Has Assad Called America's Bluff?
Updated: 9:06pm UK, Sunday 25 August 2013
By Jason Farrell, Sky News Correspondent
Five days on, in what many believe it is now a pointless exercise, weapons inspectors will visit north east Damascus to try to establish what happened and who did it.
In the districts of Jobar and Zamalka they'll find a wasteland from intense fighting, but the explosions that turned suburbs to rubble are bizarrely irrelevant.
Wednesday's mass killer is unseen.
Evidence of sarin gas may have evaporated almost as quickly as it apparently suffocated men women and children, killing at least 100 people and possibly more than 1,000 according to rebel accounts.
Damascus is now offering a ceasefire in the area and will facilitate UN inspectors' access to the site and decide for themselves, but is President Bashar Assad simply calling President Barack Obama's bluff?
He knows the West has passively watched his civil war evolve over more than two years.
They stood by as he pounded towns and cities in a war that has cost more than 100,000 lives and caused more than a million children refugees.
If President Obama wanted to act why, in his interview with CNN on Friday, did he make no reference the "Red Line" that the use of chemical weapons supposedly crossed?
When the West suddenly became impatient at having their weapons inspectors stalled in a hotel, Mr Assad probably decided it was still a safe bet to keep them waiting.
From Mr Assad's viewpoint, if the US and its allies don't have the stomach to get involved, then a delay in finding conclusive evidence means there's nothing to force their hands.
Syria has bought itself five days to cover up the evidence and allegedly has tried to do so by pounding the area of the alleged attack.
Even if inspectors do find toxins on the site, the regime has spent the weekend providing an alternative scenario for who they belonged to.
State TV has shown journalists a stash of chemicals in underground rooms in the Damascus suburb of Jobar which they say belonged to the rebels.
Reporters also met a handful of government soldiers in hospital beds who claimed to be victims of a chemical attack.
It could all be pantomime but Russia, at least, is singing along.
The Russian foreign ministry drew parallels with Washington's 2003 intervention in Iraq following their accusations that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The ministry said: "We once again decisively urge (the United States) not to repeat the mistakes of the past and not to allow actions that go against international law."
A US Official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "If the Syrian government had nothing to hide and wanted to prove to the world that it had not used chemical weapons in this incident, it would have ceased its attacks on the area and granted immediate access to the UN five days ago."
Evidence may still be found, according to Toxicologist Alastair Hay.
He told Sky News: "The inspectors need to get as close as possible to the point of detonation. Here they may find evidence in soil samples. The most important thing is to find human tissue."
The inspectors have a sombre and difficult task ahead - but the options facing Western leaders are equally grim.
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