White House terror chief Brennan unveils retooled, 'pragmatic' strategy to hunt

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White House terror chief Brennan unveils retooled, 'pragmatic' strategy to hunt

al-Qaida

By Dozier, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Wed, 29 Jun,

2011

WASHINGTON - The United States will push ahead with more targeted drone strikes

and special operations raids and fewer costly land battles like Iraq and

Afghanistan in the continuing war against al-Qaida, according to a new national

counterterrorism strategy unveiled Wednesday.

The doctrine, two years in the making, comes in the wake of the successful

special operations raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in May, and a

week after President Barack Obama's announcement that U.S. troops will begin

leaving Afghanistan this summer.

The document is a purposeful departure from the Bush administration's global war

on terror. The worldwide hunt for terrorists that began after the Sept. 11,

2001, attacks focused first on Afghanistan, and small numbers of al-Qaida are

still active there.

White House counterterrorism chief Brennan said the reworked doctrine

acknowledges the growing threat of terrorism at home, including al-Qaida

attempts to recruit and attack inside the United States.

Brennan told a Washington audience Wednesday that more resources would be spent

on the fight at home to spot would-be militants and their recruiters, and the

U.S. would resist al-Qaida's attempts to bleed it economically by drawing it

into costly invasions overseas.

" Our best offence won't always be deploying large armies abroad, but delivering

targeted, surgical pressure to the groups that threaten us, " Brennan said at the

s Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Brennan said the strategy relies on " surgical " action against specific groups to

decapitate their leadership and deny them safe havens and rejects costly wars

like Iraq and Afghanistan that feed al-Qaida's narrative that America is out to

occupy the Muslim world. He said the U.S. would work whenever possible to help

host countries fight al-Qaida so the U.S. didn't have to, just as it was trying

to hand over responsibility to the Afghans.

The operations Brennan describes are almost solely the province of the

intelligence and military special operations agencies, especially the CIA and

elite forces of the Joint Special Operations Command that worked together to

carry out the bin Laden raid, but also including the special operations trainers

that work with host nations' militaries.

Brennan, who is a former CIA officer, did not make specific mention of the

covert armed drone program that targets militants in Pakistan and, on rare

occasions, in countries like Yemen. But he referred to the administration's work

to rush what he called " unique capabilities " to the field, an oblique reference

to classified programs like the stepped-up construction of a CIA drone-launching

base in the Persian Gulf region to use the unmanned aircraft to hunt militants

in Yemen.

Bush White House veteran Zarate questioned the wisdom of singling out

al-Qaida as the main American enemy, " inadvertently aggrandizing them when they

are in decline, by making them the focus of the strategy. "

He also questioned the decision to " focus very mechanically on al-Qaida, " with

less emphasis on the violent Islamic ideology that drives the group. " You might

miss a movement that is developing or ... evolving into a global platform " like

al-Qaida, said Zarate, former White House deputy national security adviser for

combating terrorism.

Zarate also said out that although the Obama administration may be dropping the

world " global " from the war on terror, it still seems to be targeting terror

cells on almost every continent.

Retired Brig. Gen. Russ , who was credited with helping inspire the Bush

administration's pre-emptive strike doctrine, said the message the strategy

sends to allies is that the U.S. does not want to be involved if the going gets

too expensive, as in Iraq or Afghanistan.

" Nations will question whether U.S. will be a reliable ally because we've just

said we won't get involved with anything new, and we won't stay " where we

already are, said , founding director of the Combating Terrorism Center at

the U.S. Military Academy.

In another apparent swipe at the Bush administration, Brennan said his White

House was using every " lawful tool and authority available " in the fight against

terrorists, describing Obama's rejection of the Bush White House's interrogation

of terror suspects by methods such as waterboarding.

" The United States of America does not torture, " Brennan said, " and it's why he

(Obama) banned the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, which did not work.

"

Brennan repeated the administration's mantra that it wants to " safely " close the

U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after either prosecuting terror

suspects in the U.S. or by military commissions, or by releasing them to their

home nations.