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H. Thomas Hayden
recently concluded over 35 years of service,
which included the Agency for International
Development, the Marine Corps, defense industry
and the Pentagon. His specialties are Intelligence,
Counterinsurgency Operations, Counter-terrorism,
and Joint Concepts Development and Experimentation.
His Marine Corps assignments have included
command of two separate battalions; AC/S G-2,
4th MARDIV & AC/S G-2 FMFEurope; Branch Head,
HQMC, Special Operations and Low Intensity
Conflict (SO/LIC); Special Assistant to the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC;
and, Senior Program Analysts at HQMC with
the Joint Staff and DoD at the Pentagon. Overseas
assignments included Vietnam, Japan & Okinawa,
Europe, Central America, Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait, Somalia, Singapore, Philippines, and
Colombia. He has an MBA (Pepperdine) and an
MA in International Relations (University
of Southern California). He has written two
books and is working on a third.
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January 12, 2005
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On January 12, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dismissed as "nonsense" news reports that the Pentagon was debating a "Salvador option," in which U.S. Special Operations Forces or Iraqi special units would pursue insurgents into Syria.
When asked whether this action had been considered, he said: "Why would I even talk about something like that?" What else was he going to say?
Unfortunately, 4th Generation Warfare is still much misunderstood by the public, not to mention the conventional uniformed military leadership or civilians in the Pentagon. Asymmetric or unconventional warfare knows no borders, and the jihad holy warriors are becoming masters of transnational organization and movement.
It seems that the Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek magazine, and others are bent on spoiling what should be serious considerations for actions against hostile targets, wherever they may be. Newsweek has reported that the Pentagon was intensively debating an option to use special squads to target insurgents, but characterized them as the "death squads" that were used to kill rebel leaders in El Salvador during the early 1980s (the so-called “El Salvador Option”).
Newsweek went on to say that one Pentagon proposal would send U.S. special forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads -- most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen -- to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria. The report also said it was unclear whether this would be a policy of assassination, or so-called "snatch" operations to capture insurgents and send them to special interrogation facilities. On January 11, UPI reported that pressure for some form of military action against targets in Syria is also coming from interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Any intelligent former and/or serving military officer who may have been opposed to any expansion of U.S. military activities in the region must be now expressing support for cross border strikes due to the ever-increasing money, arms and jihad fighters flowing across the Syrian border.
According to UPI, a former senior U.S. intelligence official said: "I don't usually find myself in sympathy with the Bush neo-cons, but I think there is enough fire under this smoke to justify such action." Referring to the escalating attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq by foreign insurgents, he added, "Syria is complicit in the (anti-U.S.) insurgency up to its eyeballs."
"Syria is the No. 1 crossing point for guerrillas entering Iraq," adds Gary Gambill, editor of the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. He added that Damascus "does nothing about it."
It has been reported by western and Arab news media that Syria has training camps in which Syrians and Iraqis are training jihad fighters for the insurgency. If Special Operations Forces will not be an option, there are many targets that could be hit by U.S. air strikes.
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., senior U.S. commander in Iraq, said that senior Ba’ath Party officials from Iraq are operating from Syria where they provide financing and direction to the cells of Iraqi insurgents killing Americans.
UPI has also reported that “U.S. officials” state that money, direction, weapons, and personnel are flowing into Iraq from Syria, ending up in Iraqi cities such as Iskanderiya, Baqouba, Latafiya, and Fallujah. These same “officials” say that Damascus is also home to associates of the top insurgency commander now affiliated with al-Qaida, Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi.
It has long been known that Damascus is the key center of finance for former Saddam Hussein officials who are involved the insurgency, with sizeable amounts of Iraqi cash that could run as high as $3 billion, which is in the Syrian banking system.
There has been no convincing evidence that the Bush administration has applied pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to halt the activities of Ba’athist and jihad groups inside Syria, and to arrest and extradite former Saddam Hussein officials who are the leading financiers. So far there has been no response from Syria. This may be a clear indication of the weakness of Assad to act against these militant groups. It is hard to believe that Bashar's inner circle of key advisers consisting of “reformist and smart young technocrats" would be urging Bashar to yield to U.S. pressure and shut down some of the anti-U.S. activity.
The old guard Syrian Mukhabarat, secret police, may have Bashar trapped like the “prisoner of Zenda." But the question is: Are the neo-cons and the hawks likely to get their air strikes?
I don't think the administration would likely get Congressional, let alone popular support to openly attack another country in the region. U.S. Special Operations Forces or Iraqi special units may be able to do some damage if the U.S. news media would let it ride. Damascus is not the center of gravity of the Iraqi insurgent movement. The insurgency is organized, led, and growing inside Iraq. The U.S. and the Iraqi interim government must confront the insurgency in Iraq and stop all external sources of support for the insurgents.
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