Took so many lives. We are just about to receive a statement, a videotaped statement that the president made a short time ago. A few minutes ago from his Vacation Home in maralago where he had originally gathered to meet the leader of china. Lets listen. On tuesday, syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent. Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of god should ever suffer such horror. Tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. It is in this Vital National security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons. There can be no dispute that syria used banned chemical weapons violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the u. N. Security council. Years of previous attempts at changing assads behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically. As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilize threatening the United States and its allies. Tonight i call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end this slaughter and blood shed in syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types. We ask for gods wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed and we hope that as long as america stands for justice, then peace and harmony will in the end prevail. Good night and God Bless America and the entire world. Thank you. That was donald trump speaking from maralago. The president ordered the attack. Were told the impact time was 8 45 p. M. Eastern time u. S. Time. Targeting the air base which the president said was the launching pad for the attack which took place tuesday in syria last week which killed so many. The president has just said that theres no dispute that syria used banned chemical weapons. He also said that years of previous attempts at changing assads behavior have failed and he talked about this has continued to destabilize the country and led to the refugee crisis which has threatened the United States. We are joined by our complete military panel. General, if you would, youre at the board. If you could just kind of show us youre at the map of syria, explain a little bit of where this base is, where the attack took place and the significance from your vantage point. Absolutely. As you can see this is the air base as has been described already, but whats really significant is we know in the eastern med those ships launched the tomahawks. The tomahawks dont go from point a to point b in a straight line. They cant be shot down, but these tomahawks are at a low level after the deck. I would have to assess right now without getting any feedback from the pentagon in terms of the effects that were achieved, what we can assume is that each one of the tomahawks had a very good target that it went against. It was programmed appropriately and it struck the target. What needs to happen is what was the bomb damage, what does that runway look like. I think its fair to assume all of his fixed wing aircraft were probably already scrambled and in many cases we might be able to find those things in tehran right now. This is not like kentucky baseball one and done. This is the start of a series of operations. We will continue to maintain a very strong intelligence presence on top of this target. Well be able to roll more tomahawks and well be able to escalate and well be able to do additional operations in order to achieve the results were looking for which is number one politically weve done that and sent a strong message and to degrade and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction capability. We do not know if the Trump Administration does intend to have other strikes. For all we know its possible theyve decided this is sending a message they will say this has degraded enough and then wait and see what happens. Its possible there may be more, but at this point the administration is not saying. The administration is not saying a thing about these operations, but i can guarantee that this was not a plan that had a very finite amount of time. This is the start of what i would presume is a Larger Campaign that will have elements of power and other opportunities against other targets based on what we see next. Youre correct, nothing has been announced. Admiral, how much information does the u. S. Have about the location, the capabilities of syrias air force and weve seen obviously syrias air force drop barrel bombs which have killed large numbers of people and weve seen Chemical Attacks in years past, is there intelligence on the capabilities and the number of aircraft, the location of aircraft and how easy is it for syria to basically just move their aircraft to iran or to other places . Our intelligence on issues capabilities in syria isnt perfect as you might expect because we dont have a large presence there, but we do have significant overhead isr capabilities in terms of manned and Unmanned Aircraft and satellite imagery. Its not perfect, but it gives you a good sense and because we have been conducting operations against isis in syria, we have gained more knowledge and information context if you will about how the Syrian Air Force, Syrian Military supported by the russians are conducting their operations as well. I think we have a good idea. Obviously this attack never would have been launched and not conducted in the way it was if we didnt have good solid intelligence about what we were hitting and why we were hitting in this field and its direct link to the attack tells you a lot about the certainty level that they had. I think theres good enough intelligence and information to make a call like they made tonight and i agree with the colonel that this if youre trying to link it to the attack and as well degrade capabilities, this was a good target to go after. Colonel, to the generals point, if youre