WarSclerotic

Obama administration sends CIA officers to find biological and chemical weapons in Syria | The Times of Israel.

US official tells The Daily Beast that US government seeks to obtain information from military defectors, intercepted correspondences

Syrian President Bashar Assad delivers a speech at the parliament in Damascus, Syria, in June (photo credit: SANA/AP)

The Obama administration has sent CIA officers to Syria in order to assess the country’s weapons program, a US official with access to Syrian intelligence told The Daily Beast on Thursday.

A major task for the CIA at this point is to debrief defecting military officers to obtain as much information regarding Syria’s weapons of mass destruction as possible, the official said.

It was also up to the intelligence agency to sort through caches of intercepted phone calls, emails and satellite images to find the exact locations of the Assad regime’s chemical and biological weapons.

Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, would not comment on whether or not CIA officers had been sent to the region. However he said that the administration had recently deployed “the resources necessary to collect the information that we need to make a good decision on chemical and biological [weapons], opposition groups and leadership transition strategies.”

A CIA spokesman also declined to comment on any mission to Syria.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Channel 10 on Thursday that Israel was watching out for “the possible transfer of advanced weapons systems, mainly anti-aircraft missiles or heavy ground-to-ground missiles, but there could also be a transfer of chemical capabilities from Syria to Lebanon.” Barak said he was worried that such weapons would fall into the hands of Lebanon-based terror organization Hezbollah.

Roni Daniel, of Israel’s most-watched news station Channel 2, said Friday that Israel “will have to strike” at Syrian weapons shipments if they are being transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Daniel downplayed the possibility that such a strike would lead to a wider conflict between Israel and its neighbors.

Syrian activists report heavy fighting in Aleppo – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Clashes continue between government, opposition groups; Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: Death toll over 550 in 48 hours
News agencies

Activists and opposition groups say Syrian troops and rebels have clashed for a second day in the northern city of Aleppo.

They say the overnight clashes with heavy machine guns were some of the fiercest to date in the heart of Syria’s northern commercial hub.

Aleppo has been largely shielded from the violence that has plagued other Syrian cities over the course of the uprising against President Bashar Assad, now in its 17th month.

Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed said dozens of rebels from the Free Syrian Army were now in the city. He said fighting was mostly in the Salaheddine district in the city center.

Funeral of Assad’s security chiefs (Photo: AFP, HO, SANA)

The Local Coordination Committees activist network and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Friday’s fighting forced many residents to flee to safer areas.

Overnight Saturday, Syrian government forces pounded rebels in Damascus, battling to reverse opposition gains in the aftermath of the assassination of Assad’s security chiefs.

Army helicopters and tanks aimed rockets, machineguns and mortars at pockets of rebel fighters who have infiltrated the capital this week in an operation they call “Damascus Volcano”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group which monitors the violence in the country, said 240 people had been killed across Syria on Friday, including 43 soldiers.

The Observatory’s combined death toll over the past 48 hours stands at 550, making it the bloodiest two days of the 16-month-old uprising against Assad.

On Wednesday a bomb killed four members of the president’s narrow circle of kin and lieutenants, including his powerful brother-in-law, defense minister and intelligence chief.

“The regime has been rudderless for last three days. But the aerial and ground bombardment on Damascus and its suburbs shows that it has not lost the striking force and that it is re-grouping,” opposition activist Moaz al-Jahhar said by phone from Damascus.

In the days since, rebels have pushed deep into the heart of the capital and seized control of other towns. On Thursday, they captured three border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, the first time they have held sway over Syria’s frontiers.

Assad nowhere to be seen as fighting continues in Damascus – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Report: Rebel army forms special unit trained to secure Syria’s chemical weapons sites.

Aide to Iranian leader threatens increased uranium enrichment – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

As next round of nuclear talks set to begin this week, close aide to Ayatolla Ali Khamenei threatens Iran could enrich uranium at levels higher than 20%.

