A Pentagon official insisted to CBS News correspondent David Martin that the scope of the operation has not changed, which President Obama has described as limited and tailored. The military began adding new targets to the list as Syrian troops started moving equipment “they think might be targeted and hiding some of it so the U.S. cannot find it again,” Martin reports.
The widening list of targets is part of an effort to guarantee that the U.S. can do enough damage to make this strike worthwhile and to truly disincentivize the Syrian regime from using chemical weapons in the future.
“They have to keep adding targets so they have a sufficient target list to accomplish two missions,” Martin said, “One is to damage Syria’s ability to use chemical weapons again and two, is to discourage the Syrian military from thinking that whatever advantage they get out of using chemical weapons is worth the damage they’re going to suffer from a retaliatory strike from the U.S.”