John McCain: Syrian Peace Plan’s Failure Is Proof That Military Action Is Required
This was to be the day the fighting stopped in Syria. A little over a year ago, a freedom movement rose up to overthrow the 41-year dictatorship of the Assad family.
Since then, President Bashar al-Assad has been shelling his own cities, killing thousands. He was supposed to pull out his troops on Tuesday in an agreement he made with the former head of the U.N., Kofi Annan, but that didn’t happen.
CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward reports that Damascus residents woke up to tanks rolling through their neighborhoods on the first day of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, shells rained down on the battered city of Homs - a center of the resistance - dimming any hope that the Assad regime would honor its commitment to stop the violence.
About 24,000 refugees have fled Syria to these camps. Thousands crossed in the last week as violence surged in advance of Tuesday’s deadline.
On Tuesday morning, U.S. senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman - both strong advocates of international intervention - visited a Syrian refugee camp inside Turkey. McCain said there is no doubt about whether the peace plan was a failure.
“I think it was a failure from the start. Most of us knew because there was no pressure for Bashar Assad to actually stop the killing. We think it’s going to require military action on the ground to get him to leave,” McCain said.
So far, those countries supporting the Syrian rebels have balked at military intervention.