Barak: Israel may seize advanced weapons in Syria – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Defense minister tells Channel 10 IDF ordered to step up intelligence preparations in case it needs to prevent chemical weapons from reaching Hezbollah

Reuters, Roi Kais

Tensions mounting: Israel is preparing for a possible military intervention in Syria in case the Syrian government hands missiles or chemical weapons to Hezbollah, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Friday.

“I have instructed the military to increase its intelligence preparations and prepare what is needed so that… (if necessary)… we will be able to consider carrying out an operation,” Barak said in an interview on Channel 10 News.

“We are following… the possible transfer of advanced munitions systems, mainly anti-aircraft missiles or heavy ground-to-ground missiles, but there could also be a possibility of the transfer of chemical means (weapons) from Syria to Lebanon,” he added.

“The moment (Syrian President Bashar Assad) starts to fall we will conduct intelligence monitoring and will liaise with other agencies,” Barak said.

Rebels in Aleppo (Photo: EPA)

Hezbollah, which has in the past received military and financial support from Syria and Iran, launched thousands of mainly short-range rockets into Israel during the Second Lebanon War, but some longer-range rockets reached central Israel.

Their border has largely remained quiet since then.

Israel and the United States are closely monitoring any movement concerning Syria’s chemical weapons’ stockpiles, as concerns are growing that terror groups are taking advantage of the chaos in the country to seize them.

US intelligence services estimate that Syria’s nonconventional weapons arsenal – considered the biggest in the world – includes stockpiles of mustard gas, VX and Sarin gas, as well as the missile and artillery systems to deliver them.

On Thursday, Barak toured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau from which Israel can monitor movements inside the territory of its northern foe.

Barak said Israeli troops were also preparing to handle a possible influx of refugees: “They (refugees) have not chosen to come close to us, but in the event of the regime’s downfall, which could happen… (Israeli forces) here are alert and ready, and if we have to stop waves of refugees, we will stop them,” he said.

Battles have been raging in Damascus and Aleppo since noon Friday. Regime troops were able to regain control of the district of Midan in the southern part of Damascus on Friday. But rebels launched new fighting in several other districts of the capital, activists said

At least 100 people were killed in clashes across Syria on Friday, activists said.

Syrian forces launch all-out Damascus assault amid heavy death toll.

Saturday, 21 July 2012

Tanks have been bombarding Damascus, to try to reverse relentless gains by rebels since much of President Bashar al-Assad’s entourage was assassinated. (Reuters)

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Syrian forces have launched an all-out assault on opposition strongholds in Damascus, after rebels seized crossings on the Iraq and Turkey borders amid a heavy death toll.

Rebel fighters also clashed with troops in several neighborhoods of Aleppo on Friday in what the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said was the fiercest fighting so far in Syria’s second city.

At the United Nations, the Security Council voted unanimously to give a “final” 30-day extension to a troubled observer mission that was charged with overseeing a peace plan for Syria but which suspended its operations on June 16 in the face of mounting violence.

Friday’s vote followed emergency consultations just hours before the expiry of the 300-strong mission’s mandate, after Russia threatened to use its veto powers as a council permanent member for the second time in as many days.

In Syria, state television trumpeted the news of the military’s Damascus offensive.

“Our brave army forces have completely cleansed the area of Midan in Damascus of the remaining mercenary terrorists and have re-established security,” it said, using the regime term for rebels.

The counter-offensive by the army came after a Wednesday bombing killed four senior members of the regime, including the national security chief, who died on Friday.

General Hisham Ikhtiyar had been wounded along with Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar in the National Security headquarters bombing, which was claimed by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Defense Minister General Daoud Rajha, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and General Hassan Turkmani, head of the regime’s crisis cell on the uprising, were all killed in the explosion.

A state funeral was held for the three in Damascus on Friday ahead of their burials in their native provinces, the official SANA news agency reported, adding that Vice President Faruq al-Shara had attended but not Assad himself.

The next few days will determine whether Assad’s government can recover from the bombing, which wiped out much of his command structure in a single blow and destroyed his clan’s decades-old aura of merciless invulnerability.

