credibility on the line, and 

if we don’t act now, we will incur some cost to our reputation as 

a result. But it is not clear that this is a problem we can solve with 

limited air strikes that would almost certainly leave Assad in 

power. The problem here is that limited strikes send inherently 

ambiguous signals. Perhaps Iran or others would read a limited 

strike that does not topple Assad or end the fighting as a sign that 

we are resolute, because we acted at all, but they could just as easily read limited strikes as a sign that the United States is in fact 

feckless, war-weary, and irresolute for limiting ourselves to 

pinpricks when the declared U.S. ambition of removing Assad remains unmet. 

Given the underlying asymmetry and interests between ourselves 

and Assad, limited strikes are unlikely to achieve major goals. If 

we insist on limiting ourselves with major goals unmet, that means 

that any signals we send will inherently be ambiguous and easy for 

others to read as the opposite of the message that we intend to 

send. The only way around this problem with high confidence is to 

over-invest, to commit more force than our stakes are worth to us, 

and to start down an escalatory slippery slope that could lead to 

far larger involvements than I suspect most Americans would support. 

An initial use of force that is actually limited, discrete, and 

bounded thus doesn’t resolve the credibility question. It just 

postpones it a bit into a subsequent debate in which we will already, if that happens, be militarily engaged and thus where the 

credibility costs to us of backing down then could arguably be even 

higher than if we take our lumps on credibility now instead. 

As with most complicated issues, of course, there are important 

arguments on both sides of this and there aren’t any cost-free or 

risk-free options on the table. Reasonable people as a result can 

disagree on the net merits of whether we should act or not in light 

of this, but on balance, for me I believe the costs and dangers of 

using force are greater than the costs and dangers, real as they 

are, of not using force, and on balance, therefore, I believe the case 

against using force is the stronger one here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Biddle follows:] 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN BIDDLE

SEPTEMBER 10, 2013 

The administration has requested a Congressional vote to authorize an American 

use of military force against the Syrian government in the aftermath of an apparent 

Syrian chemical weapon (CW) attack against mostly civilian targets in the Damascus suburbs on August 21. Should the Congress authorize such a strike, or oppose 

it? 

The purpose of this testimony is to weigh the principal arguments for and against 

such an authorization.1 As with most complex issues, there are important arguments on both sides of the question, and I seek to present them in a balanced way. 

Neither the case for nor the case against using force is without serious costs and 

risks—here is no option here that does not have important dangers. Reasonable people can disagree on the net merits given this. 

Yet on balance the case against using force is stronger here. Syria poses a major 

asymmetry in stakes between ourselves and President Assad: We have interests in 
18 

2 I assume below that Syrian government forces did indeed use chemical weapons on August 

21, and before then on a more limited scale. There has been debate over the adequacy of the 

administration’s evidence on this point, but it is not my purpose to adjudicate this debate or 

weigh the technical details pro or con, especially in an unclassified analysis. Suffice to say that 

the administration had given few indications before August 21 that they were spoiling for a 

chance to attack Syria in a way that would give them a motive to manufacture evidence of Syrian CW use—on the contrary, their preference seemed clearly to avoid military action, and their 

perceived self-interest presumably lay in holding any adduced evidence to a very high standard 

of proof. I can only assume, therefore, that they are convinced, and I will proceed on the assumption that they are right. 

Syria, both humanitarian and realpolitik, but they are limited; for Assad this is a 

literally life-and-death struggle for his own survival and that of his Alawite community. This underlying difference in stakes will make it very difficult for us to impose 

our will on Assad at a price we should be willing to pay. Sooner or later we are 

thus likely to face a choice between standing down with important aims unmet or 

escalating to levels of commitment that outstrip our interests in the conflict. If so, 

it is better to stand down sooner, and more cheaply, rather than later, and more 

expensively. It would have been better if we had never begun this escalatory process 

by issuing ‘‘red line’’ threats that were not in our interest to enforce; nevertheless 

it is wiser to cut our losses while these losses are still relatively limited rather than 

doubling down and, in all likelihood, increasing the eventual price of failure. Although there are important costs in backing down, this is ultimately the least-bad 

course even so. Nor is it clear that the United States can preserve its credibility with only limited 

airstrikes that leave Assad in power and the war unresolved. Preserving U.S. credibility is among the most commonly-cited arguments for using force. Yet a limited 

strike sends ambiguous signals whose ambiguity will be highlighted if the strikes 

fail to topple Assad or end the war: Perhaps America will look resolute for acting 

at all, but Iran or others could instead see us as feckless for limiting ourselves to 

pinpricks when the declared U.S. ambition of removing Assad remains unachieved. 

Given the asymmetry in stakes here, ambitious aims like toppling Assad are likely 

to require far more than limited airstrikes; limits we impose on ourselves are thus 

likely to leave unmet our stated ambition of removing Assad and this will inevitably 

allow others to read this self-limitation as a lack of resolve to finish the job. Limited 

strikes now thus do not settle the credibility question: We will always be sending 

the Iranians ambiguous signals unless we commit more force that the stakes here 

are worth to us. 

Below I assess these arguments in terms of the various aims some have cited as 

grounds for using force. Assessing these arguments is complicated by the still-undefined nature of the proposed attack, its targets, and its objectives, and the plasticity 

of the proposed authorizing resolution, whose exact wording is still under negotiation. To evaluate the issue properly it is thus necessary to consider a range of possible objectives, their importance, and the prospects of achieving them with attacks 

of different kinds. I therefore treat in sequence each of the five main goals an attack 

might be designed to achieve: Deterring further CW use and upholding norms 

against the employment of such weapons; preserving U.S. credibility; enabling a negotiated settlement to the war; toppling Assad and his government; and ending the 

humanitarian crisis by saving civilian lives. I conclude with summary observations 

and recommendations.2

DETERRING SYRIAN CW USE AND ENFORCING INTERNATIONAL NORMS

Among the most salient purposes now cited by strike supporters is to deter further CW use by Syria and to enforce an international norm against the use of such 

weapons. A relatively limited U.S. attack, it is often argued, might be enough to tip 

the balance of Syrian government cost and benefit against the use of CW, which 

would have a number of advantages if so. 

Many believe, for example, that chemical weapons are uniquely abhorrent and 

should be prohibited on humanitarian grounds regardless of the actual scale of killing they produce. There has been a long-standing (if imperfectly observed) norm 

against chemical warfare; many who would like international politics in general to 

be more rule-bound and less anarchic thus favor upholding this norm as a way of 

promoting norm compliance more broadly. 

There are also realpolitik reasons to limit CW use. In particular, chemical weapons are often seen as a means for weaker powers to end-run American advantages 

in conventional warfare, hence the United States has a military incentive to discourage their use in order to reinforce U.S. conventional superiority. Some worry that 

chemical weapons could be obtained or synthesized by terrorists and used against 
19 

3On intelligence assessment and reporting in autocracies, see, e.g., Kenneth Pollack, The influence of Arab culture on Arab military effectiveness (PhD dissertation, MIT, 1996), ch. 3; Kevin 

Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, ‘‘Saddam’s Delusions: The View from Inside,’’ Foreign Affairs, May–June 2006; Barry Blechman and Tamara Coffman Wittes, ‘‘Defining Moment: 

the Threat and Use of Force in American Foreign Policy,’’ Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 114 

(Spring 1999), pp. 1–30; cf. Dan Reiter and Allan Stam, ‘‘Democracy and Battlefield Effectiveness,’’ Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 42 (June 1998), pp. 259–277. 4See, e.g., Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1976), ch. 4. For an overview of the cognitive and other potential 

barriers to successful deterrence across cultural divides, see Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, 

and Janice Gross Stein, eds., Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 1985). 

American or allied civilians. And CW poses environmental hazards that vary with 

the prevailing winds and the scale of release, and could in principle threaten Syria’s 

neighbors, including Israel. Other things being equal, it would clearly be in America’s interest to see an end to the use of chemical weapons, whether in Syria or elsewhere. 

Other things are not equal, however. In particular, limited strikes could well fail 

to deter Assad. The stakes for Assad in Syria’s civil war are literally existential. Not 

only could he and his family be killed or imprisoned if his government falls, but the 

war now involves a powerful strand of identity conflict pitting Assad’s Alawite minority sect, which has governed Syria for generations, against the majority Sunnis, 

who dominate the rebel movement. In an identity war of this kind, the entire losing 

community risks oppression at best and genocide at worst at the hands of the victorious group. Assad probably views the conflict as a struggle for the survival of his 

entire sectarian community. Successful deterrence requires a credible threat to impose pain that exceeds the recipient’s stake in the conflict. This will be very difficult 

to do with Assad. 

Of course, the issue here is not necessarily victory or defeat in the war as a whole, 

but merely Syrian use of one weapon type—CW—in the conduct of that war. Can 

the United States credibly threaten to impose enough pain on Assad to persuade 

him to withhold this one weapon while continuing the war with conventional means 

alone? 

Perhaps. After all, withholding CW use is not tantamount to suicide or surrender 

for Assad. He has a large, well-equipped conventional military that might well succeed even without CW. Assuming that Syrian CW use was deliberate (and not accidental or unauthorized), Assad has apparently concluded that it helps him militarily, but CW probably isn’t decisive for the outcome of the war and perhaps Assad 

will conclude that he’s better off without it and without the danger of American airstrikes that further CW use could bring. 

But we cannot know for sure. And there are many good reasons to be cautious 

about our ability to predict Assad’s reaction to American threats or small-scale 

American airstrikes. 

Our ability to understand Assad’s decision calculus is very limited. This is a man 

from a very different cultural background and upbringing than ours, in the midst 

of a desperate war for survival, whose knowledge of the United States and our likely 

future actions is limited and subject to a wide array of cognitive biases and organizational pathologies. Many authoritarian governments find accurate reporting of unwelcome news very difficult: Bearers of bad tidings can pay with their lives or their 

freedom for speaking truth to power in dictatorships. Such governments may thus 

tend to discount threats from outside powers designed to dissuade them from their 

preferred policies—who will insist on telling Assad that he must bow to American 

pressure when the price of bearing such bad news could be the firing squad?3 Psychologists tell us that leaders’ prior preferences and expectations strongly influence 

their perception of new information: A dictator who has committed himself to a war 

of survival using any means necessary, who desperately wants to believe that his 

strategy can work, and who may have calculated that the outside world would stand 

aside, may well tend to discount American threats as bluffs because he so badly 

wants them to be and because human cognition encourages all people to try and fit 

new information into preexisting expectations. It can be difficult for threats to overcome motivated cognitive biases that encourage people to believe that their preferred strategies will work.4 Deterrence turns on the specific decision calculus of the 

opponent—it is the enemy’s perceptions, not ours, that determines whether they desist under threat or not. To be confident that a deterrent threat will succeed we 

must be confident that the enemy will read the threat as we wish it to be read, and 

will evaluate it the way we hope it will be evaluated. Given all the perceptual filters 
20 

5One could also argue that this is not actually a case of deterrence but an instance of what 

Thomas Schelling calls compellence—deterrence uses threats to prevent enemy action, 

compellence uses threats to cause the enemy to act. Inasmuch as Assad is evidently already 

using CW (albeit on a still-limited scale), one could argue that U.S. demands amount to a 

compellent strategy to cause Assad to act by halting something he is already doing. This distinction matters in that compellence is often considered harder and less likely to succeed than deterrence. On the distinction and its implications, see Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New 

Haven: Yale University Press, 2008 ed. of 1966 orig.). 

and sources of potential bias at work in our relationship with Bashar al-Assad, it 

is impossible to guarantee that our deterrent threat will succeed.5

The more limited the strike, moreover, the greater the odds that Assad discounts 

our threat and continues to use CW. One way to read a small U.S. use of force is 

that it signals American willingness to escalate if Assad defies us. But it could also 

be read just the opposite way: As a signal of U.S. unwillingness to strike massively 

(if we were really willing to use massive force, why haven’t we?), and a sign that 

the United States is reluctant to commit. The very emphasis the administration now 

places on the limited nature of our prospective attack is a very plausible indication 

of Presidential ambivalence and unease with the use of force in Syria; Assad would 

not have to be crazy to read this as a sign that the United States lacks the will 

to intervene decisively. Limited attacks send ambiguous signals that can be read as 

commitment or reluctance; the more limited the attack, the more ambiguous the signal and the lower the odds that an audience subject to cognitive, cultural, and institutional blinders will read it the way we want them to. 

Assad also needs to worry about others’ perceptions of his resolve. To survive, he 

must convince his officers and his soldiers that he is resolute and capable of winning 

the war—if he looks weak or irresolute, lieutenants who fear getting stuck on the 

wrong side of a losing war might jump ship and defect or flee early while they still 

can. He might well regard a limited U.S. airstrike as a test of his own ability to 

project an image of toughness and commitment to his own officers and thus refuse 

to back down. He is also presumably wary of signaling weakness to the rebel alliance in a way that could embolden them or encourage them to hold out for maximalist ambitions of ousting or trying him. Just as we worry about the effects of 

backing down on perceptions of our toughness and credibility (see below), so Assad 

has the same worries or even more so—and this could lead him to defy our wishes 

and continue CW use simply to demonstrate his own toughness and resolve. 

If our strike fails to deter Assad, and we detect further Syrian CW use, what 

then? Do we double-down and escalate to heavier attacks to prove that we meant 

it? If not, would this not be at least as damaging to our credibility and reputation 

for resolve than if we decline to attack in the first place? After all, the declared purpose of the attack would presumably have been to deter CW use—if the purpose has 

not been met, would standing down not send the message that anyone who simply 

rides out initial, limited U.S. airstrikes is off the hook, devaluing the currency of 

small-scale attacks and making it less likely than before that we can signal resolve 

through the limited use of force in some future crisis? If we are not actually willing 

to follow through and carry out the implicit threat of escalation inherent in a limited strike then the limited strike amounts to a bluff; if we are caught bluffing we 

reduce our ability to succeed without follow-on escalation the next time, even if the 

next time we really are willing to escalate. 

How important, then, is it that we deter Syrian CW use, and how much force 

should we be willing to apply to this end? In fact the stakes here for the United 

States are real, but quite limited. 

