On april 7th the regime [ inaudible ] disregard for international law. By using chemical weapons to murder women, children, and other innocents. We and our allies find these atrocities inexcusable. As our commanderinchief, the president has the authority under article two of the constitution to oous military force overseas, the United States has a vital interest in sear and specifically deterring the use and proliferation of chemical weapons. Last year in response to a chemical weapons attack against civilians and to signal the regime, to cease chemical weapons use, we targeted the military base from which the weapons were delivered. Earlier today President Trump directed the u. S. Military to conduct operations in continents with our allies to destroy the Syrian Regime chemical Weapons Research and development and production capability. Tonight france, the United Kingdom and the United States took Decisive Action to strike the Syrian Chemical Weapons infrastructure. Clearly the assad regime did not get the message last year. This time our allies and we have struck harder. Together we have sent a clear message to assad and his murderous lieutenants that they should not perpetrate another chemical weapons attack for which they will be held accountable. The 70 nations in the defeat Isis Coalition remain committed to defeating isis in syria. The strike tonight separately demonstrates International Resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstances in contravention of international law. I want to emphasizing the strikes are directing at the Syrian Regime and have gone to Great Lengths to avoid civilian and foreign casualties. But it is a time for all civilized nations to urgently unite and ending the Syrian Civil War by supporting the United Nations back geneva peace process. In accordance with the chemical weapons prohibiting the use of such weapons, we urge responsible nations to condemn the assad regime and join us in our firm resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used again. General dunn ford will provide a military update. Good evening. Im joined by our brigadier and marshall gafib parker. We have laid out the strike in syria and ill address it from the military dimension. At 9 00 p. M. , french and brit sh and u. S. Forces struck targets in syria in support of President Trumps objective to deterred the future use of chemical weapons. Our forced were integrated throughout the planning and execution of the operation. The targets that were struck and destroyed were specifically associated with the Syrian Regimes chemical weapons program. We also selected targets that would minimize the risk to innocent civilians. The first target was a Scientific Research center in the century for the research and Development Production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology. The second target was a chemical Weapons Storage Facility west of homs. We assess this is the primary location of sarin and precursor production equipment. The third target which was in the vicinity of the second target contained a chemical weapons equipment Storage Facility and an important command post. U. S. , british and french naval and air forces were involved in the operation. And for reasons of operational security, i wont be more specific this evening. Before we take questions. Would like ato dress how this strike will qualitatively and quantitatively different than 2017. Last year we conducted a strike on a single site. The focus was on the aircraft associated with the Syrian Chemical Weapons attack in april of 2017. This evening we conducted strikes with two allies on multiple sites that will result in a long term degradation ever syrian capability to research and develop and employ chemical and biological weapons. Important infrastructure was destroyed which will result in a setback for the Syrian Regime and lose years of research and development data, specialized equipment and expensive chemical weapons precursors. The strike was not only a strong message to the regime that their actions were inexcusable, but it also inflicted maximum damage without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians and with that the secretary and i would be glad to take your questions. Mr. Secretary, first of all, did the u. S. Suffer any losses initially and what more broadly, the president in his remarks said the u. S. And the allies are prepared to sustain this operation until in syria stop using chemical weapons and does that mean the u. S. And partners will continue military operations beyond this initial operation tonight . That will depend on mr. Assad, should he decide to use more chemical weapons in the future and of course the the powers that have signed the chemical weapons prohibition have ever reason to challenge assad should he choose to violate that but right now this is a onetime shot and i believe that it sent a very strong message to dissuade him to, to deter him from doing this. And u. S. Losses . Well brief on that in were not we want to give you a full brief in the morning. Right now we have no reports of losses. Mattis and dunn ford, thank you for. Have you seen any retaliation from the russians or iranians and how and how long do you think this operation could last . Is it a matter of hours or days or could it go longer than that . We did have some initial sush fas to air missile activity from the Syrian Regime and that is the only retaliatory action at this time and the nature of the operation, weve completed the targets that were assigned to the United StatesCentral Command. Those operations are complete. General dunford and secretary matt is, could you talk more about your concerns that you spre that you expressed earlier in the week about escalation. Were you able to