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U.S. preps for possible cruise
missile attack on Syrian gov't forces

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - CBS News
has learned that the Pentagon is making the initial preparations for a cruise
missile attack on Syrian government forces. We say "initial preparations"
because such an attack won't happen until the president gives the green light.
And it was clear during an interview on CNN Friday that he is not there
yet.

"If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country, without a U.N.
mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented," the president told
CNN, "then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it
-- 'do we have the coalition to make it work?' Those are considerations that we
have to take into account."

An attack on suburbs in Damascus suburbs has
left hundreds dead. Poison gas used is suspected.
/ CBS News

The
attack on the Damascus suburbs, which left hundreds dead this week, is looking
more and more like a poison gas was used. The United States warned Syria months
ago that using chemical weapons could provoke a U.S. response.

U.S.
detected activity at Syria chemical weapons sites before attack
Hundreds dead
in Syria after alleged chemical weapons attack
Syria opposition group claims
1,300 killed in chemical attack in Damascus suburbs

President Obama's
national security adviser, Susan Rice, sent out a Tweet on Friday, calling what
happened "an apparent CW (chemical weapons) attack." And the commander of U.S.
forces in the Mediterranean has ordered Navy warships to move closer to Syria to
be ready for a possible cruise missile strike.

U.S. warships are moving
closer to Syria for a possible cruise missile attack; but such an action has yet
to be approved by President Obama
/ CBS

Launching cruise missiles from
the sea would not risk any American lives. It would be a punitive strike
designed not to topple Syrian dictator Bashir Assad but to convince him he
cannot get away with using chemical weapons.

Watch a report on Syrian
activists gathering evidence to prove chemical attack:

Joint Chiefs
Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey is expected to present options for a strike at a
White House meeting on Saturday.

Potential targets include command
bunkers and launchers used to fire chemical weapons.

However, officials
stress President Obama, who until now has steadfastly resisted calls for
military intervention, has not made a decision.

U.S. intelligence
detected activity at known Syrian chemical weapons sites in the days before the
attack. At the time that did not appear out of the ordinary. But now it is part
of the circumstantial evidence pointing toward an attack.

The clearest
evidence would come from a team of U.N. experts already in Damascus to
investigate earlier, smaller scale incidents involving suspected chemical
weapons. So far they have not been allowed into the field. But with pictures
providing graphic evidence of mass casualties, even Russia -- long one of the
Assad regime's staunchest backers -- is calling for a U.N.
investigation.

Whatever an investigation finds, the president will also
have to consider what he would do next if he ordered a strike and Syria
continued to use chemical weapons.

Watch CBS News correspondent Holly
Williams' report on the Syrian victims in the aftermath of the Damascus suburbs
attack:

Meanwhile in Syria, two days after the alleged poison gas attack,
more disturbing video has emerged of the aftermath. From it comes horrific
scenes that show the dead and the dying -- many of them children.

One
young boy described struggling to breathe and then losing consciousness. When he
woke up in the hospital, he said, he could no longer see.

It's impossible
to verify how many people died. But in a crowded, makeshift morgue, so many of
the bodies were unidentified -- they were numbered.

Dr. Ghazwan Bwidany
is caring for survivors of the attack at a clinic in Damascus. On Friday, CBS
News spoke with him over the Internet. He said his mobile medical unit treated
900 people -- 70 of whom died.

"When you see these children," said
Bwidany, "dying in front of our eyes, this is a very terrible feeling. I can't
describe it."

Watch this video below of a Syrian mother saying goodbye to
her children who were killed after reported gas attack:

Dr. Bwidany said
some of the survivors have neurological problems, such as memory loss and
confusion, that he believes could only be caused by a nerve agent.

So if
this wasn't a chemical attack, what could it have been? "I don't know anything
else that could make these symptoms, with this large number of injured," he
said.

CBS News talked with a spokesman for the Syrian opposition Friday,
who said he was angry and frustrated with the international community. He
believes that if U.S. had delivered the arms it promised the opposition two
months ago, the deadly attack may not have happened.




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