Yes, we do have realpolitik interests in deterring prospective enemies from CW 

use, but our forces are trained and equipped to operate in chemical environments, 

and it is unlikely that CW use alone could defeat the American military or even 

impose intolerable military costs or casualties. We should prefer that wars stay conventional, but we should not be willing to pay a heavy up-front price in Syria to 

ensure this. CW has proven to be a very difficult weapon for terrorists to use effectively; for CW to be as lethal as readily-available non-CW alternatives such as 

truck-borne fertilizer bombs would require access to sophisticated delivery means 

capable of disseminating CW agents efficiently over large areas. While it is not impossible for future terrorists to master this, they have not to date, and it is not clear 

that U.S. airstrikes against Syria would meaningfully affect the likelihood of this 

happening in the future. Syrian CW could in principle affect Israel or other neighbors, but CW releases as large and uncontrolled as this would also threaten Alawite 

civilians on a scale that is at least as likely to deter Assad as the threat of U.S. 

airstrikes. 
21 

6On the role of norms in shaping international political behavior in general, and weapon use 

choices in particular, see Jeffrey Legro, Cooperation Under Fire (Ithaca: Cornell University 

Press, 1995); idem, ‘‘Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the ‘Failure’ of Internationalism,’’ International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 1 (1997): 31–63; Richard Price, ‘‘Reversing the Gun Sights: 

Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines,’’ International Organization, Vol. 52, No. 3 

(1998): 613–644; Nina Tannenwald, The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of 

Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); R. Charli Carpenter, ‘‘Vetting the Advocacy Agenda: Network Centrality and the Paradox of Weapons Norms,’’ 

International Organization, Vol. 65, No. 1 (2011): 69–102. On chemical weapons specifically see 

Richard Price, The Chemical Weapons Taboo (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). On conditions under which norms during warfare break down, see Alexander Downes, Targeting Civilians in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008). Finally, for a recent discussion of the relative importance of military utility over normative concerns in U.S. public opinion see Daryl G. 

Press, Scott D. Sagan, Banjamin A. Valentino, ‘‘Atomic Aversion: Experimental Evidence on Taboos, Traditions, and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons,’’ American Political Science Review, Vol. 

107, No. 1 (2013): 188–206. 7 Nor is there a strong logical basis for treating CW as uniquely abhorrent. Even in World 

War I, where CW was more widely used than ever since, the scale of suffering inflicted by gas 

weapons was vastly smaller than that caused by conventional weapons. In Syria today, the 

1,429 civilian deaths attributed to CW in the August 21 attack is dwarfed by the perhaps 

100,000 people killed to date by conventional munitions. It is obviously horrible to die from convulsions and asphyxiation after ingesting Sarin gas, but it is also obviously horrible to die from 

being disemboweled by conventional artillery or having ones’ limbs blown off by conventional 

roadside bombs. The unique cultural history of chemical weapons and their similarity to insecticide inspires some to treat them as a thing apart from high explosives or other means of killing 

and wounding humans, but it is far from clear that any rigorous ethical argument would make 

a clear distinction. 8See, e.g., Shibley Telhami, ‘‘Questioning Credibility,’’ Foreign Policy, September 6, 2013. On 

conflicting norms in Syria, see Clive Crook, ‘‘The Moral Case for a Syria Strike,’’ http:// 

www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-04/the-moral-case-for-a-syria-strike.html. It is also debatable 

how strong or how normatively compelling the anti-CW norm is. Jeffrey Legro, for example, has 

argued that norms on weapon non-use are most influential when the norm coincides with a military preference to avoid such weapons and an absence of perceived military need on the part 

of prospective users: Legro, Cooperation Under Fire. CW has often met these conditions in the 

past, but to the extent that Assad believes his regime is threatened by rebels without easy access to CW of their own, he may thus see a real military need to employ such weapons—as others have, too: Notably Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War: see Victor Utgoff, The Challenge 

of Chemical Weapons (London and New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp.69–87; Anthony Cordesman 

and Abraham Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War (Boulder: 

Westview, 1990). 

The normative stakes are similarly real, but limited. The United States does have 

an interest in discouraging the use of ‘‘taboo’’ weapons such as chemical, biological, 

or nuclear arms, and there is some reason to believe that norms help reduce the 

scale of their employment. Yet these norms have not prevented CW from being used 

when states felt they needed them most, and other weapon types subject to public 

opprobrium have similarly been used when states felt they had to: Unrestricted submarine warfare and bombing of civilian homes were both condemned before World 

Wars I and II, but were widely used when militaries felt they needed them to avoid 

defeat.6 Norms can help reduce such use at the margin, and this is valuable, but 

it is not infinitely valuable and the scale of military action justified now to support 

the CW taboo is thus correspondingly limited.7

Nor is the issue of norm compliance as clear-cut as is sometimes suggested. In 

fact there are conflicting norms affected by any U.S. strike: an attack might uphold 

the norm of CW non-use, but it would surely undermine the norm against interstate 

uses of force without U.N. Security Council authorization except in cases of self-defense. Many, especially in the Arab world, would surely see any U.S. strike without 

UNSC approval as a self-interested exercise of power rather than a selfless enforcement of humanitarian norms.8 It is not clear that a U.S. attack would on balance 

conduce to greater norm observance afterward rather than lesser. 

None of this is to suggest that a deterrent strike cannot work, or that Assad is 

guaranteed to ignore our threats, or that an initial attack means we are doomed 

to escalate. But none of these perils can be ruled out. And the circumstances here— 

especially the pressure Assad is under to succeed and the barriers to our ability to 

project his response with confidence—make the dangers particularly acute. Reasonable people could argue that we are best served by rolling the dice and taking our 

chances with a limited strike for deterrent purposes, and maybe that will succeed 

if attempted. But it would be irresponsible policy making to strike on the assumption that it will work, and without a plan for what we will do in the event that a 

small-scale attack fails, because it may well. And the limited nature of our interests 

in deterring CW use means that it would not take much escalation beyond a limited 

initial strike for our efforts to exceed our stake. 
22 

9 Jervis, Perception and Misperception, ch. 4. The literature on learning in international relations similarly suggests that beliefs of third parties are unlikely to change because vicarious 

learning rarely occurs. See Jack Levy, ‘‘Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a Conceptual 

Minefield,’’ International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 279–312. Yuen Foong Khong, for example, finds that U.S. leaders paid little attention to the French experience from Vietnam despite 

the fact its potential to provide valuable information about the resources, tactics, and resolve 

of the North Vietnamese. See Yuen Khong Fong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien 

Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions of 1965 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). 

PRESERVING U.S. CREDIBILITY

When the President announced last year that Syrian CW use would cross a ‘‘red 

line’’ in a way that would change his calculus, he was clearly threatening to escalate 

U.S. involvement if Assad used CW. Nations routinely rely on threats to deter rivals 

from aggressive action; for deterrence to succeed without war, such threats must be 

believed by their target audience. Much is thus at stake in the credibility of American threats. Among the areas where this matters most is the case of Iran: The 

President is hoping that a vague threat of military action will deter the Iranians 

from crossing the nuclear threshold. Many now argue that if the President issues 

a clear threat to Assad and then backs down when Assad calls his bluff, this will 

signal weakness and irresolution to Iran and encourage them to proceed with their 

nuclear program and ignore American threats to destroy it first. This problem is 

compounded by the administration’s apparent foot-dragging on earlier evidence of 

smaller-scale Syrian CW use: For months, the administration responded to allies’ 

claims of such use by delaying for further study, then finally authorizing only a 

minimal response by promising small arms and ammunition for the Syrian rebels 

and delaying delivery of even that. 

The administration’s understandable ambivalence over intervention in Syria 

might imply that the best course would have been to walk back the President’s ‘‘red 

line’’ comment (which was apparently not included in his prepared remarks) in subsequent press guidance. Instead, the administration reiterated its commitment to 

the CW ‘‘red line,’’ and in public comments by the Secretary of State and others 

after the August 21 attack it radically reinforced its commitment to punish Assad. 

Whatever the reputational costs of ignoring the ‘‘red line’’ before August 21, they 

are now much higher as a result of this very public recommitment. 

Given this, wouldn’t it undermine the credibility of all U.S. assurances—both 

promises to allies and threats to enemies—for the United States to now withhold 

the escalation it has so clearly threatened? 

Yes, it will. It would have been better if the ‘‘red line’’ commitment had never 

been made, and if the President had not tied U.S. credibility to this threat. In doing 

so, he created a U.S. National security interest in preserving our credibility that did 

not exist before-hand, and to back down now, in the aftermath of this commitment, 

is to incur a cost in diminished credibility going forward. That will indeed reduce 

our deterrent leverage for hard cases like Iran, and our ability to reassure allies. 

The question, however, is how much deterrent power we would lose by backing 

down here, how much cost and risk we would incur by acting, and just as important, 

how much improvement in deterrent credibility we would gain by limited actions 

commensurate with our limited stakes in Syria. In fact the reputational effect of 

backing down now is easy to exaggerate, the danger of further escalation if we act 

now is substantial, and the benefit of limited action without such escalation is itself 

limited. 

Political scientists have studied reputation and credibility, and the results of a 

generation of scholarship suggest that statesmen often overestimate the degree to 

which reputation shapes others’ behavior in future crises. This is partly due to cognitive bias: Prior beliefs shape perception of incoming information, and rivals who 

want to act aggressively without U.S. interference often harbor fond beliefs that the 

United States is a paper tiger who will stand aside rather than challenging them. 

This prior belief often leads them to discount evidence of U.S. resolve and fixate instead on instances where the United States backed down. Where the prior belief is 

strongly held it can be very difficult to overcome by piling up cases of resolve—even 

a small sample of irresolute behavior can overwhelm all this, and there has already 

been more than enough irresolution in U.S. behavior (over decades) to provide all 

the evidence needed for motivated bias to persuade rivals like Iran that the United 

States is irresolute.9 But statesmen also exaggerate the importance of reputation 

relative to circumstances in shaping rivals’ behavior. Most states pay less attention 

to others’ history in other times and places than they do to others’ real capabilities 

and apparent stakes in the immediate matter at hand. States may believe others 

are paper tigers, but if others’ capabilities and interests in the current crisis make 
23 

10Daryl Press, Calculating Credibility: How Leaders Assess Military Threats (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); Aaron Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Great Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline 1895–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). See also Jonathan Mercer, Reputation in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), which 

argues that reputations for resolve do not require repeated uses of force to sustain. For further 

studies that cast doubt on the claim that reputation matters see Paul K. Huth and Bruce R. 

Russett, ‘‘What Makes Deterrence Work? Cases From 1900 to 1980’’ World Politics Vol. 36, No. 

4 (July 1984): 496–526; and Ted Hopf, Peripheral Visions: Deterrence Theory and American Foreign Policy in the Third World, 1965–1990 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). 

Where reputation is claimed to matter to foreign policy outcomes, the conditions under which 

it does so are restrictive and highly context dependent: see, e.g., John D. Orme, Deterrence, Reputation and Cold-War Cycles (London: MacMillan, 1992); Jonathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence: Border Warfare from 1953–1970 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); 

and Elli Lieberman, ‘‘What Makes Deterrence Work: Lessons from the Egyptian-Israeli Enduring Rivalry,’’ Security Studies, Vol. 4 (1995): 833–92. Glenn Snyder, in Deterrence and Defense: 

Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), argues that 

reputations are only likely to form when the behavior of a defender runs counter to the expectations of the potential attacker. Finally, a recent study of reputation and military effectiveness 

tends to support the importance of capability and stakes in shaping third-party judgments about 

an opponents’ war-fighting ability, but again these reputational effects are circumscribed to 

cases where the fighting environment is similar. See Kathryn Cochran, ‘‘Strong Horse or Paper 

Tiger? Assessing the Reputational Effects of War Fighting’’ Ph.D. Dissertation Duke University 

2011. 

them a threat then statesmen usually pay attention and act accordingly.10 Cognitive 

bias makes it hard for the United States to establish a reputation for toughness 

with enemies who believe we are irresolute; the importance of circumstances over 

reputation anyway makes it less valuable to act merely to build reputation—especially when acting now might weaken us militarily or reduce the force we can actually bring to bear on other crises later. 

And if we do attack Syria now, the risk of escalation is serious. Limited U.S. airstrikes will almost certainly not end the war. They may or may not deter future 

Syrian CW use (see above), but they will surely not end the war, and probably won’t 

change its trajectory much if our strikes are indeed limited. Some believe that we 

can mount a limited strike, declare the commitment embodied in the President’s 

‘‘red line’’ met, and halt with no further obligations. Perhaps. But if so this will 

occur in spite of clear failure to stop the violence, topple Assad, or prevent him from 

killing Syrian civilians with conventional weapons. A brutal war will continue, with 

further atrocities from conventional weapons if not CW, and with on-going calls 

from a harried rebel alliance and especially its moderate wing that we do something 

to help prevent their slaughter. It is obviously difficult to ignore such calls now, 

when the U.S. military has not been committed to the conflict. How much harder 

will it be once we have crossed the threshold and intervened ourselves? We would 

then face the additional charge that our unwillingness to escalate is allowing future 

rivals to believe that they can survive U.S. airstrikes, and that U.S. airpower’s reputation for efficacy is at risk. Unless we act with enough violence to defeat Assad 

or otherwise end the war, there is no natural threshold beyond which we escape 

from the charge that our credibility is threatened by our failure to escalate. Unless 

we are prepared to do whatever it takes, we will thus eventually be forced to stand 

down with important aims unmet and risk allowing Iran or others to label us a 

paper tiger as a result. This will be just as true after an initial airstrike as it is 

now—striking now does not absolve us from the charge of irresolution and 

fecklessness, it just continues the debate into the next phase of the war after greater levels of prior commitment. And if it makes sense to ignore such charges then 

and limit our commitment to a single wave of limited airstrikes, why would it not 

make just as much sense to ignore such charges now and limit our commitment to 

arming and training the rebels without U.S. military action? If we care only about 

a legalistic satisfaction of the Presidential ‘‘red line’’ commitment without actually 

toppling Assad or ending the war, then why can’t we satisfy this requirement with 

a truly minimum response and simply up the ante on aid to the rebels? In fact the 

more we invest and the more we commit the prestige and reputation of the U.S. 

military to the war, the greater the escalatory pressure we will face if that commitment is limited and falls short. 

