weapons. what type of personnel would be on-site? would you expect many casualties? would there be people in the facilities? probably not this time of day backup that s why the strikes come at night. not only is it the element of surprise it s a down cycle which is obvious. but you ll have very, very few people in the facilities. of course there will be folks that will be in the facilities. but that s why you choose them choose to strike at that time. the types of capability or or at least the individuals with certain capabilities there these are going to be very highly trained, very scientific, very a sharp guys. the folks that are running the research and development facilities have an ongoing mission. they re highly trained, highly educated. niece are the scientific types that are putting together everything that needs to be in place to ensure that the capability does not atrophy. new capabilities can be developed. so highly trained, probably very minimal in number during this p
we just experienced tonight. what could happen is they may set a series of other targets and go after those. clearly if there is a us eye of chemical weapons it makes sense for the president to reserve the right to go back and restrike targets and strike new targets. that would be a pretty normal thing to do in a situation like this. but i think the hope here is that this will not require that degree of escalation. i think it remains to be seen if there are some other indications that these strikes were not effective or if there are indications the syrians are going to either move chemical weapons and their precursor agents somewhere else or if they re going to use those weapons, then we could see more strikes coming in that report from jim sciutto will probably bear itself out. general, marks, the u.s. is going after the facilities where they process and store chemical
heard from everyone, if you read social media is wag the dog, the wag the dog. i can t determine that. maybe it s wag the puppy because you ve got france and britain on. but what do you think of that assessment. i think that trump had to do something, though, because of the red line. and once that chemical weapons event happened a week ago he was going to do something. you won say it s wag the dog. i don t think fully. but the comby refrmgss of today. comby is going to be everywhere next week including on cnn. it s getting donald trump going. you re getting his tweeting again, making crazy statements again. and the little bump bounces getting out of syria will fade. stick around everyone. when we come back, the political war between james comey and the president heating up. why the president went on a twitter tyrod about the former fisher director. . right, mom? righttt. safe driving bonus checks. only from allstate.
last year about 59 mitchells were fired. this time secretary mattis saying double the number of weapons used. trying to up the ante if you will in the efforts to curb the syrian regime chemical weapons program. ryan, stand by. sam kylely pl let s bring you .u.s. ambassador said in response to the u.s., the possessor ever the big ez artisanals chemical weapons has no moral right to blame other countries. has russia indicated any kind of response. reporter: not really not yet. it s early in the morning. and i think the russians will want to get do their own battle damage assessment as it s called to a assess the extent to which the syrian regime has been hit. and whether there s beenny collateral damage to russian facilities or indeed iranian facilities. but just to pick up the point there, the russian ambassador to washington, mr. anton ov the in
president trump announcing precision strikes tonight on syria s chemical weapons capabilities. back with me now major general james spider marks and colonel lateen. . the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said they identified target to mitigate the risk of russian forces being involved. how difficult would it have been to avoid hitting any russian on iranian personnel. well it would be very difficult. the russians insin eighted themselves into every military installation in syria. they are closely allied and aligned with the syrians. you find advisers down to the battalion level in most units. i know that general doneford said we didn t provide any other information over the deconflicten line but the russians new this was coming and they moved personnel around to make sure they weren t in harm s