Wag the Damascus?

[allemand]

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security

Last year, U.S. intelligence agencies and military planners received instructions to prepare up-to-date target lists for Syria and to increase their preparations for potential military operations against Damascus.

According to internal intelligence documents and discussions with military officers involved in the planning, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Tampa was directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to prepare a "strategic concept" for Syria, the first step in creation of a full fledged war plan.

The planning process, according to the internal documents, includes courses of action for cross border operations to seal the Syrian-Iraqi border and destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency, attacks on Syrian weapons of mass destruction infrastructure supporting the development of biological and chemical weapons, and attacks on the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad. (...)

In some ways, military officers involved in the high-level planning efforts say Syria has eclipsed Iran in CENTCOM's play book as much because of practicality as imminent threat. Iran is four times larger than Iraq with three times the population. Syria is in a difficult geographic position, especially with U.S. bases and forces in Iraq and its proximity to U.S. military strength in the Mediterranean. U.S. forces have also been operating along the Syrian border since early 2003, and there have been numerous reports of clashes between U.S. and Syrian forces on Syrian soil, as well as reports of U.S. special operations forces operating inside Syria on select missions.

More:
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/11/wag_the_damascu.html