Rebels poured into the capital Damascus at the start of the week and have since been battling government forces in what the fighters call operation “Damascus Volcano”.

A security source told AFP the army was now in control of the Damascus neighborhoods of Midan, Tadamon, Qaboon and Barzeh, while fierce clashes were reported in other districts including Jubar, Mazzeh and Kfar Sousa.

The Observatory also reported intense fighting in several neighborhoods of Aleppo and said troops opened fire on a large demonstration in the city, Syria’s commercial center.

It said 177 people were killed nationwide, including 119 civilians, at least seven of them children.

The deaths came after 302 people were killed on Thursday, the deadliest day of the uprising so far.

Amnesty International said the rebels too could be held criminally responsible for the deaths of civilians as they took the fight to residential areas of the large cities.

An AFP photographer reported that FSA fighters fought a raging battle with Syrian troops at the Bab al-Hawa border post with Turkey and that some 150 rebels controlled the crossing on Friday.

Three more generals crossed into Turkey, bringing to 24 the number of generals who have defected to Syria’s northern neighbor, a foreign ministry diplomat told AFP.

On Thursday, Iraq’s deputy interior minister Adnan al-Assadi told AFP that the FSA had seized control of all three crossings along their common border.

Residents on the Iraqi side of the border said that relatives in the town were desperately trying to cross but that they were being turned back by Iraqi troops.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on the United Nations on Friday to intervene to provide safe passage for Iraqis escaping the escalating violence in Syria.

The Iraqi government also warned it would not be able to assist Syrians looking to escape the bloodshed.

At the United Nations, Security Council permanent members Russia and China both voted in favor of a resolution extending the mandate of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria for a “final” 30 days, a day after blocking another text that could have imposed sanctions on the regime.

Thursday’s vetoes sparked Western outrage but Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin had threatened to use Moscow’s veto again.

U.S. National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon will head to China on Sunday, in the wake of Beijing and Moscow’s veto, and will also visit Japan, the White House announced.

Russia had wanted an unconditional extension of the mission for a renewable 45 days.

Russia and Western members of the Security Council remained divided over whether the resolution means the end of UNSMIS.

The text says the council renews UNSMIS for “a final period of 30 days” and stresses the “increasingly dangerous security situation” in Syria.

But it adds that the council would be willing to look at a further extension if U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “reports and the Security Council confirms the cessation of the use of heavy weapons and a reduction in the level of violence sufficient to allow UNSMIS to implement its mandate.”

U.S. ambassador Susan Rice said it would be “unlikely” that the violence in Syria would ease enough to allow a continued U.N. presence.

Review & Outlook: Iran’s War on Israel – WSJ.com.

The world’s leading sponsor of terror strikes again.

The suicide bombing that killed five Israeli tourists and a local Bulgarian bus driver on Wednesday was shocking if all too familiar. The Jewish state has been in a virtual state of war since its birth in 1948, and in recent years the chief threat has emanated from Iran and its terror proxies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Lebanese group Hezbollah—”the long arm of Iran”—carried out the attack in the Bulgarian coastal city of Burgas. American officials confirm that the bomber belonged to a Hezbollah cell.

The Burgas strike took place on the anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people, and fits—in Mr. Netanyahu’s words—a “consistent pattern” of Iranian-sponsored attacks on Israeli civilians around the world. Particularly of late.

A Hezbollah man was arrested in Cyprus last week, suspected of plotting to attack Israeli tourists at a beach resort. Kenyan officials last month arrested two Iranians who were shipping high explosives into the country and allegedly scoping out U.S. and Israeli targets. In February, Israeli officials were targeted in bombing attacks in India, Georgia and Thailand. As a reminder that Iran also targets non-Israelis, last October the Obama Administration said it foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador at a restaurant in Washington, D.C.

The atrocity in Bulgaria is another reminder about the nature of the Iranian regime. The Islamic Republic was born through terror, starting with the 1979 hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and it has become the world’s leading terror sponsor. A clerical regime hated by its own people and isolated in the world has grown even more brazen and unpredictable.

