Video: Barack Obama 'gives himself wriggle room' over chemical weapons in Syria The relatively small number of deaths and casualties caused by their use gives the Obama administration one reason to avoid acting now, says The Telegraph's Foreign Affairs Correspondent Damien McElroy. We have a situation where the Syrian regime is presumed to have used chemical weapons but is not going to be tested, is not going to face consequences for doing so because no-one can prove that it did ultimately use it, no-one can say why they used those weapons and, ultimately, because not very many people died.