By Tracy Wilkinson

Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. and Russian diplomats exchanged bitter recriminations Monday in an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, which met to confront a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel stronghold in Syria that killed at least 48 people near Damascus.

The debate flared as the Trump administration weighed a military response to punish Syria’s government for the attack. President Donald Trump said at the White House that he would make a “major decision” within 24 to 48 hours.

Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., squarely blamed Moscow for Saturday’s gruesome attack because the Russian military has supported Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the country’s grinding civil war.

“Russian hands,” Haley said, “are all covered in the blood of Syrian children.”

She scolded Russia for repeatedly refusing to punish Syria by vetoing five Security Council resolutions that singled out Assad for condemnation.

“The day we prayed would never come has come again,” Haley told the council, a year after a similar chemical weapons attack in Syria. “Only a monster does this.”

She described photographs of victims — slain infants and toddlers in their diapers, lying next to their dead parents, skin bluish, white foam bubbling from their mouths. Unlike last year, she did not display the photographs but her descriptions were graphic.

“We must not overlook Russia and Iran’s roles in enabling the Assad regime’s murderous destruction,” Haley said.

The council was debating a U.S.-drafted proposal to create an independent panel to investigate the attack in Douma, the last rebel-held town in Syria’s eastern Ghouta enclave. The council adjourned without taking a vote, however.

The Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vassily Nebenzia, gave an impassioned description of the “boorish” U.S. behavior and countries that follow Washington “blindly,” threatening Moscow with sanctions, “blackmail” and hostility that “go beyond the Cold War.”

Nebenzia said the attack in Douma was staged by anti-Assad “terrorists”, and that reports about the use of chemical weapons and photographs of the victims were “fake news.”

“We are not begging to be friends with you,” Nebenzia said, turning to Haley. He accused the Trump administration of mounting a campaign of aggression against Russia.

Syria’s ambassador to the U.N., Bashar Jaafari, was allowed to speak.

He condemned U.S. and Israeli “aggression,” citing what he said was a deadly Israeli air strike on Syrian positions on Sunday.

“And what about the United States? What is the U.S. spending its money on? Milk for children? Or weapons for armed groups?” he said.

Jaafari denied Syria possesses illicit chemical weapons. Some diplomats walked out of the meeting hall as he spoke.