Posted on 07/16/2002 4:26:57 AM PDT by kattracks
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had ordered an update of all US contingency war plans, including those outlining possible military action against Iraq.
He also refused to give any details late Monday about the plans, even if President George W. Bush decided to bring about a regime change in Iraq through military means.
"You do not let anybody in on war plans," Rumsfeld said in an interview on CNBC television. "If you have plans as to how one is going to conduct an operation, you do not let anybody know what those are."
The defense secretary said he had recently ordered a review of dozens of Pentagon plans for hypothetical battles and other emergency situations that might involve US troops.
"We're reviewing all of them and updating them," Rumsfeld said. "And we're elevating the risks so that they can be judged, and they can be brought up to an appropriate level of potential value."
Rumsfeld's comments came as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was poised to begin talks in Ankara with top Turkish officials on security cooperation in the region and Turkey's possible role in US efforts to topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"We value Turkey's views highly and my colleagues back in Washington will be interested in what I have to report," Wolfowitz said in Istanbul on Sunday.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that Washington has a secret blueprint for a massive attack on Iraq by land, sea and air with as many as 250,000 troops and hundreds of warplanes.
The plan, described as a preliminary operational "concept," outlines a simultaneous land invasion of Iraq from Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf region supported by massive air strikes against Iraqi targets, including airfields, highways and fiber-optics communications sites, according to the report.
In his interview, Rumsfeld for the first time reluctantly admitted that such a plan existed but dismissed it as a fruit of labor of a low-level adviser which had received no formal stamp of approval.
"It was something that was done down at a lower level, either at somebody's request, or not at somebody's request, and it has no official blessing by anybody up at any reasonable level in the government of the United States," said the defense secretary.
"I've never seen it, General Franks has never seen it. Goodness knows, the president's never seen it," Rumsfeld said.
General Tommy Franks heads the US Central Command, which is in charge of US military operations in the Middle East and the Gulf region.
Efforts to dispel speculation about US plans were joined by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who indicated that policy toward Baghdad was in the hands of only five officials, and the president so far had received no recommendation of a course of action.
"Until you hear something from the president, or Vice President Cheney, or myself, or Secretary Rumsfeld, or Dr. Rice, all these stories are just so much speculation," Powell said on US television.
Condoleezza Rice is the president's national security adviser.
Rumsfeld stressed that the United States cannot remain idle because Iraq and several other countries were trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, which they would not hesitate to use.
"Is it better to wait until they do it and have a perfect excuse or reason for acting, and you act after 500,000 or a million people are dead?" he said.
We now know that the New York Times was either trying to make policy or on a fishing expedition with that stupid war plan story. Personally, I am hoping that the Financial Fraud SWAT Team looks at them as well as the Washington Post. (Not really, but I sometimes entertain fantasies of bringing both those papers down. Ha!)
Maybe we are seeing all of these possibilities flooding the airwaves serve as coverage for the true actions.
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