Sits down with the bbc to talk about his latest work in Washington A Sprawling tribute to those who fight for freedom. I am katty kay in washington Christian Fraser is in london. The pentagon says the intelligence is compelling it has identified planes and also the hangar in which it says the Syrian Government may be preparing another Chemical Attack. The white house said to President Assad he will pay a heavy price if the weapons are used. In april, a Sarin Gas Attack on the rebel held town of Khan Sheikhun killed at least 87 people, many of them were children. The attack was launched from this same base. Today the syrian president Bashar Al Assad denied any new preparations were under way. And perhaps in defiance of that us threat, he paid a visit to a russian airbase in the west of the country even climbing into the cockpit of this sukhoi fighter jet. Not the image of a man cowed by american threats. A short while ago the Us Ambassador to the un, nikki haley issued this statement about what the white house has learned. They have seen activities that are similarto they have seen activities that are similar to preparations of a chemical weapons attack, much like we saw in april. I believe the goal is at this point, notjust to send assad a message but to send russia and iran a message that if this happens again, we are putting you on notice, and my hope is that the president s warning will certainly get russia and iran to take a second look, and i hope it will caution assad we dont want to see innocent men, women and children hurt again. Mrtrump has had mr trump has had a conversation today with the french president , emmanuel macron, who apparently agreed tojoin the us in taking action against syria in the event of Chemical Attack. Joining us in the studio is general mark kimmitt who served as Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for george w bush. General kimmitt, what is the white house strategy here . Why have they issued this warning to the syrians . I think they have made it clear they will not accept another attack like there was on april four. This is a clear declaration from the United States that they are prepared to respond the way they did before. After the attack in april and the 59 tomahawks said, the criticism of the white house is that there was not a follow up strategy. Do you think there has been a more conference of strategy designed beyond just taking action against one Air Force Base . Frankly i dont think there has been an overall strategy for syria. From either the United States or its Coalition Partners such as the united kingdom. That has to be part of any solution. The solution cannot simply be military. It has to be diplomatic and im glad to see that the french have started pushing very ha rd to the french have started pushing very hard to try to put this back on the table. General kimmitt, President Trump obviously wants to look like he is the strong man on the world stage, and i suppose that upshot of this is you can head it off, but the flip side is that if they use these weapons you have to follow it through . We have already demonstrated we will follow through andi demonstrated we will follow through and i think the most encouraging news today is that President Assad denied he was preparing for a Chemical Attack and that demonstrates to me that President Trumps words have had deterrent effect, not only for Bashar Al Assad, but also his supporters in iraq and iran. The problem is, though, of course, if there was a second attack, the russians might not be as tolerant as they were lasting . That is a choice the russians have to make. Clearly they are the Puppet Masters behind Bashar Al Assad, as are the iranians. The only reason Bashar Al Assad is in power today is due to his support from those two countries, so they have to make a decision, to keep corrupt murderer in power, or move towards a diplomatic solution. The Military Situation has been getting more tense. We have seen russian and americanjets flying more tense. We have seen russian and american jets flying very close to each other, The Americans have downed a syrian planes. The russians did not like that. What other risks at the moment of some kind of miscalculation in syria . At the moment of some kind of miscalculation in syria . That is my greatest worry as well because the russians have turned off that channel. We had a Strong Communications channel between ourselves, the coalition nations, and the russians, to make sure there was not any kind of accidental shutdown, accidental problem, inside the ear, but that can only be done if they Deconstruction Channel remains open, so it is up to the russians in my mind to open to reopen the channel so that we do not have the skin of things youre suggesting. Thank you for coming in tojoin us. The interesting thing, katty, we are focusing a lot on mosul and the fire that is now underway in raqqa, but we dont talk in the media a lot about the endgame, what may, after raqqa. Is there any discussion of that . Yes, i think the general was right. There is not a political strategy here in the United States and nor is there with the coalition, post punk mac, if there is to be opposed assad. We seem to be in post assad if there is to be opposed assad. I spoke to a politician today and said there is 110 politician today and said