(CNN) -- There is a "high probability" that Syria deployed chemical weapons in the ongoing civil war, but final verification is needed, the chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee told CNN on Tuesday.

"I have a high probability to believe that chemical weapons were used," Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "We need that final verification, but given everything we know over the last year and a half, I would come to the conclusion that they are either positioned for use, and ready to do that, or in fact have been used."

Rogers and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, struck ominous tones in an interview on CNN's "The Situation Room" about the possibility that Syria had crossed what President Barack Obama has said was a "red line" that could lead to the United States getting involved militarily in the conflict.

Rogers' statement comes as the specter of chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian civil war emerged Tuesday, with the government and rebels each blaming the other for using such munitions.

In remarks earlier Tuesday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told Jake Tapper on CNN's "The Lead" that the president takes the issue of chemical weapons in Syria "very, very seriously."

If reports of chemical warfare are substantiated, McDonough told CNN, "this is a game changer, and we'll act accordingly."
Intelligence Committee members received the same briefing given to the White House, Feinstein said.

Reports of Syrian jet fire into Lebanon called 'significant escalation'

"The White House has to make some decision in this. I think the days are becoming more desperate. The regime is more desperate," Feinstein said in the interview. "We know where the chemical weapons are. It's not a secret that they are there, and I think the probabilities are very high that we're going into some very dark times."

Feinstein and Rogers stressed that a final verification is needed.

CNN national security contributor and former homeland security adviser Fran Townsend said the United States should be able to get verification in "pretty short order."

If the U.S. and its allies decide to act militarily, ground troops will be needed to secure known sites, she said.

The embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad accused rebels of a deadly chemical weapons missile attack

At least 25 people died and more than 110 others were injured Tuesday in the town of Khan al-Asal in Aleppo province, Syrian state media said, quoting government figures. Rebels rebuffed the claims and blamed the government.

The town of Ateibeh, in eastern Damascus, endured "fierce shelling with chemical rockets," an opposition group said. An unknown number of casualties were reported.

These claims come amid pressure in the West to arm rebels, long overmatched by the Syrian military and its allies. The United States and other world powers have worried that Syria would consider using its chemical weaponry arsenal against fighters trying to topple the al-Assad government. And there is concern that jihadists who are fighting on the side of the opposition could get their hands on chemical weaponry.

The civil war -- which began two years ago after a government crackdown on Syrian protesters -- has left around 70,000 people dead, the United Nations said, and uprooted more than 1 million people.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said the missile in Aleppo province was launched from inside Syria, but the launcher came from another country.

"Whoever paid for this weapon in Qatar or any other country and whoever brought this weapon to be used in Syria must be held accountable, whoever they are, a king or a prince, a president or a minister," he said. "Whoever made this decision in the last Arab League meeting is responsible for the mass killing and the use of weapons of destruction."

Jamal al Ward, head of the military office of the Syrian Coalition, said the opposition has "no chemical substances and no mechanism for producing" such weapons.

"The regime has these weapons and everyone knows where they keep them. They have missiles and factories where they make missiles with chemicals. They are the ones capable of using this stuff all over Syria," he said.

Added Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, head of the Syrian National Coalition: "First, the Syrian regime lies most of the time.... We are against any use of any chemical weapons from any side."

Syrian rebels accused the government of firing a rocket at a police school west of Aleppo, but the rocket landed in the wrong area, striking an area under control by government forces.

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, which reported that most of those killed were civilians, showed photos of people being treated in hospitals on its website.

But Louay Almokdad, political and media coordinator for the Free Syrian Army, told CNN that the rebels lack access to chemical weapons and surface-to-surface missiles. He confirmed injuries in an attack in the town, but said it was carried out with a missile possessed only by the government.

"The area that was targeted is under rebels' control, so it is quite absurd that the regime would accuse us of attacking our own people," he said.

"The Assad regime possesses chemical agents and they already used weapons of mass destruction against its own people, so we do expect the worse from this brutal psychopathic regime," he said.

An activist Facebook page said the location was between rebel-held and regime-held territory, and it appeared that the blast hit mostly Syrian soldiers and some civilians in a regime-held area.

