The General spoke up before Mr. London had another chance to speak, “Well said, Mr. President.”
Lester added, “Mr. President, I will have someone get a draft statement together for your review.”
The President stood, “I believe this statement should be made from a television studio on the ground, not from here in the air. Let me think about that and we will decide shortly. Have the flight crew head towards Knoxville. I know some of the news folks there and we can get it arranged quickly and easily. I know that protocol says we stay in the air, but to hell with protocol. Everyone, get to work finding out as much reliable information as you can. Les, General, John, please join me in my office.”
AP NEWS FLASH: The former President of the United States says that the weak foreign policy views of the new President have brought this attack on the United States. The current President is not available for comment currently and has gone into a secure location. No organization has yet to come forward to take credit for the attacks.
AP ECONOMIC NEWS FLASH: Previous reports predicting delays in the increase in fuel prices were incorrect. In the areas surrounding the detonations food has almost instantaneously risen 400 % and gasoline prices, where it can be found, are up 300 %. In other areas of the country, both sectors of the economy are experiencing massive, instantaneous price hikes. Many people all over the country have emptied store shelves of food products in a panic. The increases in prices are a result of the massive, virtually instant increase in demand for food and fuel related items. There are even reports of a black market for certain food staples, such as milk and eggs starting to develop. It is anticipated that government price controls be put in place for consumer protection.
Chapter Twelve
No sooner had the door closed than the President opened the discussion, “Les, once we get through this, we need to replace some cabinet members. I won’t tolerate the dumbing down of language at the off chance one person somewhere might be offended. I am tired of politicians treating people like they are so stupid that we have to placate to each and every group we can manage to come up with a hyphenated name to describe, all because of some soft sensibilities. On occasion it is ok just to be Americans. I believe that this is one of those times.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, pausing to rub the back of his neck before continuing, “Okay, who is crazy, or stupid enough to do this? How do we verify it was them without waiting for them to come out and claim credit?”
The General spoke calmly, “Mr. President, I have spent my entire adult life in defense of this country. I can’t believe that any nation, with one exception, would be this stupid. That country, Mr. President, is Iran.”
John Martin, Secretary of Defense nodded as he started speaking, “Mr. President, Iran has openly stated for years that should they obtain these types of weapons, they would use them against both us and Israel. We always assumed that Israel would be the first target and we would be the second. We may have been mistaken, and it is possible they obtained these weapons through a recent nuclear material theft we were unable to prevent. We should get some current satellite images of Israel just to be sure they were not hit, given all of the previous statements of intent. If they have not, we should warn them it may be coming.
“Sensor data from both Fort Worth and Detroit have verified that this was a fission weapon, NOT a fusion weapon. That is important because the latter is far more complex to construct and maintain. If it had been a fusion device it would have been much more destructive. If I had to place a bet I would say that sooner or later we will discover that this was a Uranium device, which would fit with Iran’s known nuclear development program, as well as the nuclear material theft.”
The Secretary rubbed his chin thinking for a moment before continuing, “Now your CIA Director is likely to say they aren’t sure who did this. For years he has refused to speak until long after the situation in front of us required. He likes to play it safe, and sit both sides of an argument if he can. That allows him to always claim he was correct in his analysis. Some group will likely come forward and claim credit long before he will commit to who was behind this.
“We should ping all of our human sources in Iran to see what they know. We have some intelligence assets in that area, and can send some drones over to observe as much as possible of what is going on inside their borders. If it was them, there will be a party in the streets by now.
“Once we get this verified, and we will do so very quickly, the CIA will go into complete CYA mode. They will spend an enormous amount of time doing all sorts of verifications. We don’t have as much time as they will want, or claim that they need, in order to get the correct type of verification. Something this massive is only an opening salvo. I don’t know what that next attack will be, but we need to start mobilizing for war on a large scale, and we need to start that process right now. If we are wrong it is better to be ready than to be caught off guard again. In all likelihood whatever is next will involve ground troops. Their targets indicate that this had to be a way to soften us up for what comes next. The only thing I can be sure of right now, Mister President is that whatever comes next will be just as bad if not worse than what just happened. It may not happen here, but somewhere in the world a ground attack is coming.”
The President was in lock step with the Secretary of Defense and his disgust for the current director of the CIA was well known. When he was Speaker of the House he had publicly stated on several occasions that the CIA had become a liability to the United States intelligence community, rather than an asset to national security.
“I know. That’s exactly why I didn’t bring him into this meeting. Once we have time, I need to know everything I can about this nuclear material theft. I am sure that one is going to piss me off, but we don’t have time right now to worry about what brought us to this point. We are here and right now we have to deal with whatever this is. For the moment, I want to treat this as a cleanup operation. We have no sign of an invasion is about to happen anywhere against the United States, and until we do we will not change what our first goal is. There has to be a rescue operation. It must move rapidly. Everything else will come later. How much later depends on what we can find out and when we find it.
“We can have the troops get ready to move but until we know for sure where to send them, and what the targets are, I don’t want to move just for the sake of moving. If, for whatever reason, we can’t verify this was Iran, someone will come forward and claim credit, I agree with the consensus on that as well. I also agree something this big doesn’t happen without someone wanting to flex their muscles and take credit for it on the world stage, or take the opportunity for something else. Not when it is against the United States,” Scott hoped he wasn’t repeating just to hear himself talk but he wanted these men to know where his mind was. They were close advisors and he didn’t want them to continue to try to convince him of something when he already agreed.
“This is going to require us to respond in some significant fashion. I, for one, refuse to do anything based on some knee jerk reaction. That will only cause people to die just so we can feel better. We want to be sure to move smartly. I don’t mind going on minimal information, but I want that information to be verified, not speculative. I want it to be planned, to be logical, and necessary. I will not sign off on any reactionary plans.