LONDON
The ongoing carnage and humanitarian disaster in the Syrian city of Aleppo -- and in Syria in general -- prompted the Quint Nations and the High Representative of the European Union (EU) to issue a joint statement on Sunday 25 Sept. to urge Russia “to prove it [was] willing and able to take extraordinary steps to salvage diplomatic efforts to restore a cessation of hostilities”.
Paradoxically, they also underscored that “patience with Russia’s continued inability or unwillingness to adhere to its commitments [was] not unlimited” and they called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take urgent further steps to address the ‘brutality of this conflict’ (1).
This turn of events is, sadly, in sharp contrast with the optimism of Sept. 12 when the cessation of hostilities (CoH) agreement, hailed as the best chance of real ceasefire since the beginning of the war, went into effect.
Disaster struck when a coalition (2), (3) air attack on a Syrian army base at Deir al-Zour, on Sept. 17 killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers and wounded many others. This was five days after the start of the fragile seven-day CoH agreement.
Based on statements from the ‘coalition’ it is now known that the target was monitored by the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) for two days and confirmed as an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL – also known as Daesh) target to strike. It was only called off when Russians phoned their American counterparts at the command post in Qatar and told them that they were targeting Syrian forces, not ISIL. Then, it was already too late.
Soon, as fighting and intensive bombardments resumed, on Sept. 19 the world was shocked by another attack, unprecedented in scale, this time on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy intended for badly-needed food deliveries to opposition-held parts of Aleppo besieged by regime forces.
The attack destroyed trucks and killed many civilians unloading the aid or who arrived to help the injured. A hospital and an aid center were also destroyed. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the developing situation in the strongest terms: “Just when we think it cannot get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower”. He argued that this attack on an aid convoy was “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate”.
Damascus categorically denied any involvement, but initial Russian reaction and statements were confusing, evasive and certainly less than unequivocal. At the outset, carefully worded statements (4) by Americans about two (Russian) SU-24 aircraft that were spotted over the aid convoy, at the time of the attack, gave the impression that they wanted to allow the Russians the time to investigate and to announce their own conclusions, presumably so that the original CoH agreement could be salvaged.
But on Thursday Sept. 22, Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during testimony in the U.S. Senate said his personal “judgment would be that they [Russians] did it”. (5) Also present before the Senate Armed Services Committee was the Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Since then, the situation in Syria, particularly around the key town of Aleppo, has got out of control and turned into a bloodbath involving helpless civilians. Despite American apologies, both Syrians and Russians insisted that this assault was deliberate. President Assad personally blamed the United States not only for this attack but also for the collapse of the truce. (6) It is highly likely that the attack on the aid convoy was also deliberate and intended for retaliation. It was a sign of deep frustration and commonly felt anger by Russians and the Syrian central government caused by the CENTCOM attack on the Syrian base on Sept. 17.
It is clear that the ‘mistaken’ targeting of Syrian forces in Deir al-Zour was a fateful event. Russians blamed American reluctance to share intelligence and operational information timely. However, some others asserted that the U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) -- ‘premier war fighting Combatant Command’ as they describe themselves -- was fighting their ‘own war’. There were even allegations that this attack was intended -- by CENTCOM -- in retaliation for the Syrian missile attack on intruding Israeli aircraft on Sept. 13.
American aircraft have mistakenly but rather ‘regularly’ targeted hospitals, weddings, funerals and friendly forces (including American troops). Of course here we are not talking about so-called collateral damage, but intentional targeting of a wrong ‘target’. Two of the most notable incidents were an attack on a broken fuel-tanker (earlier captured by the Taliban) in Afghanistan in 2009 which killed more than 90 people while siphoning fuel from the tanker, and another attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in 2015 which killed 42 people. Since modern bombs rarely, if ever, go awry, each time, faulty intelligence and the so-called ‘fog of war’ -- other words for human error -- have been blamed. I would rather call this either incompetence or professional negligence, if not ignorance, which results in catastrophes.
