I see that Pat Lang is speculating that the raid might have been some kind of rogue operation on the part of the US Special Forces Command.
I certainly respect the Colonel’s lengthy experience on such matters, but I still find it hard to believe that that even the Special Ops boys would be foolhardy enough to go into a whole new, very sensitive national jurisdiction (country) without getting political clearance at the very highest level… and also without coordinating closely with, and getting the permission of, the commanders operating in that very same locality, in this case the commanders in Western Iraq and in Iraq, nationwide. The all-Iraq commander is now the bellicose Gen. Ray Odierno.
Lang writes of the Special Ops Forces that they,
- are exclusively focused on hunting down terrorist people and support group[s] world-wide. Rumsfeld made them largely independent of the regular military chain of command. They amount to a global SWAT team. They develop their own targeting intelligence and make their own plans. The amount of control that the local US joint commander has over them is not very clear. They are not noted for a great deal of insight into geopolitical niceties.
– General Odierno, the man who replaced Petraeus in Iraq, is not famous for nuanced reactions to frustrating situations.
So his argument is that the American kill team was either acting independent of the Iraq command, or doing so with Odierno’s support. For my part I still don’t see them transgressing the Syrian border in this extremely blatant (and lethal) way without getting clearance from the very highest levels in Washington: the President himself.
After all the public (and doubtless also private) discussion over whether and how to mount similar kinds of operations inside Pakistan– where the presumed targets of such raids include Osama Bin Laden and his highest lieutenants, i.e. targets of the very highest ‘value’ to the US— no-one in the military, not even Ray Odierno or the commanders of the Special Ops Command, can be foolish enough to think that such an operation can or should ever be mounted without getting the highest imaginable clearance from Washington.
(After reading 2/3 of Gellman’s book on Cheney, I would say it would be Cheney calling the shots in this matter, and then delivering the ‘presidential’ decision, pre-made, to GWB on a plate.)
As it happens, the NYT reported today that,
- The White House has backed away from using American commandos for further ground raids into Pakistan after furious complaints from its government, relying instead on an intensifying campaign of airstrikes by the Central Intelligence Agency against militants in the Pakistani mountains.
In this AP report today, Pauline Jelinek made clear that back in July it was “President Bush” (read, President Cheney-Bush) who back in July made the decision allowing ground raids into Pakistan. The US Special Ops Command then launched only one documented ground raid there pursuant to that decision. That was on Sept 3. Pakistan’s newly elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, a strong US ally, immediately became apoplectic, and sent his national security adviser to Washington to protest in the strongest possible terms…
So my surmise is still certainly, as I noted earlier, that it must have taken a “presidential” decision in Washington to permit yesterday’s ground attack against Syria to take place.
—
And a note about the Government of Iraq’s role in the affair. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh has been quoted by Reuters as saying,
- the attack was launched against “terrorist groups operating from Syria against Iraq,” including one which had killed 13 police recruits in an Iraqi border village.
“Iraq had asked Syria to hand over this group, which uses Syria as a base for its terrorist activities,” Dabbagh said.
This Reuters report (datelined from Damascus, but also using reporting from Baghdad and other capitals) notes that Dabbagh “did not say who had carried out the raid inside Syria.” He also did not say who had authorized the carrying out of the raid.
Did his bosses in the Iraqi political leadership get to sign off on it before it was executed?
I highly doubt that.
Actually, it is sometimes a little unclear who Dabbagh works for. In the past he has sometimes seemed to be a loyal mouth-piece for his Iraqi political bosses, and sometimes to be a bit of a cat’s-paw for the Americans.
If the Americans did conduct this raid without the clear, antecedent permission of the Iraqi government, then this is precisely the kind of rogue US military operation, using Iraqi territory to attack other countries, that the Iraqi government has been seeking to prohibit under the terms of the still-unsigned SOFA.
McClatchy Baghdad’s correspondent Sahar writes:
- Unilateral job? Joint American – Iraqi job? Does it really matter?
Is Iraq going to become a launching pad for blatant American aggressions upon targets in neighbouring countries?
The Status of Forces Agreement is still in a no-man’s-land; doesn’t the U.S. want the Iraqi people to support it?
If they do, they’re certainly not going about it the right way.
—-
As regular readers here are probably aware, all the highest-level officials in the present Iraqi government– but not, perhaps, spokesman al-Dabbagh– have warm relations with Syria. (And also, by the way, with Iran.)
