Addressing the situation in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has reportedly used chemical weapons on the country’s own people, President Barack Obama said Thursday to use such weapons on civilians “crosses another line in terms of international norms and laws.”
“That’s going to be a game changer,” Obama told reporters in the Oval Office, according to a White House pool report.
Obama then answered a question from a reporter, who asked about where weapons of mass destruction have been used in Syria.
“Knowing that there’s chemical weapons in Syria doesn’t tell us when they were used or how they were used,” Obama said, according to the report. “We ourselves will be putting a lot of resources on this…A line has been crossed when we were seeing tens of thousands killed by the regime.”
He added that Assad’s use of chemical weapons will “change my calculus.”
“For the Syrian Government to use chemical weapons on its people will change my calculus…This is not an on and off switch, it’s an on going challenge that all of us have to work with,” Obama said, as quoted by the pool report.
