Fear: Trump in the White House(62)
A tasking order assigned targets and missions of the air, naval and land forces. It was a massive plan designed to win the war and one of the most sensitive in the U.S. government.
The Time-Phased Force Deployment (TIPFID) showed that it would take 30 days to get all the forces in.
A simpler but vastly more risky option included strikes at the North Korean leadership targets, specifically Kim Jung Un, under a more refined war plan, OPLAN 5015.
The Air Force had several leadership attack options, including sending a stealth bomber attack in and out of North Korea before North Korea could do anything about it. This would require knowledge with “great clarity,” as one general put it, to execute a pinpoint attack on leadership.
From October 17 to 19, 2017, the U.S. Air Force ran an elaborate series of simulated air strikes in the Missouri Ozarks. The region has a similar topography to North Korea.
The encrypted communications system between the bombers, the Airborne Early Warning aircraft, and the tankers was not working, so the pilots’ communications were heard by locals who monitored the military frequencies.
One communication referred to a “possible DPRK [North Korea] leadership relocation site.” In another, the pilot referred to “a command post possible DPRK leadership relocation site.”
One airdrop exercise was from just 150 meters, which is dangerously low but designed for maximum underground destruction. In another related exercise the bomber carried a 30,000-pound MOP (Massive Ordnance Penetrator), the type used earlier in Afghanistan in April 2017. In the exercise simulations the map coordinates pinpointed a hangar at a Jefferson City airport. The pilots also discussed the timing of the bomb fuses to maximize impact on the targets.
By any reasoning, the exercise was serious preparation, but it was, at this point, one available contingency on the shelf being practiced.
* * *
McMaster sounded hawkish on North Korea, arguing internally in the White House that if Trump was going to attack, better to go early before the North improved its missiles and nuclear weapons. Or before it built more. Time would make the threat greater. To those less inclined, McMaster asked, “Do you want to bet a mushroom cloud over Los Angeles over it?”
This question echoed the pre–Iraq invasion comment of Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, that it was uncertain how quickly Saddam could acquire nuclear weapons. She added, “But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
* * *
General Kelly, the homeland security secretary and retired four-star Marine general, was furious when he learned that the White House was working on a compromise on immigration for “Dreamers”—a central issue in the immigration debate. Dreamers are immigrant children brought to the United States by their parents who as adults had entered illegally.
Under the 2012 legislation called DACA—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—President Obama had given 800,000 Dreamers protection from deportation and made work permits available to them, hoping to bring them out of the shadow economy and give them an American identity.
Kelly, a hard-liner on immigration, was supposed to be in charge of these matters now. But Jared Kushner had been working a backchannel compromise. He had been inviting Senator Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who was number two in his party’s leadership, and Lindsey Graham to his office to discuss a compromise. Graham later asked Kelly, “Didn’t Jared tell you we’ve been working on this for months? We’ve got a fix.”
Kelly called Bannon. “If the son-in-law is going to run it, then have the son-in-law run it. I don’t need to run it. I need to come see the president. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m not going to be up there and be blindsided and humiliated on something that I’ve got to be in the loop on.”
Bannon believed the administration owned the hard-line immigration posture—except for Trump himself. “He’s always been soft on DACA. He believes the left-wing thing. They’re all valedictorians. They’re all Rhodes Scholars. Because Ivanka over the years has told him that.”
Kelly voiced his distress to Priebus, who along with Bannon feared Kelly might quit.
“Get Kelly some time on the calendar,” Bannon proposed. “Let him come see the boss and light Jared up. Because this is Jared’s shit, doing stuff behind people’s back.”
Priebus didn’t do it.
“Get it on the fucking calendar,” Bannon insisted.
Priebus continued to stall. It would expose disorganization in the White House.
“What are you talking about?” Bannon asked. This was laughable! Of course Priebus didn’t have control of Jared. And people were always going behind someone’s back.
So Bannon and Priebus both told Kelly, We’ll take care of it. To go to the president would cause unnecessary consternation. We’ll make sure it won’t happen again and you’re going to be in the loop.
Kelly, team player for the moment, didn’t push it further. When he later mentioned it obliquely in the president’s presence, Trump didn’t respond.
Lindsey Graham wandered into Bannon’s West Wing office. “Hey, here’s the deal. You want your wall?” Trump would get wall funding in exchange for the Dreamers.
“Stop,” Bannon said. A deal on the Dreamers was amnesty. “We will never give amnesty for one person. I don’t care if you build 10 fucking walls. The wall ain’t good enough. It’s got to be chain migration.”