Obama Is Said to Consider Selective Airstrikes on Sunni Militants

Washington: President Barack Obama is considering a targeted, highly-selective campaign of airstrikes against Sunni militants in Iraq similar to counterterrorism operations in Yemen, rather than the widespread bombardment of an air war, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

Such a campaign, most likely using drones, could last for a prolonged period, the official said. But it is not likely to begin for days or longer, and would hinge on the United States gathering adequate intelligence about the location of the militants, who are intermingled with the civilian population in Mosul, Tikrit and other cities north of Baghdad.

Even if the president were to order strikes, they would be far more limited in scope than the air campaign conducted during the Iraq War, this official said, because of the relatively small number of militants involved, the degree to which they are dispersed throughout militant-controlled parts of Iraq, and fears that using bigger bombs would kill Sunni civilians.

At a meeting with his national security advisers at the White House meeting Monday evening, the official said, Obama was presented with a "sliding scale" of military options, which range from supplying the beleaguered Iraqi army with additional advisers, intelligence and equipment to conducting targeted strikes on members of the militant group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

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Much of the emphasis at the meeting, the official said, was on how to gather useful intelligence about the militants. They are not wearing uniforms or sleeping in barracks; and while there may be periodic convoys to strike, there are no columns of troops or vehicles.

Given all the hurdles to effective military action, Obama is continuing to emphasize a political solution to the crisis, the official said. Administration officials are prodding the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take tangible steps to heal sectarian rifts with the country's Sunni and Kurdish populations.

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"This is not primarily a military challenge," the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, said to reporters on Air Force One, even as he acknowledged that "Iraq needs significantly more help to break the momentum of extremist groups."

The U.S. is also exploring diplomatic options with Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, though a senior official played down the extent of the coordination with Iran, after the deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, briefly broached the crisis with Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at nuclear negotiations in Vienna.

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The limited scale of any military action may make it easier for Obama to sell to Congress and the public. The U.S. already targets suspected terrorists with drones and warplanes, either alone or with the local governments, in Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan. It provides intelligence and airlift support for strikes in Mali.

Obama has invited the leaders of the House and Senate for a 3 p.m. meeting in the Oval Office. Taking part will be the Senate majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada; the minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; the House Speaker, John A. Boehner, and the House minority leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

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The administration's deliberations come amid signs that the sweeping militant advances of last week were slowing down, as the fighters reach the more heavily-guarded gates of Baghdad.

"We're seeing indications certainly that Iraqi security forces in and around Baghdad are stiffening themselves," said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. "They're being assisted by Shia militia members. And it certainly appears as if they have the will to defend the capital."

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The White House is looking at a range of options that can be expanded or scaled back depending on gravity of the threat posed by the advancing militants, current and former administration officials said.

Obama, Kirby said, "hasn't made final decisions right now. We have to preserve that space for him to do that."

One step likely to happen soon is the creation of one or more intelligence "fusion cells," where information gleaned from Iraqi commanders on the ground is combined with satellite imagery, surveillance drones already flying over Iraq, electronic intercepts and other technical information provided by the United States.

U.S. intelligence analysts and military planners dispatched by the Pentagon would work alongside their Iraqi counterparts to help identify vulnerabilities in the militants' ranks, and disseminate that information to Iraqi ground troops. "Iraqi field reporting has never been very accurate," said one former U.S. general who fought in Iraq. "They pass information to each other by cellphone, but they really do not have a national structure where they can see everything that's going on."

U.S. surveillance and reconnaissance would help provide that fuller picture, officials said. It would also lay the groundwork, should Obama order armed drones to carry out attacks against specific militant target, in much the same way the Central Intelligence Agency and the military have carried out drone strikes in Yemen.

Predator or Reapers drones have the advantage of being able to loiter for hours over an area and launch their Hellfire missiles when a target - such as a pickup truck armed with a .50-caliber gun and loaded fighters - emerges from a hiding place or crowded urban area.

While the administration has not ruled out larger scale airstrikes from carrier-based aircraft in the Persian Gulf or land-based attack planes in the region, possibly from Turkey or Kuwait, those kinds of strikes, typically using much larger precision-guided bombs, increase the potential for civilian casualties, and agreeing on basing arrangements could be problematic.

"The U.S. will likely want to limit its exposure to the extent possible," said Steven Simon, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and former senior National Security Council official in the Obama administration.

Some current and former U.S. military officials said that without U.S. troops on the ground - forward air controllers - to identify targets, airstrikes may have only a limited effect, especially as militant forces intersperse themselves in urban areas.

"Airstrikes will have only one good effect: to bolster morale of the Iraqi army," said the retired U.S. general, who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize business relations in the Middle East. "That's not to be taken lightly. If the Iraqi army feels we're there to support them, they're probably willing to stand their ground."