Washington:
President Barack Obama is considering military actionagainst Syria that is intended to "deter and degrade" PresidentBashar Assad's government's ability to launch chemical weapons, but is notaimed at ousting Assad from power or forcing him to the negotiating table,administration officials said Tuesday.
A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as"limited," perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks,which are expected to involve Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from USdestroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemicalweapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitariancatastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.
The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried outchemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets andartillery that have launched the attacks, according to the options beingreviewed within the administration.
A US official said that the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites,including air bases where Syria's Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed.The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety ofconventional military targets.
Perhaps two to three missiles would be aimed at each site, a far more limitedunleashing of US military power than past air campaigns over Kosovo or Libya.
Some of the targets would be "dual use" systems, like artillery thatis capable of firing chemical weapons as well as conventional rounds. Takingout those artillery batteries would degrade to some extent the government'sconventional force - but would hardly cripple Assad's sizable military infrastructureand forces unless the air campaign went on for days or even weeks.
The goal of the operation is "not about regime change," a StateDepartment spokeswoman, Marie Harf, said Tuesday.
Seeking to reassure the public that the United States would not be drawn into acivil war in the Middle East, and perhaps to lower expectations of what theattack might accomplish, Obama administration officials acknowledged that theiraction would not accomplish Obama's repeated demand that Assad step down.
Some lawmakers have warned that the operation might turn out to be a largelysymbolic strike that would leave the Assad government with the capability tomount sustained attacks against civilians with artillery, rockets, aircraft andconventional arms and would do little to reduce the violence in Syria, limitthe flow of refugees or encourage Assad to negotiate seriously if a Genevapeace conference is convened.
Rep. Eliot L. Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee onForeign Affairs, suggested in an interview that the attacks go further thanwhat appears to be under consideration by the administration, including strikeson the Syrian air force, its munitions depots and military fuel supplies to"tip the battle in favor of the insurgents."
"We should try to help the rebels and help the people fightingAssad," Engel said.
Frederic C. Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who previously workedon Middle East issues for the State and Defense departments, has urged that theObama administration consider a broader military mission: destroying orsignificantly degrading the ability of the Assad government to carry outintensive artillery, aircraft and rocket attacks with conventional as well aschemical warheads on the civilian population.
"Something that is significantly less than that, something that is seen assymbolic, I think would just enable Bashar al-Assad to say, 'I have stood up tothe world's only superpower and faced it down,'" he said.
The main US attack is expected to be carried out by cruise missiles from someor all of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within striking range ofSyria in the Mediterranean: the Mahan, the Barry, the Gravely and the Ramage.
Each ship carries about two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, a low-flying,highly accurate weapon that can be launched from safe distances of up to about1,000 miles. Tomahawks were used to open the conflicts in Afghanistan in 2001,in Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011.
Attack submarines also carry Tomahawks and are assumed to be on station in theMediterranean as well.
Officials said that while Syrian rocket and artillery sites were expected to betargeted, there were no current plans to use Tomahawks to crater airfields usedby the government to receive weapons and military supplies from Iran, animportant lifeline for the Assad government.
Weapons experts said that Tomahawk missile strikes, while politically andpsychologically significant, could have a limited tactical effect. The weaponsare largely fuel and guidance systems and carry relatively small high-explosivewarheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives andanother version carries about 370 pounds. Each is less than the explosive powerof a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.
The weapons are not often effective against mobile targets such as missilelaunchers and cannot be used to attack underground bunkers. Naval officers andattack planners concede that the elevation of the missile cannot entirely becontrolled and that there is a risk of civilian casualties when they flyslightly high.
Some officials have also cautioned that Iranian-backed Hezbollah militantsmight step up terrorism around the region in reaction to US strikes on Syria.Another risk is that Assad might respond to the attack by firing missiles atTurkey or Jordan or mounting even more intensive attacks against civilians.
Although some experts believe that the Syrian government already has its handsfull trying to contain the rebels and would not relish a war with the UnitedStates, they say that the Obama administration needs to be prepared for anotherround of airstrikes should Assad raise the stakes.
In an indicator of the complexities within Syria's civil war, and thedifficulties faced by the Obama administration in any effort to guide theconflict's path, jihadi fighters opposed to Assad were warning one another totake steps to avoid being hit in any impending US attacks.
On Monday night, one prominent member of the Nusra Front, a rebel group alignedwith al-Qaida and designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations andthe United States, used a Facebook posting to urge fellow members to move awayfrom their bases or positions in Syria.
"All fighters in Jabhat al-Nusra," he wrote, using the organization'sArabic name, "please constantly change your positions and don't shareanything online. There is a conspiracy by America and its tails to hit ourpositions."
Attacking chemical weapons storage sites comes with the same difficulties andrisks associated with attacking munitions depots generally, and with its ownspecial dangers, which the US military encountered in two wars in Iraq.
First among them are risks of contamination to the very Syrian civilians thatany military action would officially be intended to protect.
Many veterans suspect that some of the effects of Gulf War syndrome thatafflicted veterans of the Persian Gulf War of 1991 were caused by exposure tochemical weapons released in clouds by conventional airstrikes against Iraq'schemical weapons sites in southern Iraq.
After the Gulf War, a US Army unit near Kuwait breached chemical weapons whiledestroying conventional munitions at Khamisiyah, creating an environmentalhazard that persisted throughout the US occupation of Iraq after the invasionin 2003.
Similarly, airstrikes in 1991 on bunkers at the Muthanna chemical weaponscomplex near Samarra, Iraq, led to security and environmental problems thatcontinue to the present day.
© 2013, The New York Times News Service