France's Hollande backs US on Syria action - BBC News

30 August 2013 Last updated at 12:57 ET

Jeremy Bowen reports from Damascus: ''You could sense the tension in the face of what feels here like an impending attack''

France is still ready to take action in Syria alongside the US, despite UK MPs blocking British involvement, President Francois Hollande has said.

He told Le Monde newspaper a strike within days could not be ruled out.

The US says it will continue to seek a coalition, and President Barack Obama is meeting his national security team.

The UN is investigating claims that the Syrian forces of President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons. Mr Assad denies the claims, blaming rebels.

UN chemical weapons inspectors visited a hospital in a government-controlled area of Damascus on Friday.

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At the scene

The weapons inspectors this morning seemed to be in two or three minds about what was going on.

Twice they left the garage of the hotel where they and foreign correspondents are staying, looking as if they were ready to head out, and twice they went back in. Perhaps they had a plan to visit some of the suburbs held by rebels that they had been going into to take samples, but there's been a lot of shelling going on in that direction today.

Now they are here at the regime's military hospital. There have been claims from the regime itself that they had soldiers wounded by chemical weapons, and perhaps those are the people they've come to see.

• UN inspectors visit hospital

The UN says the whole team will leave Syria on Saturday. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the inspectors will then brief him on their preliminary findings.

Syrian officials say they will reject any "incomplete report" from the UN before the results of laboratory tests are known.

A UN spokesman later said the experts would try to "expedite" the report, but said no conclusions would be drawn until the full tests had been completed.

'France is ready'

Mr Ban met the five permanent members of the Security Council in New York earlier.

They have held talks twice already this week, but after the last meeting on Thursday, diplomats said they were "far apart".

Mr Ban was expected to give the US, UK, France, Russia and China more information about the timetable for the findings of the weapons inspectors.

Mr Hollande said the UK vote, in which parliament rejected a government motion supporting the principle of military action, made no difference to France's position.

"Each country is sovereign to participate or not in an operation. That is valid for Britain as it is for France," he said.

He said that if the UN Security Council was unable to act, a coalition would form including the Arab League and European countries.

"But there are few countries which can have the capacity of enforcing any sanction through the appropriate measures," he said.

"France will be part of it. France is ready."

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He ruled out strikes while the UN inspectors were in Syria. However he did not rule out the possibility that military action could be taken before next Wednesday, when the French parliament is due to debate the issue.

Neither France nor the US need parliamentary approval for action, and Secretary of State John Kerry said the US could not be held to the foreign policy of others.

The UK vote was welcomed in Russia, Syria's main international ally.

Moscow said it reflected a growing public understanding of the dangers of an attack.

And the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Damascus says Syrian MPs are delighted with the UK vote.

He says they believe a letter they sent to the UK parliament inviting their British counterparts to inspect the evidence of chemical attacks had helped sway the vote against military action.

China, which has vetoed previous UN Security Council resolutions against Syria, reiterated on Friday that no action should be taken until the UN inspectors have reported on their findings.

And Germany said of military action that "such participation has not been sought nor is it being considered".

The BBC witnesses the aftermath of a bomb attack on school in northern Syria

'Beyond doubt'

Officials in the US and UK had been insistent throughout the week that the Assad regime had carried out a poison-gas attack in eastern Damascus on 21 August in which hundreds were killed.

However British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Thursday he could not be 100% sure.

In the US, government officials briefed a Congressional committee on the case for launching action against Mr Assad's forces.

Eliot Engel, the top Democratic member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters after the briefing that officials had said it was "beyond a doubt that chemical weapons were used, and used intentionally by the Assad regime".

Mr Engel said officials had cited evidence including "intercepted communications from high-level Syrian officials".

Reports in the US media this week described Syrian officials suggesting in phone conversations that the chemical weapons attack had been more devastating than was intended.

A Syrian general who defected and fled to Turkey last year told the BBC in Istanbul that the current head of the regime's chemical weapons programme had been killed.

Gen Adnan Sillu, who said he had once been head of the programme, claimed that his successor, Gen Mohamed Aslan, was responsible for last week's attack in Damascus.

