By William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
11/07/05 "Washington
Post" -- -- Last year, U.S. intelligence agencies and
military planners received instructions to prepare up-to-date target
lists for Syria and to increase their preparations
for potential military operations against Damascus.
According to internal intelligence documents
and discussions with military officers involved in the planning,
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa was
directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to
prepare a
"strategic concept" for Syria, the first step in creation of a
full fledged war plan.
The planning process, according to the internal documents,
includes courses of action for cross border operations to seal the
Syrian-Iraqi border and destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi
insurgency, attacks on Syrian weapons of mass destruction
infrastructure supporting the development of biological and chemical
weapons, and attacks on the regime of Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad.
Though Syria was never mentioned by President Bush as a charter
member of the
"axis of evil" for developing weapons of mass
destruction and support international terrorism, it has long been on
the administration's radar screen.
The January 2002 Nuclear
Posture Review levied requirements on the military to
conduct planning for potential use of nuclear weapons against
Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and North Korea.
On April 1, 2002, almost a full year before the
invasion of Iraq, Secretary Rumsfeld accused Iran, Iraq and Syria of
"inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide
bombing."
On May 6, 2002, in a
speech to the
Heritage Foundation entitled "Beyond the Axis of Evil," Under
Secretary of State John Bolton identified Libya,
Syria and Cuba as countries that were attempting to procure weapons
of mass destruction. "States that renounce terror and abandon WMD
can become part of our effort. But those that do not can expect to
become our targets," he said.
During Operation Iraqi Freedom itself,
according to Gen. Tommy Franks' book, American
Soldier (p. 510), U.S. intelligence reported that Iraqi
Ba'athist leaders and their families were fleeing to Syria in
convoys of Mercedes and SUVs. Secretary Rumsfeld publicly accused
Syria of being engaged in "hostile acts" by delivering military
equipment to Iraq. Later, according to Inside CENTCOM (p.
121), a slim autobiography of Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong,
Franks' deputy as CENTCOM, the US discovered "that Syria had been
shipping military supplies, including night vision goggles, to
Iraq."
On April 9, 2003, the day that U.S. military
forces flooded into central Baghdad, Bolton again warned Iran and
Syria that those pursuing weapons of mass destruction should "draw
the appropriate lesson from Iraq."
While planning for Afghanistan and Iraq, and
while the Iraq war was going on, the office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Requirements, Plans and Counterproliferation Policy was leading a
top to bottom review of war plans, revising the Presidentially-approved
Contingency Planning Guidance (CPG) to account for
"emerging threats." The draft CPG for 2003 mandated 11
prioritized families of plans at four levels of detail, due to
Rumsfeld by mid-2004. The April, 2004 CPG draft for
President Bush's signature further refined post-Iraq planning
requirements.
Months after the draft CPG for 2004 was
circulated, according to the internal documents, the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) was directed to beef up its Syria
work. The Military Forces Analysis Office of the Directorate for
Analysis established a special task force preparing order of battle
(OB) and military forces analysis for Syria. Order of battle is an
intelligence term that refers to characterizing the force structure,
equipment, capabilities, and key military leadership.
DIA is responsible for maintaining the
Modernized Integrated Database (MIDB), the repository of ground,
air, naval, and missile order of battle for foreign countries. The
MIDB also serves as the basis for developing target lists for a
military campaign.
One novel element of new planning for Syria,
according to the documents, involves the work of the IO [information
operations] Fusion Support Center of DIA's Directorate for Analysis.
To support target "options" development, analysts have been directed
to evaluate the vulnerability of critical "nodes" in Syria,
including:
"human factors analysis" regarding the identification and
behavior of Syrian regime leaders and other important
decision-makers in Syria
design and vulnerabilities of Syrian
communications and information infrastructure, and
"electric power generation, transmission
and distribution facilities and systems."
Military planning for Syria was
thus initiated long before the United Nations report implicating the
Syrian regime in the February assassination of Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri, a vocal critic of Damascus.
And it should be pointed out that much of the new military planning
is also related to Syria's overt and clandestine support for the
Iraqi insurgency, as well as its continued harboring of former Iraqi
Ba'athists and their families.
But when the UN last Monday endorsed a
resolution demanding Syria fully and unconditionally cooperates with
the UN investigation into the February assassination, new
international confirmation was given to Syria's mantle as a rogue
state. The resolution warns of possible "further action."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the resolution
"made it clear that failure to comply with these demands will lead
to serious consequences from the international community."
In some ways, military officers involved in the
high-level planning efforts say Syria has eclipsed Iran
in CENTCOM's play book as much because of practicality as imminent
threat. Iran is four times larger than Iraq with three times the
population. Syria is in a difficult geographic position, especially
with U.S. bases and forces in Iraq and its proximity to U.S.
military strength in the Mediterranean. U.S. forces have also been
operating along the Syrian border since early 2003, and there have
been numerous reports of clashes between U.S. and Syrian forces on
Syrian soil, as well as reports of U.S. special operations forces
operating inside Syria on select missions.
Though Syria's possession of WMD was the early
justification for contingency planning for the country -- even for
American nuclear weapons planning -- I imagine that in light of the
Iraq intelligence failure and the current scandals, the
administration would now have an impossible time selling WMD charges
to the international community. But now all of the pieces could
easily fall into place without even any mention of WMD. Political
genius Karl Rove would be proud.
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