Posted on 04/14/2003 7:18:52 PM PDT by HAL9000
The White House has privately ruled out suggestions that the US should go to war against Syria following its military success in Iraq, and has blocked preliminary planning for such a campaign in the Pentagon, the Guardian learned yesterday.In the past few weeks, the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, ordered contingency plans for a war on Syria to be reviewed following the fall of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, his undersecretary for policy, Doug Feith, and William Luti, the head of the Pentagon's office of special plans, were asked to put together a briefing paper on the case for war against Syria, outlining its role in supplying weapons to Saddam Hussein, its links with Middle East terrorist groups and its allegedly advanced chemical weapons programme. Mr Feith and Mr Luti were both instrumental in persuading the White House to go to war in Iraq.
Mr Feith and other conservatives now playing important roles in the Bush administration, advised the Israeli government in 1996 that it could "shape its strategic environment... by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria".
However, President George Bush, who faces re-election next year with two perilous nation-building projects, in Afghanistan and Iraq, on his hands, is said to have cut off discussion among his advisers about the possibility of taking the "war on terror" to Syria.
"The talk about Syria didn't go anywhere. Basically, the White House shut down the discussion," an intelligence source in Washington told the Guardian.
Faced with rising apprehension over the prospect of a new conflict, Tony Blair also offered categorical assurances to anxious MPs yesterday that Britain and the US had "no plans whatsoever" to invade Iraq's neighbour.
Dismissing fears of an Anglo-American invasion as another "conspiracy theory", the prime minister said that Mr Bush had never mentioned an attack on Syria during their regular talks.
"I have the advantage of talking to the American president on a regular basis and I can assure you there are no plans to invade Syria," he said. "Neither has anyone on the other side of the water, as far as I am aware, said there are plans."
The Bush administration is nevertheless determined to use its military ascendancy in the region to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Damascus and resolve what Washington sees as longstanding problems, including the threat to Israel posed by Damascus-backed Islamic extremists, Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Syria's chemical weapons.
Mr Rumsfeld repeated accusations yesterday that Syria had tested chemical weapons in the last 12 to 15 months. However, Syria is not a signatory to the chemical weapons convention and would not be breaking international law if it did possess,nor is it suspected of selling chemical weapons to others.
One US administration official conceded: "They've not taken any actions that we can see so far that would justify military action."
Mr Blair made clear to Syria yesterday that it must not accept high-level political fugitives or weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.
"It is important Syria does not harbour people from Saddam's regime or allow any transfer of material from Iraq to Syria. I have spoken to President Assad and he has assured me that is not happening and I have said it is important that assurance is valid," Mr Blair told MPs.
A diplomat in Washington with close ties to the administration agreed there was no sign of military action on the horizon.
"There's no question of this at the White House," the diplomat said, pointing out that the Syrian army would be a far more potent adversary than Iraq's bedraggled forces. "Anyone who lives in the real world would never see this as more than noise."
Instead, the administration expects that the loss of income from smuggling arms and oil to and from Iraq will make Damascus vulnerable to economic pressure. Congress is examin-ing the Syrian accountability act, which would impose tough sanctions on Damascus.
British officials confirm they share US alarm about Syria's recent conduct and its sponsorship role in Palestinian terrorism. But Mr Blair has cultivated Bashar al-Assad, its British-educated president, and adopts a more conciliatory tone towards Damascus.
"It's a bit of a good cop, bad cop routine," one Whitehall official said of the tougher line coming from the US.
The prime minister's upbeat report to MPs on what, for the first time, he called victory was marred by sceptical challenges from both sides based on reports from Washington that Bush hawks want to move on the Ba'athist regime next door. Evidently exasperated, Mr Blair denounced "conspiracy theories" and insisted that he could not be clearer about his determination to tackle Syria by diplomacy.
His remarks came hours after the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, warned Mr Assad that he would have to face up to "the new reality" of the post-Saddam world. Speaking in Kuwait on the second leg of a four-country tour of the Gulf, Mr Straw said: "There are a number of questions it is very important that Syria should answer and in a cooperative way."
His tough remarks were echoed by the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, who warned that Britain had had concerns for some time about Syria's desire to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Hoon referred to a government paper, presented to parliament in February last year, which raised questions about Syria's weapons programme. The document said that Syria was one of five countries attempting to "obtain inventories of longer-range ballistic missiles". The other countries included North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
The Syrian ambassador to London angrily rejected suggestions that Damascus had any weapons of mass destruction or was harbouring members of Saddam's regime. Mouafak Nassar told Radio 4's The World at One: "I will say I am wondering why they are targeting one Arab country after the other. They are ignoring totally the country that has mass destruction weapons - Israel."