As for Ateibeh, the shelling caused deaths and many injuries, "including suffocating and nausea cases and headache, vomiting and hysteria cases," the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.

There was no immediate government comment about Ateibeh.

Reports of Syrian jet fire into Lebanon called 'significant'

International reaction: Shock, concern, skepticism

The international community is looking into the reports. The Russian Foreign Ministry, citing information from Damascus, said chemical weapons were used by the armed opposition, causing deaths and injuries.

"We believe the new incident is an extremely alarming and dangerous development in the Syrian crisis," the Russian ministry said. "Russia is seriously concerned about the fact of (weapons of mass destruction) coming into the hands of militants, which makes the situation in Syria even worse and brings the confrontation in the country to a new level."

The Obama administration is carefully investigating the reports, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Carney said determining what happened is a top priority.

"There will be consequences, and they will be held accountable," Carney said, passing along the president's comment.

"We also consider a red line the proliferation of chemical weapons to other actors by the regime," he added.

Obama will be discussing the Syrian crisis during his visit this week to the Middle East, where it will be a topic of conservation with Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders.

The British Foreign Office is also checking on the reports.

"The use of chemical weapons would be abhorrent and universally condemned. The UK is clear that the use or proliferation of chemical weapons would demand a serious response from the international community and force us to revisit our approach so far," a spokesman said.

Two senior U.S. officials said they don't believe the rebels used chemical weapons and suggested the government itself may have manufactured the incident to preserve the ability to use them in the future.

"The regime is using (the claims) as a pretext for their own possible use," one of the officials said. "The opposition has no such weapons."

The officials said they could not confirm a rebel claim that the regime used some type of agent on its own people in order to blame the rebels but could not rule it out. Officials pointed to previous claims that chemical weapons were used, which, after extensive investigation, were unsubstantiated.

The Syrian Foreign and Expatriates Ministry sent two letters Tuesday to the United Nations warning of the dangers of chemical weapons getting into the hands of al Qaeda-linked opposition groups.

The Syrian government did not use chemical weapons against residents of Homs in a December attack, a U.S. State Department investigation showed but did apparently misuse a riot-control gas in the incident, according to senior U.S. officials.

The investigation stemmed from allegations inside Syria about the use of chemical weapons during the attack on the city of Homs on December 23. The officials said the State Department launched a probe from its consulate in Istanbul after doctors and activists reported dozens of victims suffering from nervous system, respiratory and gastrointestinal ailments after inhaling the gas.

Military analysts believe the Syrian government may have one of the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world. Specifically, the supply could include sarin, mustard and VX gases.

Surrounded by children, Syria's first lady makes rare appearance

Arming the rebels

Dissidents inside and outside Syria have called for the United States to take a greater role in helping Syrian rebels, including supplying arms.

So far, the Obama administration has donated nonlethal and humanitarian aid.

But Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would not stand in the way of its allies' arming Syrian rebels.

Kerry acknowledged the need to change the military "imbalance" on the ground in order to change al-Assad's "calculus."

"Right now, President Assad is receiving help from the Iranians, he's receiving help from al Qaeda-related, some elements, he's receiving help from Hezbollah, and obviously some help is coming in through the Russians," Kerry said. "If he believes he can shoot it out, Syrians and the region have a problem and the world has a problem."

Members of the rebel Free Syrian Army have said they've received shipments from some countries and seized and purchased weapons from government troops. But al-Assad's forces have heavy weaponry and warplanes.

Last week, the French foreign minister said he wanted to lift a European Union arms embargo and start arming rebels.

"We must go ahead and allow the Syrian people to defend themselves against this bloodthirsty regime. It's our responsibility to help the (opposition) Syrian National Coalition, its leaders and the Free Syrian Army by all the possible means," Laurent Fabius wrote in an op-ed for the French newspaper Liberation.

"If not, the slaughter will continue, and there will not be any other possible outcome but to strengthen the most extreme groups and the collapse of Syria with devastating consequences for the country itself and the region."

In February, the European Union renewed its arms embargo on Syria for three months -- but amended it to allow greater nonlethal support and technical assistance to help protect civilians.