That same Reuters report linked to above tells us that,
- Syrian Interior Minister Bassam Abdel Majeed said last week that his country “refuses to be a launching pad for threats against Iraq.”
And Josh Landis this morning gave some recent assessments from Centcom commander Gen. Petraeus about the general (though not total) effectiveness of the measures Syria has been taking along the country’s long border with Iraq.
The Reuters report says this about Syria’s early diplomatic responses to yesterday’s attack:
- [Syrian ambassador in London Sami al-]Khiyami said Syrian authorities were still awaiting word on the raid from the United States before deciding how to respond and whether to complain to the U.N. Security Council.
… Syria’s foreign ministry summoned the U.S. charge d’affaires in Damascus on Sunday to protest. Syria has also urged the Iraqi government to carry out an immediate inquiry into the attack.
Russia condemned the assault. “It is obvious that such unilateral military actions have a sharply negative effect on the situation in the region, and widen the seat of dangerous armed tension,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The Arab League also denounced the raid and called for an investigation.
So Syria’s diplomatic response is churning into action. It is doubtless slowed to a great extent by the extremely stingy amount of investment the government has put into the basic infrastructure of diplomacy (phones, computers, broad cadre of diplomats all around the world, etc) for the last half century. But it is happening.
As I noted earlier, the Asads are cautious and patient in their response to international crises.
But that’s no guarantee at all that Cheney-Bush won’t continue to try to provoke them.
Calling Bob Gates! Bob, you definitely need to put a straitjacket on that dangerous man, Dick Cheney.
Josh Landis now reports that the family that got hit might have been smugglers and that satellite intel was misinterpreted.
But it is something else to put on the indictment at the international criminal court.
I’ll go with Col. Lang on this one for four reasons: general, specific, strategic and political.
(1) The tendency to blame Cheney for everything and leave cooperating war criminals like Gates (and Powell, e.g.) off the hook is unrealistic.
(2) Task Force 88 (special forces) is specifically charged with locating, hunting down and killing suspected al-Qaeda operatives. Their policy is to take no prisoners and leave no survivors. They are virtuously autonomous (although Gates is responsible) and have conducted similar raids in Pakistan and Somalia, and possibly elsewhere.
(3) The key US struggle in Iraq at present is in Mosul which is about 75 miles downstream on the Tigris River from Abu Kamal, the raid site. Abu Kamal has been an historic marshaling place for fighters moving from Syria into Iraq. TF-88 would be motivated to support this effort.
(4) The UK Telegraph has speculated that Syria might not be too disappointed with the killing of (alien sect) al-Qaeda operatives far from Damascus.
Okay, apparently TF-88 does take prisoners:
“Another villager told the AP he saw at least two men taken into custody by U.S. forces, and whisked away by helicopter. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his life.”
I agree about the reported SOPs of TF-88. However, there is still always a high-level political decision to leash or unleash these attack dogs with respect to any given national jurisdiction. Case in point, Pakistan: there, there was a decision to unleash them and a later one to (relatively) leash them. Even the gung-ho idiots who lead such teams understand that.
Also, if you haven’t read the Gellman book about Cheney, you really should. I think it gives a great and chilling picture of how he and a few close associates worked from long before Day One of the Bush presidency to grab as much power into his own hands as possible. I don’t exonerate Bush, to whom Cheney pays pro-forma deference that constitutionally should (and crucially, also could) be full deference. But cabinet members like Gates and Powell get completely cut out by Cheney whenever possible. (Fwiw, I do blame Powell for a lot– primarily, for never resigning on principle despite being repeatedly humiliated, stiffed, strongarmed, and lied to by Busheney. But Gates I see as playing a much less dishonorable game of interventionist damage limitation. It might still not be completely honorable but he seems to me streets more savvy and principled than Powell.)
I have been a big Obama fan the past two years and am delighted by his prospects for a landslide victory next week. The following observation should be taken in that context:
Obama to some extent has been driving foreign policy decisions by the lame duck Bush Administration.
For example, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just announced that she “might meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister at an upcoming conference in Egypt on stabilizing Iraq.” For some time Obama has taken the position that the US must talk to its enemies, not just its friends.
http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=39872
Another Obama position is that al Qaeda/Taliban operatives on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan should not be off limits to American special forces. Lo and behold, Bush signs an executive order to that effect.
Another irony here is that McCain has taken the opposite position on both issues – altho doubtlessly motivated by political considerations, namely to paint his opponent as naive when it comes to security matters.
