The Syrian government is giving United Nations weapons inspectors permission to investigate the site of last week’s suspected chemical weapons attack that killed more than 300 people in the suburbs of Damascus.

The team has permission to travel to the area east of the capital on Monday.  Syria blames “terrorists” for whatever happened, but other countries are pointing at the regime of Bashar al-Assad.  US President Obama and UK Prime Minister David Cameron held a 40-minute phone conversation and concluded the Syrian government is responsible.

In America, the White House put out a statement that claimed any evidence from the scene would be gathered “too late to be credible”.  UK Foreign Secretary William Hague warned that key evidence might already be gone.

“Much of the evidence could have been destroyed by artillery bombardment.  Other evidence could have become degraded over the last few days, and other evidence could have been tampered with,” Hague said.

Both the US and UK were part of the drive to get UN weapons inspectors in Syria to look into an alleged chemical attack on 19 March, considerably more than 5 days ago.

The group Doctors Without Borders says three hospitals in Damascus had received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than three hours on the morning of 21 August.  355 reportedly died.