The United States is planning action should the Syrian regime use its chemical weapons, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said.

“I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people,” Clinton said Dec. 3 in Prague, where she is on an official tour. “But suffice to say we are certainly planning to take action.”

Multiple reports in recent days have quoted intelligence agencies as saying that Syria is moving its chemical weapons.

The Obama administration has made clear repeatedly that the use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar Assad to quash an uprising that has cost tens of thousands of lives would precipitate U.S. intervention. — jta