[ISN] Halted ’03 Iraq Plan Illustrates U.S. Fear of Cyberwar Risk

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 00:09:18 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/us/politics/02cyber.html

By JOHN MARKOFF and THOM SHANKER
The New York Times
August 1, 2009 

It would have been the most far-reaching case of computer sabotage in 
history. In 2003, the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies made 
plans for a cyberattack to freeze billions of dollars in the bank 
accounts of Saddam Hussein and cripple his government’s financial system 
before the United States invaded Iraq. He would have no money for war 
supplies. No money to pay troops.

“We knew we could pull it off — we had the tools,” said one senior 
official who worked at the Pentagon when the highly classified plan was 
developed.

But the attack never got the green light. Bush administration officials 
worried that the effects would not be limited to Iraq but would instead 
create worldwide financial havoc, spreading across the Middle East to 
Europe and perhaps to the United States.

Fears of such collateral damage are at the heart of the debate as the 
Obama administration and its Pentagon leadership struggle to develop 
rules and tactics for carrying out attacks in cyberspace.

[...]


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Received on Mon Aug 03 2009 - 22:09:18 PDT

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