“It still amazes me how fast our forces were able to capture and secure most of the country,” said the President, genuinely impressed.
“Mexico is not that far from most of our military bases, and sharing a thousand-mile border does make it a lot easier to invade. We also had the element of complete surprise, thanks to your speech earlier about the US taking a “wait and see” attitude towards the new government. They were completely lulled into a false sense of security,” Eric Clarke said with a smile.
“I want to make sure that once follow-on forces are in Mexico that we extract our frontline troops so they are ready for any other surprises. I did not think the IR would have gotten involved so soon, nor have as many people on the ground as they did,” said Eric Clarke with a bit of concern in his voice.
“They caught a lot of people by surprise with that,” said Patrick Rubio, the Director of the CIA. The CIA was starting to catch a lot of flak in the media and by the DOD for not knowing there were already several thousand IR troops in Mexico.
“How many casualties have we taken, and has there been much resistance?”
General Branson resumed his brief to answer the President’s question. “Resistance was heavy the first day. The A-Teams had 12 Killed in Action (KIA) and 37 Wounded in Action (WIA), the SEALs had 17 KIA and 31 WIA; Delta Force lost a lot, 31 KIA and 67 WIA.”
“Why did Delta take so many casualties?”
“They had the toughest, most well-defended target; the military headquarters compound was heavily guarded by Mexican and IR Special Forces. They put up one heck of a fight before they were able to capture General Galván,” said Branson.
“Sorry for interrupting, please continue General.”
“During the airborne operation to secure the Mexico City International Airport the 75th Rangers suffered 19 KIA and 124 WIA and secured the airport within two hours. They also repelled two separate uncoordinated attacks by the Mexican Army. That concludes the Special Forces casualties; the rest of the Army had 293 KIA and another 2,321 WIA, the Marines 312 KIA and 1,543 WIA, the Navy lost 43 KIA and 132 WIA, and the Air Force lost 27 KIA and 254 WIA. We expect casualties to continue to climb as additional follow-on forces arrive and as more objectives are secured throughout the country. Most of the military has either surrendered or been killed; there are some of the hardcore units that faded away and will probably cause some problems down the road.”
“The cartels have also been putting up a good fight, though they are also melting away into the population, so we’ll need to hunt them down. The MANPADS the IR provided have caused us a lot of problems; we’ve lost 13 helicopters, 46 drones and four aircraft that flew a little too low. We are also starting to see more use of those RPG-7Vs as well,” said Branson as he concluded his brief.
“Gentlemen, I’m impressed with our success thus far. I want to make sure it continues, so please use whatever resources and troops are needed to pacify the country quickly. I want law and order restored soon and I want a return to normalcy, or as close to it as possible.”
Knowing the domestic aspects of Mexico and America still needed to be discussed, the President changed the direction of the meeting and asked for his domestic advisors to begin their brief. “Moving to domestic matters, Jim, I believe you had some information you wanted to share — but prior to us getting into that, I want to make sure everyone is working towards stabilizing Mexico. I want the FBI to hire an additional 1,500 Special Agents and start to identify Spanish speaking agents who can start setting up field offices in Mexico. I want the DOJ to start developing their plan for criminal prosecutors and a police force,” said the President as he looked over the men and women at the table.
“I have my best people working on this Mr. President; we have several plans underway right now to accomplish that goal. I will have more details about this in my brief with you tomorrow,” said Attorney General James Roberts.
AG Roberts had been a federal prosecutor prior to being named the AG. He was a tenacious prosecutor and had spent the first few years as AG repealing hundreds of presidential memos and directives that previous administrations had issued in direct violation of the Constitution. Churches were no longer required to report their attendance or their membership base. Sharia Law was no longer being tolerated in any city in America. The cities and townships that had allowed this now had to abide by the laws of the United States government, not Sharia.
The Sharia Law challenge had created a lot of problems between those who were Muslim and those who were not. There was a high tolerance for people to practice their own religious beliefs in America, but all religions had to respect and abide by the laws of the United States. Likewise, the sanctuary cities were no longer allowed. City governments that refused to enforce federal law were being denied all federal funding until they became compliant. The city governments that were still in violation after the one-year compliancy period were dissolved, and a state caretaker government was installed until a new election could be held.
AG Roberts had taken a lot of heat for his reforms within the DOJ and the legal system. His primary goal had been to reform the justice department back to its original stated purpose, to return the judiciary back to interpreting the law and constitution, no longer tolerating judges who legislate from the bench. Laws could be struck down or upheld, but no judge could impose a new law or opinion that could be interpreted as a new law. Roberts was a true constitutionalist and loyal party member.
“Excellent, I look forward to learning more about them tomorrow then. Jorge, can you please go ahead and give us your brief?”
“Yes Mr. President. The NSA intercepted several communiques between several known IR intelligence individuals and people in the US. They were not able to glean any usable information from the messages, but they believe they were coded messages for something, perhaps to activate some terrorist cells or just a status report on our operations in Mexico. They still have a few thousand soldiers and operatives operating in Mexico,” Jorge said as he clicked through several images of known IR intelligence agents suspected of being in the US and Mexico. Suddenly, a Secret Service agent walked over to the President and whispered something in his ear.
As the agent softly communicated something in the President’s ear, his eyes grew a little larger and his demeanor changed. “Sorry to interrupt Jorge — I was just informed by the Secret Service that we should turn on Fox News; there has been a terrorist attack in Philadelphia.”
An aide quickly changed the 3D holographic image in the situation room to Fox News, where a news update was being aired live from a shopping mall in Philadelphia. A Fox News woman by the name of Nina Short was in the process of providing an update on the situation at the mall as it developed.
“We are standing outside of the Mayfair Mall, where twenty minutes ago, five men were seen running into the food court entrance to the mall wearing baseball caps and dark sunglasses, each of them carrying an AR-15 style rifle with small backpacks.”
“We were able to interview a survivor who told us what she saw.” The camera panned to a woman who was clearly shaken and had blood spatters on her blouse. She explained, “As they entered the building, three of the men ran past the food court to the center of the mall and began to shoot everyone they could see. The two individuals at the door to the food court opened fire, shooting and reloading as they walked through the food court. After firing at people throughout the food court and mall for what felt like an eternity, they began to work their way back to the food court exit. Then I saw a security guard shoot two of the suspects before they killed him. One of the attackers was left behind by his partners while the other was able to retreat out of the mall. I was hiding under one of the tables, but managed to catch most of the event on my smartphone.”