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Picked out as the most likely targets for us to use. so not a -- more likely to be not a one-shot deal like it was in april but a couple of -- not a sustained attack but a couple of days' worth of attacks. >> colonel jack, one last question for you. and if you do not want to answer this question, you absolutely do not have to and you can just say good night. but i'm wondering when decisions like this are made, obviously this gas attack that these strikes are a response to happened last week. the president said early in the week that the missiles were coming, get ready russia. we've been expect...

Thank you. we're now going to go to moscow. nbc news foreign correspondent keir simmons is up in the middle of the night for us in moscow. keir, thank you very much for joining us tonight. these strikes have been announced by the president in conjunction with the uk and france. obviously assad's greatest allies in syria are iran and russia and the russia factor here cuts a lot of different directions. what can you tell us about the response tonight in moscow. >> reporter: well, it was interesting to hear you reporting athat syrian television say syrian air defenses are engaging i think you sai...

Including aircraft to safe locations and my guess one of the reasons we've waited is so that the russians would have an opportunity to move their stuff away. but probably air bases near damascus and helicopters in particular. >> when the president used the word "sustained" to talk about this response, did that say anything to you about the scope of this campaign or how long it might last? >> yeah, we've been talking about that for some time in discussions with other people who've been looking at it come to the same conclusion. you remember back in april when we launched the attacks with the 59...

United states not being drawn further into this conflict that involves russia and iran on the ground. we have heard that the administration has wanted a larger response to the attack last weekend than we saw in april 2017. april 2017 that was really meant to send a signal, send a message. look at the targets. they popped up on one syrian military air field. they popped it up, they hit some of the aircraft. it had an impact on the military but it was really short-lived. it was pretty cheap and pretty quick for them to rebuild that runway. they had other aircraft. and they were able to use russi...

Likely effects in every way. joining us now from the pentagon is courtney kuby, nbc news national security and military reporter. courtney, thank you very much for being with us. what can you tell us about the president's decision, the timing and what do we know about the scale of this effort? >> we know very little, as you mentioned, rachel. a couple of things that he mentioned were these are precision strikes on president bashar al assad's chemical infrastructure. we don't know exactly what that means yet. but he also mentioned that the u.s. and the british and the french, who he said were p...