President Barack Obama (L) announces a shake up with his national security team by nominating CIA Director Leon Panetta (2nd L) as Secretary of Defense and U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus (C) to replace Panetta, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, April 28, 2011. Obama also announced Ryan Crocker (R) as his nomination to be the new Ambassador to Afghanistan and U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen (2nd R) to be the commander of allied forces in Afghanistan. REUTERS/Jason Reed
NBC News: Obama Nixed CIA Plan That Could Have Stopped ISIS: Officials
The CIA in 2012 proposed a detailed covert action plan designed to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, but President Obama declined to approve it, current and former U.S. officials tell NBC News.
It's long been known that then-CIA Director David Petraeus recommended a program to secretly arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in 2012 to pressure Assad. But a book to be published Tuesday by a former CIA operative goes further, revealing that senior CIA officials were pushing a multi-tiered plan to engineer the dictator's ouster. Former American officials involved in the discussions confirmed that to NBC News.
In an exclusive television interview with NBC News, the former officer, Doug Laux, describes spending a year in the Middle East meeting with Syrian rebels and intelligence officers from various partner countries. Laux, who spoke some Arabic, was the eyes and ears on the ground for the CIA's Syria task force, he says.
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WNU Editor: The CIA (or at least some parts of it) are blaming President Obama. The White House is blaming the Pentagon .... White House Now Blaming War General’s 2014 Islamic State Assessment For Why No One Took The Group Seriously. Bottom line .... everyone is blaming everyone else on why the situation is the Middle East is where it is at right now.
4 comments:
When the Syrian Civil War started, I had stated this would be over with Assad and his forces victorious in six months or less. After all Assad is backed by Russia who has the world's most powerful military and there is no way they are going to allow him to be removed without their approval and/or without them hand picking the successor. Even if such a CIA plan existed, it never could have succeeded even it had been implemented. The Russians would never have allowed it.
Perhaps the removal of Assad may have been optimal, perhaps not. In any event, it was never going to happen and never will. As such, it is best not to base policy decisions on unrealistic assumptions. The removal of Assad was never going to happen.
As for ISIS, I'm not surprised the US missed this one as US intelligence has a long history of over estimating US capabilities while under estimating those of adversaries and potential adversaries. With that said when ISIS arose to power, it captured and held territory at a faster rate and more efficiently than the US military ever could have even before it became badly depleted from continuous war. This a VERY tough enemy, however, it will eventually be defeated as the math simply does not work for them. They have accumulated to many powerful enemies to allow for their mid to long range survival.
As for Syria and Iran, they are here to stay. I think the key to better relations with them, especially Iran is to work on having better relations with Russia. Russia acts to constrain Iran "death to America" and Iran in turn acts to constrain Syria in ways that may be harmful to us and we can all work on defeating ISIS much quicker.
Russia is the most powerful nation in the world and is going to remain so for the foreseeable future. As such, better relations with them are paramount. The deal maker has declared Mr. Putin to be someone whom he believes he can work with. Perhaps he will be elected and we can see if he will follow through on trying to cultivate this relationship. If he does not get elected, hopefully the next PORUS will understand the need to alter policy in this area.
As a member of the Group specifically assigned to the CENTCOM area I can attest to the fact that we had plans to stop ISIS/Assad back in 2012. Teams were in place and briefing some very senior people about our plans. Everyone in a uniform understood the gravity of the situation and while not in a rush to get into another conflict realized how bad it could get. When briefing certain members of the State Dep the Special Operators were told "not just no, hell no. End of discussion."
"Looking back, Laux now says he doesn't believe his or any other covert plan could have stopped the rise of ISIS or ended Syria's bloody civil war. "There were no moderates," he says."
It is believable that Obama hemmed and hawed after his hand wringing evolution about the Afghanistan surge.
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