If we are not prepared to do whatever it takes, then we will thus ultimately suffer 

some degree of price to our reputation and credibility; this is not a cost that can 

be averted with a limited program of airstrikes unless Assad proves less resolute 

than his own stakes would imply. In fact the price may be lower now than if we 

climb higher on the escalatory ladder before we accept our limits and back down. 
24 

11On Operation Storm, see Balkan Battlegrounds: A Military History of the Yugoslav Conflict, 

1990–1995, two vols., (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2003). 12On settlement breakdowns and the resurgence of violence see Robert Harrison Wagner, 

‘‘The Causes of Peace,’’ in Roy Licklider, ed., Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New 

York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 235–268; Roy Licklider, ‘‘The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993,’’ American Political Science Review, Vol. 89, No. 

3 (1995): pp.681–690; Monica Duffy Toft, ‘‘Ending Civil Wars: A Case for Rebel Victory?’’ International Security, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Spring 2010), pp. 7–36; Monica Duffy Toft, Securing the Peace: 

The Durability of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). On general barriers 

to negotiating civil war settlements see James Fearon, ‘‘Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much 

Longer Than Others?’’ Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2004): 275–301; Barbara F. 

Walter, ‘‘The Critical Barrier to Civil War Settlement,’’ International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 

3 (Summer 1997): 335–364; Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement 

of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Barbara F. Walter, ‘‘Bargaining 

Failures and Civil War,’’ Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 12 (2009): 243–61; Michaela 

Mattes and Burca Savun, ‘‘Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements,’’ American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 54, No. 2 (2010): 511–524. 13On the importance of third-party guarantees see Walter, ‘‘The Critical Barrier to Civil War 

Settlement,’’ pp. 335–364; Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie and Donald Rothchild, ‘‘Stabilizing the Peace After Civil War’’ International Organization Vol. 55, No. 1 (2001): 183–208; 

Walter, Committing to Peace; Mattes and Savun, ‘‘Information, Agreement Design, and the Durability of Civil War Settlements,’’ pp. 511–524. On the merits of peacekeeping and peace building more specifically see Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘‘International Peacebuilding: 

A Theoretical and Quantitative Analysis,’’ American Political Science Review, Vol. 94, No. 4 (December 2000); Virginia Page Fortna, ‘‘Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace: International Intervention 

and the Duration of Peace After Civil War,’’ International Studies Quarterly Vol. 48 (2004): 269– 

292; Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, Making War and Building Peace (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006); Virginia Page Fortna, Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents’ Choices after Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). On the importance 

of peace settlements including power-sharing arrangements see Caroline Hartzell and Matthew 

Hoddie, ‘‘Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management,’’ 

American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2003): 318–332; Caroline Hartzell and 

ENABLING A NEGOTIATED SETTLEMENT TO THE WAR

The administration clearly hopes to resolve the conflict with a negotiated settlement in which the Assad regime and the rebels agree to lay down their arms in 

exchange for a power-sharing deal of some kind. The prospects for such a deal are 

currently remote, however. Neither side is willing to accept the compromises needed, and neither side trusts the other to comply with any such terms in the aftermath. Some argue that U.S. airstrikes could play a catalytic role in enabling such 

a deal by changing the regime’s interest calculus: By tilting the playing field in 

favor of the rebels, they argue, such strikes could give the regime an incentive they 

now lack to make compromises and accept a negotiated peace. Some cite the 1995 

Dayton Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, arguing that a program of NATO airstrikes brought the Serbs to the table and enabled settlement; if so, perhaps U.S. 

airstrikes in Syria could produce a comparable result in 2013. 

There are many challenges here, however. The Dayton analogy, for example, is 

a weak one: The negotiations were conducted following not just a program of NATO 

airstrikes but a massive Croatian-Bosniak ground offensive in Operation Storm that 

had swept Serbian forces from the Krajina in a 4-day blitzkrieg and threatened the 

Serbs with military annihilation if they refused a deal.11 No comparable rebel blitzkrieg is in store for Syria. Nor can we readily predict the effect of limited airstrikes 

on either the regime’s or the rebels’ willingness to parley: The same opacity that 

complicates effective deterrence makes it very hard to anticipate either sides’ decision calculus on talks, and it is not uncommon for outside intervention to harden 

its allies’ bargaining position as they see their prospects improving rather than increasing their willingness to compromise. There is no way to ensure that airstrikes 

would not leave us further from a deal rather than closer, and the complexity of 

the situation should encourage modesty in any claims that we can fine-tune either 

sides’ incentive structure with a bombing campaign. 

Arguably a bigger challenge, however, is the post-settlement requirements for success such a strategy would create. Civil wars are difficult to settle, but many ultimately end in negotiated deals of some kind. It is far from clear that conditions in 

Syria today are ripe for such a deal, but the war will probably end that way some 

day. Such settlements, however, frequently break down in renewed violence—after 

all, the conflict itself often destroys any vestiges of mutual trust and creates dense 

webs of internecine fear, anger, and motives for revenge.12 Where such settlements 

do not simply revert to open warfare in the aftermath, it is often because the presence of outside peacekeepers, in substantial numbers, stabilizes the situation and 

damps post-war escalatory spirals long enough for the effects of time to gradually 

diminish tensions.13 Perhaps the most useful analogy to be drawn from the Dayton 
25 

Matthew Hoddie, Crafting Peace: Power-Sharing Institutions and the Negotiated Settlement of 

Civil Wars (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2007); Charles T. Call, Why Peace 

Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012). 14http://www.fas.org/man/crs/93-056.htm; http://www.euforbih.org/index.php?option=- 

comlcontent&view=article&id=15&Itemid=134. 

Process in this respect is thus its peacekeeping dimension: In the immediate aftermath of the war, NATO deployed some 60,000 heavily-armed soldiers as peacekeepers, and they remained in significant numbers for years thereafter—in fact, 

some 600 of them remain today.14 Even if airstrikes could catalyze negotiations, 

even if those negotiations succeeded, and even if the result ended the war, there 

would still be a need for a major and highly risky outside commitment to send 

ground forces to stabilize the result. It is far from clear where such a large outside 

peacekeeping force would come from—set aside the international financial investment needed to complete the process. Without this, even a nominally successful negotiation would be wasted. For U.S. airstrikes to be a rational component of a larger 

strategy for ending the war via negotiation, some strategy for stabilizing the result 

is thus needed, and this would require large ground force commitments that are 

hard to see forthcoming any time soon. 

TOPPLING ASSAD

Bashar al-Assad is no friend of the United States, and his government is responsible for slaughtering tens of thousands of its own people. Many would like to see 

his regime fall, and many see U.S. airstrikes as a potential means to this end. It 

is very unlikely that a limited, short-duration air campaign could bring this about, 

however. A regime-changing campaign would have to be larger in scale, longer in 

duration, and more expensive to mount, but it is plausible that if we became effectively a co-belligerent with the rebel alliance we could eventually catalyze Assad’s 

defeat, as we and others did to Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Here, too, however, 

there are downstream problems that reduce the appeal of U.S. intervention. 

Many have discussed the problem of al-Qaeda affiliated jihadists among the rebel 

alliance, and the danger that Assad’s defeat could simply replace him with an even 

worse alternative in a new government sympathetic to the Jabhat al-Nusra or other 

jihadi elements that now fight alongside them to topple Assad. This is a very serious 

danger, and one that cannot be ameliorated from the air alone. The political engineering needed to create a stable, democratic, pro-Western postwar government in 

a country as deeply divided as Syria would be exceptionally demanding and would 

require a substantial political, economic, and probably military presence on the 

ground to succeed. This is not an agenda for a low-cost, limited engagement in 

Syria—and it is unclear whether even an ambitious, lavishly-funded post-war statebuilding program could succeed given the violent, highly-mobilized character of the 

war today and the atomized, disunified quality of the opposition. 

Nor is it clear that toppling Assad would even end the war. On the contrary, 

Assad’s fall could easily just change the sides and the cast of characters without 

even reducing the scale of violence. As we saw in Iraq, unseating a dictator does 

not necessarily produce peace, much less democracy. Assad’s Alawite community 

feels deeply threatened by Syria’s Sunnis and vice versa, and it is entirely possible 

that they would respond to an Assad collapse with an insurgency along Iraqi lines 

as a means of protecting themselves from Sunni overlordship. If so, the sides would 

change: Alawites would go from the government side to the insurgency; Syria’s 

Sunnis would transform from insurgents to the government; but the war would continue. And if the rebel alliance failed to forge a unified governing slate, an equally 

likely outcome would be an atomized internecine civil war along the lines of 1990s 

Afghanistan, in which multiple armed factions—some Sunni, some Alawite, some 

Kurdish, and others none of the above—fight it out among themselves for power and 

influence. Even if American military force drove Assad from power, this is not tantamount to peace, democracy, or stability—in fact, it is far from clear that Syria after 

Assad would pose much of an improvement over Syria with Assad absent a massive 

outside investment in state-building and high-risk stabilization. 

ENDING THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Among the more important justifications for action the President has cited is the 

need to respond to the outrage of Assad’s slaughter of his own people. The Syrian 

civil war is now among the world’s most severe on-going humanitarian crises, and 

certainly warrants action of some kind in response. 
26 

15Dylan Balch-Lindsay and Andrew J. Enterline, ‘‘Killing time: The World Politics of Civil 

War Duration, 1820–1992,’’ International Studies Quarterly, 44 (2000): 615–42; Ibrahim 

Elbadawi and Nicholas Sambanis, ‘‘External Interventions and the Duration of Civil Wars.’’ 

Paper presented at the workshop on the Economics of Civil Violence, March 18–19, 2000, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Patrick M. Regan, Civil wars and foreign powers: Outside interventions and intrastate conflict (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000); Patrik M. 

Regan, ‘‘Third party interventions and the duration of intrastate conflicts,’’ Journal of Conflict 

Resolution 46 (2002): 55–73; David E. Cunningham, ‘‘Blocking Resolution: How External States 

Can Prolong Civil Wars,’’ Journal of Peace Research 47 (2010): 115–127. On the impact of thirdparty interventions on civilian victimization more specifically see Reed M. Wood, Jacob D. 

Kathman, and Stephen E. Gent, ‘‘Armed Intervention and Civilian Victimization in Intrastate 

Conflicts,’’ Journal of Peace Research 49, 5 (2012): 647–660. 

The problem is what kind of response to provide. Many would like the United 

States to do something, but it is far less clear what can be done that could actually 

solve the problem at a cost the American people would plausibly be willing to bear. 

At a minimum, it is very unlikely that a limited program of airstrikes would end 

the killing. Even if these catalyzed Assad’s fall, which is unlikely, it is even less 

likely that toppling Assad would end the violence, as noted above. It would change 

its contours, but the ensuing warfare could kill at least as many Syrians as today’s, 

as Afghanistan’s experience in the 1990s suggests. If we are serious about ending 

the killing in Syria then a far more intrusive intervention on a far larger scale will 

be needed. Tilting the playing field a bit from 10,000 feet is not sufficient for this 

purpose. 

Nor is arming and equipping the rebel resistance likely to end the killing. In fact, 

the empirical evidence suggests the opposite: Outside support normally lengthens 

such wars and increases the death toll, as outside aid to one side in the war typically encourages increased aid to the other side from its respective patrons.15 The 

result is often stalemate, wherein parallel escalation in assistance yields symmetrically higher firepower and more violence rather than a quick victory for either side. 

Unless we are prepared to simply overwhelm Iran’s ability to assist Assad, aid to 

the rebels is thus likely to be countered by increases in Iranian (or Russian) assistance to Assad rather than ending the war quickly in the rebels’ favor. In fact, as 

noted above, to truly end the killing would probably require foreign boots on the 

ground, in large numbers, to impose a settlement, enforce its terms, and stabilize 

the aftermath to prevent violence from returning into a security vacuum of the sort 

that Iraq saw after 2003. The American people seem unlikely to support this. 

Without such a commitment, however, the most that the international community 

can really do is to stand ready to facilitate a negotiated settlement if and when the 

combatant parties become interested in one—and to apply the limited pressure that 

sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and other non-military means allow. Limited military options—whether airstrikes, arms for the rebels, or something else—may or 

may not accomplish anything, but they are very unlikely to end Syria’s humanitarian crisis. 

CONCLUSIONS

None of the objectives usually cited as motivating American air strikes on Syria 

are thus likely to be accomplished by a limited intervention without serious risks. 

The details differ from objective to objective, but the underlying theme that connects 

them is the problem of asymmetric stakes. Assad’s existential stake in this war 

gives him an incentive to escalate rather than back down in the face of American 

attacks that threaten his hold on power—and even a limited program of air strikes 

nominally restricted to the prevention of CW use poses a threat to Assad’s grip: if 

Assad fails to respond he risks being seen as weak by lieutenants he requires for 

his survival. Assad’s survival motive, coupled with our limited interests in the conflict, restrict our ability to coerce him at a cost we can afford. This weakens the 

prognosis for an attack aimed at any of the objectives discussed here—whether to 

deter Syrian CW use, to buttress American credibility, to compel a settlement, to 

topple Assad, or to resolve the humanitarian crisis. All require changing Assad’s interest calculus by force (and maybe others’ as well) but without exceeding the limits 

imposed by our limited interests. If we fail to have the effect we hope on Assad’s 

calculus, the result could easily be escalatory pressures that lead to bigger, costlier, 

riskier interventions than those promised at the outset—and that quickly exceed our 

modest objective stakes in the struggle. 

It is important to emphasize, however, that there are major limits to our ability 

to predict Assad’s actions. Perhaps we will be lucky and he will neither test our willingness to respond to further CW use nor retaliate elsewhere via proxies such as 

Hezbollah or allies such as Iran. After all, the Israelis struck a Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 and the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 without either state retaliating 
27 

in kind; Assad might judge discretion the better part of valor and comply quietly 

with U.S. preferences on CW use without counterattacking or escalating. Of course 

the context of these attacks was very different: Assad is now locked in an existential 

struggle where his own reputation for resolve is under a microscope in ways it 

would not have been in 2007. The safest conclusion is thus surely to emphasize our 

limits of knowledge and prediction. But an important implication of those limits is 

our inability to ensure that a limited U.S. attack would succeed in any of its stated 

objectives. And an attack that does not succeed will surely be followed by pressures 

to escalate that are likely to be as great or greater than today’s. 

