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| Generals Martin Dempsey (left) and David Richards |
America’s
top military officer told a Senate panel overnight the Obama Administration is
evaluating whether to conduct “direct kinetic strikes” against the
Syrian regime.
Army
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the use of
kinetic strikes -- a military term that typically refers to missiles and bombs
-- "is under deliberation inside of our agencies of government.”
In
interviews to two British newspapers published in London the same day, General Sir
David Richards, the outgoing Chief of the Defense Staff, said: “If
you want to have the material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that
some people seek” then “ground targets” would have to be “hit.”
DEMPSEY
Republican Senator John
McCain of Arizona said he would block Dempsey's nomination for
a second term as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman until the general gave
his personal opinion on what the U.S. should do in Syria.
McCain, who supports a
stronger role in supporting opposition rebels, accused the Obama administration
of inaction in Syria and questioned the quality of advice Dempsey has provided
to the White House over the past two years.
He said the risks of
inaction in Syria outweighed risks the United States would face in engaging
more actively in supporting rebels.
"We have not been
inactive," Dempsey countered.
The White House has
said it will arm rebels, but opposition leaders in Syria say they have yet to
receive those weapons and momentum is shifting toward President Bashar al-Assad.
Dempsey later
acknowledged that the "tide seems to have shifted in his favor.” He also
said the momentum ebbs and flows between the two sides.
McCain expressed
concerns that Dempsey's advice on arming rebels has shifted.
“You testified this February
you had advised the president to arm vetted units of the Syrian opposition,”
McCain said. “In April, you testified you no longer supported the position. Now
we read in published reports that the administration has decided to arm the
Syrian opposition units. How do we account for those pirouettes?”
"I wouldn't accept
the term pirouettes, sir," Dempsey said. "We have adapted our
approach based on what we know of the opposition and if you recall, at the
beginning of the year, there was a period where it was pretty evident that the
extremist groups were prevailing inside the opposition." He said he
supports “the building of a moderate opposition and including building its
military capability.”
When pressed again by
McCain, Dempsey – in a not-so-subtle reference to Iraq – asked the senator
whether he would agree "that situations could be made worse by the
introduction of military force?"
McCain said the general
disagreed with him in a similar debate in 2006 over whether to send some 20,000
more U.S. troops to Iraq to quell violence in Baghdad an al-Anbar province.
President George W. Bush ultimately ordered the deployment, which was known as
"the surge" and credited it with helping to turn the tide of the war.
"I think history
shows that those of us who supported the surge were right and people like you
who didn't think we need a surge were wrong," McCain said.
McCain asked Dempsey
whether regional destabilization is a "good outcome" of the Syria
conflict.
"Senator, somehow
you've got me portrayed as the one who's holding back from our use of military
force inside of Syria,” Dempsey said.
"We've given
[President Obama] options," Dempsey said. "The members of this
committee have been briefed on them in a classified setting. We've articulated
the risk. The decision on whether to use force is the decision of our elected
officials."
McCain reminded Dempsey
that the general agreed at the beginning of the hearing to provide the
committee with his personal opinion, if asked. "I'm asking for your
opinion," McCain said.
"About the use of
kinetic strikes?" Dempsey asked. "That issue is under deliberation
inside of our agencies of government and it would be inappropriate for me to
try to influence the decision with me rendering an opinion in public about what
kind of force we should use."
McCain took the parting
shot.
"If it is your
position that you do not provide your personal views to the committee when
asked, only under certain circumstances, then you have just contradicted what I
have known this committee to operate under for the last 30 years," he
said.
McCain told reporters
after leaving the hearing room he planned to put a hold on the nomination,
essentially blocking any further action until he gets an adequate response from
Dempsey.
"I want to see him
answer the question," McCain said.
Seeking a compromise, Sen.
Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee chairman, asked Dempsey to provide the panel
by early next week with an unclassified list of options and the general's
assessment of the pros and cons of each. Levin made clear he is not asking
Dempsey to share his personal opinion on whether or not to use force in Syria.
Dempsey agreed to provide the list.
Levin said he hoped the
assessment from Dempsey would give McCain "greater reassurance."
RICHARDS
The outgoing head of the
British Army said in turn the West would need to fight a war against Assad if
it wanted to have a "material impact" on his calculations.
In interviews to two
British newspapers, General Sir David Richards said there were arguments for
and against such a course of action and the British government was still
debating its options on Syria.
But if a political
decision was made to try to change the tide of the conflict to put pressure on
the Syrian government, which has notched up military gains in recent months,
Britain would need to intervene in the same way as it did in Libya, he said.
The 61-year-old general
said in an interview with The
Daily Telegraph there was "a lack of international consensus"
over how to act over Syria but a shared reluctance to see Western boots on the
ground.
“If you wanted to have the
material impact on the Syrian regime’s calculations that some people seek, a no
fly zone per se is insufficient.
“You have to be able, as
we did successfully in Libya, to hit ground targets.
“You have to establish a
ground control zone. You have to take out their air defenses. You also have to
make sure they can’t maneuver – which means you have to take out their tanks,
and their armored personnel carriers and all the other things that are actually
doing the damage.
“If you want to have the
material effect that people seek you have to be able to hit ground targets and
so you would be going to war if that is what you want to do.”
He added: “That is rightly
a huge and important decision. There are many arguments for doing so but there
are many arguments for not doing so too.”
Richards described the
situation as “highly complex” and suggested that the focus of government action
was also on ensuring the conflict did not “spread” to neighboring countries.
“We are looking at Syria
much more from a regional perspective and making sure that as awful as things
are there it doesn’t spread materially to other countries like Lebanon and
Jordan,” he said.
Richards separately
told The
Sun newspaper that Britain “would have to act” if it saw chemical weapons
proliferation as a result of the Syrian conflict.
And he also revealed planning for a major new
operation in the war-torn country, which Special Forces would lead, is well
underway.
Richards said, “The risk of terrorism is
becoming more and more dominant in our strategic vision for what we might do in
Syria.
“If that risk develops, we would almost
certainly have to act to mitigate it and we are ready to do so.
"I think it is a very big question. If
we saw chemical weapons proliferate as a result of what is happening in Syria
then we would have to act.
“Obviously we have contingency plans for
everything.”
Pressed on whether that meant a brand new
theater of war for the armed forces, the general added: “Some could
characterize that, even though it might be for a limited period, as a war”.
Britain is only likely to act alongside the
US, Richards suggested, adding: “We would have to do it as part of a wider
effort because you know the scale of the challenge would be too much for any
one country.
“But it has huge strategic implications
beyond what might be actually quite a straightforward tactical effort.”