The latest EU arms embargo is set to expire in May. Member countries could renew it, add amendments or veto it.

A new opposition leader

A Syrian opposition alliance elected Ghassan Hitto, an information technology executive and U.S.-educated Kurdish businessman, to lead its provisional government.

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces made the announcement Tuesday.

The contingent government's formation should assuage concerns from the West -- particularly the United States -- about who would lead Syria should al-Assad be deposed, the Syrian American Council said.

"This question has now been answered," the group said.

For two years, the lack of a clear alternative to al-Assad's government has hampered the opposition's efforts in gaining more international support. Some say the absence of an alternative leader has helped prolong the bloodshed.

It didn't take long for Hitto to declare what many in the opposition have said: "There will be no dialogue with the Assad regime."

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
Honestly, whatever. Chemical weapons or no chemical weapons, let them duke it out. I've had it with the Middle East. As a veteran of the Iraq War, I have seen the kind of tribal and sectarian hate these people hold for each other. I spent four years of my life in Iraq, and I say let them kill each other as much as they want. This is civil war and picking sides in this crisis isn't siding with the good guys, it's siding with a murderous bunch of fanatics that are fighting it out with another bunch of murderous fanatics.

Arabs, Muslims, Persians, Kurds, etc are not savages, but there governments, religious movements, and leaders certainly are dominated by them. No one short of the people in those countries is going to change that. Until the people in those countries stand up to the extremists in their own movements, we should remain watchfully disengaged. Let them sort it out.

I know this comes across as a cold response, which is not my intent. I honestly wish the fighting would stop and that the innocent parties could return to their normal lives. I don't want the innocent to die, but sticking our nose in this business is fraught with peril. It will be interesting to see how the EU and US respond to this possible escalation of the conflict.

On a more political note, it will be interesting if Obama and the Democrats push for intervention since it will seemingly invalidate their positions on Iraq and possibly alienate them to the peace movement left in this country.

 sebster wrote:
Thing is, there are moderates in the country. They're even fighting. It's just they're just nowhere near as well armed as the nutters (because the nutters are getting armed by Iran etc). That was the initial reason those spec ops troops went in, to talk to those groups and sound out who were the groups it was okay to arm. Same as Libya basically.

The next question is whether, like Libya, it gets decided that there's something to be achieved from direct air sorties.

Actual US troops on the ground is very unlikely at this stage. Think of how long the Balkan thing went with planes flying overhead doing their thing, and all the while we had clear proof of atrocities (even direct peacekeeper observation of such), but no troops on the ground.

Sgt_Scruffy wrote:
Honestly, whatever. Chemical weapons or no chemical weapons, let them duke it out. I've had it with the Middle East. As a veteran of the Iraq War, I have seen the kind of tribal and sectarian hate these people hold for each other. I spent four years of my life in Iraq, and I say let them kill each other as much as they want. This is civil war and picking sides in this crisis isn't siding with the good guys, it's siding with a murderous bunch of fanatics that are fighting it out with another bunch of murderous fanatics.

Arabs, Muslims, Persians, Kurds, etc are not savages, but there governments, religious movements, and leaders certainly are dominated by them. No one short of the people in those countries is going to change that. Until the people in those countries stand up to the extremists in their own movements, we should remain watchfully disengaged. Let them sort it out.

I know this comes across as a cold response, which is not my intent. I honestly wish the fighting would stop and that the innocent parties could return to their normal lives. I don't want the innocent to die, but sticking our nose in this business is fraught with peril. It will be interesting to see how the EU and US respond to this possible escalation of the conflict.

On a more political note, it will be interesting if Obama and the Democrats push for intervention since it will seemingly invalidate their positions on Iraq and possibly alienate them to the peace movement left in this country.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
I feel sorry for the innocent people in Syria and hope they don't get hurt, but...

I hope the UK doesn't get involved, which is highly unlikely as Cameron and Clegg would love nothing more than a distraction from the wretched domestic situation.