I continue to be awed by Helena-the-Quaker’s grasp of military (and other) matters. Case in point: –“the reported SOPs of TF-88”. A good ally to have when things get rough. But — here we go.
Standard Operating Procedures. Oh dear, perhaps TF-88 violated an SOP and killed children in Syria rather than in some approved place. I doubt it was a violation. Now, as in Pakistan, there will be boo-hoo protests from the affected government, and perhaps some changes. In Pakistan the US military was killing citizens of an ally but Syria is an enemy, after all. So why won’t the TF members get medals?
Regarding Cheney, if cabinet members got “cut out” it was their own fault. Powell was a key component of the war party. Iraq would be a different place today but for Powell’s complicity, principally lying to the UN (he called it BS) and then prolongong the war beyond Mission Accomplished because of the US “investment,” requiring the estimable services of one Jerry Bremer, formerly of the State Department. Look it up.
Gates is now the chief war operative, not Cheney. There is no honor in that. If he had been Japanese 63 years ago he would have swung. I’m sure Gellman wrote an entertaining book but there is no Vice President that is going to run a snake-eater task force with standing orders to kill and capture suspected al-Qaeda operatives anywhere in the world, which includes Syria.
Bottom line, war is horrible, particularly for women and children, and as Rumsfeld said: “Stuff happens.” I have no sympathy for anyone responsible for initiating it and continuing to be a key part of it, particularly the Secretary of War — excuuuse me, “Defense.”
Helena
I just heard Richard Perle on BBC Radio claiming the Syrian operation was Hot Pursuit. BULLSHIT
The essence of hot pursuit is continuity of contact. Tracking the target on Radar does not count.
Here’s the Department of Defense definition of hot pursuit as an example:
Pursuit commenced within the territory, internal waters, the archipelagic waters, the territorial sea, or territorial airspace of the pursuing state and continued without interruption beyond the territory, territorial sea, or airspace. Hot pursuit also exists if pursuit commences within the contiguous or exclusive economic zones or on the continental shelf of the pursuing state, continues without interruption, and is undertaken based on a violation of the rights for the protection of which the zone was established. The right of hot pursuit ceases as soon as the ship or hostile force pursued enters the territory or territorial sea of its own state or of a third state. This definition does not imply that force may or may not be used in connection with hot pursuit. NOTE: This term applies only to law enforcement activities.
Let’s review: For hot pursuit to commence, you have to see the guerîllas in your territory and you have to start chasing them. If they run across the border, then you can go after them . . . if they run into a no-man’s land or if you have an explicit agreement with the government of the other territory.
What happened in Syria was an assasination.
The fact that a smokescreen is being rolled out means that somebody’s ass is hanging out in the breeze.
Richard Perle doesn’t speak for the US government. Of course it’s not “hot pursuit” it’s acting on actionable intelligence against suspected terrorists. Call it the Obama Doctrine:
“There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard. . .If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”
I wish you do more homework because
it seem to me that’s you knows nothing.
There is only one answer to this:
US is a terrorist state whatever claims produced it all lies and t all rubbish.
US are Axis of Evil.
To those Americans they who should fell ashamed by their administration and polices come forward and speak out, take action not just report and comment on your propaganda media.
“Vast and goading scope”: Conspiratorializers Have More Fun
“Some have also offered the idea that Bush is trying to make sure that Barack Obama is thoroughly tied down in the region when he takes office, forced to contend with a newly enraged Syria on the Iraq border, which the Bushists obviously hope will spur more terrorist attacks in Iraq — on American forces and civilians — thereby creating the ‘dangerous conditions’ that will ‘justify’ a continuing U.S. presence in the conquered land. (Yes, Virginia, fomenting terrorist attacks has long been a strategy of the American government, as we noted here — and here — years ago.)
“It’s unlikely that Obama will need much encouragement to keep a substantial U.S. military force in Iraq; that’s been his plan all along. And as he has also advocated ‘carefully targeted’ cross-border strikes into Pakistan, he can hardly object to the same tactic in Iraq. What’s more, Joe Biden has already warned us that he and Obama are going to plunge head-first into an unspecified ‘foreign crisis’ sometime next year, adopting highly unpopular policies that the poor, dumb benighted citizenry are just not going to be able to understand at first. A major incursion into Syria would certainly fit that bill — although, admittedly, the venues and opportunities for Barry and Joe to prove their ‘toughness’ are legion, given the vast and goading scope [sic] of America’s military empire.
