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| First take: For Obama, Syria deal a win on substance if not style - USA TODAY Posted: 14 Sep 2013 09:17 AM PDT WASHINGTON — With the announcement on Saturday that the U.S. and Russia have reached an agreement on securing Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, the American threat of U.S. military action was effectively taken off the table. After more than two weeks of saber-rattling — and an unsuccessful effort by President Obama to win congressional and public support for a limited military strike — it was a last-minute diplomatic push led by the Russians that saved the day. But the Obama administration is wading into the deal — which will undoubtedly be scrutinized by a Congress that is distrustful of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad — with eyes wide open. "The international community expects the Assad regime to live up to its public commitments," Obama said in a statement Saturday afternoon. "While we have made important progress, much more work remains to be done." Secretary of State John Kerry was even more blunt about U.S. caution. "We have committed to a standard that says verify and verify," Kerry said at news conference in Geneva, where he and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, announced the framework of the agreement to secure and destroy the Syrian chemical weapons stockpile. In previous comments, Obama has made clear that trusting the Russians and Assad will not be easy. The president's relationship with Putin is famously tense, with the two sparring over Syria policy and Putin's decision to give temporary asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden after he leaked a treasure trove of classified information on U.S. intelligence surveillance practices. STORY: U.S., Russia reach agreement on Syria weapons READ: U.S.-Russia agreement on Syria chemical weapons And the Russian president didn't engender any American confidence when he penned a commentary in The New York Times earlier this week in which he slammed Obama for speaking of American exceptionalism in making his case for military action against Syria and made the dubious claim that the rebels were responsible for chemical attacks against it own people. "We are not just going to take Russia and Assad's word for it. We need to see concrete actions to demonstrate that Assad is serious about giving up his chemical weapons," Obama said in his weekly radio address that aired Saturday morning and was taped ahead of the deal being announced. Among the fine details of the deal, which was hatched out over three days by Kerry and Lavrov, are: Syria's chemical weapons stockpile must be removed or destroyed by 2014, international inspections will begin by November, and the Syrians will offer full disclosure of its arsenal within a week. The two sides also agreed that any potential violations by the Syrians would be taken to the United Nations Security Council — where the Russians have veto power — for response. That element of the deal allows both sides to claim that they stood their ground on potential use of force for further violations by the Assad regime. Putin said it was unrealistic for the Americans to call on Assad to hand over weapons when facing the threat of military action, while Obama has refused to cede his authority to take such action. If the framework is implemented, it would meet Obama's goals of taking away the Assad regime's ability to conduct another chemical attack. But the White House will have a harder time making its case that it truly held Assad responsible for carrying out the brutal Aug. 21 attack that killed 1,400 Syrian civilians on the outskirts of Damascus. Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that under the terms of agreement "Syria's willingness to follow through is very much an open question." The deal is far from perfect, and requires the administration to take a leap of faith in trusting the Syrians and Russians to keep their part of the deal. But for Obama, it offered the best way out of his unpopular call for military action. "Obama is a winner on this substantively, but the optics on this are bad," said Jim Walsh, an expert on international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's security studies program. "Syria doesn't get bombed, and Assad is happy about that. The Russians are winners because they look like they are birthing a diplomatic solution to what was going to be another war in the Middle East. "Obama is not going to get credit for this because of his critics at home, but on the substance it is a win," Walsh added. After the last two weeks, the White House will take it. |
| Hundreds of Colorado flooding victims stranded, awaiting rescue - Chicago Tribune Posted: 14 Sep 2013 09:07 AM PDT BOULDER, Colo.— More heavy rain is expected today in Colorado where rescue workers are battling to reach hundred of residents cut off by the worst floods in decades, which have killed at least four people and left many still unaccounted for. Search and rescue teams have used boats and helicopters to pull stranded residents to safety in areas where flash floods toppled buildings, washed out roads and inundated farmland. The flooding began overnight Wednesday. It was triggered by unusually heavy late-summer storms that soaked Colorado's biggest urban centers, from Fort Collins near the Wyoming border south through Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs. Boulder and a string of other towns along the Front Range of the Rockies north of Denver were especially hard hit as water poured down rain-soaked mountains and spilled through canyons that funneled the runoff into populated areas. Overnight, rescue workers took advantage of a break in the weather to reach residents still stranded in their homes by rampaging floodwaters that turned creeks into raging torrents that burst their banks. "Quite a bit of the water has receded in the city ... and rescue crews will work throughout the night," Ashlee Herring, a spokeswoman for the Boulder Office of Emergency Management said of the recovery effort. Clearer skies allowed the National Guard -- which has deployed more than 375 troops across the state -- to send out five helicopter crews, said National Guard officials.Helicopter crews are also performing reconnaissance, scouting out the damage, searching for those stranded in their homes or on their roofs and transporting them to safety, Prentup said. As of Friday night, National Guard air and ground crews had rescued more than 550 people, according to an official statement. But thousands more -- in towns including Lyons, Longmont and Jamestown -- still needed to be evacuated, officials said. Many of the air rescue missions targeted Jamestown, a town of fewer than 300 residents northwest of Boulder that was left isolated when flooding washed away sections of the primary access road, Boulder County Sheriff's Department Spokeswoman Cmdr. Heidi Prentup said. Those airlifted from Jamestown were being taken to the Boulder Municipal Airport, said National Guard public affairs officer Capt. Darin Overstreet. The National Weather Service in Boulder warned of scattered showers and thunderstorms later on Saturday and into Sunday that could trigger further flash flooding in the already drenched area. DISASTER Lyons, a town north of Boulder, was virtually cut off when floodwaters washed out U.S. Route 36, stranding residents without water and power for 48 hours. At least four people were killed, including a couple swept away in floodwaters after stopping their car northwest of Boulder. The man's body was recovered on Thursday and the woman had been missing and feared dead before her body was found on Friday. Also killed were a person whose body was found in a collapsed building near Jamestown, an evacuated enclave north of Boulder, and a man in Colorado Springs, about 100 miles to the south, officials said. On Friday, Governor John Hickenlooper declared a disaster emergency for 14 counties, reaching from the Wyoming border south to Colorado Springs. The declaration authorizes $6 million in funds to pay for flood response and recovery. In neighboring New Mexico, where floods forced the evacuation of hundreds of people in Eddy, Sierra and San Miguel counties, Governor Susana Martinez declared a state of disaster on Friday making funding available to state emergency officials for recovery efforts. The Boulder Office of Emergency Management listed 172 people as unaccounted for following the floods, stressing that while they were not yet considered missing or in danger, relatives and authorities had not been able to contact them. In rural Weld County, where the South Platte River has overflowed its banks and virtually cut the county in half, aerial TV footage showed large stretches of land covered in brown water on Friday. Many homes and farms were largely half-submerged. Weld County sheriff's spokesman Steve Reams said nearly every road in and around a cluster of towns that includes Greeley, Evans and Milliken had been closed by flooding, including bridges that were washed out. The flooding was the worst in the state since nearly 150 people were killed in Larimer County in 1976 by a flash flood along the Big Thompson Canyon. The size and scope of property losses remain unquantified, with county assessment teams unlikely to begin preliminary evaluations of the damage at least until early next week, once water has receded, said Micki Frost, spokeswoman for the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. Reuters, Matt Hamilton of the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report. |
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