[The strikes would be
aimed not at the chemical stockpiles themselves — risking a potential
catastrophe — but rather the military units that have stored and prepared the
chemical weapons and carried the attacks against Syrian rebels, as well as the
headquarters overseeing the effort, and the rockets and artillery that have
launched the attacks, military officials said Thursday.]
By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt
 |
Reuters
People
on Wednesday walked along a damaged street in Deir al-Zour, an
eastern
city in Syria that has been a recurrent battleground in the conflict.
|
WASHINGTON — President Obama has directed the
Pentagon to develop an expanded list of potential targets in Syria in response
to intelligence suggesting that the government of President Bashar al-Assad has
been moving troops and equipment used to employ chemical weapons while Congress
debates whether to authorize military action.
Mr. Obama, officials
said, is now determined to put more emphasis on the “degrade” part of what the
administration has said is the goal of a military strike against Syria — to “deter and
degrade” Mr. Assad’s ability to use chemical weapons. That means expanding
beyond the 50 or so major sites that were part of the original target list
developed with French forces before Mr. Obama delayed action on Saturday to
seek Congressional approval of his plan.
For the first time, the
administration is talking about using American and French aircraft to conduct
strikes on specific targets, in addition to ship-launched Tomahawk cruise
missiles. There is a renewed push to get other NATO forces involved.
The strikes would be
aimed not at the chemical stockpiles themselves — risking a potential
catastrophe — but rather the military units that have stored and prepared the
chemical weapons and carried the attacks against Syrian rebels, as well as the
headquarters overseeing the effort, and the rockets and artillery that have
launched the attacks, military officials said Thursday.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey,
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that other targets would
include equipment that Syria uses to protect the chemicals — air defenses,
long-range missiles and rockets, which can also deliver the weapons.
Mr. Obama’s instructions
come as most members of Congress who are even willing to consider voting in
favor of a military response to a chemical attack are insisting on strict
limits on the duration and type of the strikes carried out by the United
States, while a small number of Republicans are telling the White House that
the current plans are not muscular enough to destabilize the Assad government.
Senior officials are
aware of the competing imperatives they now confront — that to win even the
fight on Capitol Hill, they will have to accept restrictions on the military
response, and in order to make the strike meaningful they must expand its
scope.
“They are being pulled
in two different directions,” a senior foreign official involved in the
discussions said Thursday. “The worst outcome would be to come out of this
bruising battle with Congress and conduct a military action that made little
difference.”
Officials cautioned that
the options for an increased American strike would still be limited — “think
incremental increase, not exponential,” said one official — but would be
intended to inflict significant damage on the Syrian military.
It was a measure of the
White House’s concern about obtaining Congressional approval that Mr. Obama
canceled a planned trip to Los Angeles next week, where he was scheduled to
speak to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and hold a fund-raiser. One senior official said Mr.
Obama would get far more involved in direct lobbying for a military
authorization, and there is talk inside the administration about a formal address
to the nation.
In endorsing a strike on Wednesday, the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee made some modifications to the resolution proposed
by the White House, and other versions are also being circulated. The latest is
from Senator Joe Manchin III, a conservative Democrat from West Virginia who
proposes giving Mr. Assad 45 days to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and
begin securing and ridding the country of its weapons stockpiles. Only if Mr.
Assad refuses would the president be authorized to take military action.
“We need some options
out there that does something about the chemical weapons,” Mr. Manchin said.
“That’s what’s missing right now.”
The concept is already
being debated by some government officials and foreign diplomats, though the
White House has not weighed in.
For now, White House
officials insist that they are slowly gaining ground in lining up support,
though the evidence is slim. “We’re very pleased with the trend lines,” said
Benjamin J. Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser. “I think
each day what you’ve seen is different members coming out on a bipartisan basis
to support an authorization to use military force.”
He noted Wednesday’s
Senate committee vote and the endorsements from a range of senators, including
from John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and the liberal Democrat Barbara Boxer
of California. “What we’re seeing each day is an increasing number of members
who are convinced that a military response is necessary,” Mr. Rhodes said. “But
we’re going to continue to make the case to members.”
Privately, some members
of the Obama administration appear concerned that General Dempsey’s
presentations to Congress — particularly his repeated assertions that any
American intervention in Syria is unlikely to have a decisive effect on the
civil war — are undercutting the administration’s argument that the attacks, while
targeted, would also change Mr. Assad’s calculus.
So as the target list
expands, the administration is creeping closer to carrying out military action
that also could help tip the balance on the ground, even as the administration
argues that that is not the primary intent.
The bulk of the American
attack is still expected to be carried out by cruise missiles from some or all
of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within striking range of Syria in
the eastern Mediterranean. Each ship carries about three dozen Tomahawk cruise
missiles, a low-flying, highly accurate weapon that can be launched from safe
distances of up to about 1,000 miles.
But military planners
are now preparing options to include attacks from Air Force bombers, a
development reported Thursday by The Wall Street Journal. The Pentagon was
initially planning to rely solely on cruise missiles.
Bombers could carry
scores more munitions, potentially permitting the United States to carry out
more strikes if the first wave does not destroy the targets.
Among the options
available are B-52 bombers, which can carry air-launched cruise missiles; B-1s
that are based in Qatar and carry long-range, air-to-surface missiles; and B-2
stealth bombers, which are based in Missouri and carry satellite-guided bombs.
The Navy in recent days
has moved the aircraft carrier Nimitz into the Red Sea, within striking
distance of Syria.
But Defense Department
officials said Thursday that the Nimitz, and its squadrons of F-18 Super Hornet
attack planes, as well as three missile-toting destroyers in its battle group,
are not likely to join any attack unless Syria launches major retaliatory
strikes.
Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel told lawmakers on Wednesday that an American operation would cost “in the
tens of millions of dollars,” the first time any administration official has
put even a rough price tag on the possible strike.
Mr. Assad has openly
mocked the United States for delaying any military action, and has seized on
the pause to move military equipment, troops and documents to civilian
neighborhoods, presumably daring Mr. Obama to order strikes that could kill
large number of civilians.
“The additional time
gives Assad the potential advantage of complicating U.S. targeting by
surreptitiously moving people or even chemical munitions into them, aiming to
create casualties or chemical release as a direct result of U.S. attacks,” said
David A. Deptula, a retired three-star Air Force general who planned the
American air campaigns in 2001 in Afghanistan and in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
But General Dempsey told
lawmakers on Wednesday that American spy agencies are “keeping up with that
movement,” which he said also included prisoners, potentially to be used as
human shields, and that all necessary steps would be taken to minimize civilian
casualties.
The Pentagon is also
planning contingencies to counter or respond to any retaliatory attacks by Mr.
Assad’s forces. General Dempsey said the Syrian leader could lob long-range
rockets against his neighbors; encourage surrogates and proxies, like
Hezbollah, to assault American embassies; or carry out a cyberattack against
the United States or American interests.
“We are alert to all of
the possibilities and are mitigating strategies in the way we’ve positioned
ourselves in the region,” General Dempsey said.