Both the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel and Citizen Chris Floyd are news to me. Whether they do this sort of thing all the time, who knows? It would be nice if they did, when one’s most convenient source of comparable connect-the-dottiness has lapsed into a coma of late. There is also no way to tell whether CF specializes in the Greater Levant like the Lynx-Badger-Cartoonoclastes threesome used to or is prepared to make up entertaining copy about any sort of “unspecified ‘foreign crisis'” that comes down the pike. This keyboard will keep an eye on him and maybe report back.
The student will observe that Citizen Chris is the first analyst to make sense of Senator Biden’s weird Camelot-tinged exuberence — which is not to claim that he makes accurate sense of it. Like everybody else in the conspiracymonger line, Citizen Chris gives this keyboard the impression of grossly overestimating the intelligence of his black hats. Why can’t poor Joe be in league with nobody more sinister than Dr. Alzheimer, for Pete’s sake? [*] Or Clarabell the clown? [**]
Citizen Chris mongers quite a lot of conspiracy in only two paragraphs. I start with “Mr. Biden’s Tale” as being the least dotty, but the monger himself — it must be himself, surely: who can believe in that ‘some’ of his who allegedly “have also offered”? No, obviously Chris is just being modest and humble, like Dubya in 2000! — starts with George XLIII “trying to make sure that Barack Obama is thoroughly tied down in the region when he takes office, forced to contend with a newly enraged Syria on the Iraq border, which the Bushists obviously hope will spur more terrorist attacks.”
That bit is harder to evaluate for dottiness. Much depends upon one’s fundamental assumptions about Crawfordology. Though it is risky to judge from a single scribble, yet Citizen Chris’s own Axiom I does look to be both detectable and familiar: militant extremist Republicanism wants to have as long a Long War™ as possible.
With other similar conspiratorializers, the ‘Bushist’ reasons for wantin’ that are either (A) fossil fuel and its profits, or (B) Hyperzionism and its sentimental satisfactions, or (C) some type of electoral finagle in the holy Homeland. In this case one may perhaps rule out the third possibility, for this citizen clearly thinks Democrats are no better than we ought to be either. It is (just barely) conceivable that he supposes Rancho Crawford to intend a subtle electoral finagle that involves Senatorino B. Husáyn Obáma making such a mess of foreign and invasion policy that militant extremism sweeps back into the White House in 2012 and stays there for fifty or a hundred years. [**]
The usual Axis of Invasionism that links Tel Aviv with the Gulf of Petroleum remains. Like most who monger conspiracies about the Greater Levant, Citizen Chris need not be unipolar about his product. Fomentation of a steady supply of terrorist attacks can easily be written up as beneficial for both AIPAC and Exxon-Mobil. No need to pick sides unnecessarily. And furthermore, was not Citizen Chris’s black hats’ ‘scope’ pronounced to be ‘vast’ as well as ‘goading’? Clearly Oil+Zion is vaster than either component in isolation. (That point is clear, innit?)
As to the mini-aggression itself, it is not as clear as one might wish how it benefits either AIPAC or Exxon-Mobil. Given a steady stream of such fomentations, it is not a conceptual difficulty that some will benefit one Pole of the Axis of Invasionism more than the other Pole. But in each instance an accomplished conspiratorializer ought, in my judgement, to indicate both cui bono? and in quo bonum. Citizen Chris’s notions about ‘Bushists’ would be more persuasive, for instance, if he supposed them to be worryin’ about the possibility that peace might break out in Palestine any moment now. (To be sure, if the Big Management Party perps really do worry about that, they are even less intelligent than everybody has supposed.)
As to this particular fomentation benefitin’ Exxon-Mobil instead of Jewish Statism, the present keyboard’s imagination falters and fails. How would that work, exactly?
But perhaps I leap to conclusions. One might take it in steps. Imagine that Rancho Crawford has first decided that keepin’ armed operatives of AEI-GOP-DoD-USIP-AIPAC (&c. &c.) in the former al-‘Iráq will generally advance the twin interests of Jewish Statism and Energy Mastery. They might then go on to debate “What conduces to our hangin’ around in ex-‘Iráq forever?” without further reference to their really ultimate goals. Whatever the stumblebums down at the ranch may think or not think, Citizen Chris has evidently concluded that “Barack Obama [being] thoroughly tied down in the region when he takes office, forced to contend with a newly enraged Syria” would so conduce. Also — and this is a separate issue — that the incident in question [****] does tend to tie That One™’s hands.