Nor does this suggest that inaction is a costless or risk-free policy, either—inaction poses risks and costs of its own. In particular, other states and especially Iran 

could view an American failure to make good on the President’s ‘‘red line’’ commitment as evidence that the United States issues empty threats and lacks the will 

to use force. The costs of this reputational effect may be easy to exaggerate, but they 

are not zero. The best way to avoid this problem would have been to avoid the commitment, but what’s done is done. Hence the choice is now between different kinds 

and scales of cost and risk to accept—not between a cost-free and a costly policy. 

In this context, on balance it is probably less risky to accept the cost to U.S. credibility and forgo the risk of escalation in Syria. To risk a U.S. war in Syria in order 

to reduce the risk of a U.S. war in Iran comes perilously close to Bismarck’s famous 

aphorism that preventive war represents suicide from fear of death. But this is far 

from a panacea, and perhaps the most important implication looking forward is to 

be cautious in committing U.S. credibility to situations where our stakes are so 

much smaller than our rivals. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you, Dr. Biddle. 

The Chairman now recognizes himself for questions. 

Let me just say that we stand here today on the eve of September 11, a date we all remember well, not only the World Trade 

Center and Pentagon, but also Benghazi. Al-Qaeda is the enemy. 

Al-Qaeda was the one who brought down the Twin Towers. 

When I look at Syria, it is a bit of a paradox because on the one 

hand, we have a dictator puppet of Iran using chemical weapons, 

and then we have the rebel forces. I think what the American people are starting to understand is, who are these rebel forces? I ask 

that question constantly when I get brief briefings, who are they? 

The reports I get is that every day, more and more of these outside 

groups are moving into Syria to help out the rebel forces, many of 

which are not in our best interests, many of which—of whom I believe are radical Islamists. While Assad is a horrible man and did 

horrible acts, I think the even worse outcome would be groups like 

these radical Islamists taking control of Syria, filling the vacuum, 

getting ahold of these chemical weapons and then using them, not 

just against Syrians but potentially against Americans. I believe 

that to be the greatest threat to the homeland here. 

So, Mr. Joscelyn, with that, let me throw out to you the question: 

Who are these rebel forces? 

Mr. JOSCELYN. Well, it is a complex question. There are a lot of 

different factions fighting inside Syria. 

However, the clear trend that we have witnessed is that alQaeda and its affiliates and extremist allies have gotten stronger, 

not weaker, since late 2011, greatly. The way we judge that, the 

way we look at it, is we actually look at the real battles, the key 

battles that are being fought, and try to determine who is really 

leading the charge. 

For example, just in the last week or so we saw this raid on 

Maaloula, a village northeast of Damascus, where an al-Qaeda suicide bomber, al-Nusra suicide bomber, actually was the key opening to the fight in Maaloula. He approached the security checkpoint 
28 

in Maaloula, blew up a Syrian security checkpoint, and then other 

forces, including al-Qaeda forces, rushed in. 

I would say that sort of scenario we have witnessed over and 

over again. So when you say, ‘‘who are the rebels?’’, I think it is 

not as easy as saying there are extremists versus moderates. I 

think all of these terms are not defined, to be honest with you, including what is exactly a moderate is not defined. 

But the key thing that I would emphasize here is that beyond 

just al-Qaeda’s presence inside Syria, there are other groups which 

are extremist groups, including in particular Ahrar al-Sham which 

has tens of thousands of fighters and leads the Syrian Islamic 

Front, which is a key actor on the battlefield right now in Syria. 

They put out propaganda statements regularly saying that they are 

fighting alongside al-Qaeda. We can give the details down to a very 

granular level of how many groups are doing that. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you. I have limited time. I think the 

American people are asking the question should we be arming and 

supporting these rebels forces in light of what you just said. The 

idea that we are arming—and I can’t get any assurance when I ask 

the questions, can you guarantee to me when we give these rebel 

forces arms and support, that it is not in turn going to go to these 

more extremist factions? I don’t think anybody can answer that. 

My next question is to General Scales. I was intrigued by your 

Washington Post article. You state there you talked to a soldier 

who said if you want to end this decisively, send in the troops and 

let them defeat the Syrian army. If the Nation doesn’t think Syria 

is worth serious commitment, then leave them alone. 

Senator Kerry just described this military operation yesterday as 

‘‘unbelievably small.’’ I believe it is a limited strike for face-saving 

measures. Can you tell me from a military standpoint what you 

think about this military option? 

General SCALES. Thank you, sir. 

Well, what we are going to see is a firepower strike. It will be 

an initial strike of 100 or so cruise missiles. We will look over the 

terrain to see what we missed. Maybe we will strike twice. Maybe 

we will strike three times, and then, after about 96 hours, we will 

terminate this. But by the time we strike, the Syrian Army will 

have had the time and the initiative, and with that much time, 

Congressman, they have the opportunity to radically lessen the effects of these strikes such that the effect on the Syrian Army will 

be substantially less than, say, if we had done this 2 weeks ago. 

What are the consequences? Well, as Steve just said, it will have 

no real effect on the credibility, with our credibility in the world, 

particularly with Iran. They have got it. I believe these strikes will 

only serve to heighten the rage among radical Islamists. If the past 

is prologue, he will take his time and strike us when the time is 

right for him. 

Sadly, I believe these strikes will have no serious military consequences on Assad because he can win this war without using 

chemical weapons. He already owns the initiative, and he will continue to own the initiative once these strikes are over because they 

won’t be militarily significant enough to impact the outcome of this 

war, because his most effective weapons aren’t chemical weapons; 

it is artillery and rockets, and these are virtually impossible to de-
29 

stroy using cruise missiles from the air. So, as Steve said so eloquently, what we face is what military people call an asymmetry 

of ends. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you. 

I am concerned it will inflame the region and retaliate not only 

Iran and Hezbollah against Israel but at the same time embolden 

and empower these rebel forces, and we have already discussed 

their make up and concern with them. 

Congressman Shays and Dr. Biddle, my time has actually expired, but I will take the prerogative of the Chairman, if that is 

okay with the committee, for a few seconds here. We have had— 

someone called it a breakthrough, I am not sure—but the idea that 

Russia, that has the biggest leverage over Syria in terms of getting 

these chemical weapons under the international’s community’s 

hands, I personally think if there is any good outcome, this is an 

outcome that I would like to see pursued. As skeptical as I am of 

Russia, I do think we have a lot of common interests in terms of 

against the jihadists, and they don’t want to see the weapons used 

either. Can you both comment on that possibility and whether you 

think that will be a fruitful exercise? 

Mr. SHAYS. First off, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has proved we can work with the Soviets. When I 

was with Mr. Lugar in Shchuch’ye, we saw 20,000 artillery shells. 

One artillery shell that leaks could destroy the lives of everyone in 

a full stadium, and there were enough chemicals there to kill the 

world many times over. The Russians know the threat of chemicals, and they also have their own terrorists. They do not want terrorists to get these chemical weapons. So I believe that we can 

build on it. 

I just would say one other thing. Let’s forget about face-saving 

as to whether the Russians suggested this or whether we did. It 

doesn’t matter. Get the chemicals out of Syria. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Dr. Biddle, any comments? 

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes. A few details have been released so far, and 

with this sort of proposal, obviously, the devil is always in the details. Whether or not you can actually bring under control the Syrian chemical arsenal in a very challenging operational environment 

is unclear. 

That having been said, I think it is clearly worth considering this 

very seriously. 

Moreover, I would set the bar for adequate effectiveness rather 

low. I don’t think it is in the U.S. interests to strike Syria. If in 

fact this proposal goes nowhere and we don’t get some sort of international control over all or part of the Syrian chemical inventory 

and you do what I would prefer, there will therefore be no effect 

at all on the Syrians’ ability to employ chemical weapons, even an 

only impartially effective or largely ineffective internationalization 

proposal that takes some of the Syrian chemical arsenal off the battlefield or that limits their access to some part of what they own 

is thus better than we can get otherwise. 

I think, obviously, it will matter to sort out the particulars of 

how it would work, but I think it is worth sorting it out. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Thank you, Dr. Biddle. 
30 

The Chairman now recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr. Thompson. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One of the glaring witnesses that I think we are missing is somebody from the intelligence community who can kind of back up, 

support, some of the things we are hearing today. 

But in light of that, Congressman Shays, can you just share with 

me what you would assume a lot of Members have received in 

briefings from our intelligence communities as to this danger and 

how we need to act affirmatively from a response standpoint. What 

I am hearing is from you gentlemen is, what is the rush, and if we 

rush, what are the consequences for rushing? 

So can you kind of help me out in this respect? Because we are 

being communicated to almost on an hourly basis about some of 

these situations. 

Mr. SHAYS. First, let me say if the President really believed that 

a military strike would have been effective, he would have done it 

right away. So, obviously, he had tremendous reservations, and, 

unfortunately, that sent the wrong signal. 

I know all of you are under a lot of pressure, but I learned a lot 

from my vote to go into Iraq and Afghanistan, and I have learned 

a lot about the effectiveness of a strike that is being contemplated. 

In the end, it is a tactic without a strategy, and so we have to determine—you have to determine—what is really our strategy? I believe in all the briefings that I have ever received as a Member of 

Congress that the biggest threat is that a terrorist organization 

will get a chemical weapon and be willing to go up with the chemical weapon and come into New York City, go into San Francisco, 

whatever, and the consequences of that are huge. 

So I believe that the kind of briefings that you would get if you 

really pursued it is, do not let these chemical weapons get in the 

hands of terrorists. I will say something about the terrorists. We 

are being told that the bad guys are now kind of not on the battlefield. Well, it reminds me of Mao Zedong with Chiang Kai-Shek. 

Chiang Kai-Shek fought the Japanese and Mao Zedong prepared 

for the next government. That is a strategy, and I think we have 

to recognize that. 

Mr. THOMPSON. General Scales, do you have a comment on that? 

General SCALES. I absolutely agree with the Congressman on 

this, sir. Ultimately, the strategic end-state of what hopefully is 

about to happen is an opportunity to remove these horrible weapons from Syria. It almost doesn’t matter who uses them, whether 

it is the Syrian Army or whether the insurgents manage to get 

these weapons to some distant place. In either case, innocents will 

die and, as the Congressman said, will die in the thousands. 

The sad part to me, however, is that even if we are able to control these stockpiles, Assad will continue to kill his people with 

conventional weapons, and I presume it is just as horrible to die 

from a bullet as it is from sarin gas, and this sectarian civil war, 

like a forest fire, will continue to burn itself out as one Syrian kills 

another Syrian. This sad, sad war could possibly last for decades. 

Mr. THOMPSON. In light of what the general just said, Dr. Biddle, 

what considerations do you think should be on the table to address 

the conflict in Syria? 
31 

Mr. BIDDLE. I think there are things we can do at relatively low 

cost to ourselves that are certainly worth doing, most of which we 

have already done. There are already a variety of economic sanctions in place against the Syrian regime. We have already isolated 

the Syrians and their allies diplomatically. We have already 

pledged to provide light weapons and ammunition to the Syrian resistance. 

The things that we have already done I think constitute reasonable responses. I am not sure that there is a lot that I would support beyond those things because I am very skeptical about the 

ability of any of the more forceful things we could do to actually 

bring about our objectives at a cost that we would be willing to 

bear, and I don’t think the strategic calculus of the decision is all 

that sensitive to, for example, details of what the intelligence base 

is and what we do or don’t know about the whereabouts or disposition of Syrian chemical weapons. 

I think ultimately the problem here is a basic interest asymmetry that limits the ability of small actions on our part to bring 

about big effects at low cost. I think it is very hard to avoid the 

iron relationship in the interests of the two sides here with any of 

the initiatives that I am aware of. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, the Chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, a week ago Saturday, on August 31, the President said, ‘‘We cannot resolve the underlying military conflict with 

our military.’’ It seems to me that that is an argument in opposition to military action, not in favor of military action. I also wonder 

about the administration’s stated policy not to try to effectuate regime change. I assume that is because we don’t trust either side. 

But if there is no regime change, Assad still will have the capability or be tempted to use chemical weapons. But if we don’t have 

regime change and Assad can still use chemical weapons again, 

why commit our Armed Forces to an uncertain goal with few allies 

and no friends on either side of another country’s civil war? 

That leads to my first question I would like to address to Congressman Shays, General Scales, and Dr. Biddle, and it is this: 

Why is the administration, why is the President unable to persuade an international coalition to support our military strikes? 

General SCALES. Thank you, sir, for the question. There are a 

couple of reasons. 

Mr. SMITH. Did Congressman Shays want to pass that on to you? 

Mr. SHAYS. I thought he should start. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. General Scales. 

General SCALES. Sir, a couple of reasons, I think. First of all, 

there is a latent distrust of American motives in the rest of the 

world. We have been at war for 10 years in the Middle East and 

a great many folks are nervous about American involvement in this 

civil war. 

Second, quite frankly, just as our citizens are divided on this, our 

closest allies, as we have learned recently in Great Britain, and 
32 

also in France, Germany, the European Union, and elsewhere, are 

extremely reluctant to have anyone engage in any war. 

The final reason I will give you is the military answer. The bottom line is simply this: If they wanted to engage or if they wanted 

to support us, the United States military today is the only military 

capable of taking any type of significant action that might result 

in an outcome in the civil war. The rest of the world has disarmed, 

and they can only stand by and watch. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, General Scales. 

Dr. Biddle. 

Mr. BIDDLE. Certainly, there is great skepticism about American 

motives and American purposes, whether in Syria or elsewhere in 

important parts of the world, but there is also a general problem 

that we face in trying to assemble coalitions of the willing of this 

kind and then a specific problem for Syria. 

The general problem is it is very attractive for others to free ride 

and pass the buck. If they think someone else will act, that reduces 

substantially the incentives on their part to act. That is a problem 

that we face in assembling coalitions of this kind on all sorts of 

issues. 

The specific problem with respect to Syria is largely the one that 

we have been discussing this morning, and that is the absence of 

attractive options for action that could actually bring about any of 

the coalition’s objectives at a cost that any members of the coalition 

are willing to bear. I think many of our prospective allies share the 

assessment of some on the panel about the prognosis of military action in Syria and are reluctant to start for that reason. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Biddle. 

Mr. Joscelyn, a couple of questions to you. 

Mr. SHAYS. Could I respond to this question as well? 

Mr. SMITH. I thought you were passing. 

