Posted on 01/08/2004 5:46:19 AM PST by truthandlife
U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is considering a plan for multi-pronged attacks on insurgency strongholds in such countries as Lebanon and Somalia.
U.S. defense sources said the proposal is part of a plan for an expanded offensive against Al Qaida and affiliated terrorist organizations.
Over the last six months, the Pentagon has increased the U.S. military presence along the Iraqi-Syrian border to halt the flow of Islamic insurgents into Iraq. U.S. officials said American troops and helicopters have fought the insurgents along the Syrian border and in several cases entered Syrian air space and territory.
Next week, U.S. troops are scheduled to launch an exercise with Kenya's military in the Red Sea. U.S. defense sources said the exercise could mark the start of the U.S. military strike against Somalia, regarded as a key base for Al Qaida.
The sources also said that after a military operation in Somalia, Rumsfeld might recommend a U.S. strike against insurgency strongholds in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The area contains Hizbullah and Palestinian forces under the umbrella of the Syrian military. Separately, The London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat reported on Wednesday that a proposal has been submitted to Rumsfeld to expand special operations forces and send them to destroy insurgency strongholds along the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The newspaper reported that the proposal was the result of the secretary's decision to expand the U.S. war against Al Qaida and its allies. The Saudi-owned newspaper quoted U.S. sources as saying the first step being mulled by Rumsfeld is for a U.S. military attack on Al Qaida strongholds in Somalia as early as this month.
"The global war on terror is continuing, and it will for the foreseeable future," Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "As we prosecute the war, we'll need to continue to strengthen, improve and transform our forces; modernize and restructure programs and commands."
Most of the time but World Tribune has had its DEBKA moments.
And then some.
Hmmmm...
Aug 25, 2003 - U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located. Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the United States and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq. Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents, Geostrategy-Direct.com will report in tomorrow's new weekly edition. U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebaon in January 2003. The significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time.And backed up by a professional opinion:Drudge via World Tribune article
Oct 28, 2003 - The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.And last but not least, backed up by Powell:The official, James R. Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the American invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.
"I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," General Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.
General Clapper's agency is responsible for interpreting satellite photographs and other imagery. He declined to answer a question about whether he believed that illicit Iraqi weapons material might have been smuggled into any other country.
Iraq is said to have transported chemical and biological weapons to the borders with Syria and Turkey.I am just surprised Syria is not first on the list.U.S. officials said an Iraqi intelligence unit was spotted transporting the nonconventional weapons about six weeks ago from facilities in Baghdad to the Syrian and Turkish borders. They said the transfer of the weapons appeared to be part of an effort to conceal them from United Nations inspectors and spare them from any expected U.S. attack.
"We know that in late January, the Iraqi Intelligence Service transported chemical and biological agents to areas far away from Baghdad, near the Syrian and Turkish borders, in order to conceal them," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday. "And they have concealed them from the prying eyes of inspectors."
In an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Powell did not identify or say how many BW and CW weapons were transferred by Iraq. But Powell and other officials said Iraq is believed to have produced such agents as anthrax, VX and botulinum toxin.
Iraq Transports WMD to Syrian, Turkish Borders
No doubt certain despots in the area heard that and had some sleepless nights.
Getting close, huh? I was thinking about you when I saw the title of the article, "Glock Rocks needs a ping on this one." You got here before me.
And after we don't find them in Lebanon, then that means that Iraq shipped them to ... North Korea! Yeah, North Korea.
Uh, no, Syria! Uh, Saudi Arabia!
We should hope we never find those WMD.
My thoughts exactly. Rummy is far too shrewd a player to telegraph strikes in Somalia or Lebanon or anywhere else for that matter. The more likely scenario is as you say, leak this and see what happens. My guess is what we hear is happening is exactly opposite of what is really happening.
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