Assad Taunts U.S. Over Iraq, Vietnam

Assad said intervention would bring "failure just like in all the previous wars they waged"

  • Share
  • Read Later

Syrian President Bashar Assad is deriding America’s past military debacles in Vietnam and Iraq, as he tries to fend off Western intervention in his country’s civil war.

Military intervention, Assad said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia, would bring “failure just like in all the previous wars they waged, starting with Vietnam and up to our days.”

Assad reiterated his denial that his forces had used chemical weapons, calling the accusation an “outrage against common sense” and said it was “not us but our enemies who are using chemical weapons.”

An Obama Administration official said there’s “very little doubt” that the Syrian government used chemical weapons in the attack last Wednesday, crossing what President Barack Obama last year called a “redline.” U.N. inspectors on their way to inspect the site of the attack drew sniper fire Monday and were momentarily forced to turn back.

[NYT]