Getting closer to military action?
U.S. forces are now ready to act on any order by President Barack Obama to strike Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday.
The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned within range of targets inside Syria, as well as U.S. warplanes in the region, Hagel said in an interview with BBC television during his visit to the southeast Asian nation of Brunei. [...]
Obama asked the Pentagon to give him "all options for all contingencies," Hagel said, and "we have done that."
"We are prepared. We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take," Hagel said.
Hagel also said he expects intelligence services will soon conclude that the Syrian government was responsible, an assessment that Secretary of State John Kerry all but made
yesterday.
6:44 AM PT: And NBC says strikes could come as early as two days from now.