No wonder Israel is so worried about Iran’s plans to build nuclear weapons and is determined to stop Tehran with a direct military strike if need be. As Mr. Netanyahu said, “A terrorist state must not have a nuclear weapon,” especially when that state pledges to wipe you off the map.

The wonder is that the U.S. and its allies continue to look for ways to reach a diplomatic understanding with the perpetrators of these unending attacks, rather than calling the regime what it is and working to overthrow it. Iran’s killing of innocents will continue until the world decides to stop it.

Holding Iran accountable for terrorist attacks – The Washington Post.

Exclusive: New York police link nine 2012 plots to Iran, proxies- swissinfo.

By Mark Hosenball

LONDON (Reuters) – New York police believe Iranian Revolutionary Guards or their proxies have been involved so far this year in nine plots against Israeli or Jewish targets around the world, according to restricted police documents obtained by Reuters.

Reports prepared this week by intelligence analysts for the New York Police Department (NYPD) say three plots were foiled in January, three in February and another three since late June. Iran has repeatedly denied supporting militant attacks abroad.

The documents, labelled “Law Enforcement Sensitive,” said that this week’s suicide bomb attack in Bulgaria was the second plot to be unmasked there this year.

The reports detail two plots in Bangkok and one each in New Delhi, Tbilisi, Baku, Mombasa and Cyprus. Each plot was attributed to Iran or its Lebanese Hezbollah militant allies, said the reports, which were produced following the bombing in Burgas, Bulgaria of a bus carrying Israeli tourists.

Iran on Thursday dismissed “unfounded statements” by Israel linking Tehran to the Burgas blast, saying they were politically motivated accusations which underscored the weakness of the accusers.

Wednesday’s bombing in the Black Sea city is listed in a document headed “Suspected Iranian and/or Hezbollah-linked Plots Against Israeli or Jewish Targets: 2012 Chronology”, the latest of the nine 2012 plots linked to the Islamic Republic or its proxies.

U.S. officials say they increasingly concur with Israeli assessments that Iran and its proxies organised the killing of seven Israeli tourists in Burgas by a suicide bomber after they boarded an airport bus.

One U.S. official said Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi’ite Muslim militia, had in the past carried out suicide bombings.

Hezbollah says that while it carried out suicide bombings against Israeli army posts in south Lebanon when it was occupied, until 2000, it has never staged attacks outside Lebanon.

The U.S. official noted that the Burgas bombing occurred on the 18th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, which Argentina linked to Iran.

The official said the Bulgaria attack appeared relatively sophisticated as it suggested those behind it had gathered intelligence on possible targets in advance.

MORE PLOTS, SOPHISTICATION VARIES

A second U.S. official said U.S. federal authorities’ tally of alleged Iran-linked plots in 2012 largely paralleled the NYPD list.

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in the past year there had been “20 Iranian attempts at terrorist attacks abroad, in which there was direct involvement of five Iranians, two Hezbollah operatives”.

After the Bulgaria bus bombing, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said New York police had increased their counter-terrorism focus on Jewish neighbourhoods and institutions, over concerns of Iranian attacks on U.S. soil should U.S. or Israeli tensions with Iran escalate.

In a two-page paper summarizing its assessment of the alleged pattern of Iranian-related plots this year, NYPD analysts said that through its own Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, Iran had “sharply increased its operational tempo and its willingness to conduct terrorist attacks targeting Israeli interests and the International Jewish community worldwide”.

But the paper noted that many of this year’s plots lacked the sophistication and precision that characterised earlier plots linked to Iran.

Some bombs used in the recent plots shared certain features such as the use of military grade plastic explosives and magnets to attach the device to metal targets. While some had been detonated by remote control, others had relied on the “crude but effective tactic of pulling the pin on a hand grenade.”

The summary said the plotters had on occasion used local criminal elements, citing a plot in Baku where Iranian Revolutionary Guards agents provided weapons, equipment and selected the target for attack by Azeri criminals.