Gen Sillu said Gen Aslan had been killed as part of the regime's attempt to destroy evidence of the attack.

His claim could not be independently verified.

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:

• Four US destroyers - USS Gravely, USS Ramage, USS Barry and USS Mahan - are in the eastern Mediterranean, equipped with cruise missiles. The missiles can also be fired from submarines, but the US Navy does not reveal their locations

• Airbases at Incirlik and Izmir in Turkey, and in Jordan, could be used to carry out strikes

• Two aircraft carriers - USS Nimitz and USS Harry S Truman are in the wider region

• French aircraft carrierCharles de Gaulle is currently in Toulon in the western Mediterranean

• French Raffale and Mirage aircraft can also operate from Al-Dhahra airbase in the UAE

Why do people still fly the Confederate flag? - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 21:02 ET By Tom Geoghegan BBC News, Washington

A row has erupted in Virginia over a proposal to fly a huge Confederate flag outside the state capital, Richmond. One hundred and fifty years after the Civil War, the flag can still be seen flying from homes and cars in the South. Why?

For millions of young Britons growing up in the early 1980s, one particular image of the Confederate flag was beamed into living rooms across the UK every Saturday evening.

The flag emblazoned the roof of the General Lee, becoming a blur of white stars on a blue cross when at breathtaking speed, the Dodge Charger took the two heroes, Bo and Luke Duke, out of the clutches of the hapless police in The Dukes of Hazzard.

Thousands of miles from the fictional county of Hazzard in Georgia, it seemed like an innocent motif but in the US, the flag taken into battle by the Confederate states in the Civil War is politically charged - not a week goes by without its appearance sparking upset.

Recently, there's been a row in Texas over car licence plates bearing the flag, a man arrested after shouting abuse while waving it at a country music concert, and the ongoing fallout from South Carolina flying the flag in front of the State House.

Now plans by a heritage group, the Virginia Flaggers, to erect a large Confederate flag on a major road outside Richmond has drawn considerable fire from critics who say it's a symbol of hate.

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"Start Quote

If you're going to be offended by a flag, why not the Union Jack?"

End Quote Barry Isenhour Virginia Flaggers

That's not true, says Barry Isenhour, a member of the group, who says it's really about honouring the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives. For him, the war was not primarily about slavery but standing up to being over-taxed, and he says many southerners abhorred slavery.

"They fought for the family and fought for the state. We are tired of people saying they did something wrong. They were freedom-loving Americans who stood up to the tyranny of the North. They seceded from the US government not from the American idea."

He displays a flag on his car but lives in a street where the flying of any flags is not permitted. They are a dwindling sight these days, he thinks, because people are less inclined to fly them in the face of hostility - monuments honouring southern Civil War generals are, he says, regularly vandalised.

Denouncing the "hateful" groups like the Ku Klux Klan who he says have dishonoured the flag, he adds that people should be just as offended by the Union Jack, the Dutch flag or the Stars and Stripes, because they all flew for nations practising slavery.

Annie Chambers Caddell explains why she hangs the flag from her porch

Others strongly disagree with his analysis. African Americans, especially older ones, are traumatised when they see the flag, says Salim Khalfani, who has lived in Richmond for nearly 40 years and thinks it risks making the city look like a "hick" backwater that is still fighting the Civil War.

"If it's really about heritage then keep the flag on your private property or in museums but don't mess it up for municipalities and states who are trying to bring tourists here because this will have the opposite effect."

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"Start Quote

All symbols are liable to multiple interpretations but this is unique in its power"

End Quote John Coski Museum of the Confederacy

African-American author Clenora Hudson-Weens saw people waving the flags on the street in Memphis a few weeks ago. "I just said to them 'This is 2013' and they just smiled. I personally believe in some traditions but this is a tradition that is so oppressive to blacks. I wouldn't be proud waving a flag that has an ambience of racism and negativity."

Many Americans will be familiar with the arguments on either side but perhaps not with the convoluted origins of the flag itself.

The flag seen today on houses, bumper stickers and T-shirts - sometimes accompanied by the words "If this shirt offends you, you need a history lesson" - is not, and never was, the official national flag of the Confederacy.

