Return of CIA forces worries military experts

WASHINGTON (AP) - It’s often the first American army in the field, yet it doesn’t answer to the Pentagon and its members are exempt from the rules governing other U.S. forces.

The secretive use of CIA paramilitary operatives in Afghanistan raises questions about whether the intelligence agency could slide into old, much-criticized habits: assassinating enemies in the guise of combat and covertly passing around money and arms to warring factions.

"I had to deal with CIA guys in El Salvador; they were on their own wavelength," said Andy Messing, a former Army Special Forces major. "You have two parallel chains of command, and one could wind up doing what they feel like doing."

The very elements that have contributed to the paramilitary’s triumphs in Afghanistan - smallness, flexibility and freedom from bureaucracy - have also been its downfall in the past.

In the 1980s, Congress flayed the CIA for abetting human rights abuses by repressive regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua. One agency training manual devoted a chapter to the benefits of torture.

That paled next to what is considered the CIA’s darkest moment: Operation Phoenix, which claimed tens of thousands of lives - including many civilians - in an effort to root out communist leaders in South Vietnam.

"Twenty years ago, no one thought you would ever see a resurrection of the paramilitaries in the CIA," said Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., a former CIA officer who chairs the House Intelligence Committee.

The war on terror has changed that thinking, Goss said, and has revived support for a paramilitary more flexible than the Pentagon’s elaborate hierarchies could allow.

Goss said the CIA paramilitaries are better able to "distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. The enemy doesn’t wear uniforms, and it’s become much more complicated to get the lethality on the target."

He wouldn’t elaborate, citing national security concerns,, but the CIA does not have the strictures that keep the uniformed military from using cash and favors to buy loyalty and information.

Such murky relationships once drew the agency into "enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" kingmaking, sometimes even to the point of assassinating local leaders.

There were echoes of such tangled Cold War alliances earlier this month when the CIA launched a Hellfire missile at Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an opponent of the U.S.-backed interim government - but also an enemy of the Taliban and al-Qaida, supposedly the CIA’s primary targets. The missile missed Hekmatyar but killed several supporters.

U.S. officials said Hekmatyar was targeted because he has offered rewards to those who kill American soldiers, but others wondered whether the CIA was back to its old ways.

"It’s perfectly permissible under international humanitarian law to attack combatants on the other side, including leaders, if it’s an attack on a military force," said James Ross, legal adviser to the activist group Human Rights Watch. "The question is whether this attack on Hekmatyar was that."

Messing, who runs the National Defense Council, a private think tank, said the contract personnel - many of them former special operations troops - who join CIA officers in the field are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice that governs the armed forces.

"The military guys are subjected to" the code, "and human rights violations will not be tolerated. Anyone stepping over the line will get hammered," Messing said. "The contract guys will just get fired."

Being out of the purview of military law is not a problem, said Scott Silliman, a former Air Force lawyer who now teaches military law at Duke University. Other laws adequately protect CIA targets from human rights abuses, he said.

"The fact that they are not subject to the uniform code does not mean that they are immune from war crimes, if they would ever get into that situation," Silliman said.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency is committed to fulfilling its reporting obligations and obeying laws.

In questioning CIA officials, members of Congress should ask pointed, specific questions about each operation and not just the overall war, Johnson said.

"If Bush takes the war to 60 countries, say, I’d want them to ask questions about each of the 60 operations, not just the ‘war on terror,’ " he said. "That’s too generic."

Goss said: "The nature of the threat is different. We need to alter the way we respond to those threats."

CIA operatives were the first American forces inside Afghanistan before the bombing started Oct. 7, and their missile attacks have scored some of the most accurate hits in the war. These included the November killing of one of Osama bin Laden’s top two deputies - an action the Pentagon attributed to "another agency"

Johnny "Mike" Spann, the CIA officer killed during an al-Qaida prisoner insurrection in November, has become the war’s best-known casualty.

Didn't find this on a search.

The article points out views from both sides. The CIA needs more leeway but do we really want them getting into all sorts of wheeling and dealing again?

Good ole' CIA gittin' it from both ends again.
Either they're not doing enough, or they're doing too much.

I think it's a cyclic thing.
You let them do their "thing" for a while, and when they start getting a little too fast and loose, ya gotta rein them in a little. ( or a lot )
Get rid of some of the "cowboys", remind them of their essential mission objectives, then start the cycle over.

I am much more concerned about the FBI, which is supposed to be an intra-national law enforcement organisation, operating offices and conducting operations overseas, especially in european countries.
It is the FBI that needs reining in right now, not the CIA.

no need to search. the source is stated at the top.

the problem with the CIA running operations overseas "in our behalf" is that there is precious little oversight. this allows them to provide for their own "needs" and to wage death, terror and destruction against the administrations hand-picked enemies. they are thus unrestrained from constitutional boundaries.

this is way more entangled than what the founding fathers had warned against.

Frankly, I like the idea of CIA hit squads out there picking off the terrorists with no fanfare. This is the kind of struggle that is more suited for them, anyway.

I like the idea that we have that option available and can use it when the more conventional method isn't feasible. But, personally, I would prefer to just crush the states that sponsor the terrorists with overwhelming fire and man power until all such states are vanquished. That's just me though. I want those nations as they are now- destroyed.

That's something that has to be done, and the conventional military will have a large role to play in that. But even if we replaced those states with friendly regimes, it won't be enough. Terrorist cells can operate in friendly countries, and not all their support comes from state sponsors. They have been quite effective in using "charities" to obtain money.

Al-Qaida operates in 60 countries, we're told. In about 55 of them, using the CIA would be the preferred plan of attack.

Al-Qaida operates in 60 countries, we're told. In about 55 of them, using the CIA would be the preferred plan of attack.

Yeah I know, I know. Call me old fashioned or just biased cause I was a soldier- but it weren't no CIA spook raising the flag on Iwo Jima. When a spook offs some dictator or terrorist, the public doesn't get to know about it and celebrate it as a victory.

Remember the end of the Gulf War? Ticker Tape Parades and people genuinely happy with the military because they whomped some a$$. The public got to take part in it in this manner and the military themselves got to get their just deserts- adulation and respect from the public. I think the CIA doing things behind the scenes is probably a dead effective way of getting a tricky job done and if there's no other way I highly approve, but I feel like we get robbed of something when we have to go that route. The people need to know when their country has been victorious. IMHO

oh, my congress critters know my name . . . no worries.

the argument that the CIA may be more effective in some countries (say friendlies) is moot. it is an indication that we do not yet have their attention for mutual interests. if we don't have that, then we aren't really friendlies, are we?

using conventional forces to make our point, while perhaps harsh, is at least honest to a great extent.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.