Chapter 31 #2
The president pursed his lips. Then his eyes widened.
“You’re suggesting we take them out?”
Stansfield shrugged. “You said you were frustrated with your predecessor’s half measures.”
The president’s features hardened at the rhetorical trap he’d set for himself.
Talking tough when he wasn’t the one sitting behind the Resolute desk was easy.
Irene’s boss had just neatly backed the leader of the free world into a corner.
Stansfield might not have the desire to run for elected office, but he certainly had the political chops.
“Can we do this?” the president said.
Stansfield looked at her.
Irene took a deep breath. “I met with my Israeli counterparts to discuss the issue today. A JSOC liaison officer was also in attendance. Discussions with the Mossad contingent were… less than productive. After the Israelis ended the meeting early, the JSOC representative told me that special operations planners have been refining a contingency operation to secure Iraq’s WMDs for years.
He believed that interdicting the weapons convoy, while difficult, was achievable. ”
The president snorted. “I’m a politician, not a soldier. By interdict, you mean what?”
This time, Stansfield fielded the question.
“This conversation would be more appropriately held with the Joint Chiefs, but based on my experience, the military planners would present you with several options ranging from hitting the convoy with laser-guided bombs to destroying the weapons with a ground-based special operations forces contingent.”
“What if I didn’t want to destroy the weapons?”
Stansfield frowned. “I’m not sure I understand, sir.”
“Iraq’s compliance with the treaty has been a thorn in my side the entire time I’ve been in office.
The Israelis are constantly badgering us to do more, while the European nations would prefer to stick their heads in the sand and wish the problem away.
Even the United Nations inspectors haven’t reached a consensus about the number or even nature of the weapons Hussein may or may not be hiding.
Using operators on the ground to destroy the weapons would allow us to obtain irrefutable proof as to what Hussein’s got up his sleeve.
Hell, maybe we even bring a weapon back so I could shove it up the Iraqi ambassador’s ass. ”
Irene smoothed her emotions from her face even as her thoughts raced. Bring a weapon back? Was the president out of his mind? She glanced at her boss, not sure how, or even if, she should respond. Stansfield removed his glasses and tapped them on his chin as if he were considering the idea.
“There is certainly something to be said for obtaining ironclad proof. Again, I wouldn’t want to speak for the chairman, but taking pictures of the weapons before we destroy them or obtaining forensic evidence of their existence is probably within the realm of the possible.”
The president grinned. “I’m supposed to be meeting with the heads of state of several Arab nations in Kuwait City later this week.
The gathering’s being billed as a celebration of Kuwait’s liberation from Iraq.
In reality, we’re going to use it to try and gain a regional consensus about what should be done about Hussein.
It sure would be great to have proof of what Saddam has been up to before I take the stage.
Do you have a timeline for when you expect the weapons transfer to take place? ”
Once again, Irene carefully schooled her features to give nothing away.
While military covert operations were not her strong point, she knew enough to realize that the timeline the president was suggesting was aggressive.
Very aggressive. Bombing a convoy as it moved through the Iraqi or Syrian desert was difficult, but not insurmountable.
The Air Force had been enforcing no-fly areas throughout Iraq for years and either had the assets to interdict the convoy already forward-deployed or could do so within hours.
Had the president chosen that course of action, determining when the convoy was scheduled to depart and its route of travel would have been the most difficult portions of the operation.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, the commander in chief was proposing a raid.
A raid on a foreign nation’s soil against a presumably well-defended, mobile military target using an SOF contingent that probably wasn’t even in theater and certainly wasn’t spun up on this mission set.
And this was to say nothing about the idea of securing and retrieving one of the weapons.
In this case, the operation’s difficulty wasn’t vested in just one portion.
It lay in everything.
Stansfield shifted in his seat, and Irene prepared herself for a master class in guiding a principal back to the realistic. Her boss had undoubtedly thrown out the idea of a raid to prod the president toward action.
Now it was time to manage expectations.
“We don’t have a firm timeline,” Stansfield said, “but our reporting suggests that the Iraqis recently conducted a rehearsal of the transfer with their Syrian counterparts. I would expect the actual event to occur within the week.”
“Can our snake eaters execute on such short notice?” the president said.
“I don’t know, sir,” Stansfield said. “We’ll convene a working group with the Joint Chiefs immediately. While this will be a military operation, I recommend the CIA take lead, as the trigger will undoubtedly be intelligence driven.”
“Agreed,” the president said. “Who will serve as the agency’s point person?”
“Dr. Kennedy.”