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Defense Leader Tells Of Shifting Military Roles
Fayetteville (NC) Observer ^ | April 7, 2005 | Henry Cuningham,

Posted on 04/07/2005 9:37:42 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen

The military will become more involved in humanitarian missions, an assistant secretary of defense said Wednesday at Fort Bragg.

''We are going to turn the Defense Department into a different type of department,'' Thomas W. O'Connell said. ''The mandate is on the wall. We are going to have to be prepared as an armed force to do much more on the humanitarian side, transition to and from war. I've got some strong feelings on this. I think we are going the right way.''

O'Connell, who is 59, has been assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict in Washington since July 2003. He said special operations will play ''a heck of a lot more important role in the global war on terrorism.''

O'Connell spoke to about 200 people at the President's Luncheon of the ninth annual symposium and exposition of the Braxton Bragg Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army.

The retired colonel has been commander of the 82nd Airborne Division's military intelligence battalion and director of intelligence for the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg.

The annual budget for special operations is about $6.7 billion, which represents 3 percent of U.S. military expenditures, he said after the meeting. About 50,000 people work in military special operations. O'Connell also is involved in counternarcotics, on which the military spends $1 billion annually.

O'Connell works with Army Gen. Doug Brown, the combatant commander of U.S. Special Operations Command at Tampa, Fla. Brown reports directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. His command oversees U.S. Army Special Operations Command at the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg as well as Navy and Air Force special operations.

Legislative authority

''This year, one of the successes that we've had is that we have legislative authority for the first time for special operations forces to recruit and train surrogates in the war on terrorism,'' O'Connell said. ''It's about damn time, and a lot of people deserve a lot credit for working that through the Congress. Now a lot of people are fighting it, like CIA, State Department, but we are going to stick with it.''

O'Connell said public affairs is a constant battle.

''Every journalist wants to find out some special ops secret, and every expert in the Pentagon thinks that they, somehow, are experts in special operations, as well. It's funny, you don't get people standing up saying, 'I'm a logistics expert.'''

O'Connell spoke of the 7th Special Forces Group, which has headquarters at Fort Bragg. The group's soldiers speak Spanish and conduct training missions with the armies of Latin American nations.

''Seventh Special Forces Group and U.S. Southern Command have done an absolutely brilliant job in turning around Colombia,'' he said. ''I was there in the early '90s during some of the more exciting times when we were going after Mr. Escobar, which we eventually got.''

Mark Bowden, in his 2001 book ''Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw,'' told the story of how U.S. and Colombian forces tracked the drug lord in the early 1990s. In the years before his death, Escobar reportedly ordered bombings, killed and kidnapped scores of people, and had a commercial airliner blown out of the sky.

The Colombian government is making progress in dealing with insurgents and narcotics, he said.

''The population now views the army, because of the professional training of the 7th Special Forces Group, with higher regard than they do the Catholic Church,'' O'Connell said.

O'Connell said he is ''a very strong supporter of psychological operations.'' Fort Bragg's U.S. Army Special Operations Command oversees psy ops, which includes the use of broadcasts and printed materials to influence behavior and attitudes in foreign countries during peace and war.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: army; dod; military

1 posted on 04/07/2005 9:37:42 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen
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To: ducks1944; Ragtime Cowgirl; Alamo-Girl; TrueBeliever9; anniegetyourgun; maestro; TEXOKIE; ...
The military will become more involved in humanitarian missions, an assistant secretary of defense said Wednesday at Fort Bragg.

''We are going to turn the Defense Department into a different type of department,'' Thomas W. O'Connell said. ''The mandate is on the wall. We are going to have to be prepared as an armed force to do much more on the humanitarian side, transition to and from war. I've got some strong feelings on this. I think we are going the right way.''

2 posted on 04/07/2005 9:39:15 AM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Stand Watch Listen

Translation - 'we have to increase recruitment'.


3 posted on 04/07/2005 9:50:49 AM PDT by ex-snook (Exporting jobs and the money to buy America is lose-lose..)
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To: Calpernia

Calpernia,

Thanks for exposing this bit of junior secretary's idiocy to the bright lights of clear analysis.

Here's what the dope should've said.

First, it is not the job of the military to build nations, rather, it is their job to protect this nation by killing it's enemies and destroying their weapons of war. To distract them from that goal is a major mistake.