The second item seems very shaky to me: why cannot both BHO and the fiends at Damascus smooth such an episode over with ease? Why should anybody be ‘enraged’? After all, they can both blame the ‘Bushists’!
The first item, though, borders on tautology: “Barack Obama thoroughly tied down in the region” is scarcely more than verbally different from “our hangin’ around in ex-‘Iráq forever.” (I think.)
But not so fast! Citizen Chris fails to mention that the Senatorino from Cook County has expressed an unmistakable wish to be “tied down” (so to express it) in Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than in the former al-‘Iráq. That plan does not, perhaps, altogether make sense either as Energy Mastery or as Jewish Statism, but nevertheless if Citizen Chris knows that BHO is only kidding, he knows more than the rest of us do.
Now that is what conspiracymongers are for, of course — knowing more than the rest of us. Still, when one has to go through intellectual calisthenics like this to discover what knowledge they profess to be in possession of — and even then have no clue what the grounds of the (supposed) knowledge are, well, perhaps one may complain a little?
But God knows best. Happy days.
[*] Not a hard question, perhaps: Dr. Alzheimer is not much fun, considered in himself. Considered in conjunction with oneself, he can be positively alarming. Still, it remains a valid topic for Kulturkritik- und Kulturphilosophie- forschung why so few folks in Western Sieve are satisfied to garnish their ‘narratives’ with villains who are just plain stupid.
One incidental penumbra or emanation or epicycle of that prejudice bubbles to the surface in conjunction with the extremist GOP mini-aggression into Syria: mark how quickly Dr. Strangepearl turns up like a bad penny: “I just heard Richard Perle on BBC Radio claiming the Syrian operation was ‘hot pursuit’”
Strangepearl may not be very pertinent to, and he cannot possibly be responsible for, yet who can deny that he is a non-fool as well as a knave? Certainly not the BBC!
[**] “Our Party, may She ever be in the right, but our party, right or wrong!” That is to say, I do not think I betray donkeys (or even doves) by putting Mr. Biden in the same sentence as Dr. Alzheimer and Citizen Clarabell. The militant extremists of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh do indeed say such things too, but they do not mean senility and imbecility in the good sense the way I do. In any case, nobody who visits exotic and far-off-the-beaten-track Planet Justworld is likely to be an influenceable swing voter.
[***] As will be apparent, the present keyboard likes to conspiratorialize too, only without being earnest or importunate about it.
[****] Citizen Chris describes it as follows: “a small ground-air attack on the border village of Sukkiraya on Sunday, with military helicopters disgorging a squad of troops who attacked a building and killed ‘a man, his four children and a married couple’.”
That may not be quite what happened, and presumably what a conspiracymonger ought to discuss is rather what his black hats intended to do rather than the attested sequence of events. However infinite regress begins to loom, so let’s not get into those questions too, please.
595337This is a big FU to the Syrians and the Iraqis – if the US really had actionable intelligence about a known terrorist that close to the border, they should be perfectly capable of carrying out a covert op to liquidate him. That they did not suggests that the White House has another motive. Perhaps Cheney is unhappy about the contact between Syria and France and he wanted to piss on that.
BTW, anybody from the US who thinks that what was done is acceptable should be prepared to back Cuba if they liquidate Luis Posada Carilles, a known terrorist who lives openly in the US, on the streets of Miami.
Helena is drawing a distinction between ground and air incursions, however it’s a distinction without a real difference. Pakistan rightfully complained about the killing of twenty of their citizens on Sunday by a Predator unmanned airplane. After all, when you’re dead you’re dead and it makes little difference if your guts were blown out with a Hellfire missile or rounds from an M60 machine gun.
Helena is drawing a distinction
Let see Helena “Humanism” and all of those care about human what if ONE US solder caught and killed by Syrian what will be US citizenry say?
Remember Bazoft the Britt Spy caught in action and Iraqi law was clear death penalty Britt government made a huge amount of pressure and efforts to realise on criminal in fact two one Britt women Iraq realised her few weeks later.
Helena your criminal hero and our innocent are Terrorists is it that the case now.
One big question here if US have all the info why she did not negotiate the matter and get all sorted out without the killing Wild West mission?
Looks the “Terrorist” have only one hole to inter Iraq and this Hole is Syria!!
What about Iran, Kuwaiti, Saudis, there are far long and open borders there that let hundreds of thousand foreign tropes passed to invade Iraq but are not open for “real” terrorist.
