Highlights: U.S. President Trump announces strikes on Syria
(Reuters) - The following are highlights from U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks on Friday announcing military strikes targeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons capabilities after a poison gas attack that killed at least 60 people last week.
- "A short time ago, I ordered the United States Armed Forces to launch precision strikes on targets associated with the chemical weapons capabilities of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. A combined operation with the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom is now underway. We thank them both."
- "The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread and use of chemical weapons. Establishing this deterrent is a vital national security interest of the United States."
- "The combined American, British and French response to these atrocities will integrate all instruments of our national power: military, economy and diplomatic. We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents."
- "Last Saturday, the Assad regime again deployed chemical weapons to slaughter innocent civilians, this time in the town of Douma near the Syrian capital of Damascus. This massacre was a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime."
- "These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead."
- "To Iran and to Russia, I ask, what kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?"
- "Russia must decide if it will continue down this dark path or if it will join with civilized nations as a force for stability and peace."
- "America does not seek an indefinite presence in Syria, under no circumstances."
- "We cannot purge the world of evil or act everywhere where there is tyranny." - "The United States will be a partner and a friend but the fate of the region lies in the hands of its own people."
(Reporting by Reuters' Washington Bureau; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