“This is an extremely dangerous combination,” the report concluded, adding that the geographic spread of the attacks and the willingness to go with less sophisticated plots “may add to the danger rather than lessen it.”

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Jon Boyle and Mark Heinrich)

Reuters

Israel Air Force veteran says that on Iran issue, leaders are playing with our lives – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

As part of a special series, Ari Shavit talks to Kobi Richter, who spent more than 20 years in the IAF, and feels compelled to speak out about Israel’s dangerous game.

Kobi Richter is an unusual interviewee for this series. For decades this successful businessman ‏(Orbotech, Medinol‏) has not been part of the active security establishment in Israel, or a government employee. He does not serve in the army and is not a scholar at one of the think tanks that focus on national security. But Richter is a highly intelligent and articulate person who is skilled at analyzing complex situations. In the past he also made a significant contribution to Israel’s air and strategic power.

The former intercept pilot understands a thing or two about deterrence and the balance of terror, and the way in which Israel has managed to stabilize a tenuous regional system. And in recent months, Richter has been worried. Very worried. Although an optimistic person at heart who believes in Israel’s strength and abilities, he feels that the country is now facing an existential threat.

When I sit across from him in the living room of his home, Richter proceeds to give me a neat lecture. “Up until a year ago I kept quiet,” he says. “I was sure that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak were playing a clever game designed to get the Western superpowers thinking. I believed that they understood that the only way to deal with Iran trying to go nuclear was through harsh international sanctions. I figured that they were using the threat of an imminent Israeli military action to get these sanctions enhanced. I thought they were playing the game well and achieving decent results.
“But in the past months,” he continues, “I’m hearing worried and worrying voices from people close to the decision-making circle. I see more and more signs indicating that it’s possible the prime minister and defense minister genuinely intend to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. An Israeli attack on the nuclear compounds in Iran would be an act of madness. An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would elicit an unreasonable threat to Israel’s existence, a threat that the country might not be able to withstand. This is why I agreed to talk with you today. I want to issue a warning here against what I see as an utterly irrational move that could endanger Israel’s very survival.”

The Begin doctrine

Full disclosure: Kobi Richter is a friend. But now I tell him that he’s talking nonsense. The diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran don’t seem to have worked. America apparently is not going to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. In a year, it could be too late. Time is running out, we’re backed into a corner. And if the choice is between an Iranian bomb and bombing their nuclear facilities before that bomb exists, then the latter option is preferable.
“The choice is not between their bomb and us bombing them,” Richter replies. “The choice is between an Iranian bomb with no Israeli strike at date X, or an Iranian bomb after an Israeli strike at date X ‏+ 3. I’m not certain whether the Begin doctrine [that no “enemy” be allowed to build weapons of mass destruction] was correct to begin with. I also thought in 1981 that the strike on the nuclear reactor in Iraq was a mistake. It was an act that undermined stability. But today it is absolutely clear that the Begin doctrine is no longer applicable. Israel cannot just go and attack any Middle Eastern enemy state that is readying to go nuclear.

“An attack in Iran would also be a lot more complicated than the attack in Iraq was,” he adds. “The distance is much greater, the number of targets is much greater, the targets are much better defended and the element of surprise is gone. So, while the odds of success for the attack on Osirak were high, the odds of success for an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities are much lower. But even if the strike is successful from an operational standpoint, the best result it might give us is setting back Iran’s nuclear program by three or four years.

“The gain from this delay would be dwarfed by the enormous cost of going ahead with a strike. For what a strike on Iran will do is give the Iranians the determination, as well as the justification, to accelerate their nuclear program. Perhaps we’ll delay by a little the time when they obtain their first bomb, but we apparently won’t delay at all the time when they have their first 50 bombs. But meanwhile, in the wake of our wild action, the risk that the Iranians will make use of one of those 50 bombs against us will increase sharply, and the uncertainty that this risk entails will increase a hundredfold.