The design by William Porcher Miles, who chaired the flag committee, was rejected as the national flag in 1861, overlooked in favour of the Stars and Bars.

It was instead adopted as a square battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Lee, the greatest military force of the Confederacy. It fast became such a potent symbol of Confederate nationalism that in 1863 it was incorporated into the next design of the national flag, which replaced the hated Stars and Bars.

The saltire - or diagonal cross - on the battle flag is believed to have been inspired by its heraldic connections, not any Scottish ones.

So has the flag historically been more about slavery or heritage?

You could say that both sides are correct if you look at how the flag has evolved, says David Goldfield, author of Still Fighting The Civil War.

When the Confederacy debated the adoption of a new flag in Richmond in 1862, it was clear this was to be a symbol of white supremacy and a slavery-dominated society, he says.

After the war, the flag was primarily used for commemorative purposes at graves, memorial services and soldier reunions, but from the perspective of African Americans, the history and heritage that they see is hate, suppression and white supremacy, says Goldfield, and the historical record supports that.

"On the other hand, there are white southerners who trace their ancestors back to the Civil War and want to fly the flag for their great-grandfather who fought under it and died under it." And for them, it genuinely has nothing to do with racism. However, he thinks they should respect the fact it does cause offence and not fly it in public.

The flag wasn't a major symbol until the Civil Rights movement began to take shape in the 1950s, says Bill Ferris, founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, It was a battle flag relegated to history but the Ku Klux Klan and others who resisted desegregation turned to the flag as a symbol.

He likens it to the swastika but others see it very differently. Indeed, the flag has been compared to a Rorschach blot because it means several things at all at once, depending on who is looking at it.

"All symbols are liable to multiple interpretations but this is unique in its power and ability to inflame passions on all sides, and the volume of interpretations and preconceptions about it make it unique in American history," says John Coski, author of The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Most Embattled Emblem. He has even seen it displayed in Europe, where it has become shorthand for "rebel".

Since attempts by campaigners in the 1990s to remove the flags from public buildings, he thinks the issue has died down in the US. In 2001, Georgia changed the 45-year-old design of its state flag after pressure to remove the Confederate symbol.

Although the number of incidents is diminishing it's not going away, he says, because it just takes a couple of well-publicised episodes to get it back on people's radars, and feelings inflamed.

"We can all write the script ourselves - they will say this and they will say this." It's a predictable pattern, he adds.

"I think it will die out," says Ferris, who thinks flag-wavers feel like an embattled minority. "The south is changing, with the growth of Hispanics and Asian and a growing black population, and you can be sure that the Confederate flag has no place in their world."

The South, he says, needs a new emblem to reflect its changing character.

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BBC HR director Lucy Adams to leave post - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 12:58 ET

Lucy Adams, the BBC's head of Human Resources, is to leave the corporation in March 2014 after five years.

Ms Adams, who is paid £320,000 a year, will leave at the end of the financial year without any severance pay.

She was heavily criticised by the Commons Public Accounts Committee in a hearing last month over excessive payments to departing BBC executives.

Tony Hall, the BBC's director general, said he would be "very sorry to see her go next spring".

In a statement, Ms Adams said it had been "a great privilege to lead the BBC's People division" and that she had been planning to leave "for some time".

"By next spring I will have been at the BBC for five years which feels like a good time to try something new.

"The BBC is a unique institution and I am extremely proud of the work the team has achieved in spite of the challenges along the way," she continued.

"I look forward to continuing that work with Tony and the executive board in the coming months."

Lucy Adams joined the BBC as the director of BBC People in June 2009 and is responsible for the design and implementation of the corporation's HR strategy.

Lucy Adams: "The overwhelming focus was to get numbers out of the door as quickly as possible"

Previously the director of HR at legal firm Eversheds, she also spent nine years with security firm Serco.

When asked in July why there had been overpayments to BBC executives, she said "the overwhelming focus was to get numbers out of the door as quickly as possible".

In a Daily Mail article published ahead of her appearance, she was described as one of "the [BBC] bosses in charge of the gravy train".

Lord Hall said Ms Adams had "done a great job and contributed a huge amount to the BBC".

