Syrian leader gives interview to PBS reporter, who says he suggested 'some kind of retaliation if a strike was made' 
 
 The Syrian president, Bashar Assad, has said there is no evidence he is responsible for the deadly gas attacks the US government claims left 1,429 people dead, including 426 children. 
 
 In an exclusive interview secured by Charlie Rose of PBS, Assad said: "There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people." 
 
 Assad refused to confirm or deny that he had chemical weapons but said if he did, they were under "centralized control". 
 
 The interview will air in its entirety on PBS on Monday night, as president Barack Obama is due to sit down with six television networks for recorded interviews and press his case for a targeted attack on Syria. 
 
 Rose said Assad "does accept some of the responsibility" for the attack. He said: "I asked that very question: 'Do you feel any remorse?' He said, 'Of course I do,' but it did not come in a way that was sort of deeply felt inside. It was much more of a calm recitation of anybody who's a leader of a country would feel terrible about what's happened to its citizens." 
 
 Rose said Assad "suggested that there would be, among people that are aligned with him, some kind of retaliation if a strike was made". Assad, however, "would not even talk about the nature of the response". 
 
 Rose said: "He had a message to the American people that it had not been a good experience for them to get involved in the Middle East in wars and conflicts … that the results had not been good." 
 
 Later on Sunday, US secretary of state John Kerry was reported to have dismissed Assad's claim there is no evidence he used chemical weapons against his own people, saying "the evidence speaks for itself". The remark was reported by a US reporter attending a photo session in London, as Kerry prepared to meet the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to discuss the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. 
 
 Earlier in the day, the White House asserted that "common sense" proved Assad's government was responsible for the chemical attacks in Syria as the US weighs military action. Chief of staff Denis McDonough told NBC's Meet The Press there was "no question in my mind" that Assad had ordered the 21 August attack, outside Damascus. 
 
 Obama will set out his case for a strike against Assad in a speech from the White House on Tuesday, amid signs that a majority in the House of Representatives are against intervention. 
 
 McDonough told CNN's State of the Union that the evidence available so far showed Assad was to blame. "The material was used in the eastern suburbs of Damascus, that have been controlled by the opposition for some time," he said. "It was delivered by rockets, rockets that we know the Assad regime has and we have no indication that the opposition has." 
 
 With video of the consequences of the attack, McDonough said all this added up to "a quite strong common sense test irrespective of the intelligence that suggests the regime carried this out". 
 
 McDonough said "nobody doubts the intelligence". "The question for Congress this week is what are the consequences for having done so," he said, on Meet The Press, adding that Congress's decision would be watched closely by Iran and Hezbollah. "This is an opportunity to be bold with the Iranians." he said. "To make sure they understand that they do not have greater freedom of action, they do not have greater operating space to pursue a nuclear weapon that would destabilize that entire region, threaten our friends and allies and ultimately threaten us." 
 
 The United Nations is currently investigating the 21 August attack. Speaking in Paris this weekend, secretary of state Kerry said said he planned to discuss whether to wait for the UN findings with Obama, adding that the president had not decided on the matter. 
 
 White House chief-of-staff Denis McDonough speaks to Bob Schieffer on CBS. Photograph: Chris Usher/AP 
 
 McDonough said: "Obviously we are interested in what the UN inspectors have to say." But he added that the UN is "not going to be able to tell us, because their mandate will not allow them to tell us, who is responsible for the attack … We are right now focused on Washington … the president ultimately is going to make this decision in consultation with Congress on our timeline as best suits our interests." 
 
 On ABC's This Week, McDonough said the US was considering a "targeted, consequential, limited attack against Assad forces and Assad capabilities so that he is deterred from carrying out these actions again. 
 
 "Here is what it is not. It is not boots on the ground. It is not an extended air campaign. It is not Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. This is a very concentrated, limited effort that we can carry out and that can underscore and secure our interests." 
 
 Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House homeland security committee, gave voice to Congressional opposition to strikes on Syria when he told Meet The Press: "The problem is I think lobbing a few Tomahawk missiles will not restore our credibility overseas. It's kind of a face-saving measure for the president after he drew the red line. 
 
 "Little wars start big wars and we have to remember that. Who are we supporting in this war? We are supporting a rebel faction, a rebel cause, that has now been infiltrated and hijacked by many al-Qaida factions." 
 
 McCaul said there was a risk that chemical weapons could end up in the hands of al-Qaida operatives after a US attack. McCaul said, "ironically", that Congress had been debating its next step in Syria on the eve of 9/11. 
 
 McCaul also said that while images of victims of the gas attacks were "horrific" and Assad was "a brutal dictator", "I don't want to see those images broadcast in the United States with American kids." ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Barack Obama: ''I have no interest in any kind of open-ended conflict in Syria'' 
 
 US President Barack Obama has said he has not yet decided on a plan for retaliatory action against Syria. 
 
 But he said he had concluded Syrian government forces were behind a recent chemical weapons attack near Damascus. 
 
 Speaking on US television, Mr Obama said the use of chemical weapons affected US national interests and that sending a "shot across the bows" could have a positive impact on Syria's war. 
 
 His comments follow a day of behind-the-scenes wrangling at the UN. 
 
 The UK had been pushing for permanent members of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution which would have authorised measures to protect civilians in Syria. 
 
 But Syrian ally Russia refused to agree to the resolution and the meeting produced no end to the diplomatic stalemate which has long characterised the UN position on Syria. 
 
 The US State Department criticised "Russian intransigence" and said it could not allow diplomatic paralysis to serve as a shield for the Syrian leadership. 
 
 Russia is sending an anti-submarine ship and a missile cruiser to the eastern Mediterranean. 
 
 The ships are being sent to strengthen the navy's presence in the area because of the "well-known situation" there, the Russian news agency Interfax has said. 
 
