Posted on 01/25/2003 10:08:00 AM PST by knighthawk
The U.S. military dominates the globe, but increasingly faces an enemy it cannot see. In the third in a series on U.S. power, Peter Goodspeed chronicles efforts to build a secret army for the covert war on terrorism.
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The United States is building an elite, secret army to carry the war against terrorism into the world's darkest corners with a new wave of covert pre-emptive operations.
For the first time since the Vietnam War, U.S. defence officials are undertaking a massive mobilization of their elite special operations command, pouring billions of dollars in new funding into high-tech equipment and beefing up the strike capacity of military units trained in sabotage, guerrilla warfare and assassination.
This month, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, approved a major reorganization that gives the U.S. Special Operations Command unprecedented authority to plan and fight a global war on terrorism.
The U.S. military's covert operations budget has been increased by more than US$7-billion a year. Mr. Rumsfeld also authorized the hiring of 4,000 more Special Forces personnel and agreed to a major bureaucratic shuffle that allows the Special Forces to plan and execute their own attacks on terrorist organizations and other enemies of the United States around the world.
In the past, the U.S. Special Operations Command -- U.S. Navy SEALS, U.S. Army Green Berets and Rangers and U.S. Air Force special tactics units as well as the ultra-secret, anti-terrorist Delta Force -- had been regarded as a "force provider" that supplied commandos to other U.S. regional commanders.
The Rumsfeld plan gives the Special Forces command a far greater degree of independence and assigns it a new, leading role in military operations.
Under a Bush administration doctrine that authorizes pre-emptive strikes against serious security threats, the Special Forces, in conjunction with specialized units of the Central Intelligence Agency, will lead the way in an aggressive military posture that calls for more emphasis on cyber-warfare, information technology and covert operations.
Painfully aware the United States now faces unconventional threats that cannot always be countered by conventional forces or air strikes, U.S. defence officials have decided to launch a wave of top-secret, covert military operations to root out a shadowy enemy, scattered in dozens of countries around the globe.
"These are people who operate in the shadows and we have to deal with them in the shadows," Mr. Rumsfeld has said.
It's all part of the new vulnerability that comes with being an empire in the 21st century.
Overwhelmed by the United States' might and technological advantage, opponents are forced to rely on more basic and barbaric methods of attack. While the United States can easily defeat any conventional challenger, that very fact makes it less likely it will be challenged to a conventional war.
Terrorists can be expected to attack innocent and undefended targets simply because they cannot engage soldiers firing cruise missiles or attack B-52 bombers at high altitudes.
Speaking to the graduating class of West Point Military Academy in June, George W. Bush, the U.S. President, said the U.S. military needs "to be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world.
"We face a threat with no precedent," the President said. "Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies."
The expanded role of special operations forces is expected to range from more involvement in major conflicts, such as the pending war with Iraq, to tracking down and killing members of individual terrorist cells.
Other covert operations could include destroying production and storage sites for weapons of mass destruction, disrupting illegal finances, intercepting contraband goods and attacking terrorist cells and their supporters.
Any new hidden war may look a lot like last November's attack on a suspected al-Qaeda leader in the wilds of northern Yemen. In that operation, secret U.S. paramilitary units on the ground, working with a Predator surveillance drone in the sky, fired a rocket into a car full of terrorist suspects, killing six people.
Special operations forces played a critical role in toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. They are expected to lead the fight in the early stages of a war in Iraq.
About 100 U.S. Special Forces troops and 50 CIA officers are reported to have been operating inside Iraq for at least the past four months. They are believed to be hunting for Iraqi Scud missile launchers, monitoring oil fields to prevent Saddam Hussein from ordering their destruction, marking minefields and scouting out targets for a possible invasion force.
Some teams of special agents may also be tracking the activities of Iraq's top leaders before an invasion.
In a move that would duplicate similar covert operations in Afghanistan before the war there, CIA and special forces teams may also be paying thousands of dollars to secure the co-operation or immediate surrender of some Iraqi military commanders in the event of a U.S. invasion.
A large contingent of Special Forces and CIA agents has also been operating openly in northern Iraq, in a Kurdish-controlled area protected by the U.S.- and British-imposed no-fly zone.
Early on in the war against terrorism, Mr. Rumsfeld began carving out an expanded role for covert operations in an intentional shift to a "black war" where secrecy rules.
In Afghanistan, Special Forces teams led the fight in co-ordinating military assaults with the Northern Alliance and secretly marked targets for the massive U.S. bombing campaign. Later, the Special Forces Command took the lead in hunting for al-Qaeda suspects in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Under their new expanded role, elite counterterrorism units will be sent out to disrupt and destroy enemy assets.
The smaller, secret teams of special agents and military commandos are expected to react more quickly to the stealthy tactics of terrorist groups.
Last summer, a special advisory panel to the Pentagon recommended Special Forces be used "to launch secret operations aimed at stimulating reactions among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass destruction."
The report envisioned missions in which U.S. commandos would prod terrorist cells into action or force rogue states to expose their intentions through a series of "quick response attacks."
The covert attacks could trigger an intelligence bonanza by forcing Washington's enemies to shift matériel or change locations without the ability to disguise their activities. Surveillance experts could then monitor their reactions and movements.
Broad new wiretapping and surveillance powers granted to the Justice Department under the U.S.A. Patriot Act, which was enacted immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks, will also enhance the strike capabilities of Special Forces and CIA special operations teams.
William Arkin, a military and intelligence expert who has written extensively about the Pentagon's efforts to expand its covert capabilities, says Mr. Rumsfeld is building "an elite secret army" and his emphasis on covert action reflects the Pentagon's frustrations with the performance of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
"Insulated from outside pressures, armed with matchless weapons and technology, trained to operate below the shadow line, the Pentagon's black world of classified operations holds out the hope of swift, decisive action in the war on terror," Mr. Arkin says.
Part of the reason for the Special Forces' increased profile is Mr. Rumsfeld's aggressive and concerted push to expand the Pentagon's influence and gain greater control of the war against terrorism.
After U.S. forces failed to capture Osama bin Laden or any of his leading lieutenants immediately after the Afghanistan war, the Defence Secretary may have concluded conventional military units are too slow and cumbersome to do the job properly.
At the same time, the Sept. 11 attacks highlighted a need for significant changes in U.S. intelligence and counter-intelligence operations. They also raised concerns that the United States had become far too reliant on stand-off intelligence from electronic intercepts and satellite observations, rather than inserting agents on the ground to monitor terrorists and other emerging threats.
In the past year, Mr. Rumsfeld has touched off a series of major turf battles in Washington with the CIA and other agencies.
Last year, the Pentagon briefly flirted with the idea of running a new Office of Strategic Influence, which would have competed with the State Department in spreading propaganda overseas.
When it became known the new office planned to plant false stories in the news media to support its activities, a barrage of criticism quickly forced the office's closure.
Mr. Rumsfeld's drive to advance covert operations pushes the U.S. military into areas that traditionally were the domain of the CIA. This is raising concerns a new covert operations program will circumvent restraints already imposed on the CIA.
In the past, U.S. administrations have made a clear distinction between the combat activities of Special Operations Forces and missions handled by the CIA, partly because post-Watergate era reforms forced the government to keep Congress informed of all CIA covert operations.
There are no such restraints on U.S. military operations overseas.
Now, as the war against terrorism has required greater co-operation among U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials, the line of strict separation has been almost permanently blurred.
"Prevention and pre-emption are the only defence against terrorism," Mr. Rumsfeld said recently as he pushed to expand the use of covert operations.
"Our task is to find and destroy the enemy before they strike us."
U.S MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS: 1989-2003
Mission: Panama invasion
Dates: 1989-90
Strength: 27,351 troops
Casualties: Deaths: 23
Casualties: Wounded: 324
Mission: Gulf War
Dates: 1990-91
Strength: 665,476 troops
Casualties: Deaths: 383
Casualties: Wounded: 467
Mission: Somalia intervention
Dates: 1992-93
Strength: 25,800 troops
Casualties: Deaths: 35
Casualties: Wounded: 153
Mission: Bosnia intervention
Dates: 1995-96
Strength: 20,000 troops
Casualties: Deaths: 1
Casualties: Wounded: 4
Mission: Iraq bombing campaign
Dates: Dec. 1998
Strength: 29,000 troops
Casualties: Deaths: -
Casualties: Wounded: -
Mission: Kosovo bombing campaign
Dates: April-July 1999
Strength: 31,600 troops
Casualties: Deaths: -
Casualties: Wounded: -
Mission: Second Gulf War (projected)
Dates: ?
Strength: 150,000 troops*
Casualties: Deaths: ?
Casualties: Wounded: ?
*estimated
SOURCE: Center for Defense Information
Now this is the way to do business. Signals intelligence and imagery intelligence are great tools, but they are not the same as having eyes and ears on the ground. A good mix of all three is a solid winner.
In the past, U.S. administrations have made a clear distinction between the combat activities of Special Operations Forces and missions handled by the CIA, partly because post-Watergate era reforms forced the government to keep Congress informed of all CIA covert operations.
The regular military forces are for smashing huge enemy forces with overwhelming firepower, but are too slow to catch fleet terrorist cells. The CIA has been defanged and declawed for decades, and are unlikely to change soon for a variety of reasons. Calling upon the Special Operations Command is the perfect response. Even now they still face a good deal of restraint from their higher commanders, but if that restraint continues, Rumsfeld may let the reins slip more and more.
It's not pre-emptive if the scrotes have attacked you first. They have, so it's not.
Sorry, our guys are good, but I'm afraid they're not quite THAT good. Saddam and his sons are just a little too well protected. Saddam knows that there are guys who would love to assassinate him, which is why he had about half dozen men surgically altered to look exactly like him.
Knighthawk - thanks for posting this article!
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A few more geldings into the mix.
:>0
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