"I am pleased that, in the short term at least, she will continue to help me simplify the way we do business in the BBC so that we can spend more time concentrating on our programmes and services."

Ancient artefacts found in melting snow - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 02:14 ET By Melissa Hogenboom Science reporter, BBC News

An Iron Age tunic is among the discoveries found under melting snow on Norwegian mountains.

Other findings include Neolithic arrows and bow fragments, thought to be about 6000 years old.

Snow on the Norwegian mountains, and elsewhere, is rapidly melting due to climate change, which is now unveiling a world of well preserved new discoveries.

The findings are published in two papers in the journal Antiquity.

"The new find is of great significance for dress and textile production and how these reflect the interplay between northern Europe and the Roman world," said Marianne Vedeler from the University of Oslo, Norway, who analysed the garment.

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"Start Quote

As the climate continues to heat up and the snows melt away, one wonders what long-term price there will be to pay for these glimpses of the frozen past"

End Quote Martin Callanan

The tunic, found on the Norwegian Lendbreen glacier, was partly bleached from sun and wind exposure. It showed hard wear and tear and had been repaired with two patches.

It was made between 230 and 390 AD and is one of only a handful of tunics that exists from this period. Two different fabrics were present and the fibre tips revealed that both were made of lamb's wool or wool from adult sheep.

"The Lendbreen tunic is a first glimpse of the kind of warm clothing used by hunters frequenting the ice patches of Scandinavia in pursuit of reindeer. It had no buttons or fastenings, but was simply drawn over the head like a sweater," said Dr Vedeler.

"The patching shows that this was not the first stage of the tunic's life; indeed, the hunter who abandoned it may not have been its first owner."

The arrows and bow fragments were much older and also found in snow patches - natural areas of snow which grow when it snows and melt in the sun.

Martin Callanan of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, who authored the arrows and bow fragments paper, said: "When people lost their arrows they lost them in the snow patches."

"These are unique finds, they are a signal that something is changing up there. As snow patches are starting to melt, people are finding archaeological artefacts in all sorts of different places and they are often quite well preserved," added Mr Callanan.

The Neolithic arrows were shorter than earlier Mesolithic shafts found in Europe, possibly due to the heavy weight of the points which were made out of slate.

The artefacts were extremely well preserved for their age and fragility, but as the changing weather increases the speed at which the snow melts, other artefacts may degenerate before they are found.

"The number and antiquity of some of these artefacts is unprecedented in the almost century-long history of snow patch surveying in the region," said Mr Callanan.

"At the same time, as the climate continues to heat up and the snows melt away, one wonders what long-term price there will be to pay for these glimpses of the frozen past."

'Molecular basis' for jet lag found - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 21:49 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Scientists believe they have figured out why it takes us so long to adapt when we travel to new time zones.

Researchers at Oxford University say they have found the "molecular brakes" that prevent light resetting the body clock when we fly - causing jet lag.

Experiments, reported in the journal Cell, showed "uncoupling" these brakes in mice allowed them to rapidly adapt.

Researchers hope the discovery will help find new drugs for jet lag and mental health treatments.

The body clock keeps us in tune with the pattern of day and night. It means we sleep at night, but also affects hunger, mood and blood pressure.

Light acts like a reset button to keep the clock to time, but when we fly around the world it takes time for our body clocks to adjust. The resulting fatigue, which can last for days, is known as jet lag

Master clock

The research team was trying to figure out why people do not instantly adapt. They looked in mice as all mammals have the same core body clock mechanisms.

They focused on the "master clock" in a part of the brain, which keeps the rest of the body in sync, called the suprachiasmatic nuclei

They were looking for sections of DNA that changed their activity levels in response to light.

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"Start Quote

This provides a molecular basis for jet lag and as a result new targets for potentially developing new drugs"

End Quote Prof Russell Foster Oxford University

The found a huge numbers of genes were activated, but then a protein called SIK1 went round turning them all off again. It was acting as a brake by limiting the effect of light.

Experiments to reduce the function of SIK1 meant the mice could rapidly adjust their body clock when it was shifted six hours - the equivalent of a flight from the UK to India.