there is no appetite for the United States to get more involved militarily in syria, either from democrats or republicans. The president , whilst issuing this threat on the chemical weapons level, is very aware that lack of engagement. Talking of that lack of engagement. Talking of that lack of engagement. Talking of that lack of support, republican senators are running away from their own plans to change American Health care. It looks like they are cancelling a vote on the bill this week and all republican senators have now been invited to the white house. The it is not popular, not with the voters, the health care industry, or even with the president , who said it is means, so the chances of fulfilling that Key Campaign Promise to immediately replace 0bamacare appears to be slipping away. We are joined by our North American reporter anthony zurcher. Things are moving very fast. We expected a vote on health care in the next couple of days and that is now changing. Exactly, and that is the bottom line. The votes were not there for the republicans to pass this. Remember, they needed 50 of the senators to get this over the finish line. We had heard from republican ce ntre line. We had heard from Republican Centre senators, moderates and conservatives with misgivings about the bill, some of them, such as Susan Collins of maine, who was pretty definitive in her opposition, and it looks more like they will not be able to pull it together so it has been delayed, consideration of, until after this 4th ofjuly recess, which begins on friday. Senators have gone back to their Home Districts for a week and they come back to dc for three weeks injuly then after that they are gone for all of august. During that july period they will have to talk about raising the debt ceiling, passing a budget, they have a very crowded legislative calendar, and this is just one more thing put on their plate. Anthony zurcher, thank you very much forjoining us. It will be odd, christian, watching the sight of 52 republican senators going down to the white house when they dont actually have something to vote about. Just before we heard about this vote being delayed, i discuss the Health Care Battle with republican congresswoman from tennessee, a big supporter of donald trumps, andi tennessee, a big supporter of donald trumps, and i asked her what she would tell her constituents who now face the prospect of losing their Health Care Insurance under this republican plan. The people of tennessee have already been hurt. You have to go back in and look at what the placement of the affordable ca re what the placement of the Affordable Care act in the marketplace did, and people in tennessee have seen their premiums go up by 176 , across the board, since the Affordable Care act we nt board, since the Affordable Care act went on the books. Congresswoman, you were a big supporter of President Trumps and he called this bill mean. I assume you would see that and the president is wrong . think on this the president and i would have a disagreement. When you see the increase in medicaid spending at 20 over the next ten years, i think that is generous dart mac any time you see. Generous dart mac any time you see. The president will say what he is going to say but i know that out he is going to say but i know that our goal has been to make health ca re our goal has been to make health care more affordable and more accessible. You seen medicaid spending rise 20 . Katty, i have to tell you, for some of the democrats, they wanted to visit100 , but they wa nt they wanted to visit100 , but they want a Single Payer System and the American People do not want a system. They want patient Centred Health care where they, the individual, can make those decisions with their physicians. Congresswoman, the public and have had seven years to come up with a plan to repeal the bill. They have been speaking about it for that long. Why is it that difficult for you . Why did you not have the plan ready to go . We had any part of that plan ready to go. Indeed, we had over 100 bills that were available. We had amended the Affordable Care act 54 times, and you get to a point where they Health Care Marketplace is imploding, so you do have to, in order to work within the budget, within the constraints, you have to go in and tweak the provisions you have to. They are the same provisions we have been talking about since we were at the president S Health Care summit back in 2010, so you have to adjust it so that if it is within the Budget Framework and, yes, it takes a long time. Congresswoman marsha blackburn, thank you forjoining us. Good to be with you. Thank you. That is the point that she made there, isnt it, katty, that if they cant get this through after seven years, seeing this would be the first thing they would do, this is what we want above all else, there are good to be huge political repercussions . Yes, and remember during the campaign this was the thing that would happen on the first day, replacing and repealing 0bamacare. President trump during the campaign sold himself as the Master Of The Art of the deal, he was the guy who would fix this, andi he was the guy who would fix this, and i think you said at one point during the campaign it would be relatively simple for him to fix this because he would be able to get republicans