The last time British troops were in Syria, they were trying to stop ze Germans from taking over the place from Vichy France. Over the last 200+ years, we've fought everybody in the middle east from Jewish settlers to Germans, Dervishes to Arab nationalists. Half the problems in the middle east are due to individuals drawing lines on a map in some London office.
It's high time we minded our own business.
I'm sorry to say this to American posters, but you guys have a $600 billion dollar defence budget and a marine corps of 100,000+ marines, which is bigger than the British army. Feel free to sort it out without us.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
I swear we've heard this line before....

Any way, we should stay out of Syria, I'm sick of burying my buddies for useless crap for people that don't care.

Syrian rebels and the government have accused each other of firing chemical weapons, reportedly killing at least 25 people in the north of the country.

A Syrian minister said it was a "dangerous escalation" and the "first act" of a new rebel authority.

However, both a chemical weapons monitoring body and the US said there was no evidence they had been used.

Both sides say the attack happened in the Khan al-Assal region north of the second city, Aleppo.

The US says it is looking carefully at the allegations, while Russia has backed the Syrian government's claims.
If confirmed, it would be the first time chemical weapons have been used in the two-year Syrian conflict.

"Terrorists launched a missile containing chemical products into the region of Khan al-Assal in the province of Aleppo, killing 15 people, mainly civilians," Sana news agency said.

The government routinely refers to rebels as "terrorists".

State TV later said 25 people had died, while the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the figure at 26, including 16 soldiers.

Senior rebel and spokesman for the Higher Military Council in Aleppo Qassim Saadeddine said the government had carried out a chemical attack.

"We were hearing reports from early this morning about a regime attack on Khan al-Assal, and we believe they fired a Scud with chemical agents," he told Reuters news agency.

"Then suddenly we learned that the regime was turning these reports against us. The rebels were not behind this attack."

The Aleppo Media Centre, which is affiliated to the rebels, said there had been cases of "suffocation and poison'' among civilians in Khan al-Assal after a surface-to-surface missile was fired at the area.

It said this was "most likely" due to use of "poisonous gases" by government forces.

'Consequences'
Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said it was trying "to identify the symptoms which may be detected" in order to make an assessment.

He said he had no more information than what was in the media, Reuters reports.


White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US had "no evidence to substantiate" the allegation that chemical weapons had been used.

He repeated President Barack Obama's warning that any such use would bring "consequences" without being more specific.

Syria's Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi said that Turkey and Qatar, both of which support Syria's uprising, bore "legal, moral and political responsibility" for the attack, state TV reported.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly denied any links to the alleged use of chemical weapons.

"Turkey has never used chemical weapons and we do not have chemical weapons in our inventory. This is an activity that befits Syria only," the state-funded Anatolia news agency quotes him as saying.

"Syria has attacked and continues attacking its people with chemical weapons," he said.

'No dialogue'
Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said it was "very seriously concerned by the fact that weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of the rebels".

This "elevates the confrontation in the country to a new level," a foreign ministry statement said.

The Syrian government itself has a large stockpile of chemical weapons, and there has been widespread international concern about their security and the possibility that they might be used.

In his first speech after being chosen by the Syrian opposition groups as prime minister of the rebel-held areas, Ghassan Hitto ruled out dialogue with the government.

"We confirm to our people that there is no place for dialogue with the Assad regime," he said in a speech to media and members of the opposition Syrian National Coalition in Istanbul.

Mr Hitto is a Damascus-born IT expert who has lived in the US for many years.

An estimated 70,000 people have been killed and one million have fled Syria since the uprising against President Assad began two years ago.

 Frazzled wrote:
Why on earth are we helping these guys??? You're replacing a dictator with a worse dictatorship.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-law-comes-to-rebel-held-syria/2013/03/19/b310532e-90af-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Why on earth are we helping these guys??? You're replacing a dictator with a worse dictatorship.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-law-comes-to-rebel-held-syria/2013/03/19/b310532e-90af-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239_story.html

My guess is that its part of the Great Game. Russia and Iran are providing material support (and in Iran's case it looks like boots on the ground too) and if Syria collapses it affects our allies in the region. Hizbollah and others may benefit from stronger ties to Iran and resume attacks on Israel. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Jordan etc. will grow more wary of Iranian influence spreading which could lead to an arms race and destabilise the region and the supply of oil.

