- (AP) U.S. military and government officials are secretly
debating whether the U.S. war on terrorism should include plots to assassinate
terror leaders before they can strike America, it was reported yesterday.
The Bush administration is also said to be considering a covert plan to
send U.S. troops to help topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
The assassination issue has been discussed very delicately by key officials,
Newsweek reported.
Officials at National Security Council meetings never use the word assassination
directly ó and don't discuss targeting specific individuals, the
magazine says.
Instead, the talk is of whether to take out "command and control"
outposts or strike "strategically decisive blows" against heads
of terror cells.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
told Newsweek the CIA has been "given the go-ahead by presidential
order to untie their hands and take the shackles off" in the fight
against terrorists.
Nevertheless, says Shelby, "As far as sending in a hit team to take
these guys out, I don't know about that."
But a Pentagon official said many in Washington see that as "inevitable."
"Terrorist organizations are not about buildings. They are not about
weapons. They are, at their core, about human beings," the official
said, "and usually not that many."
Meanwhile, The New Yorker reported that a new war plan for Iraq is now
the subject of furious debate within the Bush Administration.
Iraqi opposition forces, led by the Iraqi National Congress, have "given
the Bush administration an updated war plan, which calls not only for
bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces
troops," says writer Seymour Hersh.
The plan also would involve neighboring Iran, which supposedly has agreed
to allow opposition forces and U.S. troops to enter Iraq from its borders.
One defense analyst said the American success in Afghanistan would be used
as a model for the Iraq campaign.
"They believe they have found the perfect model, and it works,"
the analyst told the magazine. The model is bombing, a modest insertion
of Special Forces, plus an uprising."
http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-12-17/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-135479.as
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