Britain could vote again on hitting Syria, officials suggest

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A wounded Syrian woman walks with her children after airstrikes on a rebel area of the war-torn northern city of Aleppo. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Mourners attend a funeral for men killed during battles with members of the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Mahmud Al-Halabi / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters carry a man’s body at the Aleppo headquarters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria after he was allegedly killed by the AlQaeda-linked group in January. (Medo Halab / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A Syrian man helps an injured resident following an airstrike in Aleppo’s Maadi neighborhood. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A Syrian man reacts after an airstrike by government forces on the city of Aleppo. (Mohammed al-Khatieb / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters inside a building during clashes with pro-government forces in the Sheikh al-Said neighborhood of Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. (Medo Halab / AFP/ Getty Images)

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An opposition fighter runs through a hole in a wall to avoid sniper fire by regime forces during clashes in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo. (KARAM AL-MASRI / AFP/Getty Images)

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Opposition fighters open fire from behind a car during fighting in the Salaheddin district of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fierce fighting in Damascus province between rebels and troops backed by pro-regime militias and fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah. (KARAM AL-MASRI / AFP/Getty Images)

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A Syrian rebel aims his weapon during clashes with government forces in the streets near Aleppo international airport in northern Syria. (Stephen J. Boitano / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Rebel fighters duck as they run behind a barricade to avoid being fired at by Syrian government forces in the Old City of Aleppo. (JM Lopez / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A fighter allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad runs across the street after fighting with rebels in the Yarmouk refugee camp in the capital, Damascus. (Anwar Amro / AFP/ Getty Images)

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A fighter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad, jumps through the window of a destroyed building in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. (Anwar Amro / AFP/ Getty Images)

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An opposition fighter runs in front of a sniper curtain in the industrial area of Syria’s eastern town of Deir Ezzor during clashes with government forces. (Abo Shuja / AFP/ Getty Images)

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Free Syrian Army fighters clean their weapons and check ammunition at their base on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. (Khalil Hamra / Associated Press)

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Syrian government forces patrol the Khaldiyeh district of Syria’s central city of Homs. The Syrian government announced on July 29 the capture of Khaldiyeh, a key rebel district in Homs. (Joseph Eid / AFP/Getty Images)

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A Syrian national flag is waved in Damascus to show support for President Bashar Assad. (Louai Beshara / AFP/Getty Images)

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A rebel fighter takes aim at regime forces in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. (Louai Abo Al-Jod / AFP/Getty Images)

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A man stands near destroyed buildings after reported airstrikes by Syrian government forces in the rebel-held northwestern Syrian province of Idlib. (Abu Amar Al-Taftanaz / AFP/Getty Images)

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Mustafa Abu Bekir, 23, second from left, meets relatives after crossing the Turkish Cilvegozu gate border. Abu Bekir said he was severely wounded by a bomb dropped from a Syrian army warplane while fighting with the Free Syrian Army in Idlib. (Gregorio Borgia / Associated Press)

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A man carries a boy who was severely wounded during heavy fighting between Syrian rebels and troops last year in Idlib. (Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press)

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Syrian President Bashar Assad arrives at a dinner event in Damascus on the last week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. (Virginie Nguyen Hoang / AFP/Getty Images)

By Henry Chu

Sept. 1, 2013 5:06 AM PT

LONDON – President Obama’s decision to seek congressional approval for a military strike on Syria could open the door to another vote by the British Parliament, which rejected such intervention, senior officials here suggested Sunday.

The delay before a possible strike as Obama makes his case to U.S. lawmakers could give their British counterparts time to consider new evidence pointing toward the Syrian government’s culpability in gassing rebel-held neighborhoods in Damascus.

“It opens a very important new opportunity,” Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the parliamentary intelligence committee, told the BBC. Rifkind supports force as an option in responding to the Syrian government’s alleged chemical attack.

Rifkind, a former defense secretary, said Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition leader Ed Miliband should now agree to revive the matter in the House of Commons, which dealt the prime minister a shocking defeat Thursday by rejecting his request for an endorsement, in principle, of a possible military strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Lawmakers from Miliband’s Labor Party were joined by skeptics among Cameron’s own Conservatives in shooting down the motion by a 285-272 vote.

DOCUMENT: U.S. chemical weapons intel

A grim-faced Cameron immediately announced that his government would not participate in any U.S.-led military intervention.

Miliband, whose party remains haunted by having dragged Britain into the Iraq war based on flawed intelligence, said during the debate that he did not rule out the use of force but that he awaited a clearer case for Assad’s culpability and the results of the U.N. inspectors’ investigation.

The Obama administration has since released its intelligence on the attack, and United Nations inspectors are due to issue their findings.

“We now have another week with new evidence coming forward every day,” Rifkind said, citing the Obama administration’s conclusion that Assad’s security forces mounted the horrific Aug. 21 attack, which the U.S. says killed more than 1,400 people.

The British government released its own intelligence assessment in advance of Thursday’s parliamentary vote, calling it “highly likely” that Assad’s regime was behind the attack.

Miliband and Cameron “need to get together, look at all the evidence and see whether the circumstances would make it appropriate … to allow the House of Commons to have further debate on these matters,” Rifkind said.

PHOTOS: Syria before the war

The Labor Party’s defense spokesman, Jim Murphy, left open the possibility that the issue could come before lawmakers again.

“You cannot simply rerun Thursday’s vote,” Murphy told Sky News. “But of course if Al Qaeda were to get their hands on chemical weapons, if there were to be really significant developments in Syria … then of course the prime minister has the right to bring that back to Parliament.”

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