“The intelligence linking Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to an alleged chemical weapons attack is no ‘slam dunk,’ with questions remaining about who actually controls some of Syria’s chemical weaponsstores and doubts about whether Assad himself ordered the strike, U.S. intelligence officials say. [..] An intercept of Syrian military officials discussing the strike was among low-level staff, with no direct evidence tying the attack back to an Assad insider or even a senior Syrian commander, the officials said. Another possibility that officials would hope to rule out: that stocks [..] were deployed by rebels in a callous and calculated attempt to draw the West into the war.”
