After gas attack, Trump says crisis in Syria ‘is now my responsibility’

One part of the Trump administration assailed Russia on Wednesday for protecting the Syrian government, saying that Moscow is callously ignoring civilian deaths in a chemical weapons attack.

"How many more children have to die before Russia cares?" U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said in New York, with representatives of the Syrian government and its Russian backers looking on.

But in Washington, President Donald Trump decried the attack as reprehensible while making no mention of Russia and its staunch diplomatic and military support of Syrian President Bashar Assad. He said the grinding Syrian conflict, now in its seventh year, "is my responsibility," but gave no specifics about how he would act.

The chemical weapons attack "crosses a lot of lines for me," he said.

Trump also repeated campaign-trail criticism of the Obama administration for threatening military action and then backing off.

"Yesterday, chemical attack – a chemical attack that was so horrific in Syria against innocent people, including women, small children, and even beautiful little babies," Trump said during a Rose Garden news conference. "Their deaths was an affront to humanity. These heinous actions by the Assad regime cannot be tolerated."

Haley led a special open session of the U.N. Security Council devoted to the chemical attack, which the United States has blamed on the Assad regime.

The session was requested by France and Britain, but the attack Tuesday in Idlib province poses a special challenge for the United States, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month. The Trump administration has recently backed away from the long-standing view that the Syrian leader must leave office, saying in recent statements that its primary interest is combating the Islamic State in Syria, and that although Assad is an obstacle to peace, he is not the focus of U.S. policy.

Russia's representative lamented what he called "clearly an ideological thrust" to the discussion at the Security Council.

Accusations of the Assad regime's involvement is "closely interwoven with the anti-Damascus campaign which hasn't yet reached the place it deserves on the landfill of history," Russian representative Sergey Kononuchenko said.

Syria's representative, Mounzer Moumzer, dismissed the accusation that his country was to blame, saying Damascus condemns the use of chemical weapons. "We don't have them. We never use them," he told the council.

Russian officials blamed Syrian rebels Wednesday for the chemical attack that killed scores of people, many of them women and children, and that has been widely attributed to the Syrian government.

The Russian claim – which rebel commanders and local activists denied – reflects attempts by Moscow to shield its ally after global condemnation for an attack that left victims gasping for breath and foaming at their mouths.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the symptoms bore all the hallmarks of a chemical attack, possibly involving a banned nerve agent. Syrian forces also have used chlorine-based weapons.

The U.N. ambassadors for Britain and France criticized Russia directly for protecting the Assad government at the expense of civilians, and called on Russia to support a new U.N. resolution condemning the Syrian government.

"History will judge all of us in how we respond to these unforgettable and unforgivable images of the innocent," British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. "How long are we going to sit here and pretend that actions in these chambers have no consequences?"

He said Russia and China squandered an opportunity to call out Syria when they vetoed a February effort to condemn smaller reported incidences of chemical weapons use.

The vetoes gave cover to Assad, Rycroft said, and the Syrian leader's response was to "humiliate" Russia with the attack this week. "This bears all the hallmarks of the Assad regime, and the use of chemical weapons is a war crime," he said.

French Ambassador Francois Delattre said the Security Council's credibility will be at stake if it again does not act, and he said Russia bears special responsibility as a sponsor of inconclusive peace talks between the Syrian government and rebel groups.

In the past, Syria's government and Russia have blamed Syrian rebel factions for attacks without offering any conclusive evidence.

Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi called the attack "shocking" but did not assign blame. He rebuked Rycroft for what he called a false narrative about Chinese motives in exercising its Security Council veto.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that at least 72 people were killed, making it the deadliest chemical assault since 2013, when the Syrian government dropped sarin on the Damascus suburbs, killing hundreds of people as they slept, and bringing the United States and Europe to the verge of military intervention.

Under Russian pressure, Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons and claimed it had eliminated its stockpiles.

"How many Idlibs will it take to finally move this issue?" Ukrainian Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko asked.