This is particularly relevant in the light of the ‘initial findings’ of the U.S. House of Representatives Joint Task Force (based on ‘unclassified’ parts only):
“Joint Task Force is troubled that despite receiving the whistleblower complaint in May 2015 and receiving alarming survey results in December 2015, neither CENTCOM, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, nor the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) took any demonstrable steps to improve the analytic climate within CENTCOM. The statements by senior IC leadership (Intelligence Community) to downplay the significance of the incidents at CENTCOM were an inappropriate response from individuals charged with leading the IC in preserving analytic integrity... The Joint Task Force did not receive access to all the materials it requested”. (7)
These are not ordinary statements by a House Task Force, especially during a military campaign and they carry sober messages and strong criticism to American military and particularly to CENTCOM. Something, evidently, has been going wrong.
Actually, the American military has been giving clear signs that it has been suffering from some serious institutional and systemic problems for quite a long time. Such symptoms were already visible as early as 1993 -- in Somalia, and even before -- immediately after they recovered from Vietnam and demonstrated their remarkable and unmatched combat value in the Gulf War in 1991.
In 1992, during a NATO exercise (Display Determination-1992) USS Saratoga (CV 60) fired two live Seasparrow missiles at the Turkish TCG Muavenet (DM 357), hitting the bridge and killing five (including the Commanding Officer) and wounding 14 Turkish naval service members. At the time of the incident, it was a real world ‘white and safe’ or completely benign tactical situation. However, the Saratoga crew, believe it or not, was under the ‘impression’ that this was an “actual real-life engagement”. The Court of Inquiry decided that: “There was a significant breakdown in the proficiency training of the enlisted personnel who operated the NATO Seasparrow missile system.” Aside from the direct human failures, also there were “numerous systemic deficiencies”. (8)
In 1994, two American F-15 fighters shot down two U.S. Army helicopters over northern Iraq, killing all 26 people on board, including three Turkish officers. The incident took place in broad daylight and in good weather, under positive AWACS control while there were no known Iraqi helicopters to have operated in the area. Despite the detailed procedures to tell friend from foe, F-15 pilots misidentified Black Hawks as Iraqi Mi-24 helicopters.
Nevertheless, simple incompetence or professional negligence can only partly explain the whole puzzle. There is more to it than that.
It is only inevitable that in a deeply divided and polarized society along ideological lines, in a permissive command climate, certain individuals who happen to be occupying certain posts in the military -- as elsewhere -- may come to believe that an opportunity lends itself to seize on to serve a ‘personal’ (perhaps somewhat institutional) cause. But this would be a limited action with limited consequences within the confines of a battle not a war. So allegations or accusations that CENTCOM, namely General Joseph Votel, was fighting its own war -- that is ignoring the task given by the Department of Defense (DoD) or exceeding its remit -- is, in all likelihood, far-fetched. Not only Gen. Votel, but many in the U.S. administration -- not necessarily President Obama or Secretary John Kerry -- have been unhappy with the ill-fated truce or cessation of hostility agreement.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Sept. 16 -- the day before the Deir al-Zour attack: “I don’t think anyone in the U.S. government is necessarily taking at face value Russia’s or certainly not the Syrian regime’s commitment to this arrangement. … What really matters here is that the president of the United States supports this agreement, and our system of government works in such a way that everyone follows what the president says”. Not only was he echoing the words of Secretary Ash Carter who criticized the deal more than once, but amazingly enough -- for a spokesperson -- he was singling out President Obama.
If one -- like homicide detectives trying to determine a motive -- checks who benefited most from the death of the victim, in this case CoH agreement, the potential suspects are more than one. The key is hidden in the Sept. 9 CoH agreement which was hitherto kept confidential and withheld even from the closest allies like France (9). The text of the agreement was finally published by Pentagon on Sept. 22 (10). It discloses the party who benefits most from the ‘death’ beyond any doubt: the Kurds of Syria.