to do the deal in a way nobody else had got them to do it. I think we would call this the learning curve, that the president is realising health care is very complicated, that individual members have very conjugated political calculations, and frankly if he calls the bill mean, it probably doesnt win himself very many supporters because all of those senators no wavering on signing, they will think, who will have my back . Will the president have my back . Will the president have my back if i see numbers, or will he just call it mean again . Which doesnt help me. Health care. And 2018 is just around the doesnt help me. Health care. And 2018 isjust around the corner. Yes, it is complicated. The Nuclear Disaster site at chernobyl in ukraine is undergoing manual Radiation Checks after a wave of Cyber Attacks in the country hit its operating systems. The country appears to be the victim of a widespread hack thats spread through russia and europe. Government ministries, power companies, banks and airports all reporting major problems with their Computer Systems. And as we know by now so interconnected is the world that very often it quickly spreads elsewhere. We are now getting reports that Major Companies in the us, netherlands, france, norway and the uk are reporting that they have been affected. Lets im joined now by our security correspondent, gordon corera. I saw you in the corridor earlier furtively watching twitter to see where it was going. What do we know . Laughter every minute you are seeing new reports about it. This one particularly seems to be spreading fast. It started in the ukraine and at first looked like something pretty serious but pretty localised in ukraine, where energy, banks, systems to do with the metro and the airport, had been hit, but it looked like something within ukraine largely, but then quite largely we started to get reports further afield, the Big Russian Oil producing firm got hit, then we heard the Port Of Rotterdam was hit, and wpp, a large Global Advertising firm based in the uk, was hit, us pharmaceutical firm, firm based in the uk, was hit, us pharmaceuticalfirm, big firm based in the uk, was hit, us pharmaceutical firm, Big Companies getting hit, and it was moving pretty fast. It is not yet clear, you know, quite how far and how global it will go, but certainly the speed is worrying people. Global it will go, but certainly the speed is worrying peoplem global it will go, but certainly the speed is worrying people. It is surprising then, because when you talk about Big Companies, they usually a pretty Good Software systems that are being updated. What is the tricky thing about this . Is that this ransom were again where they demand payment . Exactly. So for people affected, their Computer Screen gets locked and they get a message saying we will not unlock and decrypt your data unless you pay and decrypt your data unless you pay a ransom. In this case, 300 in bitcoins into an account, bitcoins being the anonymous way of paying, supposedly. This is similar but not the same as the run somewhere attack about a month ago. This is similar but it actually looks in some ways faster and more upgraded. It is not yet clear, though, how much damage it will do, but i think we havent got a handle yet on how Many Companies and countries will be affected, and how much damage it will do to them. Whether they will be able to recover quickly. It is possible this could be more serious, but it is still early days. But, gordon, is there a risk that because some of these Cyber Attacks do seem to be contained, like you said not a huge amount of damage apparently from this one or the run somewhere attack last time either, is there a risk people start getting complacent or from the risk people start getting complacent orfrom the run risk people start getting complacent or from the run somewhere attack la st or from the run somewhere attack last time either. It depends really on your organisation and how dependent you are on your Computer Systems. Do you have the back ups to be able to deal with this. We saw in the uk in may when an number of nhs, National Health service, trusts were hit, and were having to cancel patient operations. That is a kind of real world consequences for a cyber attack, where they couldnt get the patient records in time for an operation and they could not schedule and properly, so you can see that when you start getting real world consequences, notjust that you cant use your Computer System for an hour or your website is down, that is the kind of thing which really affect companies and institutions, so i think it will depend on how serious this is and how many are hit, but i think is another company is hit it has an impact, see, you know, ceos and others saying, why did we get hit and others did not get hit . Sometimes it is because they have not invested enough in it security so those questions start to cascade through and around organisations, why some are getting hit and not others. Interesting. Gordon, for the moment, thank you. Christian, we are in the wrong business. We need to be in the wrong business. We need to be in the Cyber Security business yes, mass of money. Massive growth industry. If you type google and competition law into your browser this evening, you will see the American Tech Company has been hit with a record 2