Free Republic

The film Seven Days In May is one of my all-time favourites. The gripping 1964 drama, starring Burt Lancaster, depicts an attempted coup by far rightists in Washington using a top-secret Pentagon anti-terrorist unit called something like "Contelinpro." Life imitates art. This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name "JCS Conplan 0300-97," authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret "anti-terrorist" military units on American soil for what the author claims are "extra-legal missions." In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- A secret intelligence unit created within the US Defense Department after the Sept. 11 attacks helped capture former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in December 2003, news reports said Monday. The unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a hidden hand in interrogations and identifying clues inside Iraq that narrowed the search for Saddam Hussein and led to his capture, the reports said. The unit's existence was first revealed by The Washington Post on Sunday. Quoting interviews with participants and documents it obtained,the Post said the Pentagon has created a previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - Senior members of Congress said Monday that they would seek to determine whether the Pentagon had overstepped its bounds by creating new secret battlefield intelligence units within the Defense Intelligence Agency. A senior military officer and a senior Defense Department official confirmed at a hastily called Pentagon briefing on Monday, after news reports had disclosed the existence of the expanded intelligence operations, that small teams of civilian intelligence specialists were being created to work with Special Operations forces and other troops worldwide on secret missions, including counterterrorism operations. The officials said the teams had been formally...

WASHINGTON - When U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground a year ago, the capture was described afterward as the work of a team of conventional and special operations troops. Nothing was said about an assist from an intelligence unit that the Pentagon created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to expand the military's ability to collect human intelligence — information from spies as opposed to listening devices or satellites. The unit's existence was revealed by The Washington Post on Sunday. Pentagon officials said Monday that the unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a...

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold hearings on allegations that the Defense Department may be bending U.S. laws in order to give Secretary Donald Rumsfeld more authority over clandestine overseas operations. The Washington Post, which reported the story on Sunday based on military and civilian sources, said the Pentagon has created a new unit, called the Strategic Support Branch (search), as a stepsister to an established unit in the CIA. The Strategic Support Branch is meant to address what Rumsfeld called the Pentagon's "near total dependence on the CIA" for human intelligence, something...

It is claimed that the US Secretary of Defense has formed a new intelligence department and is reviewing US law to provide greater authority for the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over espionage activities in foreign countries. The Washington Post, a prominent US newspaper, published Pentagon documents and interviews and said that a new intelligence department called the "Strategic Support Branch" had been formed by Rumsfeld to end his "near total dependence on CIA".

<p>WASHINGTON — The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.</p>

New Espionage Branch Delving Into CIA Territory The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican lawmaker said on Sunday his U.S. Senate committee would look into a reported move by the Pentagon to reinterpret U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld broad authority over spy operations abroad. Responding to the report in The Washington Post on Sunday, Senate Armed Services Committee member John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told CBS's "Face the Nation" program he would raise the question at hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Post, citing Pentagon documents and interviews with participants, reported that Rumsfeld had created a unit called the Strategic Support Branch to end...