Mr. SHAYS. I just wanted time to think about it. We sent a message years ago when we turned our back on the Shah of Iran, for 

whatever reason. We sent a message when we told Qaddafi, if you 

give us your chemicals and other weapons, we will back off. We 

sent a message with Mubarak. They were people that we had said 

certain things to. We sent a message to the generals in Iraq. We 

said, when we were invading Iraq, we said if you turn east and 

don’t fight us, you will still have a place. Then we disassembled 

them when we came. So people really question our word, and it 

goes beyond one administration to the other. 

The other is that, I don’t know how you felt, but when I voted 

for the war in Iraq, I believed there were weapons of mass destruction, wrong, shouldn’t have done it. But based on that. But even 

if I thought there were weapons of mass destruction, if I thought 

we would have fought the war we did and allow the looting to disassemble folks who were major players, I wouldn’t have voted for 

the war. My point is people aren’t sure we know how to fight this 

war. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Shays. 

Mr. Joscelyn, real quickly, is there a danger that rebels associated with al-Qaeda will benefit from a military strike? The second 

question is: What percentage of the rebels do you think are associ-
33 

ated with al-Qaeda? I think Secretary Kerry admitted that at least 

25 percent might be. 

Mr. JOSCELYN. I will take the second question first. I think Secretary Kerry said between 15 and 25 percent. We don’t know what 

the basis is for that estimate. We track the brigades that are fighting in Syria very closely. I would say that what we find are that 

there are a number of brigades that aren’t technically al-Qaeda 

that fight alongside them so it sort of increases the size of their 

Army inside Syria. I would say that I think that 15 to 25 percent 

is probably too low in terms of who the actual extremist forces are 

inside Syria right now with al-Qaeda and its allies. 

In terms of benefiting—the potential to benefit al-Qaeda’s affiliates inside Syria, none of the strikes as they have been defined to 

me, I don’t know specifically what is on the table in terms of 

strikes, so I can’t know specifically what they would do, but there 

is certainly a potential to harm one side and not the other. When 

al-Qaeda is playing a leading charge on the other side, the potential is there. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Joscelyn. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the gentlelady 

from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the Chairman, and I thank the Ranking Member for his courtesies in moving this hearing forward, and 

I know that each Member will count this as an important contribution to their ultimate decision as relates to the serious situation in 

Syria. 

Some of us have taken to meeting with Syrian Americans in our 

Congressional districts. We know that there is a divide even among 

them, but many of them believe that something has to be done to 

cease the slaughter. 

I am glad, Dr. Biddle, that you mentioned that the administration has over the years done—has engaged and provided resources, 

humanitarian and other resources, to the rebels that were established to receive such, and so to discount anyone’s suggestion that 

nothing has been done. 

For those of us who have been troubled by war and are still undecided, the one thing that I would hope that we don’t dismiss, and 

I don’t believe it has been said, except for general comment, the 

heinousness of the impact of chemical warfare and the devastating 

video of the death of children, which I think has touched the President’s heart. I would take issue on this question of credibility of 

this administration. It is constantly raised, and I believe that it has 

no place for in discussions with representatives from international 

countries, foreign countries, it is often said that America is the 

greatest country in the world, and we can solve every problem. So 

for a country that doesn’t have credibility, it seems interesting that 

foreign nations still look to America to solve problems. I think we 

do ourselves well to wash our mouth with soap about our credibility. America still stands as a country that can be effective. 

The President’s concern, and turning back to Congress, I believe, 

is a reflection of his own history. There is nothing shameful about 

that and I hope that we would give credibility to the idea that the 
34 

President is consulting with Congress regardless of where we 

stand. 

Let me also put on the record that this issue with Russia was 

raised more than 2 or 3 years ago regarding the idea of capturing 

the chemical weapons. It does matter who raised it first. It has 

been characterized as a Russian offer. I have no ego problem with 

that. Neither does America. I think the question has to be as to 

whether or not Russia is serious. We want diplomacy. We wanted 

it 2 years ago. We wanted it when we took resolutions to the 

United Nations four times and Russia vetoed it in July 19, 2012; 

March 8, 2012; February 4, 2012; October 4, 2011; they vetoed it. 

Russia is not the shining knight on a horse. But I do hope that we 

can have the opportunity for a concrete resolution and have it by 

this week because diplomacy does save lives, but lives were lost 

due to chemical weapons. 

So, let me ask this question, I take issue with, I do think that 

the backdrop of the Iraq war, which I proudly voted against, was 

really the taint that brought us to where we are today. I think 

America’s credibility was severely damaged there, and I think the 

point made about the Baath generals was true. Unfortunately, we 

did not adhere to our word. But I take issue with the fact that our 

credibility is in shambles. People make their decisions on their own 

political interests, and we know that on the international forum. 

So let me ask this question to all of you. 

In the heinousness or the possession or the question of the possession of chemical weapons, do you believe that a resolution that 

would include the securing of the chemical weapons, that would include the international community, because I do believe that if this 

is real that Russia and the United States can agree to the international community will come together? 

France is taking a resolution to the United Nations, as I hope 

soon, and the question will be what will be the results. But I ask 

the question: No. 1, can you state for anyone who wants to do it 

how heinous the use of chemical weapons is and that that does 

bring a question of National security interest, and No. 2, what kind 

of securing of those weapons would make you come comfortable and 

that we truly have a resolution, may not end the Syrian conflict, 

which I believe should be done peaceably and through negotiation, 

but what, how important do you think that would be? 

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee, for your great question and your comment. I think the worst thing we can do is get 

in a battle over who thought of this first. As you know, if you don’t 

care who gets the credit, you get a lot more done. Right now, whatever it takes to get the Russian government to support getting 

chemicals out of Syria should be our task. Frankly, I think that it 

does no good even for Congress in the end to focus too much on the 

President right now because he needs to get as much support as 

he can get so he can help marshal the support of others. 

General SCALES. I absolutely agree with the Congressman. Someone said the other day, well, there is just no way you are going to 

get 1,000 tons of chemical weapons out of Syria in a short period 

of time. My view is any effort to get any chemical weapons out of 

Syria no matter how long it takes and no matter how much resolve 

is necessary is worth the effort. Because to your point, when you 
35 

use chemical weapons against innocents, that elevates the brutality 

of the conflict, and it also, frankly, endangers the homeland. So if 

it is imperfect, if it takes a long time, my view is, do it, because 

it is worth it and, in the end, will save lives both in places like 

Syria and here at home. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman—— 

Chairman MCCAUL. I will allow Mr. Joscelyn. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would greatly appreciate it. Mr. Joscelyn, if 

you could also talk to the brutality or the impact of chemical weapons on children that at least the video showed, and Mr. Chairman, 

just I appreciate witnesses’ comment, just one comment—— 

Chairman MCCAUL. And I appreciate that we have a lot of Members and a lot of questions. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. This is not who gets credit; this is to recognize 

that we are working together on the issue of chemical weapons. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Let the witness make his remarks. 

Mr. JOSCELYN. Well, just, real quick, to your point about the sort 

of politics of the whole thing. David Sanger, I believe it was, in the 

New York Times had a great piece about how the administration 

is going back years now, including the Bush years and before, have 

really not done enough to secure the chemical weapons that the 

Syrian government was pursuing through international means, 

whether it be its partnership with Russia or others. So this has 

been a problem that has been decades in the making, not just in 

recent times. 

This is something that there has not been a significant enough 

effort to really curtail what the Syrian government and Assad regime was doing there. To your point about brutality of weapons, I 

review every day al-Qaeda’s Facebook pages, websites, social 

media, everything else. One of the big things they are using right 

now in their recruiting is the horrific pictures of these children that 

have been killed by these chemical weapons in Damascus and elsewhere, and they are using it to talk about the horrors of it. 

The other side in this fight is actually using this because of how 

horrible they are to say, you know, come support us against Assad 

because of the horror of the chemical weapons. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. King, the former Chairman of the 

Homeland Security Committee. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for holding this hearing and I will probably be a minority of maybe 1 today in that I do believe that action should be 

taken in Syria, but I have great respect for all the witnesses. Congressman Shays and I worked together for many years, and he was 

an outstanding Member of this committee. General Scales and Mr. 

Joscelyn has been a witness before this committee, when I was 

Chairman in fact. 

My concern is that on several counts, one if Syria, if no action 

is taken to degrade Syria, you have this access between Syria and 

Iran in that region of the world and this will greatly embolden and 

strengthen that access, which is why Israel supports us taking action in this case, which is why Jordan supports us taking action 

in this case, and they are the two nations most involved over there. 
36 

General Scales you were saying that sectarian civil wars, that 

they can’t be ended by third parties. I was here when we voted on 

Bosnia back in 1995, and that was looked upon as a centuries-old 

civil war. The fact is, after 3 weeks of American action, that was 

brought to a close, and for the most part, for the last 18 years, 

there has been a, if not peace, at least a modus operandi, at least 

a semblance of stability in Bosnia. I also I want to say that may 

have prevented Islamic militants from taking a hold in Bosnia, 

which they had threatened to do in Sarajevo at that time. 

Also the question of credibility, I am not looking at the question 

of saving face, but I think if the President of the United States 

does lay down a red line and then a year goes by and a red line 

is crossed and then without ever mentioning Congress being involved at all, very last minute, he says Congress should be involved, that is a wavering. When he says it is not his red line, it 

is a wavering. 

I think it is important that we maintain credibility, not for the 

sake of saving face but for credibility, not just for enemies like Iran 

but also for our allies. For instance, we have persuaded Israel not 

to attack Iran in their nuclear development because we have assured them if they cross a red line, we will prevent that from happening. But the fact is that if Israel sees that we allow Syria to 

cross a red line on chemical weapons, why should Israel trust us 

to prevent Iran from crossing the red line on nuclear weapons? 

Also, there has been talk of we should have an international coalition. That on paper sounds good. I remember Kosovo, we had 21 

nations involved in a coalition; 21 nations involved in a coalition, 

it was entirely air strikes. The United States carried out 95 percent 

of them; the British carried out 5 percent. The reality of the world 

we live in, whether we like it or not, is the United States is the 

only military power capable of carrying out any type of effective 

military action. So while it looks good on paper and it would sound 

good, the fact is not having a military coalition with this doesn’t 

mean that much. 

The other concern I have is with, and believe me, I appreciate 

all the points you are making. This is not an easy call. When we 

saw Russia coming in, it is not a question of giving credit; Sadat 

put Russia out of the Middle East 40 years ago. Other than that 

one-on-one relationship with Syria, there is not any real Russian 

involvement in the Middle East. 

Do we want to now bring Russia back in and establish them as 

a major power in the Middle East, maybe even a veto power over 

our actions? 

I know, General, you said that even if it is a long effort to get 

out the chemical weapons, it should be done. I agree with that. But 

because it could be such a long effort, couldn’t that indicate the 

Russians are not serious about it? If you do have a thousand tons, 

if you do have 50 locations, if you do have a civil war going on, and 

you would need thousands and thousands of U.N. inspectors to 

come in, it makes it almost impossible. So, by the time we realize 

that, time has gone by and our threat of military action will have 

passed. 
37 

So, again, I think we should explore it, examine it, but keep in 

mind that having Russia as a major player in the Middle East 

could have long-term consequences. 

Also, as far as the terrorist groups, and I am not trying to set 

one committee against the other, I know on the Intelligence Committee meeting with people in the intelligence community, they say 

they are reasonably confident—I am not saying it is right because, 

as we know, there has been wrong intelligence before, but they can 

separate out the terrorists, the Islamic groups from the more mainstream moderates if you will and that we could arm the mainstream groups, prevent those weapons from going to the terrorist 

groups, and if this set of bombing attacks could force Syria to go 

to the negotiating table, that would give us more leverage to isolate 

out and screen out the terrorist groups during those negotiations. 

Now, on balance, that is the reason I am for it. Any of you I 

would ask General Scales I guess and any of you want to comment 

on any of the points I made, not that they are particularly profound, but I would be interested in your thoughts because I have 

tremendous respect for all of you. Thank you. 

General SCALES. If I could answer first sir. First of all, I feel a 

little bit self-conscious about arguing with you because we have 

had these conversations for years. 

But let me just make a very brief statement. Nations should not 

go to war for credibility, for issues like honor or for esoteric ends. 

Nations commit acts of war for a specific achievable strategic end; 

to quote Dave Petraeus, ‘‘tell me how this ends.’’ If we can’t come 

up with a path to success, then merely committing an act of war 

to maintain, establish, or reestablish our credibility, I think is a 

wrong strategic objective. 

I think what I just said, sir, really reflects the sentiments of the 

American people because it doesn’t resonate with them that what 

is in it for us, terrible as this war may be, please explain how this 

ends. 

Mr. KING. I know my time is expired, but General Petraeus has 

endorsed this proposal. He has over the weekend come out in support of it, and I would say the overall strategy is not just to save 

credibility for the sake of saving face but to reassure countries like 

Israel that we will stand with them when the moment comes. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman will now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, I want to recognize Congressman Chris Shays, a gentleman I had the honor of serving with, one of the most thoughtful 

Members of Congress. As a new Member of Congress in 2006, we 

traveled the Middle East, nine countries in 11 days. In fact, Nick 

Palarino was with us. We were in the refugee camps in Darfur. We 

were in Lebanon, in Israel, in the aftermath of the Hezbollah 

Israeli war, so I have always had great regard for Chris Shays, and 

I want to welcome him back. 

Let me also say this at the outset. The situation in Syria is that 

of a national civil war. It is sectarian, and it is ethnic. This is not 

about freedom and democracy. There is no social contract. There is 

no preamble. There is no unifying vision for what Syria wants to 
38 

become. This is a fight about control, a brutal dictator, Assad and 

his militias, and an opposition, who is represented, their best fighters are al-Qaeda and Islamic extremists bent on creating an 

Islamist state in Syria. So there is no good military option for the 

United States. 

But there is an issue I want to address, which has been referenced here and throughout this debate. It is that America’s credibility is on the line in Syria, that America’s credibility is on the 

line in Syria. Really? 

Not the America that I know. Not my America. The international 

community, 194 countries, an international community, but for 

Turkey and France, that says, yes, we agree with you, the United 

States, Assad is a toxic murderer, go get him. Just don’t ask us to 

participate. 

So the United States will enter another regional civil war for the 

third time in the past decade, essentially alone, again. 

The Arab League, 22 member states in the Arab world, whose 

strategic interests are tied to the stability of the region, their response to Assad’s murderous ways are convoluted and weak, pathetically weak. You are telling me America’s credibility is on the 

line in Syria? 

The Arab Muslim world, a civilization of 250 million people who 

have been in a destructive war with each other Shia and Sunni 

about who is the rightful successor to the prophet Mohammed’s political and spiritual leadership since 632, the Seventh Century. The 

Arab Muslim community is a population of 250 million people, one 

half of which are under the age of 25. So Shia and Sunni are involved in a sectarian conflict against each other without any regard 

for the future of the children in that community. America’s credibility is on the line? 

Finally, the American people, the American people are sick and 

tired of war. Afghanistan and Iraq is as violent and as backward 

as it has ever been, $2 trillion, 6,668 American lives lost, tens of 

thousands of young men and women coming back to this country 

both physically and mentally destroyed. America is underachieving. 

What the American people want is a strong, prosperous America. 

Richard Haass wrote the book, ‘‘Foreign Policy Begins at Home.’’ 

We have to build nations not in Afghanistan, not in Iraq, not nation-building in those places, but nation-build right here at home, 

investing in the American people, in the American economy. There 

are no good options for the United States. 

I heard a spokesman from the White House say today, that, why 

are the people—well, it is complicated. That is insulting. That is insulting. 

The American people are way ahead of Washington on this issue. 

They do not want a war in another part of the world that we cannot win, that we cannot litigate toward a successful end. They 

want to nation-build in America. So I just think it is important 

that we say that. America’s credibility is not on the line. We are 

the greatest Nation in the history of the world. We have demonstrated greater generosity to the international community than 

they will ever respond to us. 

So let’s stop this nonsense about Americans’ credibility is on the 

line in Syria. 
39 

With that, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAUL. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Meehan, is recognized. 

Mr. MEEHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank this distinguished panel for being here today at 

a time in which the discussions taking place in Washington are certainly broader than many that we have, I have had the privilege 

to participate in during the course of my now second term in Congress, but I thank each of you for your service as well. 

We have had a lot of discussions about the implications with regard to what is happening in Syria itself. But I am mindful, I chair 

a committee on, a subcommittee of this committee that deals with 

the issues of cyber and the cyber threat. One of the realities of the 

tremendous network that we have created by virtue of the internet 

is the recognition that we have been globally connected, and therefore, an avenue of activity and accessibility leads into every fundamental institution of the American way of being, from industry to 

daily communications that we are taking place. 

One of the things that was used by a colleague in a matter just 

the other day was a Newton’s law to every action, there is going 

to be a reaction. While I know that we have spent a lot of time analyzing what the rationale and purpose might be of any kind of activity, it is also important to go two steps down the line in the 

chessboard and determine what happens as a result of anything 

that take place. 

We are aware that in the course of recent weeks, we have had 

a group, the Syrian Electronic Army; Assad himself has had a history of awareness and connection to cyber. 

Now, most of the assessments that I have read seem to identify 

a group that is probably no more malicious than Anonymous or 

others. They have found sort of back-door ways of getting involved 

and using things likes spear phishing and other kinds of avenues 

to create changes of things that are on pages of newspapers. 

But I am concerned, and I want to have the assessment of those 

of you who think about actions and then think about actions two 

or three steps and recognizing the fundamental structure of our 

cyber. Is it not foreseeable that that could be an avenue for reaction in the event that any kind of a step is taken? I would like to 

have you address that, not just in the focus of Syria themselves, 

because my greatest concern here is Iran, and a recognition that 

much of what may be happening in Syria today is happening because of its relationship or enabled by virtue of its relationship 

with Iran and the resources Iran has brought to the table. 

There is absolutely no question about the far more serious capabilities of Iran, including its capacity to influence things with outof-service attacks and others. We saw what they did in with 

Aramco in Saudi Arabia, attacking 30,000 computers and shutting 

them down and affecting the ability for that oil industry to operate. 

Is it not foreseeable that in the event of a military action in 

Syria there is a possibility, and how likely is it possible that an act 

could be carried back into the United States utilizing all of the 

methods of subterfuge and cover and other things in which cyber 

becomes a new area for warfare and one in which the United 
40 

States itself may be subjected to greater vulnerability than many 

people appreciate? Congressman, I would love for you to—— 

Mr. SHAYS. Congressman, this is a huge issue. Ranking Member 

Thompson and your Chairman have said how important it is. I 

really believe they are separate issues, primarily because you can 

do cyber terrorism without there being a trail. I believe Iran and 

other countries will do whatever they can regardless of what we do 

in Syria. 

Mr. MEEHAN. General, your thoughts on this. 

General SCALES. Well, I am a technological troglodyte, and I am 

probably the last person to answer your questions. I think cyber is 

important, and Keith Alexander is one of my best friends. But don’t 

get too distracted by this. Cyber is an ancillary means of warfare 

that is used to distract an enemy rather than to destroy him. Is 

it serious? Of course, it is serious. But if we went to war with Iran, 

and the result was a nuclear weapon in New York City or someone 

releasing a couple hundred pounds of sarin in the New York City 

subway, then the discussion would probably move pretty quickly 

away from cyber and more into the more kinetic and frightful aspects of war. 

Mr. MEEHAN. But do you think that shutting down of the 30,000 

computers and the attack that took place in Saudi Arabia was just 

an inconvenience, or was that an act of war? 

General SCALES. I don’t think it was an act of war. I think it was 

beyond inconvenience. I think it is somewhere in between. But you 

know, I had an old first sergeant in Vietnam the used to say to me, 

sir, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. The 

main thing we have to worry about with Syria is to keep chemical 

weapons away from our shores. 

Mr. MEEHAN. I know, Mr. Chairman, my time is expired, just 

whether either of the other two panelists have any comments regarding that question. 

Mr. BIDDLE. I guess all I would add is that one of the more important features of cyber is the ability to act in a limited way that 

does not generate massive retaliation from the target. That says 

something about the degree of concern that we should have in the 

larger context of threats that we face. 

If Syria or Iran, for example, were to use cyber, they would probably, (A) make an effort to conceal their involvement in it and, (B) 

make an effort to make sure that they don’t actually kill large 

numbers of Americans, because were they to do either of those 

things, were their fingerprints to be too clear or were the pain level 

they were to inflict on Americans were too great, then our interests 

would be fully engaged, and we are militarily capable of doing terrible things to either country. 

So my guess is that the likely nature of the cyber response will 

be designed to be moderate enough to keep it under what they expect to be an American retaliatory threshold. 

Mr. MEEHAN. My time is expired, and I thank you for your observations. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne, 

is recognized. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, 

and to the distinguished panel, we have here a good friend of my 
41 

father’s for many years. They served together. It is great to have 

Congressman Shays here. 

I just want to start with something that the point the Congressman made when he went back and talked about our experience the 

prior decade with WMDs and knowing what we know now how 

that information turned out not to be factual. That is why the 

American people are where they are today on this issue because of 

their experience in past conflicts in the last decade. 

So I don’t blame them. They have been sent down a road and 

told things that exist that they found out never existed. So they are 

wary. 

I think that this new third option that has opened up in the last 

day is promising and potentially could keep us out of this conflict 

to the degree that looked like we were going. 

But I want to ask the question that was on my mind because I 

was still had been undecided and giving the President an opportunity to make his case. My constituents have made it loud and 

clear where they expect me to be, but I felt that it is only right to 

give the President the opportunity to make his case. 

I don’t think—and, General, you talked about the length of time 

that we have been involved in this and them having the opportunity to move their chemical weapons around and what have you, 

and I think that with the technology that we have, we are able to 

follow them fairly well in everything they are doing from vantage 

points high up in the sky. 

So I wasn’t as concerned as the Syrian response as I was to if 

Russian nationals, technicians, people working there in Syria were 

killed and what that retaliation would be. 

I know that the Russians moved two of their ships into the area, 

and what would their response be? So that was the thing that concerned me more, the escalation of Russian nationals being harmed 

in that theater. 

What is your take on that? 

General SCALES. Well, I think there are two groups that we need 

to be concerned about. Certainly, the Russians, I think I heard the 

figure 25,000 Russians, but I have also heard the figure 10- to 

15,000 United Nations humanitarian workers who are now in 

Syria. Once you loose the dogs of war, you never know how this is 

going to end, Congressman. 

I remember very well a cruise missile striking the Chinese embassy in 1999 and the effects of all that. Precision weapons are precise, but they are not perfect, particularly if your targeting is not 

so good. So I think your caution and your concern is spot-on. 

The second and third order of effects of any act of war are always 

unpredictable, and I would argue with you, almost without exception, it is harder, bloodier, longer, more costly, and more debilitating after you go in than it is before you go in. 

Mr. PAYNE. Then to the, you know, to the strike itself and you 

said the potential 100 cruise missiles being used in doing the initial 

attack and then assessing where you are and then finishing it up, 

I think when we talk about small and limited, I think that is relative. I think you know 100 cruise missiles in this area and then 

looking where we are in over a 4-, 5-day period, I think we could 
42 

do major—even though we call it limited, it is relative based on the 

size and our capability. 

General SCALES. That is right. If you are underneath one of those 

cruise missiles when it goes off, it is certainly not limited. But recall that we fired 248 cruise missiles against Libya over however 

many days, along with many, many other types of ordnance, and 

it took a while to get that done. We talked earlier about Kosovo 

and Serbia. Remember that was a 78-day campaign, 78 days, and 

a lot of people were killed in that effort. So the odds of hurting the 

wrong people and killing the innocents in a war like this can’t be 

discounted. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the Chairman 

of the Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee, Mr. 

Duncan from South Carolina. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks for the timeliness of this hearing, entitled ‘‘Crisis in 

Syria: Implications to Homeland Security.’’ I am going to try to 

keep the focus on homeland security, but I would be remiss if I 

didn’t talk a little bit about Benghazi from the simple standpoint 

that we heard from the administration yesterday in a classified 

briefing about their levels of certainty about the use of chemical 

weapons and the level of certainty that they believe the Assad regime did that. 

I am just baffled by the fact that we can come up with that level 

of certainty when we can’t identify the perpetrators in Benghazi 

that killed four Americans when we had personnel, U.S. personnel 

on the ground involved in that attack, we had eyes in the sky with 

Predator drones watching the thing unfold, but yet we can come up 

with a level of certainty that Assad was involved in the chemical 

weapons attack in Syria. 

So, in my time in Congress, I have focused my attention on Iran 

and Hezbollah’s deepening relations with countries here in this 

hemisphere. Terrorist groups specifically aligned with Iran have 

publicly stated their intent to attack the U.S. embassy in Iraq as 

well as within the U.S. homeland if Syria is attacked. 

I would caution America that Hezbollah and its possible sleeper 

cells could launch some sort of retaliatory attacks here in the Western Hemisphere, and so I raise that awareness. 

I want to thank the gentleman and the panelists for your comments today. 

General Scales, I think you are spot-on. I think your opening testimony was heart-warming and spot-on with regard to the threats 

that we do face. 

The question I have for you is: How long has Syria had chemical 

weapons? 

General SCALES. Congressman, Syria’s possession of chemical 

weapons goes all the way back to the days of the Cold War, when 

the elder Assad assumed that the only way he could have a reasonable retaliation against Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons was 

for him to have an overwhelming stockpile of chemical weapons as 

a sort of retaliatory means. 
43 

The problem, of course, is that he just went completely nuts in 

getting chemical weapons; the figure, unclassified figure I have 

seen is 1,000 tons. 

Mr. DUNCAN. It is a bunch, and it is not a relatively new phenomenon that he has had those. So how long has a civil war in 

Syria been raging? 

General SCALES. Oh since, almost 21⁄2 years now. 

Mr. DUNCAN. About 30 months maybe. So we have had a 30- 

month long civil war, you have got 1,200 different rebel fighting 

groups in and around Syria, not just centrally-located in one geographic region because it is a civil war. So 1,200 different rebel 

fighting groups, 1,000 tons of chemical weapons; based on the testimony today, we understand that the terrorists or terrorist cells already have chemical weapons. Whether they were apprehended by 

the Turks or whether they were apprehended by the Iraqis, evidence points to the terrorists having some access to sarin gas. I am 

not saying that that they used it in Syria. What I am trying to, the 

point I am trying to bring out is the fact that if this is about keeping the chemical weapons out of the hands of the terror cells, we 

are a little late, because the evidence points that they are already 

have some hopefully minimal amount of chemical weapons. 

So the question I have is: How will a military action by the 

United States, acting unilaterally at this point or with very little 

international backing, keep the terrorists from gaining access to 

chemical weapons? 

Yes, sir, and then I will go to Mr. Shays. 

General SCALES. In my opinion, in a word, it won’t. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Congressman. 

Mr. SHAYS. It would make it more likely that if we weaken this 

regime, that the terrorist elements will be more likely to get it. The 

argument, though, that some is already out is just like a wake-up 

call to get and work overtime to get these chemicals out of Syria. 

Mr. DUNCAN. So I ask you gentlemen would it not have been better versus beating the drums of war and possibly going at this unilateral striking and punish Assad for his use or perceived use of 

chemical weapons, would it have not been better to start working 

with our international community in the international court of public opinion to build a coalition based around the signatory countries 

to the chemical weapons convention? 

Mr. SHAYS. Absolutely. 

Mr. DUNCAN. And say: Look, let’s have economic sanctions, let’s 

have a blockade of Syria, let’s cut off their ability to be resupplied, 

let’s really punish him in a lot of ways, versus the United States 

standing up and saying we are going to go in there and strike, but 

we have no idea what the results of this strike is going to be. We 

have no idea what the retaliatory strikes will be whether Israel 

will be attacked themselves by Assad or whether other countries 

will be drug into this, whether Assad actually launches an attack 

on the United States Navy sitting 250 kilometers off the coast with 

their surface-to-surface missiles. There are a lot of dominoes that 

are ugly to fall if we go after this alone and if we go after Assad’s 

chemical weapons, without a real plan of attack, without an endgame in mind, and then do the terrorists actually gain further access to these chemical weapons? Do they bring to the Western 
44 

Hemisphere and do they launch a retaliatory attack against the 

homeland? The focus of this hearing is implications to homeland 

security. 

