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Syria and the Use of Chemical Weapons

And Member of Parliament for Blackburn.

The Prime Minister said a moment ago, within the hearing of the House, that one of the purposes of any action would be the “degrading” of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons capability. In a letter that General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent to Carl Levin, of the United States Congress, a couple of months ago, he spelt out that fully to do that would involve hundreds of ships and aircraft and thousands of ground troops, at a cost of $1 billion a month. Given that the Prime Minister is not proposing that, could he say what his objective would be in degrading the chemical weapons capability?