DAMASCUS, SYRIA

Syria’s foreign minister said today his country would defend itself using “all means available” in case of a U.S. strike, denying his government was behind an alleged chemical weapons attack near Damascus and challenging Washington to present proof backing up its accusations.

The United Nations said that its team of chemical weapons experts in Syria delayed a second trip to investigate an alleged poison gas attack near Damascus by one day for security reasons.

Walid al-Moallem, speaking at a press conference in Damascus, likened U.S. allegations that President Bashar Assad’s regime was behind a purported poison gas attack to false American charges that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of that country.

“They have a history of lies — Iraq,” he said. Al-Moallem spoke a day after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there was “undeniable” evidence of a large-scale chemical attack likely launched by Assad’s regime.

Kerry’s comments and tough language Monday laid out the clearest argument yet for U.S. military action in Syria, which, if President Barack Obama decides to order it, would most likely involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on Syrian military targets.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said today that U.S. forces are now ready to act on any order by Obama to strike Syria.

In an interview with BBC television during a visit to the southeast Asian nation of Brunei, he said the U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea positioned within range of targets inside Syria, as well as U.S. warplanes in the region.

Support for some sort of international military response is likely to grow if it is confirmed that Assad’s regime was responsible for the Aug. 21 attack that activists say killed hundreds of people. The group Doctors Without Borders put the death toll at 355.

Obama has yet to say how he will respond, but appeared to be moving ahead even as the U.N. team on the ground in Syria collected evidence from the attack.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament today for an urgent discussion on a possible military response, as the army drew up contingency plans.

Cameron’s office said that Britain is considering a “proportionate” response that would deter Assad from using chemical weapons in the future.

At the Syrian news conference, Al-Moallem called the U.S. accusations “categorically false.”

“I challenge those who accuse our forces of using these weapons to come forward with the evidence,” he said. Syria would fight back in case of a U.S. strike, he added.

“We have the means to defend ourselves and we will surprise everyone,” he said.

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