 But another news agency, RIA Novosti, quotes a senior naval command spokesman as saying that this is just a planned rotation, unconnected with Syria. 
 
 'Strong signal' 
 
 Critics have questioned what purpose a limited strike on Syria could serve, but Mr Obama told the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) it would send the government of Bashar al-Assad "a pretty strong signal that it better not [use chemical weapons] again". 
 
 The US has yet to produce the intelligence it says shows Mr Assad's government is guilty of using chemical weapons, and UN weapons inspectors are still investigating inside Syria. 
 
 The team has just begun a third day of on-site investigations, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for it to be "given time to do its job". He said the inspectors would finish their investigations and be out of the area by Saturday morning. 
 
 Syria denies using chemical weapons and blames opposition fighters for the attack near Damascus on 21 August, which reportedly killed hundreds of people. 
 
 If there was action it would be to send the Syrian regime a 'pretty strong signal' 
 
 It accused the West of "inventing" excuses to launch a strike. 
 
 In a sign of growing fears about an impending attack among Syrians, the Associated Press quoted Lebanese officials as saying at least 6,000 Syrians crossed into Lebanon in a 24-hour period through the main Masnaa crossing - compared to a normal daily tally of between 500 and 1,000 refugees. 
 
 "Isn't it enough, all the violence and fighting that we already have in the country, now America wants to bomb us, too?" one 45-year-old woman, entering Lebanon with her five children, told AP. 
 
 In Damascus senior military commanders are reportedly staying away from buildings thought likely to be targeted. You "could hear a pin drop" at one of them, a local resident said. 
 
 'Consequences' 
 
 President Obama told PBS that the US had "not yet made a decision, but the international norm against the use of chemical weapons needs to be kept in place, and hardly anyone disputes that chemical weapons were used in a large scale in Syria against civilian populations". 
 
 Military intervention is morally justified Anthony Luder, Safed, Israel 
 
 Intervening now in Syria would be a terrible mistake Demetrios Nicolaides, Limassol, Cyprus Global readers' voices on Syria 
 
 "We've looked at all the evidence, and we don't believe the opposition possessed chemical weapons of that sort," he said. 
 
 He added he had concluded that the Syrian government carried out the chemical weapons attack. 
 
 "There need to be international consequences, so we are consulting with our allies," he said. 
 
 There was "a prospect that chemical weapons could be directed at us - and we want to make sure that doesn't happen". 
 
 The BBC's David Willis in Washington says Mr Obama looked cautious and spoke in a measured way, and he was clearly concerned about getting Congress on board as well as the American public. 
 
 Opinion polls until now have shown very little interest among the US public in getting involved in the Syrian conflict. 
 
 In an open letter to the president, US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner demanded he explain "the intended effect of military strikes", and how he would prevent the intervention escalating, if he wanted to win public and congressional backing for action. 
 
 More than 110 members of Congress have signed a letter formally requesting that Mr Obama seek congressional approval for any action in Syria. 
 
 US officials are expected to give senior members of Congress a classified briefing on the evidence that the Syrian government carried out the alleged chemical attack on Thursday. 
 
 Models for possible intervention Iraq 1991: US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait 
 
 US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait Balkans 1990s: US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures" 
 
 US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures" Somalia 1992-93: UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out 
 
 UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out Libya 2011: France and UK sought UN Security Council authorisation for humanitarian operation in Benghazi in 2011. Russia and China abstained but did not veto resolution. Air offensive continued until fall of Gaddafi Syria crisis: Western military options Models for possible intervention Press apprehension as Syria tension builds Syria crisis: Where key countries stand 
 
 The US has said it will not take action alone - but one of its primary allies, the UK, has agreed to wait until UN inspectors report back before taking a parliamentary vote on potential action. 
 
 Russia rejected a UK push to try to agree a resolution on Syria among permanent UN Security Council members on Wednesday, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying the UN could not consider any draft resolution or proposed action in Syria before the UN weapons inspectors reported back. 
 
 The use of force without a sanction of the UN Security Council would be a "crude violation" of international law and "lead to the long-term destabilisation of the situation in the country and the region", Mr Lavrov has said. 
 
 UN 'moment' 
 
 The UK, US and France are continuing their discussions following the meeting of the five permanent members. 
 
 The UK will want to be seen to be exhausting every diplomatic avenue, says the BBC's Nick Bryant at the UN headquarters in New York. 
 
 For the UK, there needs to be a UN "moment" - despite the fact that UN action will likely again be blocked by Russia or China. 
 
 But even without UN backing the US and its allies have been clear that they see the military option still open to them, our correspondent says. 
 
 "This is the first use of chemical warfare in the 21st Century," said UK Foreign Secretary William Hague. "It has to be unacceptable... or we will confront even bigger war crimes in the future." 
 
 More than 100,000 people are estimated to have died since the conflict erupted in Syria in March 2011, and the conflict has produced at least 1.7 million refugees. 
 
 Forces which could be used against Syria:
– John Kerry said it. Joe Biden said it. But now the person who truly matters has said it: President Obama has concluded that Syria used chemical weapons, he tells PBS NewsHour. Obama, however, said he has not made a decision about a possible military strike. The president said it's clear that chemical weapons were used, and he said the US has ruled out the possibility that the rebels were responsible, as Bashar al-Assad's government claims. "We have concluded that the Syrian government, in fact, carried these out, and if that's so, then there need to be international consequences." The US is in consultation with its allies, he said, adding that "I have no interest in any kind of open-ended conflict on Syria." Pressed on what such a limited action would accomplish, Obama said it would send a "pretty strong signal" to the Assad regime that it must stop the chemical attacks. The bigger message to Assad? "You are not only breaking international norms and standards of decency, but you're also creating a situation where US national interests are affected."