Britain underlined its commitment to diplomacy when the junior Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, met Mr Assad in Damascus yesterday.
I did not understand why Aldouri was not arrested in New York as a war criminal? He spewed the Sadamn line for 24 years and was 4th in command. He, the French, and CNN (for their complicity in hiding Sadamn's atrocities) are responsible for the deaths of a number of American soldiers. We should never forget that........
This is a clasic!
tHis went well because of the cooperation of the Brits. That cooperation had a price. A Palestinian state.
The key to stability in the eastern Mediterranean is to allow the principals the means to their own destiny. The principals, at present, have little control over the finance, trainning an importation of terrorists into Gaza and the West Bank by Syria via Lebanon.
If Bush is to keep his promise to Blair, Lebanon must be cleansed. The issue is a third rail in and out of the region but a task that has to completed. I believe the Bakka Valley is a reasonable next stop, not Damascus.
Of course there complete. We have war plans for most every bad guy in the world. If anything all these plans need is some tweeking here and there.
Let's chew and digest what we've bitten off already, shall we.
The smoke in Iraq hasn't even cleared yet. It's important that we do right by Iraq, which will require a lot of work and skill.
In the meantime Syria will have plenty of incentive to behave, with the United States's newest and largest aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. IRAQ, permanently moored on her Eastern border.
There are other ways and means besides an all-out military campaign, to deal with our other "problem children".
They are pretty thick in that part of the world, but what they've just witnessed has got to be seeping into what brains they have.
We seem to have gotten North Korea's undivided attention, without firing a shot at them. That's a huge benefit from the job already done. There will be more benefits.
Beside, this article is from the Guardian, a left-wing rag, so I wouldn't bet the farm on what "they know".
This wicked notion that somehow the SOB responsible for starting the wars can have a pass while our boys have to die infuriates me to the hilt. We that have fought have but one claim upon the commander in chief, that he purchase wisely with the currency of our blood.
I had a good freind, named Walker. He liked to sing. I watched as he burned to death when an Iraqi mortar landed directly on the tank he was driving during Desert Storm. He was not the only freind I lost, nor the only Marine I saw die. The political cowardice of Bush Sr. and Powell meant that it was all for very little if not nothing. Clinton's neglect played a major role in abetting 9-11, but Bush SR neglected too. All that has been acomplished with regards to terrorist preemption with the massively intimidating current campaign should have happened in 1991, and maybe, just maybe the towers would still stand. UBL has stated repeatedly that his main motivation was troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. These troops would not have needed to be there if we had finished the job in 91.
A president has a moral obligation to not spend the lives of American innocents (that's right, US Military members are INNOCENT) without killing the single person responsible for starting the war(s). This must be the measure of his resolve, God insists. Anything less is moral fraud of the worst kind, akin to murder.
Here is the recurring point in history where spineless politicians fumble the handoff and ruin the results of an otherwise perfect military victory. Many of those most responsible for the war are now in Syria, maybe even Saddam. Our young innocents have suffered and overcome valiantly their greatest challenge, and I pray now that their commander and cheif will not fail his. I would hate for yet another generation veterans to have to make excuses for their service.
I pray that Saddam dies now so that my children are safe from at least him. If he is again left alive, I pray that those responsible spend eternity with him.
Indeed. Also the Syrians have a better trained and equipped Army than most people are aware.
Two words: Diplomatic Immunity
Besides, watching where he runs is good. He was a mouthpiece in NY, the big fish, what's left of them and their supporters, are the ones we want.
None the less, the Syrians are no match for the U.S. military. Once the Syrian air power is reduced in short order, the pounding begins and nothing will be left of the Syrian military. I have no question about the outcome, whether it's Syria or Iran. They would be destroyed in a war with the U. S. military.
I have been reading the works of Victor Davis Hanson in his book "Autumn of War". Well worth reading. Helps explain what is going on. Syrian leaders would do well to read the book as well.
Yet, for now, the diplomatic jousting is in full swing. G. W. has put them on notice - harbor terrorist and we will come after you...one way or another.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that this division is heading deep into Western Iraq...and it wouldn't surprise me if those two aircraft carriers leaving the Gulf being assigned a little "Med Cruise".
Nothing like just hanging out in the neighborhood...
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