Cameron says world must not stand idly by on Syria’s ‘crimes’

Prime Minister David Cameron said the world should not stand idly by in the face of the “appalling scenes of death and suffering” caused by the poison gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians last Wednesday.

French president Francois Hollande said his country was “ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents”.

His vow last night followed an earlier declaration from US defence secretary Chuck Hagel that America is “ready to go” if the decision is made by President Barack Obama for a military strike.

The Arab League also threw its weight behind calls for punitive action yesterday, blaming the Syrian government for the atrocity.

President Bashar al-Assad’s regime blames rebels for the attack, which killed a reported 355 in a suburb of the capital Damascus.

Mr Cameron conceded there was never “100 per cent certainty” about who was responsible. But he added: “This regime has huge stocks of chemical weapons. We know they have used them on at least 10 occasions prior to this last widescale use.

“We know they have both the motive and the opportunity whereas the opposition does not have those things and the opposition’s chance of having used chemical weapons in our view is vanishingly small.”

He said any intervention was not about getting “sucked into” the conflict in Syria, adding: “It’s about the use of chemical weapons and making sure as a world we deter their use.”

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg described the “murder of innocent men, women and children” with chemical weapons as a “repugnant crime and a flagrant abuse of international law”.

“If we stand idly by we set a very dangerous precedent indeed, where brutal dictators, brutal rulers will feel that they can get away with using chemical weapons on a larger and larger scale in the future,” he added.

But he stressed any British action was not about trying to topple Assad or settle the conflict, which he said must be done through a political process, not an “open-ended” military intervention with “boots on the ground” as in Iraq.

“What is being considered are measures which are legal, proportionate and which are specific to discouraging and sending out a clear signal that the use of chemical weapons in this day and age is totally intolerable,” he said.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said his party would consider supporting international action, but only if it was legal, limited to deterring the use of chemical weapons and had clear and achievable goals.

“We’ll be scrutinising any action that is contemplated on that basis,” he said, adding: “The use of chemical weapons on innocent civilians is abhorrent and cannot be ignored.”

Syria’s foreign minister vowed his country will defend itself using “all means available” .

Anti-war campaigners will protest against military action outside Downing Street today, with a further demonstration on Saturday.

The Stop the War Coalition said: “Attacks on Afghanistan, Irag and Libya were all argued for on humanitarian grounds; they have all increased the levels of killing and misery for the ordinary people of those countries.”

Former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt said he was opposed to military intervention. He told the BBC: “Now, if the international community was of one voice on this and the UN Security Council was of one voice... That would be a different issue because the case then would be compelling and undoubtedly legal.”

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