Reset

Prof Russell Foster told the BBC: "We reduced levels by 50-60%, which is big enough to get a very, very big effect. What we saw was the mice would actually advance their clock six hours within a day [rather than taking six days for untreated mice].

"We've know there's been a brake on the clock for some time, but we had absolutely no idea what it is, this provides a molecular basis for jet lag and as a result new targets for potentially developing new drugs."

He said some mental health disorders including schizophrenia were linked to an out-of-tune body clock, so these findings may open up new areas for research.

The brakes are likely to be in place to prevent the body clock from becoming erratic and being reset by artificial or moon light.

Dr Akhilesh Reddy, a specialist in the body clock, at the University of Cambridge, was very confident that treatments would follow as "it is a very drugable target and I would suspect there are lots of potential drugs already developed".

He told the BBC: "We have known a lot about the basis of jet lag and why it occurs.

"This shows how you can get into the brain and manipulated the clock, which is why this study is important.

"We have drugs which can make the clock shorter or longer, what we need is to shift it to a new time zone and that is what they have done."

What happens in Syria after the Tomahawks hit? - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 21:59 ET By Tara McKelvey BBC News Magazine

US officials hope that any military assault on Syria will be surgical and limited. But what does the US do after the missiles or bombs have fallen?

It could go either way. The US may attack - or may not. "I've not made a decision," US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday.

Mr Obama has maintained that if the Syrian government uses chemical weapons, the US will act militarily.

And last week, according to US officials, President Bashar al-Assad's forces deployed poison gas against rebels in a Damascus suburb. More than 1,000 people, including women and children, were reported killed.

Syrian government officials say they did not use chemical weapons, but the US is ready to act.

'We are prepared'

UN inspectors are looking for evidence of a gas attack in the Damascus suburb, and plan to finish their work on Friday.

Meanwhile officials in Washington DC are laying the groundwork for military operations.

"We are prepared," Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC.

If US officials proceed with military operations, they will likely be supported by Turkey and France, at least in some fashion. They will not have the backing of the UK, where Parliament on Thursday night rejected a government motion supporting intervention in Syria.

Nor is the UN Security Council expected to support an attack, because the Russians are opposed.

The US military would most likely use Tomahawk cruise missiles for an attack on the Syrian government forces. These missiles are now stored on destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean.

The missiles would not be fired at places where chemical weapons might be stored, since poisonous gas could spread or chemical agents could fall into the wrong hands.

Instead, military facilities would be targeted - radio centres, command posts and missile launchers, says Douglas Ollivant, who served as an operations officer with the Army's Fifth Cavalry Regiment in Iraq.

The initial military operation would be fast.

Public opinion

"It would be a fairly short, sharp action - much like Operation Desert Fox," a 1998 military operation in Iraq, says Peter Mansoor, an Ohio State University professor of military history who served as executive officer for David Petraeus, a retired US Army general, in Iraq.

Mr Obama has been looking for a clean way to retaliate against the Assad regime for the chemical weapons. Missiles seem to offer that. If he proceeds, he will follow a long line of US presidents who have tried to avoid bloody ground battles.

The missiles would likely be deployed from the sea, without putting Americans in danger.

This option is more palatable to the US public than the deployment of ground troops. Most Americans do not want the US to get involved in the Syria conflict, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

Yet roughly half of the Americans polled said they were open to military action - if the operations were done from a distance.

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"Start Quote

They don't want to do something that could look like an empty gesture"

End Quote Suzanne Nossel Former deputy assistant secretary of state

Indeed, remotely-controlled attacks such as air strikes have been called "the American way of war" by the authors of an article in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Unfortunately, the notion of effective and pain-free distance warfare is illusory.

In March 2003, the US "shock and awe" bombing campaign in Iraq did not on its own bring down Saddam Hussein.

"It still required a ground force invasion," said Kalev Sepp, a former special forces officer who is now a senior lecturer at the US Naval Postgraduate School.

Besides that, bombs and missiles are only as effective as the intelligence targeting them.

In 1998, US cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, because intelligence analysts had believed it to be a chemical weapons factory.