That's what the analytical part of my brain says. The rest of me says eff it, not our problem and lets not make it our problem.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

Seaward wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

We've got plenty to justify the defense budget without needing to intervene in yet another Middle Eastern nation. We're going to get howled at by the rest of the world either way, so we may as well not officially get involved and keep ourselves limited to CIA secret squirrels and our president's favorite remote controlled airplanes.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

We've got plenty to justify the defense budget without needing to intervene in yet another Middle Eastern nation. We're going to get howled at by the rest of the world either way, so we may as well not officially get involved and keep ourselves limited to CIA secret squirrels and our president's favorite remote controlled airplanes.

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

 azazel the cat wrote:
I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

We've got plenty to justify the defense budget without needing to intervene in yet another Middle Eastern nation. We're going to get howled at by the rest of the world either way, so we may as well not officially get involved and keep ourselves limited to CIA secret squirrels and our president's favorite remote controlled airplanes.

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

 Frazzled wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

Seaward wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Good comment, but as I've said many a time, because of the USA's $600 billion annual budget, and the millions of jobs dependent on defence, you guys have to be involved in conflcit in some form or another. It doesn't have to be intervention or invasion (supplying arms and assitance counts as well) but that budget has to be justified before whatever congress committee.

Right now I'm reading about MacArthur's time as chief of staff in the 1930s, and the efforts the guy had to go through just to get weapons production up...

We've got plenty to justify the defense budget without needing to intervene in yet another Middle Eastern nation. We're going to get howled at by the rest of the world either way, so we may as well not officially get involved and keep ourselves limited to CIA secret squirrels and our president's favorite remote controlled airplanes.

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

You mean Iraq? Saddam killed thousands with chemical weapons and was all about being a killy torturing dictator. But the world seems to hate us for having toppled him. I mean I know we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq for no reason. I mean after all having troops in Bosnia and fighting a war to protect peoples of a certain faith innoculated us against the evil American moniker for decades right. I'm sure no radical islamists will ever attack us. I mean its not like they knocked down the Sears Tower or anything like that...
You want a repeat of that? Send in Canada's vaunted military.

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

Erm... didn't Saddam use Chemicals Weapons on the Kurds?

How'd that work out?

Frazzled wrote:(scratches head)
-You must have missed the whole "WMD" thing.
-We've tried this before. It doesn't work. I suggest you go instead.

 azazel the cat wrote:

whembly wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons. That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

Erm... didn't Saddam use Chemicals Weapons on the Kurds?

How'd that work out?

Yeah, in the 1980s, when he was on Team USA.

And when you did finally invade, it wasn't for crimes against humanity or anything else that the populace can get behind; it was because...uh... WMDs and shut up?

Toppling Saddam Hussein was a 'right' action; but it was done for what appeared to be the wrong reason. It would be no better than if someone had knocked off Idi Amin Dada, not because he was a monster, but because he was black. Sure, the outcome is basically the same, but the wrong reason led to that conclusion.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:(scratches head)
-You must have missed the whole "WMD" thing.
-We've tried this before. It doesn't work. I suggest you go instead.

Frazzled's logic:
-Last time I tried baking a cake, I didn't bother reading the ingredients and it turned out horribly.
-Only wizards can make cake.

 azazel the cat wrote:

I think it would be pretty tough to "get howled at" by the rest of the world if the US were to send in troops to fight against a regime that deployed chemical weapons.

That sounds like a rather easy fight to win over the hearts & minds.

Of course, that all depends on chemical weapons actually being used, and sending in actual troops and not drones.

Frazzled wrote: I'm sure no radical islamists will ever attack us. I mean its not like they knocked down the Sears Tower or anything like that...
You want a repeat of that? Send in Canada's vaunted military.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Frazzled wrote: I'm sure no radical islamists will ever attack us. I mean its not like they knocked down the Sears Tower or anything like that...
You want a repeat of that? Send in Canada's vaunted military.

I thought Texans considered talk like that to be cowardly.

The Canadian military has been poised to send in a joint incident response unit, if asked by NATO, for three months now.