“Does THIS,” he gestured wildly to the screen, “Look LUCKY to anyone? I don’t think that the one hundred and twenty five thousand dead and the quarter of a million injured Americans would call this lucky. Stop this crap and cut to the bottom line. How screwed are we?” the President asked.
The Chairman smirked. He had been waiting for the man to transition from shock to action. It appeared as though that transition had finally happened. Who knew all it took was the overuse of the word lucky, “Mr. President, we are fucked for years to come. However, here in a minute I am going to show you a way we can start to fuck those who did this to us, right back. Using your no bullshit ideal, we are going to fuck them hard, fast and without the benefit of lubricant.”
He really liked this President, or he would have never spoken in this manner, anything was an improvement over the last one. The previous President had probably caused this problem with his weak foreign policy, complacency, and lack of quick decision making ability.
The President sat back in his chair and calmly said, “General, please, continue.”
“The locations of these attacks were not anywhere near our military bases containing combat troops. As a result, our combat troop losses were very limited. Our warfighter troop strength is at 98 %. However, our non-special operations troops have real fatigue problems due to the extended length of the Global War on Terror. Their spirit is there, but they are tired both physically, and mentally. They will do what we ask, but it is something to keep in mind. We don’t want to get in a situation where we are not trying to win quickly. We don’t want to ‘hold them,’ we want to defeat them. The troop morale will not allow for holding anymore. Due to this, we may have problems once we are actively involved on the ground, but that is a problem for another day.
“Special Operations is reporting 100 % troop strength. You can’t keep those guys away from this type of conflict with handcuffs, no matter how banged up some of them are. They, and anyone else we need, will perform their jobs to the best of their considerable ability.
“The civilian fatalities between the two cities are not as bad as we originally thought. They are now confirmed to be much lower than the original one hundred and twenty five thousand estimates. The actual number is much closer to fifty thousand. That number is still climbing, although there are fewer fatalities being reported now than there were twenty four hours ago, therefore we think we are close to the end of that number getting larger.
“The Israeli’s lost almost a quarter of a million military and civilians combined. That is based on their official reports.
“Our civilian injuries are not exactly what we anticipated at first. There were really only a few burn injuries and virtually all of those were from secondary fires. These were the fires started as a result of the detonations, and not from the initial fireball. These burns were almost always severe, but treatable.
“Those who were sickened by radiation are either recovering quickly or passed away in the first few hours after the attack. We don’t expect any more fatalities from this group. In future years there will probably be increased cancer rates, but there is nothing we can do about that right now.
“Currently the largest problem is broken bones. We have roughly one hundred and sixty five thousand civilians with broken bones. There are so many of them that we are currently air-dropping medical supplies in for this, along with troops to help with those specific types of injuries.
“We have enough supplies either enroute, or on-site, along with SOCOM units to send back data on what other help is really needed. We did that so we don’t end up sending the wrong people in there to just get in the way.”
“That is good news, Mr. Chairman, thank you,” The President’s stress level was obviously lowering.
Knowing that modern medicine could solve many of the problems facing those still alive appeared to be helping. That, along with the idea that the needed help needed was either on its way or already there had to lift a weight from the man’s shoulders.
“Now to change topics a little bit, we showed you earlier that the Iranian forces were organizing, and I reiterate we are going to be ready to deal with that. We have something we need to do that is strategic, rather than tactical.
“We have a small military action we want to execute. This suggestion, which is an offensive move, will help us in preparation for a much larger operation, as well as a twofold screw job to the Iranians.”
The image behind the General changed to show a smiling young man, obviously presenting at a conference, “Meet Dr. Joba, shown here when he was a post-doctorial researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a world-renowned nuclear physicist. He is known to be heavily involved in, if not leading, the Iranian nuclear program.
“We know where he lives and works. We know that he is relatively unguarded. We believe he continues to work toward building better versions of these devices, which would deliver larger yields much sooner than our intelligence sources originally believed. He is probably using the results of the five devices they detonated in order to design a more reliable series of devices as each one had a surprisingly different series of residual signatures meaning the designs were perhaps not the same at each strike point. It is almost like he used these events as a giant field test for new equipment.
“We also believe that he knows the locations of all of their nuclear refinement facilities. He may know enough about their nuclear infrastructure for us to slow any future work on their part and prevent them from having the capability of doing this again for years, if we can get him to talk. If we can’t get him to talk, and we can get him out of whatever activity he is currently working on, it will still serve to slow their program down considerably. Think of it like taking Tom Brady out of the New England lineup during the first quarter of the Super Bowl.
“We believe we can get a Special Operations team in, take him alive, and get him back here six days from the moment you say go.
“Based on what is known of their nuclear program we believe he could be close to staging a second attack with redesigned warheads.
“As I said he is likely using the results of the attack to give new directions to his research. We believe this to be true because the yields on the various devices were not close to the same size. Their yields varied greatly, as did other signatures. They have to be treating their action as a weapons test. I know I would.
“What we want to do with this Special Ops action would almost certainly slow the timeline for such a second nuclear attack, should they be able to launch one in the near future.
“We could show you the operational details of the plan if you like. It is designed to ensure minimal to no casualties on our side, and no civilian casualties on theirs. With some skill, and our operators have an enormous amount of that, they will be in, and get back out of that country before anyone realizes they were on the ground,” he folded his hands and waited for a response from the President.
“Is there anything else I should know before that mission starts?” asked the President.
“No Mr. President.”
The President stood, “Mr. Chairman, get me Dr. Joba. I want to meet him face to face. General, whenever we have air assets ready to start destroying their military targets, and there is a plan you are comfortable with that minimizes civilian casualties I want that process started.
“I don’t want them able to move. Cripple their military. Start with their armor and air assets. If they are able to move, I want them to have to pay for every forward inch. I don’t want us to have to fight much, if any of that stuff on the ground if we can avoid it. Get it done, Gentlemen.”