REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON - There is "very little doubt" that a chemical weapon was used by the Syria against civilians in an incident that killed at least 100 people last week, but the president has not yet decided how to respond, a senior administration official said Sunday.

The official said the US intelligence community based its assessment, which was given to the White House, on "the reported number of victims, reported symptoms of those who were killed or injured" and witness accounts. The official insisted on anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak publicly about the developments.

The official said the White House believes the Syrian government had denied a UN investigative team immediate access to the site of a reported Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburbs, in order to give the evidence of the attack time to degrade.The official said the regime's continuing shelling of the site also further corrupts any available evidence of the attack. 

On Sunday morning, Syrian State TV announced the regime would allow UN inspectors to visit the site, but the Obama administration official said a belated decision to grant access to the UN team would be considered "too late to be credible."

The White House had concluded previously that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in limited incidents, but last week's attack is suspected of being the deadliest single incident of a civil war that has killed more than 100,000 people since March 2011.

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