COUNTDOWN

UN Team Leaves Syria

Paves way for U.S. strike.

A United Nations team tasked with investigating a possible chemical weapons attack that killed 1,429 people, has left Syria, clearing what looks to be the last hurdle before a U.S.-led strike. Washington officials say they don’t need to wait for the inquiry’s results because its intelligence assessment determined that the Syrian government was to blame for the attack. Although officials still say the president is weighing options, an attack seems inevitable. On Friday, the president laid out his case saying, “We cannot accept a world where women and children and innocent civilians are gassed on a terrible scale." The U.S. has five destroyers waiting in the Mediterranean for orders.