In the coming days, experts and politicians will continue to debate the strategic value of this week’s cruise missiles strikes against Syria, whether they sent a strong message of deterrence or amount to little more than an easily ignored pinprick.
But judged purely from the standpoint of technical proficiency, the mission was conceived and carried out in just two days with textbook precision, according to an account provided by two senior U.S. military officials.
The mission went from conception to execution in less than 48 hours, and every one of the 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched in the predawn hours from two U.S. warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea found its target.
Here’s how the events of the week unfolded (all times local):
Tuesday, April 4
6:30 a.m. — A Syrian Su-22 warplane is observed by the U.S. dropping what turns out to be a chemical munition in Khan Sheikhoun, a small city in Idlib province in northwestern Syria. The U.S. had been tracking the plane since it left the Shayrat airfield in southwestern Syria, a base believed to include a chemical weapons storage depot. The single bomb hits a divided roadway leaving, a small crater in the middle of the street. It does not hit a weapon factory, as Russia has claimed.
7 a.m. — Dozens of victims of poison gas begin to show up at a local hospital, showing systems of consistent with exposure to deadly sarin nerve agent. A drone appears over the hospital.
Noon — Approximately five hours later, the drone returns, and the hospital is bombed. The U.S. theory is that someone was trying to hide the evidence of a chemical attack. The U.S. doesn’t know, but suspects the hospital strike might have been done by the Russians. “To be clear, we have no knowledge of Russian involvement in this attack, but we will investigate any information that might lead us in that direction,” the official later tells reporters. “We’re not done, we will continue to look more aggressively.”
2:30 p.m. — The Union of Medical Care and Relief organization says the attack killed approximately 100 people, including at least 25 children, and injuring at least 400 others. Television images show the victims including babies.
Wednesday, April 5
1:10 p.m. — Having seen the horrific images of the victims of the Syria attack, and buttressed by U.S. intelligence that makes assessments with very high confidence, President Trump at a Rose Garden news conference condemns the horrific chemical attack “against innocent people, including women, small children, and even beautiful little babies.” He calls it “an affront to humanity,” and declares the “heinous actions by the Assad regime,” cannot be tolerated. What most of Washington didn’t know was that Trump had already directed Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to come up with military options in response to this attack. The preliminary options were debated by interagency members, including the Pentagon and the National Security council.
Thursday, April 6
8 a.m. — While most Defense Department employees were arriving for a regular workday, Pentagon planners, under the direction of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, were already refining options drawn up the day before. There was a “Goldilocks” selection: too small, too big and just right. Dunford had been expected to accompany Mattis for the Mar-a-Lago summit between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping, but he stayed behind to help with the mission planning.
4 p.m. — The NSC led by national security adviser H.R. McMaster presented the options to the president, recommending a “proportional response” using cruise missiles to avoid putting U.S. pilots at risk of Syria’s integrated air defense system, comprising air defenses that had recently been upgraded with sophisticated Russian surface-to-air missiles. The plan has 59 specific targets at the Shayrat airfield, including aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles, but would avoid targeting a suspected chemical weapons storage depot, and Russian forces and their helicopters that are also using the base.
4:30 pm. — Trump picks the cruise missile option and the execute order goes from the White House to the Pentagon, to U.S. Central command in Tampa, Florida, to the destroyers USS Porter and USS Ross in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The two ships have already been prepositioned, and the target coordinates loaded into the GPS-guided cruise missiles. At some point between then and the launch, the U.S. warns Russia through the hotline it set up to avoid friendly fire that it will be striking the airfield.
8:40 p.m. — Just four hours after receiving the president’s order, and just 69 hours after the chemical attack, 59 Tomahawks find their targets in Syria after whooshing out of their vertical launch tubes and streaking across the night sky. Of the original 59 missiles fired from the two ships, one fails, and another is aborted. But two replacement missiles are quickly fired to take their place. The missiles cannot all be launched at the same time, so the first ones loiter in a holding pattern, until they are all ready to fly to their targets in unison. The idea is for them to all hit their target at roughly the same time.
Friday, April 7
11:30 a.m. — The Pentagon reports every single missile hits its intended target, and that 20 Syrian planes are destroyed, along with a Russian-made anti-aircraft missile battery and radars. “We had 59 aim points on the airfield that 59 missiles hit,” a military briefer tells reporters at the Pentagon. “So you had 100 percent accuracy in this mission?” the reporter pressed. “That’s correct,” was the answer.