Even if the agreement could have been implemented, it would disproportionately advantage Kurds over all other parties. The text, while giving extensive details of measures to be undertaken by the so-called ‘pro-government forces’ and ‘the opposition forces’ respectively, it put no limitations or restrictions on ‘Kurds’. To the contrary, the U.S.-Russian deal conditioned the opposition operations on “the actions of the Kurdish militia” and clearly advantaged them in and around Aleppo. Besides, there was not a single word about the ongoing large-scale strategic operations towards Raqqa by PYD/YPG under the deceptive rubric of ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’.
If the agreement worked, the two countries would set up a Joint Implementation Center (JIC), share intelligence and coordinate operations to include air strikes closely. To this end, Secretary Carter would have to submit a waiver to Congress -- unhappy with any cooperation with Russians -- along with a report detailing why military cooperation with Russia was necessary, if the conditions of ceasefire and humanitarian aid were met. He never did so because, thanks to the Sept. 17 CENTCOM strike, the agreement collapsed.
Gen. Dunford, during the Sept. 22 Senate hearing, was not as straightforward as Sen. John McCain who accused Sec. Kerry -- by implication, also President Obama -- of being “intrepid but delusional” in trying to work out a deal with the Russians, but he meant what he had in mind:
“I do not believe it would be a good idea to share intelligence with the Russians”. What followed was an honest and real portrayal of the political-strategic picture in Syria: “(Syrian Kurds) are the most effective force on the ground, that the force we need to go to Raqqa right now. … This force is not intended for holding Raqqa. … Once Raqqa is taken, an Arab force will be required to hold it. We have a plan (for holding Raqqa) that is not resourced (emphasis added)” (11).
We will probably never know if the CENTCOM attack on Deir al-Zour base was a deliberate political-ideological decision by a certain group of individuals fighting their own war or simply a mistake -- that is, not intended by the political decision makers -- made by a chain of incompetent operators who happened to be within the tactical command and control loop at the same time.
But we do know that such American ‘tactical’ mistakes or accidents will continue. But the Coalition-led Kurdish strategic operation’s center of gravity is Raqqa, not Aleppo, and the last thing they need, for now, has been an intervention by a ‘third party’. Potentially the main obstacle to the successful, single-handed conduct of this operation -- Russian and Syrian involvement -- has been de facto removed by this single CENTCOM attack, no matter it is intentional or accidental. Perhaps our political attention is mistakenly being drawn away from the main focus of American/Kurdish military operations in Syria -- and their intended political end state.
- Opinions expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu Agency's editorial policy.
1) Joint Statement on Syria, European Union External Action Service. 25 September 2016, Boston. ID 160925_8
2) The Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.
3) There are unconfirmed reports that at least one other Coalition nation also participated in this operation.
4) ‘U.S. Officials Say Russia Probably Attacked U.N. Humanitarian Convoy’ by Eric Schmitt, Michael R.Gordon and Somini Sengupta, NYT, Sept.20, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/middleeast/syria-cease-fire.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
5) ‘Top U.S. officer: Russia bombed Syria humanitarian aid convoy’. 22 September 2016, Associated Press.
6) AP exclusive: Assad blames US for collapse of Syria truce’. Associated Press, 22 September 2016.
7) Initial Findings of the U.S. House of Representatives Joint Task Force on U.S. Central Command Intelligence Analysis. August 10, 2016. p.2
8) Court of Inquiry (COI) to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the USS Saratoga Seasparrow firing on TCG Muavenet which occurred on 2 October 1992 (Declassified parts). Department of the Navy, 18 November 1992.
9) Jean-Mark Ayrault: “U.S.-Russian negotiation has reached its limits”. ‘Russian aircraft believed to hit Syria convoy, US officials say’. Reuters, 21 September 2016.
10) ‘AP exclusive: Text of Syria cease fire deal’. Associated Press, 22 September 2016.
11) ‘U.S. National Security Challenges and Ongoing Military Operations’. Hearing, U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Witnesses: Ashton B. Carter, General Joseph F. Dunford. 22 September 2016.