objective is more than just a message, but it is actually the elimination of syrias capabilities to launch a airal capabilities this is not enough. This is one air base. The Syrian Air Force has at ffi over the years because of lack of maintenance and parts. They did get some modernized aircraft from the russians, but not enough they would want to take on the United States. Theyre good at developing bo bombs. I would assume that the syrians have dispersed these aircraft. Dispersing aircraft to bare boned bases is easy and the syrians have a lot of strips that are not manned. Thats visible and you look at this target set, this air base, this is a fixed facility. We know whats that there. We cant move a lot of things there. They cant move buildings and large facilities and pol tanks. This is what the tomahawk was made for. It gets in there low level and hits these fixed facilities with no risk to an air crew. If this doesnt do it, if the syrians dont get the message, we ramp it up. Do we want to go down that road . Are we doing a military action or are we starting a war . General, this administration has the benefit of several years now of the u. S. Military having watched what is going on in syria and i assume a myriad of plans which maybe of some of them have been gathering dust, but have been gamed out for some amount of time in previous years about location of fighter jets, if option a is to eliminate the air capabilities, this is how theyre going to go about it. Ill tell you, there are no plans gathering dust in the p t pentagon. We maintain those plans and update them constantly. Thats always ongoing . Thats always ongoing. Different elements within the pentagon that have responsibility for different parts of the world will continue to update. Its on a schedule and thats the most ill tell you. As they get more information, especially as weve seen actions with special operators in that part of the world, we were somewhat blind when isis started operations in syria because we didnt have a lot of intelligence gathering capability, but thats improved over the last few years. Weve put a lot of satellites and manned aircraft to gather intelligence over syria in the last few years. We havent had a lot on the grouped, but weve gathered enough intelligence to put spotters on airfields. Its gotten better and that reinforces your planning capability. When somebody says whats our plan for something next week, they will get a bare based plan. It wont be refined. Thats Crisis Action planning, but theyll put a spin on it request quickly. Theres a lot of lights on determining whats going to happen next and what theyve accomplished tonight. I want to go back to barbara starr. Reporter we are getting more information. U. S. Defense officials are now saying they did inform the Russian Military before this strike took place. There is a standard mechanism between the u. S. Military and the Russian Military in the syria and iraq area of operations. They call it decon flix. They can call each other and try to stay out of each others way via communication lines. The u. S. Used that communication lines and contacted the russians according to a u. S. Defense official and told them what they were going to do and told them when they were going to do it. The logical question is did the russians move out of the way . Tonight the u. S. Will not speak about whether the russians took any action about that. They want moscow to discuss that in these early hours, but they did take care to inform the russians of what was going to happen. So it does appear that you could make the suspect owe sish there was Russian Military at that base. We are very shortly going to be show some images that the pentagon has showed to reporters and were going ready to make those available to our viewers. What they have is very interesting. They have a radar track on the day of the attack showing an aircraft radar track of the plane taking off, syrian planes taking off from this air base and they tracked them all the way to this area where they struck. We learned earlier today that the u. S. In fact had that kind of data, had the radar and had the heat signature of bombs dropping off those aircraft and they have early images of bomb Damage Assessment at the syrian airfield showing some cratering and damage. There is more to learn about what happened, but they do feel that they successfully struck the targets they were looking to strike at this location. All right. Well bring those images to you as quickly as possible. We have an update out of syria itself. Syrian state television is reporting u. S. Military aggression targets a military base in syria with multiple missiles. Well keep watching to see how they are reporting this as day breaks over there. Its about seven hours ahead. So its about 5 16 in the morning there. Senior edatoitor of the daily beast. We are learning little by little more details and we are expecting perhaps according to the reporting of jim acosta a briefing by administration personnel, possibly military personnel, about this operation. We heard the remarks made by President Trump just a short time ago. They were about two to three minutes long. Well play them again. I want to go to, in terms of what you are going to be looking for in the next several hours, any action like this has reactions. With so many actors on the ground theres a lot to watch in the next 24 hours. Were beginning to some reaction coming from some of the activists and opposition groups saying finally, america has finally done something. They are going to be expecting more, but this has initially generated a certain level of hope that maybe this is the beginning of america taking the plight of the Syrian People serio seriously. There are so many players on the ground. You have