Trump National Security Team All Agreed on Syria Strike

On Wednesday afternoon, the National Security Council convened in the White House, with President Donald Trump in the chair, to discuss how the United States would respond to Bashar al-Assad. Just a couple of hours earlier, in a press conference in the Rose Garden, Trump had denounced in strong terms the Tuesday chemical-weapons attack by Assad on the Syrian strongman's own people. "I now have responsibility, and I will have that responsibility and carry it very proudly," the president said.

The Pentagon's plan, delivered by Defense Secretary (and former Central Command commander) James Mattis, at Wednesday's NSC meeting: a hellfire of Tomahawk missiles on the airfield where Assad's regime had launched the attack. If there was dissent among any on Trump's national security team, nobody spoke up. "Everybody agreed that this was the option that they liked," said an administration official with knowledge of the meeting.

So on Thursday morning, a number of national security officials went to work at the White House believing the strike was imminent. But only a small number of principals—President Trump, Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and national security advisor H.R. McMaster among them—had knowledge the strike would happen Thursday night.

A little more than 24 hours after Trump's NSC meeting, two U.S. Navy destroyers stationed in the Mediterranean launched 59 Tomahawk land attack missiles at Shayrat airbase, targeting "aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defense systems, and radars," according to a Pentagon statement. There appear to be no immediate casualties to either Syrian forces or those of Assad's ally, Russia.

"Russian forces were notified in advance of the strike using the established deconfliction line," said the Pentagon in its statement. "U.S. military planners took precautions to minimize risk to Russian or Syrian personnel located at the airfield."