Helena can you tell us why your country handed between 200 to 400 Saudis Terrorist to Saudi government and also to Kuwaiti government , remember that Kuwaiti Terrorist Al-Ba’aly released from Gustavo have blown himself in Mussel as reported …. Looks they handed them for “REUSE”!!
Is Al-Da’awa Party Terrorist party that hijacked Kuwaiti Air plane in 1983?
So we got lost with Bush terrorist name…
Personally I draw no distinction between people being killed from the ground or people being killed from the air. However, apparently the Pakistani government does draw such a distinction, and probably other governments do too. (E.g., the Yemeni go9vernment.)
With regard to Pakistan, the Bush administration apparently had to make positive, high-level decision to undertake ground attacks against Pakistan in addition to the air attacks it had long been conducting. That was doubtless because the small number of diplomats who remain in the Bush admin understood that Pakistan’s government has for a while now considered the distinction important. (Perhaps from the POV of the degree of humiliation involved for them there does seem to be a difference.)
Those diplomats would also, surely, have told the White House that any attack against Syria, from land or air, would have strong diplomatic repucussions. Though, as I argued yesterday, not much risk of a direct military response. Probably a different Red Line from Islamabad– but Red Line that in the case of a non-deniable, non-fudgable US ground attack certainly exists.
“”
A few select words (with numbers and emboldenment added) from the Honourable Neocomrade R. M. Gates, Minister of Invasions and Occupations to the Nuculary Republic of Crawfordstan. His Excellency was addressing, 28 October 2008, the Warbucks Endowment for Perpetual Pharisaism .
Thank you, Jessica, for that very kind introduction . . . [yimmer, yammer] . . . I want to take a step back and discuss, briefly, some of the broader implications of deterrence in the 21st century. There can be little doubt that the post-Cold War world offers a new strategic paradigm for nuclear weapons, and particularly for the concept of deterrence. As our 2008 National Defense Strategy puts it, “the challenge is one of deterring or dissuading a range of potential adversaries from taking a variety of actions.”
Deterrence has a specific policy goal – and, in this sense, deterrent strategies can be applied to many situations.
A few examples come to mind.
[1] Rogue regimes that threaten their neighbors and our allies, potentially with nuclear weapons, are a problem today and will be in the future. Our goal is, in part, to reduce their ability to hold other nations hostage, and to deny them the ability to project power. The New Triad I mentioned earlier, with a conventional strike force and ballistic missile defense, helps achieve this. A conventional strike force means that more targets are vulnerable without our having to resort to nuclear weapons. And missile defenses reinforce deterrence and minimize the benefits of rogue nations investing heavily in ballistic missiles: they won’t know if their missiles will be effective, thus other nations will feel less threatened. And let’s not forget the deterrent value of other parts of our conventional military forces.
We also still face the problem of weapons passing from nation-states into the hands of terrorists. After September 11th, the president announced [2a] that we would make no distinction between terrorists and the states that sponsor or harbor them. Indeed, the United States has made it clear for many years that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, our people, our forces, and our friends and allies.
Today we also make clear [2b] that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction – whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts. To add teeth to the deterrent goal of this policy, we are pursuing new technologies to identify the forensic signatures of any nuclear material used in an attack – to trace it back to the source.
[3] As we know from recent experience, attacks on our communications systems and infrastructure will be a part of future war. Our policy goal is obviously to prevent anyone from being able to take down our systems. Deterrence here might entail figuring out how to make our systems redundant, as with the old Nuclear Triad. Imagine easily deployable, replacement satellites that could be launched from high-altitude planes – or high-altitude UAVs that could operate as mobile data links. The point is to make the effort to attack us seem pointless in the first place. Similarly, future administrations will have to consider new declaratory policies about what level of cyber-attack might be considered an act of war – and what type of military response is appropriate.
Now, some may find it ironic that I chose this forum – dedicated to international peace – to address this topic – dealing with the most destructive weapons ever conceived by mankind and some of the most cutting-edge ideas for future warfare. At the end of the day, however, every great nation has learned . . . [three guesses what they learned!] . . . [yammer, yimmer] . . . .
“Is Iraq going to become a launching pad for blatant American aggressions upon targets in neighbouring countries?”
Well, that was, after all, part of the initial purpose of the invasion – to use Iraq as a base for U.S. military operations in the region. So, I guess it should not come as a very big surprise.