isis who wont lament the fact that the regime has been targeted. Its interesting for President Trump who has joined the campaign, weve seen president s who Campaign Just as george w. Bush did campaigning on wanting to stay focused on domestic issues, but who because they are the president of the United States do get drawn into global affairs. This is the First Military action under this president. Im wondering if you are kim jongun sitting in north korea tonight what does one read into this military action . I think a great deal will depend on what follows next because this is one action. Its one relatively small military action. Its intelligence and effective. It does send a signal, but military force is not primarily an instrument for emotional o outbursting or signaling something. Its not clear what the political strategy is. Is our goal now, is our political strategy that we want to defeat and oust the government of assad . If thats the case its going to be a tall order and its going to take a lot more strikes. Its going to take many many thousands of troops on the ground. If that isnt the game, what are we trying to achieve. Its unlikely this strike itself will alter the military balance to effect a political settlement. Theres an argument it can be made it will drag on the civil war. To just throw bombs in the middle of that, it will get peoples attention as you point out. It will get the country to support President Trump at a moment like this, but what have we actually achieved . Weve entered the most complicated civil war in the middle east, the most complicated civil war ive ever seen in my life and i dont think we know what our goal is. We do not have a great track record of predicting events in this region. Correct. The strategy Going Forward as far as i can tell theyre looking to pull russia away from iran. They want to detain and deter iran and syria and iraq. Donald trump best friend Vladimir Putin could be negotiated with to do this. What i found most interesting is if russian personnel were at this base that was struck and they were at the base 48 hours ago did the Russian Military know the regime was loading up the gas rockets . If that was the case putin is not only in behind assad, but hes saying have it. You have license to use gas in the country. All bets are off. Forget about trying to cleve him away. This is somebody who really is looking to test the United States. Barbara starr is joining us again. Reporter theres a number of late night briefings going on right now for reporters here at the pentagon. Thats why we keep coming back with these additional pieces of information. What we know and the point that michael was making is very key to this and very crucial. What we do now know is yes there were russians at the base. We dont know what their jobs were or what they were doing or their awareness yet of the syrian actions, but there were russians at the base and the u. S. Indeed had multiple conversations with the russians throughout the day we are told by a u. S. Defense official about what was going to happen and the approximate time. One of the reasons and probably the key reason for this is the u. S. Wanted to ensure that it wasnt going to be striking and killing russians. It wanted to keep this limited to those they felt at least initially were responsible for that incident. I think the point very much that we dont know the answer to is if there were russians at the base, we warned them to get out of the way and we warned them what was going to happen, but what did those russians know about what was going on, that we dont have an answer yet. Did the russians tell the syrians the base is going to be hit tonight and you better get your aircraft out and move them elsewhere . Reporter i think you can assume that u. S. Surveillance and other aircraft were overhead watching this and that would have been something that the russians would have known that the u. S. Satellites aircraft, surveillance aircraft, drones would be overhead keeping an eye on this area and would have possibly i dont know this for sure, would have possibly taken action if they say the syrians begin to move things around. I think the calculation for the u. S. Military was that they wanted to ensure this was a very limited strike and it did not involve the russians again. An effort not to widen any conflict here. Thats a critical piece. Reporter we are in very early hours. We dont have a lot of answers. I want to go to jim acosta. Reporter right now actually secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the National Security advisor, mcmaster, theyre briefing reporters and secretary of state making some pretty pointed remarks not only about Bashar Al Assads responsibility for what occurred a couple of days ago and the responsibility of the russian government on this. Tillerson said that assad has carried out Chemical Attacks on civilians including women and children and carried out attacks earlier this month talking about march 25th and 30th. We have a high level of confidence that the attacks were carried out by aircraft under the direction of Bashar Al Assads regime and high confidence that these attacks involved nerve gas. At least three attacks tillerson saying we have a high confidence of that. On russia, very interesting comments. Just a few moments ago from the secretary of state, this is a quote from the secretary of state to reporters just a few moments ago, clearly russia has failed in its responsibility to deliver on a commitment that was made back in 2013 that moscow agreed to to get rid of syrias chemical weapons. That agreement according to secretary of state was not held up by the russians saying that either russia has been complicit or russia has been incompetent in its ability to deliver. So the secreta