I think the implications are not pretty and so I urge caution 

while these winds of war blow. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAUL. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Texas, Mr. O’Rourke, is recognized. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I want to thank the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member for making this hearing today possible. Ostensibly, we are 

talking about implications for homeland security, but I think foremost in all of our minds is that we have been asked to make what 

for me in my 8 months as a freshman Member will be the toughest 

vote I have had to make and maybe for Members who have been 

here for many more terms. So this is perhaps the most solemn responsibility we have as a country and certainly as Representatives 

of our constituents on whether or not we go to war. 

I wish that every Member of Congress could hear the testimony 

that each of you gave today. I think it has been incredibly helpful 

to put the decision in perspective and to make sure that whatever 

we choose to do, and many people have said today reasonable people can disagree, and I have heard compelling arguments on both 

sides, but whatever we choose to do, that we make the most informed intelligent decision possible and fully to the best of our ability understand the ramifications of that decision. 

But, as the General said, war is perhaps the most unpredictable 

of human endeavors. For me, it is hard to get past that. The assurances that whatever we do will be perfectly calibrated to dissuade 

Assad from using chemical weapons while not destabilizing him 

enough to allow al-Qaeda-affiliated rebel groups to dominate the 

battlefield and perhaps obtain those chemical weapons, it is hard 

to believe that, not because of a credibility issue; it is because war 

is unpredictable inherently. 

I think you made that case very well, General. 

Dr. Biddle said something that I thought was very important, 

and that is that this idea that the international community and the 

member countries can pass the buck on these tough issues. Following the financial meltdown, we talked about a moral hazard 

here in the United States that we created, where financial institutions could do really whatever they wanted, however irresponsibly, 

because ultimately, the Government and the U.S. taxpayer was 

going to be there to pick up the buck. 

I feel like something like that is happening in the international 

community. I think the President at a news conference said that 

the leader of a smaller country had approached him at the summit 

and had commiserated with him and said, you know, Mr. President 

in my country, no one expects to do anything, and so I really have 

a free ride on this issue. 

So, with that being said, and Mr. Higgins mentioned that we are 

dealing with battles that have been going on since the Seventh 

Century and certainly, in modern times, since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, what is our role within the international community 

to address this specific crisis and also to remove that moral hazard 

and create the will for the international community to respond to 
45 

this and other crises that are certainly to rise in the near future? 

How do we lead in this way nonmilitarily? 

Mr. BIDDLE. I think the natural way forward is to do much of 

what we have been doing for the last several years in Syria. We 

have in fact been quite active in trying to generate international 

economic sanctions against the Syrian regime, again in trying to 

isolate the Syrian regime diplomatically. This strikes me as an entirely appropriate way forward. We have been trying to play a role, 

at times together with Russians, in facilitating a negotiated settlement to the war. 

These things strike me as entirely appropriate. I think the administration deserves some credit for having pursued them. I think 

they are rather unlikely to bring about our objectives, unfortunately. My guess is that, at the end of the day, the situation in 

Syria is bad, will probably get worse, and what our scale and scope 

of options for making it any better are unfortunately rather limited. But I think that the best ones in many ways lie along the 

lines that we have just been discussing as limited in efficacy as 

they are likely to be. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Congressman Shays, General Scales said we are 

operating in a strategy-free zone. What is your advice to Members 

of Congress and how we can constructively work towards developing a strategy with the international community? 

Mr. SHAYS. I love the word ‘‘constructively.’’ One is, you know, 

we have an opportunity to work with the Russians. We have proven we can do it in the elimination of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. We need to go into this expecting we will succeed. We 

should be going throughout the world saying we accept the offer of 

the Russians to do this, and then if the Russians fail to come 

through, the rest of the world will know we gave it a shot, and it 

was the Russians’ fault, and they will be far more sympathetic to 

other types of action. But it can be done. But you start by knowing 

it can be done. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I appreciate that my time is up, but I want to say 

thank you again for everyone who testified today. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the Chairwoman of the Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications Subcommittee, Mrs. Brooks from Indiana. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very 

much to you and the Ranking Member for hosting this very important meeting. I want to thank all the witnesses for your time. 

As Chairwoman of the Committee on Emergency Preparedness, 

Response, and Communications, I am very interested and concerned in hearing about what your thoughts will be, and I actually 

don’t think there has been enough discussion in the briefings that 

I have attended, and I have attended a few now, on what the potential retaliatory strikes might be and what the international 

backlash might be and how we should prepare for that. 

We have been very focused on convincing everyone that Assad 

perpetrated these crimes, and I am convinced and believe that we 

do have the evidence that it was the regime. 

I, too, have met with Syrian Americans in my district, and they 

have told me for months about the horrible crimes that the Assad 

regime has been perpetrating against his own people. 
46 

But yet once—I am not convinced that we have a strategy with 

respect to the chemical weapons, the disposition. A Pentagon report 

in 2012 said it could take 75,000 U.S. troops on the ground to secure the chemical weapons, and so the dispersement of the chemical weapons I think continues to be of grave concern. 

But yet beyond that and what others have mentioned, Iran’s possible retaliatory strike and others, I am curious what your thoughts 

are about what we should be anticipating after we institute a 

strike, and we are not talking about that very much. I ask it from 

each of your perspectives. 

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I go under the assumption, first, that Assad is 

a smart person. He has to know that if these chemicals get dispersed around the country, they could get in the wrong hands, even 

in his country, and be used against him. I would think we would 

be doing him a hell of a gift to get them out of the country. There 

is a part of me who thinks he may think that, too. I have a feeling 

that the Russians will be making that argument. 

In terms of all the other types of things that could happen, we 

don’t really know because I think we have talked about a tactic and 

not thought about the strategy. If you think about the strategy and 

then figure out where the tactics sit, then you think about the negatives that could occur from it and also the positives. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Thank you. 

General SCALES. Very briefly, I absolutely agree with the Congressman. We don’t know how this ends because we don’t have an 

end-state that we can anticipate. There are so many consequence, 

post-strike consequences, that we can’t even begin to speculate on 

what they will be. All we can say is that it can’t be good for us. 

A small strike that merely rattles the Syrians, leaves Assad in 

power, the army is still the strongest military force in the region. 

After the strike when we have this vacuum, the resistance is going 

to be dispirited. Iran, I think, will be emboldened. Then the ball 

quite literally is in our court. 

You have made your strikes. Your 72 hours are over. This horrible man is still standing. The chemical weapons are still there. 

What do you do now? I am afraid, I hope that is a question we 

never have to answer. 

Mr. JOSCELYN. Just real quick, Syria and Iran have been two 

principal sponsors of several terrorist organizations, including 

Hezbollah and at times Hamas and others, going back to 1983 and 

the bombings in Lebanon. You can see what that access can do in 

terms of bombing our diplomatic facilities and that type of thing. 

You can never assume away the potential for them to activate terrorists against us in some way around the world. 

Mr. BIDDLE. I want to emphasize what General Scales said about 

the difficulty of predicting what Assad will do for a variety of reasons. There has been a lot of discussion about possible retaliatory 

action, largely against U.S. or allied targets outside the United 

States, mostly on the argument that those are softer, more 

assailable, easier for proxies of Syria or Iran to attack. So it is certainly possible that U.S. embassies abroad could be struck. It is 

certainly possible that Israeli targets could be struck. It is not inconceivable that the U.S. homeland could be targeted, but I suspect 

that is somewhat less likely. 
47 

Now I say the following as someone who opposes U.S. military 

action, who is very worried about the risk of escalation, either in 

the form of Syrian retaliation or in the form of slippery slopes on 

our own side of things. But in the interest of intellectual full disclosure, it is worth observing that, in fact, Israel struck Syria in 2007 

and struck targets within Syria during the course of the civil war, 

and Syria did not retaliate. Israelis struck the Osirak Iraqi nuclear 

reactor in 1981, and Iraq did not retaliate. 

I think it would be extremely unwise to assume that Syria would 

decline to retaliate. I think it is extremely unwise to assume that 

if we acted on the declared basis of deterring further Syrian chemical weapons use, that in order for Assad to establish his own credibility, he might use them again simply to demonstrate that he is 

not weak and irresolute, but it is an empirical fact that in the past, 

Syria has occasionally declined to respond when struck by outsiders. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Just one follow-up very briefly with respect to 

Syria not responding, while we are so engaged and focused on 

Syria, does this not give Iran further time to develop its nuclear 

capabilities and take our attention away from Iran? 

Dr. Biddle. 

Mr. BIDDLE. I would hope that the administration is able to chew 

gum and walk at the same time and that the parts of the administration that are engaged on the Iranian issue remain engaged on 

the Iranian issue. 

Admittedly, the time of senior leadership is always a scarce resource, and it is currently being devoted overwhelmingly to Syria. 

I would hope however, in the interest of good government, that this 

does not significantly undermine our diplomacy towards Iran. 

Mrs. BROOKS. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Vela, is recognized. 

Mr. VELA. General Scales, what is the method by which enemies 

would attempt to introduce chemical weapons into this country? 

General SCALES. That is an excellent question. The answer is, it 

is almost an endless variety of opportunities for following reason. 

Smuggling a nuclear weapon into this country is a very, would be 

horribly, a very, very complex endeavor. But remember, when we 

are talking about smuggling sarin, we are talking about bringing 

in a powder, essentially that is what sarin is, before it is mixed 

with alcohol, and you are, from your own State, you are familiar 

with your southern border. The Mexicans are, the cartels, are more 

than proficient in bringing in hundreds of tons of powder every 

year into Texas. We haven’t begun to talk about shipping containers, of sarin being smuggled aboard people who get through. 

So sarin is a very fungible commodity. It is extremely easy to 

transport. Probably most scary of all, it is very, very simple to use. 

Sarin is heavier than air. If you can put it into something, for 

instance, like a large air conditioning duct in a subway, as the Japanese did a few years ago, or in a large apartment building or on 

a military installation, the effects would be catastrophic. 

Now having said that, if you have the recipients, as we say in 

the military, warned and prepared, the effects can be minimal. We 
48 

went into Iraq in Desert Storm fully prepared for Saddam to use 

sarin, and he didn’t for that reason. But when you talk about the 

innocents, when you talk about people who are caught by surprise 

at 2:30 in the morning, if this stuff is properly dispersed, as I said 

before, the effects could be absolutely catastrophic. 

Mr. SHAYS. Could I just jump in for a second? 

Chairman MCCAUL. Of course. 

Mr. SHAYS. Twenty thousand shells in Russia, chemical weapons, 

no bigger than this, they were put in, they almost looked like wine 

bottles stacked up, building after building. You can bring this in. 

The bottom line is, you can’t allow the terrorists to get the chemical. If they got the chemical, they can bring it in. They will use 

it because one of the problems is sometimes using a chemical, you 

may go down with it, but they don’t care. 

Mr. VELA. Congressman, you mentioned a while ago something 

to the effect that a substance could take down a whole stadium. 

What are we talking about in terms of what size of—— 

Mr. SHAYS. We are talking about one shell, excuse me, that is 

maybe three times the size of this bottle of water could bring down 

a whole stadium if it was dispersed in a way; in other words, the 

people, it could destroy the lives of that many people. 

Mr. VELA. I guess I will pose this question to both of you: How 

would you assess the risks of chemical weapons being brought into 

this country? 

Mr. SHAYS. I think it is more likely than not. 

General SCALES. I agree with the Congressman. 

Mr. VELA. The reason I bring that up is that, of course, I, the 

City of Brownsville anchors my Congressional district. At our port 

of entry, the Brownsville Matamoros Bridge there is an X-ray machine that was installed in 2002, and by the admission of Customs 

and Border Patrol, its use life has expired in 2012. I see that as 

a big problem, and this being of such, these issues being of such 

significant National interest, it boggles my mind that we are allowing that to persist. 

I guess if I were going to pose a question about that, I would like 

to hear your thoughts in terms of what we need to do in terms of 

enhancing our security technology at our ports of entry. 

General SCALES. First of all, I think the best way to secure nuclear weapons I guess, as the Congressman says, is at the source, 

to take it out of the hands of the bad guys and do it quickly. 

We have a sense, Congressman, that this stuff is everywhere. 

But really, when you look at the facts of the case, it is really not. 

It is concentrated in a very few, in the bunkers of very few nations. 

So the target that we would address is small. But once you, once 

it gets out of a bunker or it gets out of a storage facility, it then 

just becomes a crystalline commodity that you could literally just 

put in your hip pocket, and to my knowledge, the X-ray machines 

and the sniffers that we have on the border where you are really 

have no ability to detect sarin. 

Mr. VELA. Thank you. 

Chairman MCCAUL. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Barletta, is recognized. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
49 

I want to thank you for calling this very important hearing and 

bring it back again to the purpose of what our committee is. 

But first, I want to point out that General Scales, the former 

commandant of the former Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is in my district, and the Army War College is a place where 

our country’s greatest military leaders provide their honest feedback about situations like this in Syria. 

General Scales, I want to thank you for your honesty today. 

General SCALES. Congressman, I would also like to mention that 

Professor Biddle is also a product of the Army War College, and so 

as I told you before, this is a National treasure, and in these difficult times, it is something that we, as a Nation, need to preserve. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Absolutely, in fact, in 2012, the War College did 

what they call an analytical war game where military leaders and 

interagency leaders come together and play out events just like 

this, and it is a truly a treasure for our country. 

Again, the focus of this committee is National security and keeping Americans safe. As a mayor, back in 2006, I stepped on the National stage for a time when I was dealing with a problem of illegal 

immigration. Hazleton, my home town, was 2,000 miles away from 

the nearest Southern Border. I talked then about the importance 

of and Washington’s failure of securing our borders. 

Well, now, I am on a bigger stage and I have a bigger microphone. So I am going to warn everyone again about the importance 

of securing our borders, especially when we are dealing with this 

issue of illegal immigration here. 

I toured the Southern Border down in San Diego, and I crawled 

down a hole; 80 feet into the ground was a tunnel that the drug 

cartel had dug 2,500 feet long from Mexico inside a warehouse in 

the United States. 

So as we talk about how we deal with illegal immigration I think 

this is very clear what we need to do is secure our borders first. 

Keep Americans safe. That is why we have immigration laws. You 

said something very profound today; you were taught keep the 

main thing the main thing. It is not that complicated. 

What I would like to ask you, General Scales, is: How real do you 

think the possibility, we know there is a significant presence of 

Hezbollah in Latin America. We know our borders are open. How 

real is the possibility of Iran engaging in a retaliation attack in the 

United States through its Hezbollah proxies in Latin America? 

General SCALES. Thank you so much for asking that question because as the Chairman of the committee knows, this is something 

that I have been obsessed with for many years. 

One of the problems with the immigration debate in Congress is 

that it mainly focuses on illegal immigrations and perhaps, as a 

secondary effect, the impact of narcotics crossing our borders. Both 

of those are very important, but what is missing in the debate, I 

believe, is that the fact that the largest Iranian embassy in the 

world is in Venezuela and that the fact that unregistered aliens, 

I believe, Mr. McCaul is the phrase we use now, are crossing the 

borders in tens and dozens virtually every day from many countries 

that are not in central and South America. So, if the border is porous—and as we spoke about earlier, a chemical like sarin is something that you could put in a hip flask and get across the border. 
50 

So the danger of border security goes beyond numbers of people 

and tons of narcotics. It is really fundamental to the essence of our 

ability to protect the Nation, particularly now that this horrible 

commodity, called sarin, has been loosed in the Middle East, and 

the bar against its use I would predict will continue to lower. Sir, 

you are spot-on. 

I will also suggest to you that the while the point of crossing 

might be Texas or Arizona or New Mexico, the point of impact 

could very well be Pennsylvania or Montana or New York, because 

once you are across the border, it is nothing more than an interState trip of a couple of days to put this horrible stuff right in the 

heartland. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Just one final quick question, do you trust Assad 

will turn over all of his chemical weapons? 

General SCALES. Absolutely not. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, General. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman now recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Horsford. 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thanks to you and the Ranking Member for this timely hearing. 

Following the events of 9/11, I remember listening to then-President Bush try to bring all of us as citizens together as Americans, 

not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans. 

Today, as President Obama gives an address to the Nation on 

whether to strike the Assad regime because of the use of chemical 

weapons, I hope that all of us as Members of Congress and citizens 

of the most powerful country on Earth will listen and act as Americans; not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. 

I have two questions. First, I want to follow up on something I 

think I heard earlier in the hearing on the need to support the 

President of the United States in order to allow him to have the 

leverage to bring forward a negotiated settlement in the long term 

and more immediately to get the offer by Syria to turn over their 

chemical weapons to the international community, which, after 

hearing all of what you have had to say, is the ultimate goal here. 

So my question is: Did I hear that correctly, and what should the 

Congress do in order to help the President have the strongest leverage possible to achieve that goal of eliminating chemical weapons and a negotiated settlement? 

Mr. SHAYS. I certainly feel that way, and let me just first say to 

you for the record, I believe any President has the right to use force 

and can’t wait for Congress sometimes to spend 2 weeks or 3 weeks 

to decide whether they want to authorize it. Then the President 

needs to come back later and defend it. So I am saying to you right 

now, this President has the right at this very moment to strike 

Syria if, as commander-in-chief, he believes he should. 

What I think is not helpful right now is trying to say, well, he 

blew it; he should have done this, or he should have done that. He 

is our President, and we need to help him gain some status and 

support in his efforts to negotiate with countries around the world. 

Frankly, if I were the President, I would go to the leadership on 

both sides and say, I would like to send delegations of Members of 

Congress to go to various countries to ask for their support to get 

these chemicals out of Syria. 
51 

Mr. HORSFORD. Thank you. 

The second question: Secretary Kerry has said recently in our 

briefings that chemical weapons have not been used on U.S. troops 

since World War I. So, as this hearing is talking about the implications for the homeland, obviously, our goal should be to ensure that 

our military men and women are never faced with the exposure of 

chemical weapons, let alone those of us broadly. 

So, General, will you respond to that? 

General SCALES. Sure. Choosing which weapon to use in warfare 

is always a trade-off between risk and reward. That is the reason 

we haven’t seen nuclear weapons used since Hiroshima, because for 

either side, if you do the calculus, there is simply no reward. 

To some extent, that applies to chemical weapons. Recall that, in 

1991, when the United States crossed the berm into Iraq, we clearly told the Iraqi leadership not to do it because the consequences 

would be unacceptable. Saddam Hussein, bad as he was, made a 

cold, calculated decision based on two facts. Fact No. 1 is if the soldiers are trained, prepared, equipped, and warned, the effect of 

these weapons on soldiers is minimal, and they were. Second, the 

payback for using chemical weapons against the United States 

would have been overwhelmingly destructive. 

The same with Hitler in World War II. He had invented sarin, 

or his people invented sarin. Hitler didn’t use it against other governments. He thought about using it at Normandy in 1944, and he 

thought better of it. Why? Because he thought we had sarin as 

well, and it was a calculated decision not to use it. 

So being strong in war and being unambiguous about what our 

reaction would be to the use of chemicals against us and to have 

soldiers that are trained, prepared, well-equipped, and warned is 

our greatest defense against these weapons. 

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to quickly jump in and say, we held a 

number of hearings on Gulf War illnesses, and we learned that our 

troops were exposed to defensive use of weapons and, by this sense, 

not offensive. We blew up ammunition depots that included chemicals and the plumes went and impacted a whole number. It just 

kind of points out the problem you have with having chemicals in 

a country. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman recognizes the gentleman 

from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentleman, thank you for being here. I want to begin, and if you 

will indulge me with some statements here and then I will get to 

a couple of questions. I just want to correct the record from my 

standpoint, having served in Iraq where sarin gas and VX was 

found when I was there, and I know it was found before I got 

there. So when we are talking about weapons of mass destruction, 

no, there was not a nuclear warhead on the end of an intercontinental ballistic missile on the pad when I got there, but we were 

talking about the very same thing that we are talking about today. 

When you go to the issue of trust and credibility regarding America or the President, I think it is not America’s trust or credibility; 

I don’t think that is questioned. I think it is the President’s, and 

arguably, in my opinion, he has brought that credibility and trust 

upon himself. 
52 

I mean, I think the American people look further back than Iraq 

and Afghanistan. They can look back to the Bay of Pigs under Kennedy. They can look back to Carter and Desert I, where George 

Bush—and Ronald Reagan in Granada, et cetera, et cetera, et 

cetera. I think it is appropriate when statements are made and, in 

some people’s opinion, capriciously, we are going to attack the target, then you publish the target list, then you back up and say we 

are going to go the Congress, that the President has blinked already. His credibility is on the line, not America’s. 

But I think it appropriate if this President is going to be the 

commander-in-chief in a war, and he would be, as he should be, 

that Americans weigh in based on his credibility and his prowess 

to prosecute such an action. I think he has diminished that in 

many people’s minds, which is why not only people in this building 

and this complex, but people around America are weighing in. It 

is a function of it. I am not saying it is the only part of it, but I 

am saying it is a function of their decision making. 

In the briefing that I received that many of you did, Syria has 

used this in some way, the regime, 11 times before, at least it is 

questionable 11 times before. So why did we wait to 12? That is 

a factor. 

This Russian deal is important, too, and it should be considered. 

But I would also say that, as we say in the Army, that no plan survives first contact, and there is going to be a price to pay for Russia’s involvement and they would desperately like to get more involved in the Middle East, in foreign affairs and world affairs and 

take the upper hand, and Americans, that not a position we feel 

comfortable with nor should we. 

So, with that, I just wanted to correct the record in that regard. 

Getting back to the issue at hand, my concern, as a product of the 

War College as well, is about a strategy. I asked Ambassador Ford 

in March what our strategy was once the red line was crossed, and 

I would argue with you that an answer of ‘‘I don’t want to go there’’ 

is not an appropriate response where this is concerned. We are 

here at this point, and so we have to make the best of it, and we 

want to support the President. 

But to General Scales or anybody on the panel here, wouldn’t 

sealing, so to speak, in some terms, the Syrian border be a part of 

some kind of a strategy arguing what we have already talked about 

about those chemical weapons coming out of Syria? They are in 

Syria. It is regrettable. We don’t like what is happening there. But 

isn’t it arguably better for the free world to have them contained 

within the borders of Syria as a strategy to consider? 

General SCALES. Wow, first of all, let me answer your first question. You know, Presidents always have the opportunity to say, 

‘‘no,’’ and sometimes saying no carries with it the expenditure of 

more gravitas and personal equity than saying, ‘‘yes.’’ As I have 

said before, my great hero is Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said, ‘‘no,’’ 

eight times in the middle of the Cold War and came out in 1960 

as one of our most revered Presidents. So that certainly is always 

an option, and it doesn’t necessarily reduce your credibility. 

To answer your question, I never thought of that. But I will say 

this: The Syrian border is far more porous than our own. You may 

recall during the Iraq war that the rat line, which ran from Da-
53 

mascus to Baghdad, ran down the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers, 

and it was an open highway. 

Perhaps, we could, but we would have to get the cooperation of 

countries like Iran and Iraq to stop this. Perhaps we could do it, 

but, boy, that would be an incredibly difficult task. 

But I take your point. I hadn’t really considered that, and I think 

it is excellent. 

Mr. SHAYS. Could I just make a quick comment? It is unfortunate we don’t have a status of force agreement with Iraq. But in 

my dealings with Turkey, they are so suspicious of everything, our 

airfield in Incirlik, they will hold us up, Members of Congress want 

to get out, they will hold us up 2 hours just to let us know they 

are the boss. I think it would be very difficult to get their cooperation. But, you know, it is worth trying. 

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, just one last question. Should we be 

more concerned as Americans talking about the border as Mr. 

Barletta did with a state-sponsored response in the way of potentially sarin gas coming out or VX or anything and being transported into our country, or individual organization responses, alNusra, al-Qaeda, associated affiliates? What is more likely? 

General SCALES. I think terrorist groups far more likely. 

Mr. SHAYS. Absolutely. 

Mr. PERRY. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAUL. The Chairman recognizes the gentlelady 

from New York, Ms. Clarke. 

Mr. SHAYS. We are impressed with her willingness to stay. 

Thank you. 

Ms. CLARKE. Well, let me thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member, and thank all of you. 

I have been trying to soak in as much information as I possibly 

can in the hopes of being able to decide the best, to the best of my 

ability. 

It is good to see you Congressman, welcome back. 

I want to focus on the domestic end, and I think it is important 

that we put what we have been talking about in context. I am concerned about vulnerabilities and the war footing of our Nation, and 

we haven’t discussed that as a Nation in a very, very long time. 

Most Americans seem to have a remote view to military and war, 

and in this case, I am concerned about how strong we are as a Nation, how resilient we are as a Nation in our ability to sort of stand 

up the type of operations that protect us from any type of retaliation. 

I mean, people are thinking about, you know, would Syria have 

the ability? I am concerned about lone wolves that are stimulated 

by the fact that we are now engaged in some sort of military activity. I am concerned about a lone wolf, along with a cyber attack. 

I am concerned about those types of things. I am concerned that 

we are in an era of sequestration right now. 

I am concerned about a weakened economy that is trying to 

bounce back and that seems to move in different directions, depending on which way the wind is blowing, right? So we do a military strike; the next thing you know the Dow is dropping. I am just 

wondering how much we are looking internally at our ability and 

our strength to withstand another military action of some sort. 
54 

So I want to ask, what confidence do you have that we as a Nation have the wherewithal to stand up a robust defense from America as Americans to back up what we are putting out there. This 

is not time for wolf tickets, right? We want to really show we have 

what it takes. That means all of us have to show that we have 

what it takes. Right now, we are in sequestration. So I would like 

to hear from you gentleman what you think about that. 

General SCALES. First of all, that is a superb question to ask as 

this hearing ends. One of the things that absolutely amazes me as 

a soldier and, of course, now as a citizen, is the amazing wisdom 

of the American people. 

You represent your constituents and you carry their voice into 

this House, and that is very admirable. But the thing I find so 

amazing is to listen to the newscasts and talk to Congressmen who 

interact with their constituents and sense the collective wisdom of 

the people. It is hard to sell an American a wolf ticket, to use your 

phrase, because they have to live from day to day, pay the bills, 

put the kids in school, earn a living, and all of that takes obviously 

primacy. 

But when something like this happens, as you suggest, the 

American people are very wise in weighing the options and coming 

up with an opinion. I believe that if the threat is real and systemic, 

if the American people feel in their soul that they are threatened 

by some exterior threat, then all the 24-hour news organizations, 

no matter how hard they try, will not change the collective opinion 

of the American people to act. I hope the people outside this country who are listening perhaps to this hearing will understand that. 

You can only push the American people so far. When they sense 

that they are threatened, I believe that they are ultimately going 

to do the right thing. 

Ms. CLARKE. So my question is, again, I don’t know how much 

100 ballistic missiles cost. What I do know is we have been cutting 

our budget tremendously as a Nation, and we put two wars on the 

credit card, which we are still trying to pay off. Where are we when 

we talk about a military strike? Again, I mean, listen, the atrocities 

are real. No one can look at what we have been given in terms of 

intelligence and say that this is not the most horrific incident that 

we have seen in the Middle East with a nation against its own people. However, there is a cost that we are talking about incurring. 

I want to get a sense of, are we going to have to cut budgets? Does 

this go back on the credit card? How do we reconcile it? 

I understand when American people feel threatened, we will go 

in the hole, but I don’t want to come back later and have my colleagues saying, now everyone starves until we pay this off. 

General SCALES. Well, the cost, to answer your question, will ultimately be north of a half a billion dollars. Each of these missiles 

is $1.5 million apiece presuming that we want to replace them in 

order to maintain our stockage. We have already fired 250 against 

Libya, so I think there are some ships out there with empty magazines. 

I absolutely agree with you. There is an old equation that power 

equals capability times will. If you reduce the will, the equation is 

that you that you reduce power. But if you reduce capability, you 

reduce it as well. It is multiplicating factor, rather than an additive 
55 

one. So if you reduce them both, then sometime in the future, to 

your point exactly, the total power that we can project as a Nation 

is going to be diminished in proportion, and it bothers me. 

Ms. CLARKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman MCCAUL. Let me thank the witnesses for your extraordinary testimony on the eve of a 9/11 and on the eve of a very important vote before the Congress. The news reports I have received 

just in the short time of this hearing indicate that that vote may 

be shifting toward a vote on a U.N. resolution. In a situation where 

I have said there is no good outcome, that may be the best that 

we can possibly hope for. 

With that, thank you for being here. The record will stay open 

for 10 days. This hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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