The task of nation-building is the job of the State Department, and uses the help of both Treasury and Commerce. The military provides security.

We can only hope that the current administration will implement a general staff system whereby senior political operatives in the executive branch coordinate the work of the top four Cabinet Secretaries. Too long have they wandered around with only their own preferences for guidance.

It's been a major failure of this administration, and of all previous administrations - except perhaps for George Marshall's - to coordinate the actions of our senior government managers.


4 posted on 04/07/2005 9:55:30 AM PDT by Santiago de la Vega (El hijo del Zorro)
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To: Calpernia

Thanks for the ping!


5 posted on 04/07/2005 10:04:17 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl (Please donate monthly to Free Republic!)
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To: Stand Watch Listen

great - now we're exporting our nanny state and our taxdollars overseas for this ?

how about we just cut out this type of junk and concentrate on the mission of defending the homeland ?


6 posted on 04/07/2005 10:05:40 AM PDT by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: Stand Watch Listen

Why do we have a Peace Corps? Either use it for humanitarian operations, or disband it.


7 posted on 04/07/2005 10:07:12 AM PDT by Gunner9mm
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To: Stand Watch Listen
One of the reasons the military is stretched so thin now is precisely because of the humanitarian missions assigned during the 90s. This is true of both the personnel and the equipment. What these suits always forget about is that the gear wears out.

Some DC genius sends out the Army or Marines and tells them to pay for the operation through their Operations and Maintenance budget without requesting an additional appropriation. Then something like Iraq comes along and presto we're getting to the bottom of the barrel.
8 posted on 04/07/2005 10:28:14 AM PDT by kas2591 (Life's harder when you're stupid.)
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To: ex-snook
The military will become more involved in humanitarian missions ...(ie.Islamic Religious Enforcement etc.)..., an assistant secretary of defense said....?

naw....

/sarcasm?

9 posted on 04/07/2005 1:08:59 PM PDT by maestro
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To: ex-snook
Translation - 'we have to increase recruitment'.

How do you get that conclusion? This article is about future missions for Special Operations -- they only need about 50,000 people now, and for the most part they have more volunteers than open slots (with some exceptions in Army reserve Civil Affairs and PSYOP units). What does recruitment have to do with it?

10 posted on 04/07/2005 6:19:08 PM PDT by 68skylark
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To: Santiago de la Vega
With all due respect, I don't think it's realistic to win the war on terrorism just by killing terrorists. There is an ideological component to the war. We haven't been doing a great job with this part of the war, and we need to do better. It's a job for Special Operations -- where they specialize in winning low-intensity conflicts.
11 posted on 04/07/2005 6:23:25 PM PDT by 68skylark
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To: Calpernia

Bump!


12 posted on 04/07/2005 10:06:45 PM PDT by windchime (Hillary: "I've always been a preying person")
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To: 68skylark
Thanks for the kind response.

Of course, you're right. I inadvertently left out the role played by the full range of military options.

In addition, I ignored the role played in military options by the other key cabinet departments.

As you note, there is more to ending terrorism than killing terrorists. The flow of funds from the petrocrats to the fanatics who are killing our soldiers and citizens can only be stopped by a concerted effort by State, Commerce, and Treasury. We've seen a little of this action, but not enough in my mind.

The crazed ideology of the jihadis will have a lot less effect, and be easier to eradicate, if they don't have the flood of money supplied by the house of Saud.

It's about time to redistribute the wealth of the Arabian peninsula to the poor nations surrounding it, and send the bogus princelings to the hell they so richly deserve.
13 posted on 04/08/2005 4:55:20 AM PDT by Santiago de la Vega (El hijo del Zorro)
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To: Santiago de la Vega

I didn't think about the roles played by State, Commerce, Treasury, etc in the war on terrorism, but you're right -- this war should be a "full court press" with everyone doing their part of the overall job. The general public has roles they can play as well.

I'm new to an Army Civil Affairs unit, so I'm trying to learn all I can about Special Operations. It's an extremely impressive organization, but also prone to misunderstandings about the missions. And I've got a nagging feeling that as impressive as the organization really is, we could use new ideas. We need new ways to reach out to foreign populations and help them believe in democracy & good, limited government -- and the other core values that have made this country so exceptional.


14 posted on 04/08/2005 5:07:47 AM PDT by 68skylark
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