An earlier military strategy based on remotely-controlled strikes, the Nato air war in Kosovo, has reportedly been discussed during high-level Obama administration meetings about Syria.

Not everything went smoothly during that bombing campaign, either - the US blew up the Chinese embassy.

"There's these mistakes - shortfalls - and they have counterproductive value," says Mr Sepp.

'You failed'

Mr Obama says that the objective of any military strike would simply be to warn the Assad regime not to use chemical weapons again.

"The Assad regime, which is involved in a civil war trying to protect itself, will have received a pretty strong signal," Mr Obama said.

What happens afterwards, though, is anybody's guess.

"They don't want to do something that could look like an empty gesture," says Suzanne Nossel, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state during Obama's first term.

"They'll wait for a reaction. Does Assad step it up with the rhetoric - 'you failed in Iraq, you failed in Vietnam'? Or does he take the beating?"

If the Assad regime decides to ratchet things up, Mr Obama has an array of options - none of them good.

"The range is, you do nothing - all the way up to large-scale air and ground campaigns to remove the Assad regime," says Mr Sepp.

"You can send in special forces to train and organise the rebels. But it's impossible to do that clandestine. So then you have to have Americans on the ground - and they're being killed. Is that worth overthrowing the Assad regime?"

Syria crisis: Downing Street fury over Labour stance - BBC News

29 August 2013 Last updated at 17:16 ET

A row has erupted over No 10's claim Labour is giving "succour" to Syria's regime by not backing the prime minister over military action there.

Labour is demanding an apology for what it describes as "infantile" comments.

Downing Street is reported to be furious that Labour leader Ed Miliband has not backed David Cameron's motion paving the way for military strikes.

The row erupted as the Commons vote rejecting the government's motion on intervention in Syria approached.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg distanced himself from Downing Street's claims about Mr Miliband - and said the prime minister "agreed with me".

But Mr Clegg told MPs the government's motion was "very tightly defined" and the intention was not to "topple a dictator" .

"The sole aim is the relief of humanitarian suffering by targeting and disrupting the further use of chemical weapons," he told MPs.

He urged MPs not to let their scepticism about attacks, in the wake of the Iraq war, get in the way of doing the right thing and he assured them that there would be separate debate and vote before any military action is launched.

Mr Clegg's refusal to criticise Mr Miliband appeared to put him at odds with Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, who earlier stood by claims the Labour leader was giving "succour" to Assad.

"Anything that stops us from giving a clear united view of the British Parliament tonight will give some succour to the regime," he told Channel 4 News.

"We deliberately structured our motion to take account of the concerns the Leader of the Opposition had expressed directly to us.

"But he has still chosen to table an amendment and ensure that we don't have a clear, united and unified opinion from the British Parliament."

MPs had been recalled from their summer break early to vote on whether the UK should join in US-led strikes on Syria, if they go ahead.

Hundreds are reported to have died in the attack near Damascus on 21 August. The Syrian regime denies any involvement, blaming opposition forces.

'Abhorrent'

But the prime minister was forced to water down the government's motion after Labour refused to back it and a second vote will now be needed to authorise military strikes.

Mr Miliband will still order his MPs to vote against the government, saying he needs to see more evidence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind the attack.

Continue reading the main story

Analysis

Parliament has been recalled but, tonight, no-one is entirely sure why.

The PM's aides say the debate is to give MPs an opportunity to condemn the chemical attack in Damascus.

But behind the scenes a war of words is raging.

Downing Street is accusing Ed Miliband of "playing politics" and giving succour to the Assad regime.

No 10 had thought a second vote on military action had won Labour's leader over, but he will oppose the government tonight.

Labour wants to see more compelling evidence of culpability and - while not ruling out support in future for a military strike - doesn't want to "rush to war".

Ed Miliband's advisers say he never signalled support for David Cameron at any stage.

But given his two predecessors' support for the Iraq invasion it is possible he could only retain party unity by distancing himself from the government. A survey of Labour activists suggested widespread scepticism for military action.

So the scars of the Iraq war are still paining the British body politic.

We will be able to judge if these are still open wounds when that second vote comes.

The UN weapons inspectors could report as soon as Saturday.