“So the end result will be that, precisely because we attack Iran, the danger of an Iranian nuclear bomb falling in Gush Dan sooner or later will have gone up dramatically. And then Netanyahu’s attempt to avert a new Holocaust will cause Israel to suffer an economic and diplomatic catastrophe that will threaten its long-term survival.”

An economic catastrophe?, I ask. “If we attack Iran, and if as a result the danger of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel goes up significantly,” Richter says, “we will have to produce an extremely expensive defense system. Israel will not be able to cope with such a cost. It will have to choose between living with a threat that cannot be contained and a budget expenditure that will endanger its economic prosperity.”

Islamic solidarity

I’m trying to understand, I say to Richter. So far you’ve given me three different arguments against attacking. You’ve told me that the operational risk is high, that the risk of a nuclear counterattack will increase and that defending the country against a nuclear counterattack will put Israel into an economic tailspin. Interesting, almost convincing, but not quite.

“I haven’t gotten to the fourth argument yet,” says the high-tech entrepreneur seated in his armchair, his voice filling the room. “An Israeli attack on Iran will cause Israel to be perceived as an unexpected provocateur that − once again − attacked another country one day out of the clear blue. No one will understand the Holocaust syndrome that makes us see Iran as a combination of the Greeks, the Romans and the Nazis. This will have a dual impact on the international community. On the one hand, it will stop acting aggressively against Iran’s nuclear efforts. And on the other, it will stop viewing us as a sane and enlightened nation whose survival it is morally committed to forever defend.

“But the attack will have just as serious an effect on the regional situation,” Richter notes. “The three Sunni superpowers − Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt − which today are our covert and undeclared allies in the struggle against Iran, will not be able to ignore the brutal action carried out by the ‘infidels.’ Like it or not, they will be pushed into Islamic solidarity with Iran, against us. This will have especially grave significance when Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt eventually become nuclear powers. Instead of there being in the Middle East an array of regional powers holding back a nuclear Iran, there will be an array of powers that Israel will have to view as a threat to it. Iran alone, we may be capable of deterring. But facing four Muslim nuclear powers whose missiles could all be aimed at us will be very hard to do.”

So then, I say to Richter, basically you’re saying that nuclearization is coming. Iran will go nuclear and the Middle East will go nuclear. What absolutely mustn’t happen is for this nuclearization to occur in wake of an Israeli attack. All the Israeli attack will do is make the nuclear Middle East a lot more dangerous for Israel than it would have been without it?

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Richter replies with concern. “Posing the question as bomb versus bombing is misleading. The choice is between nuclearization that can be contained and nuclearization that cannot be contained. Following an Israeli strike, the nuclear Middle East will be unstable. Israel will not be able to handle it. And since it will also become a detested pariah state, it will not enjoy Western support, its economy will be burdened with an impossible defense budget and it will have great trouble sustaining this situation for long. The chances of its surviving the coming decades will be dramatically reduced.”

And Netanyahu and Barak aren’t able to make this simple analysis? They’re not aware of all the terrible potential scenarios that you describe? “The prime minister and defense minister might be motivated by irrational considerations, and that’s what worries me. I do not share this feeling of a looming Holocaust that is implied by some of their statements, and mainly I am convinced that the proposed attack will only increase the risk rather than lessen it.

“I think that the assumption that is implicit in such a plan − that Israel will be able to draw the United States into attacking Iran after Israel goes first − is an extremely dangerous gamble. A gamble on our very survival. What disturbs me in particular about this kind of distorted outlook is its potential connection to operational considerations and operational plans.

“I think that anyone who thinks that he’ll have more than one day to attack Iran is not responsible,” he says. “I think that anyone who assumes that the United States will be obligated to join in an Israeli attack on Iran is wrong and being misleading. There are assumptions that responsible statesmen do not make and there are actions that sane countries do not take. An Israeli strike on Iran would be an untenable gamble. If Netanyahu and Barak do decide to take this dreadful gamble, they will be endangering Israel’s very survival.”