talk to your russian counterparts and what are your concerns about escalation and to ask your british counterpart a question, i would like to know the sense of your government about whether the situation with the skripals and the russian involvement in that, how that russian involvement played a role in your decision to enter this coalition this evening. Let me address the last point first. Our attachay was kind enough to join us and they wont get out in front of the president and fair you have. So the National Messages will be provided from their capitols very soon. But with regard to the russian concerns, we specifically identified these targets to mitigate the risk of Russian Forces being involved and we used our normal deconfliction channels and those were active this week to work through the air space issue and so forth. We do not do any coordination with the russians on the strikes and nor did we prenotify them. Mr. Secretary, a couple of days ago you said you are still assessing the analysis on the suspected chemical weapon as tack, so at this point do you know the chemical, was it sarin or chlorine and what is your evidence it was delivered by the Syrian Regime . Say the last part what is your evidence it was delivered by the Syrian Regime . Are you quite clear i am confident the Syrian Regime conducted a chemical attack on innocent people in this last week, yes. Absolutely confident of it. And we have the intelligence level of confidence that we needed to conduct the attack. And as far as the actual chemical used, do you know what it was . Was it nerve agent, was it chlorine or do you have a sense of what it was . We are very much aware of one of the agents, there may have been more than one agent used. We are not clear on that yet. We know at least one chemical agent was used. I just want to clayfy on the deconfliction line, you notified the russian as head of time before the operation began what you were going to do and what targets to strike. Ill be clear, the only communications that took place specifically associated with this operation before the targets were struck was the normal deconfliction of the air space, the procedures that are in place for all operations in syria. General dunn foford he mentid that they engaged but syrian state is saying they shot down 13 missiles. I cant tell you the results. The time on target was about an hour ago and we came straight up here to give you the best information. And tomorrow morning well give you more detailed Operational Update and some of the details, but the details arent available right now. And the wave of air strikes is over. This wave of air strikes is over and that is why were out here speaking to you now. Secretary mattis, what you said about the legal basis for the strike. Could you talk more about that because in your testimony the other day it sounds like you were saying that this a potential strike would somehow be linked to self defense and that the presence of American Forces in syria. Could you say more about that. And also regarding whether or not there will be future action or additional strikes, you said that would depend on whether the Assad Government conducts future Chemical Attacks could you explain more about what would be the threshold for that because there were repeated Chemical Attacks between the april 2017 attack and today and would you consider a small scale chlorine attack sufficient to launch additional strikes . Right now i will tell you were in close consultation with our allies and we review all of the evidence all of the time. It is difficult as you know to get evidence out of syria. But right now we have no additional attacks planned. But as far as the Legal Authority under the article two of the constitution, we believe the president has ever reason to defend vital american interests and that is what he did here tonight under that authority. A couple of questions for general dunford what was the targeting for going after chemical facilities and how long did the Operation Take to plan, and for secretary matt is, last years strikes were described as proportional and moderate and how would you describe this years . And in contrast to that. We chose these particular targets to mitigate the risk of civilian casualties number one. We chose these targets because they were specifically associated with the chemical program, the Syrian Chemical Program and obviously when we take a look at target planning and so forth, we look at the location relative to other populated areas, Collateral Damage and proportionality. So these targets were carefully selected with proportionality and discrimination and being specifically associated with the chemical program. And any weapons or manned aircraft there were manned aircraft involved. I wont give you the details of the operation until tomorrow morning but well do that at that time. Last a question to secretary mattis. Up until yesterday, and im going to quote you here, you said i cannot tell you that we have evidence. So when did you become confident that a chemical attack happened and the second one yesterday. Yesterday. After you said that. Yes. And then second, you talked about targeting the chemical weapons infrastructure of al assad, if there were actually any chemical weapons or agents in those facilities that you targeted, i assume they would create Health Hazard in the region or no . We dont believe we did very close analysis as the chairman pointed out, we did everything we could in our intelligence assessment and our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. We are very much aware this is difficult to do in a situation like this. Especially when the poison gas that assad assured the world he had gotten rid of obviously still exists. So it is a challenging