Syria Chemical Attack Claims Unverified, Unfounded

An Iranian diplomat said the US is using allegations of a chemical attack by the Syrian government against the opposition-held positions as a tool to justify a military strike, noting that any such claim first needs legal verification.
"Any allegation about the use of chemical weapons must be investigated and verified through legal channels," Hossein Jaberi Ansari, the foreign minister's special assistant for political affairs, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
"Iran, as a major victim of chemical weapons in contemporary history, has always had a clear stance that using chemical weapons by anyone or any group is unacceptable," he said after a meeting with Moscow's special envoy on the Syria peace process Alexander Lavrentiev in Tehran on Tuesday.
While an international team of chemical weapons experts is reportedly preparing to go to Syria to investigate the US-led allegations, the White House is said to be weighing a possible military response to the suspected chemical assault that killed dozens of people in the city of Douma in eastern Ghouta.
A US guided missile destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, has been dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean.