Posted on 12/28/2007 10:52:21 AM PST by RDTF
In the Pentagon's newly expanded Special Operations office, a suite of sterile gray cubicles on the "C" ring of the third floor, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael G. Vickers is working to implement the U.S. military's highest-priority plan: a global campaign against terrorism that reaches far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
The wide-ranging plan details the targeting of al-Qaeda-affiliated networks around the world and explores how the United States should retaliate in case of another major terrorist attack.
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Vickers's job also spans the modernization of nuclear forces for deterrence and retaliation, and the retooling of conventional forces to combat terrorism -- a portfolio so expansive that he and some Pentagon officials once jokingly referred to his efforts as the "take-over-the-world plan," one official said.
Vickers, a former Green Beret and CIA operative, was the principal strategist for the biggest covert program in CIA history: the paramilitary operation that drove the Soviet army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The movie "Charlie Wilson's War," released last weekend, portrays Vickers in that role, in which he directed an insurgent force of 150,000 Afghan fighters and controlled an annual budget of more than $2 billion in current dollars.
Today, as the top Pentagon adviser on counterterrorism strategy, Vickers exudes the same assurance about defeating terrorist groups as he did as a 31-year-old CIA paramilitary officer assigned to Afghanistan, where he convinced superiors that with the right strategy and weapons, the ragtag Afghan insurgents could win. "I am just as confident or more confident we can prevail in the war on terror," Vickers, 54, said in a recent interview, looking cerebral behind thick glasses but with an energy and build reminiscent of the high school quarterback he once was. "Not a lot of people thought we could drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan."
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Lets face it, the only way to win the war on terror is through attrition.....thats it. Every other effort is futile.
Cry Havoc, and let slip the fighting dogs!
< Oh, different Michael Vick errrr... >
He would be fired the first day of a ‘rat administration.
Attrition is good if that’s the only strategy available. What you really need is a competitive ideology. These terrorists have a radical brand of Sunni Islam in common. Until you persuade them to give it up you’ll always have a large pool of recruits. That’s how you win.
Bad, very bad.
Fast responses against know Al Qaeda/terrorist camps sounds like a good plan.
Don't you think they are already, to a certain extent?
the CIA is a political organization full of people who want to undermine the war at any cost.
True, Democrats are everywhere. But there are also some good people in the CIA.
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