A senior Israeli delegation meanwhile visited the White House for high-level talks on the Syrian crisis and the showdown over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.
The Syrian opposition says more than 1,300 people died when toxic gases were unleashed on Eastern Ghouta and Moadamiyet al-Sham, two neighborhoods on the outskirts of Damascus.
Syria approved the UN inspection on Sunday, but US officials said it was too little, too late, arguing that persistent shelling had “corrupted” the site.
The inspection came as the West appeared to be moving closer to launching a military response, after officials confirmed the US Navy has four warships armed with cruise missiles on standby in the eastern Mediterranean.
With China and Moscow expected to boycott any resolution backing a military strike, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the West could act even without full UN Security Council backing.
There is also precedent for Obama to act militarily without US congressional backing, despite a law technically requiring it.
The alleged poison gas attack is only the latest atrocity in a conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since March 2011.
Assad, in an interview with a Russian newspaper published Monday, denied accusations his government was behind the attack, calling the charges an “insult to common sense.”
“The United States faces failure just like in all the previous wars they waged,” he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meanwhile warned of the “extremely dangerous consequences of a possible new military intervention” and said intervening without a UN Security Council resolution would be illegal.
Experts believe the most likely US action would see sea-launched cruise missiles target Syrian military installations and artillery batteries deemed complicit in the chemical weapons attack.
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