Hours before strike on Syria, Hillary Clinton said U.S. should "take out" Assad airfields

Impact

Hours before the U.S. launched a major missile strike on a Syrian government airfield, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said America should go after the air force of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to neutralize his ability to attack the innocent.

"Assad has an air force, and that air force is the cause of most of these civilian deaths as we have seen over the years and as we saw again in the last few days," Clinton said during an interview at a summit in New York. "And I really believe that we should have, and still should, take out his air fields and prevent him from being able to use them to bomb innocent people and drop sarin gas on them."

That's exactly what President Donald Trump did. The U.S. fired Tomahawk missiles early Friday morning Syria time, unloading the barrage on the airfield from which Assad is believed to have launched a chemical attack earlier this week, which killed and sickened civilians.  

"I left the government," added Clinton. "I then did promote a no-fly zone. I still believe we should've done a no-fly zone. I think we should've been more willing to confront Assad."

Clinton made the remarks at the Women in the World summit in her first public interview since the November election.