The bin Laden raid is not the decision making
model for in extremis rescues of American citizens especially where
intelligence is fluid and fleeting (and of course the question is where is our
vaunted persistent ISR capability to maintain surveillance on a target? - of
course this shows the difficulty of gathering intelligence against hard targets
where we have few assets, let alone boots, on the ground). The bin Laden
raid model leads to strategic decision making paralysis. Furthermore, we
should keep in mind that the risks being assessed by political appointees
(deputies and principles) can only be political risk, i.e., risk to the
administration as they may not have requisite experience and capability of
assessing risk to mission, risk to force, or risk to the hostages. However,
I have heard that some of the principles are fond of asking why one
more person cannot be added to a CV-22 or what is the last covered and
concealed position for the assault force.
But the administration is on the
defensive and these comments are illustrative.
Instead, four senior officials directly involved in the
decision, and several others with close knowledge of it, said that
one of the most complex and dangerous such efforts ever undertaken had moved
through the planning, approval and execution process at what one called “warp
speed.”
To prove their point, the officials revealed new details
about a rescue mission that, once it failed, was never intended to be made
public.
“For us, the clock starts when they tell us they have an
operation that they want the president to review and approve,” said Susan E.
Rice, Obama’s national security adviser. The clock on the mission to rescue James Foley,Steven Sotloff, Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller “began
on a Friday and ended on a Saturday evening” when the president, meeting with
his top advisers, gave the “go” order.
“It can’t happen any faster than
that . . . particularly given the complexity of the risk,” Rice
said.
A senior Defense Department official said he understood
the frustration of intelligence operatives, planners and “the guys ready to
go.”
But this “was a risky operation, deep into Syria, where
we hadn’t been before,” he said. “It involved a lot of people,” with
substantial danger to both the troops and the hostages themselves. “It wasn’t a
nice little surgical operation.”
Moreover, while the rescuers found
evidence at the site that the hostages had been there, the mission was launched
with no definitive intelligence confirming their presence.
But in the administration's defense,
they did order the mission executed without "definitive intelligence."
And I believe the administration is also correct in
hostage policies (e.g., no ransom payments and I am glad they are holding
firm on that in the face of criticism from hostages'
families) . But this also shows how difficult hostage rescue is as well
as the difficulty of the required supporting intelligence operations.
Maybe we need a force with supporting
intelligence capabilities that is solely dedicated to
hostage rescue and is not saddled with multiple other missions from
capture and kill (which many military forces can do) and the myriad other
missions that have been added to the force that once had hostage rescue as its
primary mission. I wonder if our hostage rescue capability has
been diminished because of the war on terrorism? Sure it is
easy to make the argument that all the skills for capture/kill and hostage
rescue are similar if not the same and that training and preparing for one
mission is similar if not the same as for other mission. But with the
seeming proliferation of hostage taking of Americans maybe our premier
hostage rescue force should be divested of other extraneous missions
and it should focus on hostage rescue. I think that the concept of
"counter" and "terrorism" that brought about the
establishment of a hostage rescue capability following the rise of terrorism in
the 1970's developed because at the time our thinking was that terrorism led to
hostage taking and we needed a capability to rescue American hostages and that
idea guided the development of the capabilities forces that were developed for
"countering terrorism" e.g., the counter to terrorism
was rescuing American hostages. But after 9-11 we have focused
on capturing and killing terrorists and disrupting the terrorist networks.
But the question should be asked if whether our expanded focus has led to a
decline in our hostage rescue capability? And I think we can also make
the case that we are seeing a growth in the numbers of Americans being taken
hostage since 9-11 so perhaps we need to ensure we have the best capability to
rescue Americans.
Of course this argument is analogous to the air
power arguments of CAS versus air interdiction or strategic
targeting - hostage rescue is reactive and like CAS
addressing the threat after it is has executed it operations or directly
attacked our frontline forces whereas counterterrorism
The anatomy of a failed hostage rescue deep into Islamic
State territory
On the evening of Thursday, June 26, the Pentagon sent a
bold hostage rescue plan to the White House for approval. Dozens of Special
Operations forces would fly into Syria under the barest sliver of moonlight,
set down in the heart of Islamic State territory and
snatch four Americans being held by the militants.
The landing took place almost exactly a week later. Yet
the commandos who rushed through gunfire into the makeshift prison found only
half-eaten meals and a wisp of hair. The hostages had been there. But they were
gone.
By the end of the year, the Islamic State had brutally
killed three of the Americans, posting their videotaped beheadings online. The
last hostage and the only woman, Kayla Mueller, was declared dead last Tuesday
after the militants sent photographs of her body to her family.
The finality of that news has given rise to painful
questions about whether more could have been done to save them. Grieving
relatives of the victims, some of whom have accused the administration of
waiting too long to launch a rescue mission, have also criticized the U.S.
policy of non-negotiation with hostage-takers.
The administration has acknowledged it could do better
at communicating with the families, notwithstanding its ongoing rejection of
paying ransom, and has launched a review led by the National Counterterrorism
Center. “We will do everything we can, short of providing an incentive for
future Americans to be caught,” President Obama said in an interview last week with BuzzFeed.
Friends,
family remember Mueller for her compassion(1:09)
Friends
and family of Kayla Mueller mourned her death on Tuesday after receiving
confirmation that the U.S. hostage being held in Syria by the Islamic State had
been killed after months in captivity. (Reuters)
But some of those who worked on the rescue mission say
they believe the White House itself is at least partly to blame for the
failure. They charge that there were delays in bringing the plan to Obama’s
desk, and that, as a result, the rescuers missed the hostages by a matter of
days, or even hours.
(Continued at the link below)
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