So on Monday, if not over the weekend, Parliament may well be debating military action after all.

• Key quotes: Syria debate

The majority of Labour and Tory MPs to take part in the marathon emergency debate have expressed doubts about the wisdom of attacking the Assad regime.

And Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick quit his frontbench role as shadow transport spokesman.

Earlier in the Commons, Mr Fitzpatrick said he would vote against both the government and Labour's amendment as he opposes military intervention of any kind.

This is despite Mr Cameron's insistence that action would be justified to prevent further "war crimes" and would be in line with international law, even if it was opposed at the UN by Russia and China.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said he believed the government would still win Thursday night's vote - partly because Conservative MPs would be unwilling to hand Labour a victory.

But a bitter war of words has broken out between Downing Street and the Labour leader, who they accuse of "playing politics" with the Syria issue.

According to The Times newspaper, a government source used a string of expletives to describe Mr Miliband's attitude and said: "The French hate him now and he's got no chance of building an alliance with the US Democratic Party."

Downing Street director of communications Craig Oliver is reported to have accused Mr Miliband of giving "succour to Assad".

Labour frontbencher Michael Dugher has written to Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood to complain about what he called Mr Oliver's "infantile and irresponsible" comments, which he claimed "demeans the office of prime minister".

'Humanitarian catastrophe'

Setting out the government's case at the beginning of the special Commons debate, Mr Cameron described last week's attack on the outskirts of Damascus as "one of the most abhorrent uses of chemical weapons in a century, slaughtering innocent men, women and children".

He said: "Interfering in another country's affairs should not be undertaken except in the most exceptional circumstances. It must be a humanitarian catastrophe and it must be a last resort.

"But by any standards, this is a humanitarian catastrophe, and if there are no consequences for it there is nothing to stop Assad and other dictators from using these weapons again and again."

He said it was "not about taking sides in the conflict" or "regime change" but responding to a "war crime".

In a swipe at his Labour predecessor, Tony Blair, Mr Cameron said, "The well of public opinion has been well and truly poisoned by the Iraq episode."

But he insisted the current crisis was not like Iraq and MPs would "decide which next steps" the UK would take.

Mr Miliband told MPs he was not against military intervention. But he said Britain had to be "clear-eyed" about the possible consequences of such action - including deepening Britain's involvement in Syria's bitter civil war.

'Horrific events'

He said Britain should not make the decision based on an "artificial timetable or political timetable set elsewhere", but should instead follow Labour's "sequential road map" - which includes gathering "compelling evidence" that President Assad's regime was to blame for last week's attack.

"I'm not with those who rule out action - the horrific events unfolding in Syria do ask us to consider the options available," said Mr Miliband.

"But we owe it to the Syrian people, to our own country and to the future security of our world to scrutinise any plans on the basis of the consequences they have."

Downing Street has released a statement, based on legal advice by Attorney General Dominic Grieve, that states limited military strikes to deter future chemical weapons attacks would be in line with international law.

An assessment published by the Joint Intelligence Committee also argued it was "not possible for the opposition to have carried out a chemical weapons attack on this scale".

However, Labour MPs will vote there must be "compelling evidence" that the Syrian regime was responsible for the use of chemical weapons. Plaid Cymru and the SNP will also back the Labour amendment.

Iraq 'scars'

Conservative MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, was one of the relatively few backbench voices to back military action.

He told MPs failing to act would give the Syrian regime in Damascus a rationale for using chemical weapons in the future.

Another former foreign secretary, Conservative peer Lord Hurd said: "I cannot for the life of me see how dropping some bombs or firing some missiles in the general direction of Syria" will lessen the "suffering of Syrian people".

"I think it's likely to increase and expand the civil war in Syria."

Labour MP Jack Straw, who was foreign secretary when the UK joined the US in attacking Iraq in 2003, said that conflict had raised the bar on the quality of intelligence needed for military intervention and he was not convinced there was enough evidence yet to justify action in Syria.

"We all know - I have the scars about this - how easy it is to get into military action and how difficult it is to get out of it," he told MPs.

Syria has accused the West of "inventing" excuses to launch a strike and says a UK strike would be an "aggressive and unprovoked act of war".