Obama will give six interviews ahead of national address to get support for … – Daily Mail

By
Meghan Keneally

PUBLISHED:

10:59 EST, 8 September 2013

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UPDATED:

12:09 EST, 8 September 2013

Secretary of State John Kerry has said that the number of countries supporting an American missile strike on Syria in retaliation for their use of chemical weapons is now in ‘double digits’ but he will not reveal the list.

President Obama and his White House staff are focused on shoring up domestic support, however, as Congress is due to vote on the military action Tuesday.

The President will have a busy schedule on Monday since he has six television interviews lined up as he and his key aides work in overdrive to convince the American people that a strike is necessary.

On top of that, the President will make a national address on Tuesday ahead of the vote, but some feel that will be in vain.

‘Members of Congress represent the views of their constituents, and only a president can convince the public that military action is required. We only hope this isn’t coming too late to make the difference,’ House Speaker John Boehner’s spokesman, Brendan Buck, said to Fox News on Friday.

If the military action fails to pass in Congress, it will be a massive blow to his administration’s power and put the prospect of passing scheduled votes- like the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the debt ceiling and the protecting the national food stamp program that Republicans want to cut billions from- in jeopardy.

Two of the most outspoken politicians outside of the White House and President’ Obama’s cabinet have been Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican Senator- and possible 2016 presidential contender- Ted Cruz.

Mrs Feinstein was the one to ask the CIA to prepare a video of the atrocities so that she could show her fellow Senators the ‘hideous’ attack.

Senator Cruz used his appearance on ABC’s This Week to bring the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, which happened a year ago Wednesday.

‘One of the problems with all of the focus on Syria is it’s missing the ball from what we should be focused on, which is the grave threat from radical Islamic terrorism,’ he said.

Mr Obama’s six appearances on Monday will come after his chief of staff Denis McDonough made the round with five interviews of his own on Sunday morning.

One of the biggest concerns facing critics is that the missile attack aimed at military targets connected to Syrian government forces will inevitably lead to a greater U.S. presence in the area.

McDonough used his public appearances to tone down those expectations, ruling out American soldiers or peacekeeping forces.

‘Here is what it is not: It is not boots on the ground. It is not an extended air campaign. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. This is a very concerned, concentrated, limited effort that we can carry out and that can underscore and secure our interests,’ he said on ABC’s This Week.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power said that the time for action has come since all diplomatic options- including economic sanctions and the prospect of getting representatives from the Assad regime and the rebel forces to come to a peace talk- are no longer viable.

‘We have exhausted the alternatives,’ Ms Power said in a talk to the Center for American Progress according to ABC.

Costs of not taking targeted military action in #Syria are far greater than the risks of the limited but necessary measures POTUS outlined.

— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) September 7, 2013

Assad barely put a dent in his enormous CW stockpile, and the int’l community clearly hasn’t put a dent in his willingness to use them.

— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) September 7, 2013

If we don’t act we give green light to outrages that will threaten our security, haunt our conscience & force us to act down the line anyway

— Samantha Power (@AmbassadorPower) September 7, 2013

Secretary of State Kerry used his language skills to help win over the support of the French public.

France is the country that has been the most public with their support for a U.S. missile strike after the British parliament voted against aiding their longtime ally.

In his remarks, Mr Kerry used the moral argument against chemical weapons motivate listeners, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius followed suit.

‘You have to look at the images of these children in rows with the shrouds over them, not an injury, not a drop of blood? And they are there and they are sleeping forever,’ Mr Fabius said.

‘There’s a dictator who did it and is ready to start again. This concerns us, too. You can’t say that globalization is everywhere except for terrorism and chemical weapons.’

Though Kerry refuses to publicly reveal the  countries who have agreed to support U.S. action, he said that ‘a number’ of the Arab League nations whose representatives he spoke to in Paris are in favor of a ‘strong international response’.

‘What the United States is seeking – not alone but with others, an increasing number – is to enforce the standard with respect to the use of chemical weapons,’ Mr Kerry said.

‘We are not seeking to become engaged in or party to or take over Syria’s civil war.

‘All of us agreed, with not one dissenter, that Assad’s deplorable use of chemical weapons, which we know killed hundreds of innocent people, including at least 426 children, on this occasion, this one occasion, crosses an international, a global red line.’

While Kerry’s so-called ‘love letter’ to the French public where he talked about the two nation’s historic ties- in fluent French, no less- harped on the principles of the strike, Mr Obama is taking a more graphic approach when it comes to members of Congress.

The President has been urging all members of congress to watch a compilation of 13 videos that shows children and young adults lying dead on a makeshift hospital floor, convulsing, following the alleged August 21 chemical weapons attach outside of Damascus.

The video has been publicly viewable on the internet for days but it has since been verified by U.S. intelligence sources, making it one of the very few pieces of evidence proving the attack too place.

Critics have blasted the White House for choosing not to release any documents or concrete evidence that proves a connection between the attack and the Assad regime.

Some convincing clearly needs to be done as there are even members of the President’s own party who are still questioning the military strike.

‘I think the evidence that Assad has engaged in the barbaric use of chemical weapons is clear,’ Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement, but he went on to add that the nature of the military strikes and the intended goal is something that he hopes to learn more about because the details appear murky.

At the G20 Conference, 11 of the world’s biggest economies- including the UK, even though the voted against a military action- released a joint statement blaming and condemning Assad for the chemical weapons attack. Germany joined later, making the total a dozen co-signers.

One notable absence was that of Russia who are one of Syria’s strongest supporters.
Russia continues to stand by the Assad regime and claims that the August 21 attack was perpetrated by rebel forces and not the government.

American estimates of the death count are also significantly higher than international counterparts: the U.S. puts the death count at 1,429 people- 426 of which were children, while British intelligence put the number at 350 and French officials said they confirmed 281 fatalities.

The United Nations has not put out a singular number for the August 21 attack, but they believe that more than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian civil war more than two years ago.