problem set and we have the right military officers dealing with it. So you could confirm there is no leak into the air of course not. Well do our best. General dunn ford when the service to air engaged did they become a target or other assets take out the targets . Im not aware of any response. Well gather overnight. As you could imagine, we try to leave the United StatesCentral Command alone because they are quite busy. Well through the night gather the operational detail and be back tomorrow morning to provide that to you. Last year you changed the force protection levels for the syrian troops and u. S. Troops that were in syria. There are 2000 u. S. Troops in syria. Have you changed course protection levels based on potential responses from russia. As you could imagine, the commander always takes prudent measures in an environment they are in tonight. So they did make adjustments. And just to be clear on c con the deconfliction you didnt tell the russians what the targets were that is absolutely correct. We used a normal deconfliction channels to deconflict the air space that we were using. We did not coordinate targets or any plans with the russians. What was the response, sir. That information was passed at the operational length from the combined Operational Center in qatar so i wasnt on the line but that kind of information is passed routinely every day and every night. So they may not have found anything unusual about that particular air space deconfliction. And [ inaudible ]. Could you talk about any ir in targets that you considered and why you may have not gone to them and could your colleagues explain exactly the sort of contribution youve made to the operation. Again, our allied officers are here out of respect for the fact that they were part of the mission from planning all the way through to the political decision taken and once their heads of state speak tomorrow, then that will be the initial statement from those capitals. But as far as any other targets, we looked at targets specifically designed to address the chemical weapons threat that we have seen manifested the whole world has watched in horror these weapons being used. Those were the only targets that we were examining for prosecution. Mr. Secretary and general, you mentioned three target areas struck. How can you be sure that from now on these are all of the target areas or all of the involved facilities for chemical weapons that the syrians have are using and do you believe that there are additional locations where they are producing such materials . That is a great question. We had a number of targets to select from. And again we did not select those that had a high risk of Collateral Damage in a high risk of civilian casualties and so the weapon area back to your earlier question, the weaponering was done to mitigate the risk of any chemicals in the facilities and mitigate the risk of civilian casualties. So were there other target rds th targets that we looked at, there were be with you chose these for the location and the layout. Secretary mattis, it seems like this strike tonight was pretty limited, not too dissimilar from last year. I know it was three targets this time instead of one but it seems more targeted and specific than what i think a lot of people were expecting. Can you walk us through your decision to to concern about escalation with russia and it affects your decision to keep this more targeted and moving from there how much assurance can you give us that this is going to do what the strike last year didnt do, which is basically to stop president assist president assad from nothing is certain in these matters but we used over double the norm of weapons this year than last year. It was done on targets that we believed were selected to hurt the chemical weapons program. We confined it to the chemical weapons type targets. We were not out to expand this, we were very proseiss and proportionate. But at the same time it was a heavy strike. Mr. Secretary, prior to the attack, how important was it to get the support from the allies not only from an intelligence point of view but also just from the countries themselves . It is always important that we act internationally in a unified way over something especially that is that is such an atrocity as this. That weve observed going on in syria. But i would also tell you that these allies the americans, the french, and the british, we have operated together through thick and thin, through good times and bad and this is a very, very well integrated team. Wherever we operate, we do so with complete trust in each other and the professionalism and more than that, the belief that one another will be there when the chips are down. So it is important and it is it is a statement about the level of trust between our nations. General, could you just let us know whether the syrians were able to hide the chemical weapons the last several days since there is so much talk about a probable strike and does that give them time to move these weapons off limits and then secretary mattis, to confirm earlier when you said you had information about one of the chemicals, but were all assuming that means chlorine. That you have information confirming chlorine but not necessarily sarin. Just to clarify that. For the first question, im not aware of any specific actions that the syrians took to move chemical weapons in last couple of days. Were very confident that chlorine was used. We are not ruling out sarin right now. General, i would like to follow up on the question about targets that you examined and then triage down to the three tonight. It sounds like you went after facilities ab n facilities and not the actual weapons to minimize the risk to civilians. In the targets that remain,