Report: Dempsey nixes Kerry proposal to bomb Assad's airfields

Bloomberg: Pentagon chief shoots down Kerry's argument for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Assad's army -- particularly the fields it has used to allegedly launch chemical weapons attacks against rebel forces.

Yoni Hirsch, Daniel Siryoti, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

What's your strategy? Dempsey. | Photo credit: AP

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At a meeting in the White House situation room last Wednesday, Secretary of State John Kerry began arguing, vociferously, for immediate U.S. airstrikes against airfields under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime -- specifically, those fields it used to launch chemical weapons raids against rebel forces, Bloomberg Views journalist Jeffrey Goldberg reported on Tuesday.

According to Goldberg, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, demanded to know exactly what the post-strike plan would be and pointed out that the State Department did not fully grasp the complexity of such an operation.

Dempsey informed Kerry that the U.S. Air Force could not simply drop a few bombs, or fire a few missiles, at targets inside Syria: To be safe, the U.S. would have to neutralize Syria's integrated air-defense system, an operation that would require 700 or more sorties. At a time when the U.S. military is exhausted, and when sequestration is ripping into the Pentagon budget, Dempsey is said to have argued that a demand by the State Department for precipitous military action in a murky civil war was not welcome, Goldberg reported.

In his first public comments since the administration announced stepped-up aid to the rebels in Syria, U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the U.S. had "serious interests" in Syria, but remained cautious over over-involvement in the war-torn country.

"It is very easy to slip slide your way into deeper and deeper commitments," Obama told Charlie Rose of PBS.

The comments were a possible counter to a bipartisan trio of key U.S. senators demanding he take more decisive action to stem the military advance by Assad's forces.

Democratic Senators.Robert Menendez and Carl Levin, and Republican John McCain, said in a joint letter to Obama that Syrian government forces were advancing so dramatically that providing weapons to the opposition alone was unlikely to shift the war back in the rebels' favor.

The senators said the U.S. should consider targeting regime airfields, runways and aircraft and help rebels establish safe zones in Syria.

Meanwhile, initial reports of U.S. weapons reaching rebel hands have begun circulating. The London-based pan-Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Tuesday that a Middle Eastern country transferred 250 Concourse anti-tank missiles to rebel forces. The report also included a worrying development -- that most of the weapons had reached the hands of the extremist Islamist elements comprising the rebellion.

"Now, on the other side there are folks who say, 'You know, we are so scarred from Iraq. We should have learned our lesson. We should not have anything to do with it,'" Obama said. "Well, I reject that view as well because the fact of the matter is that we've got serious interests there."

Obama warned of "ongoing chaos" in Syria, which borders major allies in Jordan and Israel. However, lethal assistance -- which Obama would not expand on -- must be done "in a careful, calibrated way."

"What people really typically want is a clean solution, a silver bullet," Obama said.

Repeating evidence that Assad's government had used chemical weapons against the rebels, Obama outlined his hopes for Syria.

"The goals are a stable, non-sectarian, representative Syrian government that is addressing the needs of its people through political processes and peaceful processes," he said.

"We're not taking sides in a religious war between [Shiites] and Sunni[s]. Really, what we're trying to do is take sides against extremists of all sorts and in favor of people who are in favor of moderation, tolerance, representative government, and over the long-term, stability and prosperity for the people of Syria."

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin faced further isolation on the second day of a G-8 summit on Tuesday as world leaders lined up to pressure him into toning down his support for Assad.

Following an icy encounter between the Kremlin chief and Obama late on Monday, the G-8 leaders will seek to find resolution to the war.

"It's a clarifying moment to see what kind of commitments the Russians are willing to make in a leading world forum," a British official said before the leaders met for dinner at a remote, heavily guarded golf course outside of Enniskillen.

An official close to one of the delegations said the talks over dinner had gone better than expected and that a joint communiqué with Russia on Syria now seemed more likely. However, the official declined to speculate on what Russia might be willing to sign up for.

But if consensus could not be reached, it was possible a final statement at the end of the two-day summit might be released without Russia's input and in the name of the G-7 rather than the G-8.

Putin and Obama appeared tense as they addressed reporters late on Monday after about two hours of talks, with Putin mostly staring at the floor as he spoke about Syria and Obama only glancing occasionally at the Russian leader.

Putin said Moscow and Washington had different views on Syria but agreed the bloodshed must stop and that the warring parties should be brought to the negotiating table.

"With respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem but we share an interest in reducing the violence and securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation," Obama said.

Meanwhile, Army Radio reported Wednesday that French military officers were training Syrian rebels in bases in Jordan and Turkey and teaching them how to use weapons supplied by westerns counties.

According to the report, French intelligence officers have been coordinating their operations with the Saudis. In the two weeks since the fall of the city of Qusair, in southwest Syria, the French have held several meetings with their counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, ahead of what is believed to be the nearing and inevitable battle over Aleppo.

Gen. Salim Idriss, who heads the Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army has also taken part in these meetings. Idriss, a former officer in Assad's army who is a vocal opponent of the various jihadi organizations in Syria, is said to be acting as France and Saudi Arabia's liaison to the rebels.

The report, which quoted sources familiar with the issue, said that Paris had taken the lead in the European Union's efforts to topple the Assad regime.

France has been pushing for a second Geneva peace conference, but Russia is averse to having it turn into a "public act of surrender" by Assad, and diplomatic sources said the given the current disagreements between Russia and the U.S. on the matter, it is unlikely that Geneva-2 will take place.