Washington: President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that the international community's credibility is at stake in the debate over a military response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
His top advisers took the argument for action to the opposition-controlled House of Representatives, where the significant support seen in the Senate will be harder to find.
Asked about his past comments drawing a “red line” against the use of chemical weapons, Obama said that line had already been drawn by a chemical weapons treaty ratified by countries around the world.
“That wasn't something I made up,” he said. He spoke in Sweden before he attends a G-20 economic summit in Russia later this week.
With Obama in Europe, his top national security aides were facing public and private hearings at the Capitol to argue for Congress' authorization for strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
That's in retaliation for what the administration says was a deadly sarin gas attack by his forces outside Damascus last month.
