Secret Ops
July 7th, 2007It is ironic, considering the outcry that’s greeted Bill Clinton by the Right over his failure to snatch-and-grab Osama bin Laden on a few occasions, that his successor has done the same thing and the outcry is minimal. A part of that is, of course, that Democrats fuss less over national security than Republicans do; a part of that is, of course, that Republicans just like to politicize national security more than high-ranking Democrats do; and a part of that is, Reason. It was reasonable to cancel the operation.
A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardize relations with Pakistan, according to intelligence and military officials.
The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.
But the mission was called off after Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter J. Goss, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said. Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, said a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning.
Mr. Rumsfeld decided that the operation, which had ballooned from a small number of military personnel and C.I.A. operatives to several hundred, was cumbersome and put too many American lives at risk, the current and former officials said. He was also concerned that it could cause a rift with Pakistan, an often reluctant ally that has barred the American military from operating in its tribal areas, the officials said.
As Al Gore once said, “Of course it’s illegal. That’s why it’s covert.” Something like that — it’s in Dick Clark’s book. However, the cancellation of this mission is defensible — but I wouldn’t have cancelled it. Covert operatives are highly trained and the enemy is dangerous. You’ve got to take him out, and there’s a reason you spend millions arming and training your operatives.
I just wonder how many times we’ve cancelled such operations, 1., how many moles we have in al-Qaeda, 2, and how much damage this (report) has done to our spy program, 3. It might very well be a calculated link aimed at bolstering Perves Mushareff’s hand in light of the recent assassination attempt by showing the world, carefully, that he’s “in charge” and not allowing us to attack in his tribal areas. I imagine he tells us, “You can do it, provided you’re not caught, and only in extreme cases. I’d rather not know, though,” but we pretend otherwise. Who really knows?
I’m a fan of Harry Reid, as you probably know (although I haven’t written about him in awhile). I must say, though, that I am disappointed that it’s taken him this long to finally push for an exit in Iraq. Now I just hope the Democrats truly fight rather than put up token opposition and nothing more.