Bush -Secretly Gives Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan (NYT)

[chill_wind]

Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan


By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

Pakistan’s Military Chief Criticizes U.S. Over a Raid

(September 11, 2008)


The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission.


(...)

Pakistan’s top army officer said Wednesday that his forces would not tolerate American incursions like the one that took place last week and that the army would defend the country’s sovereignty “at all costs.”

It is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country. A second senior American official said that the Pakistani government had privately assented to the general concept of limited ground assaults by Special Operations forces against significant militant targets, but that it did not approve each mission.

The official did not say which members of the government gave their approval.

more at the link

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11policy.html?exprod=myyahoo

[WeDidIt]

1. It's AMAZING How Bush KEeps Adopting the Strategy Obama Laid Outq

FOUR FUCKING YEARS AGO!

[chill_wind]

3. I'm not going to cheerlead either one of them on this.

[chill_wind]

5. But yeah.....Bush's legacy.... October surprise....?

"There are all kinds of initiatives at work here, such as the end of the Bush administration," the director of a consortium of university think tanks in Washington, the Inter-University Center for Terrorism Studies, Yonah Alexander, said. "What better way to score a victory, in terms of getting bin Laden or Zawahri?"

[chill_wind]

2. Some senior Congress officials have received briefings.

"Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment on Wednesday about the new orders. Some senior Congressional officials have received briefings on the new authorities. A spokeswoman for Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who leads the Armed Services Committee, declined to comment."

[Barack_America]

4. Lol. What did O'Reilly say to Obama during his interview this week?

(regarding Obama's Pakistan plan) Something like "everyone knows you can't send in ground troops".

Wrong again, Bill.

:rofl: