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Top US Officer Outlines Options for Syria Intervention

by VOA News July 23, 2013

The top U.S. military officer has outlined a set of potential options for using American force in Syria, while cautioning about the costs and potential consequences of direct involvement in the country's crisis.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, detailed five options in a letter to Congress released Monday, ranging from training opposition forces to destroying Syria's chemical weapons stockpile.

He said such intervention would likely help the opposition and place more pressure on President Bashar al-Assad's government. However, he said the unintended results could include empowering extremists and 'unleashing the very chemical weapons we seek to control.'

The United States has not expressed plans to utilize direct force, so far limiting its involvement in Syria to humanitarian aid, non-lethal assistance and plans to provide rebels with weapons.

General Dempsey listed the option of establishing a no-fly zone over Syria, but cautioned that would require hundreds of aircraft and cost as much as a billion dollars per month. He also said the impact may be limited because Syrian forces could still attack with mortars and missiles.

He also mentioned establishing 'buffer zones,' most likely in neighboring Turkey and Jordan, which could be used to provide humanitarian assistance and give opposition forces a place to train. This option, he said, would also require a no-fly zone for protection, as well as thousands of U.S. ground forces at a cost of more than $1 billion per month.

The fifth option would be conducting air strikes to weaken the Syrian army, which General Dempsey said would need hundreds of U.S. aircraft and ships at a cost of billions of dollars.

He cautioned that once military action is taken, the United States should be prepared for what follows, saying 'deeper involvement is hard to avoid.'

His letter follows testimony he gave last week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, in which he said 'the tide' in Syria seems to have shifted in Assad's favor.