Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence
 

A great idea if I do say so...

March 8, 2006 NYTimes
Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence
By THOM SHANKER and SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON, March 7 — The military is placing small teams of Special Operations troops in a growing number of American embassies to gather intelligence on terrorists in unstable parts of the world and to prepare for potential missions to disrupt, capture or kill them.

Senior Pentagon officials and military officers say the effort is part of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's two-year drive to give the military a more active intelligence role in the campaign against terrorism. But it has drawn opposition from traditional intelligence agencies like the C.I.A., where some officials have viewed it as a provocative expansion into what has been their turf.

Officials said small groups of Special Operations personnel, sometimes just one or two at a time, have been sent to more than a dozen embassies in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America. These are regions where terrorists are thought to be operating, planning attacks, raising money or seeking safe haven.

Their assignment is to gather information to assist in planning counterterrorism missions, and to help local militaries conduct counterterrorism missions of their own, officials said.

The new mission could become a major responsibility for the military's fast-growing Special Operations Command, which was authorized by President Bush in March 2004 to take the lead in military operations against terrorists. Its new task could give the command considerable clout in organizing the nation's overall intelligence efforts.

The Special Operations command reports to Mr. Rumsfeld, and falls outside the orbit controlled by John D. Negroponte, the newly established director of national intelligence, who oversees all the nation's intelligence agencies. An episode that took place early in the effort underscored the danger and sensitivity of the work, even for soldiers trained for secret combat missions.

In Paraguay a year and a half ago, members of one of the first of these "Military Liaison Elements" to be deployed were pulled out of the country after killing a robber armed with a pistol and a club who attacked them as they stepped out of a taxi, officials said. Though the shooting had nothing to do with their mission, the episode embarrassed senior embassy officials, who had not been told the team was operating in the country.

One official who was briefed on the events, but was not authorized to discuss them, said the soldiers were not operating out of the embassy, but out of a hotel.

Now, officials at the Special Operations Command say, no teams may arrive without the approval of the local ambassador, and the soldiers are based in embassies and are trained to avoid high-profile missteps.

Most embassies also include defense attachés, military personnel who work with foreign armed forces and report to the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. But the new special operations personnel have a more direct military role: to satisfy the military's new counterterrorism responsibilities, officials said.

Special Operations forces include the Army Green Berets and Rangers, the Navy Seals, the Marines and special Air Force crews that carry out the most specialized or secret military missions. Their skills range from quick strikes to long-range reconnaissance in hostile territory, military training and medical care.

The creation of the Military Liaison Elements, and the broader tug-of-war over the Special Operations Command's new role, appear to have exacerbated the disorganization, even distrust, that critics in Congress and the academic world have said permeates the government's counterterrorism efforts.

Officials involved in the debate say the situation may require President Bush and his senior national security and defense advisers to step in as referees, setting boundaries and clarifying the orders of the military and other intelligence agencies.

Many current and former C.I.A. officials view the plans by the Special Operations Command, or Socom, as overreaching.

"The Department of Defense is very eager to step up its involvement in counterterrorism activities, and it has set its sights on traditional C.I.A. operational responsibilities and authorities," said John O. Brennan, a 25-year C.I.A. officer who headed the National Counterterrorism Center before retiring last year. "Quite unfortunately, the C.I.A.'s important lead role in many of these areas is being steadily eroded, and the current militarization of many of the nation's intelligence functions and responsibilities will be viewed as a major mistake in the very near future."

Mr. Brennan, now president of the Analysis Corporation, an intelligence contractor in Virginia, said that if Socom operations were closely coordinated with host countries and American ambassadors, "U.S. interests could be very well served."

But, he added, "if the planned Socom presence in U.S. embassies abroad is an effort to pave the way for unilateral U.S. military operations or to enable defense elements to engage in covert action activities separate from the C.I.A., U.S. problems abroad will be certain to increase significantly."

Paul Gimigliano, a spokesman for the C.I.A., gave a measured response to the program, but emphasized the importance of the agency's station chief in each country.

"There is plenty of work to go around," he said, adding: "One key to success is that intelligence activities in a given country be coordinated, a process in which the chief of station plays a crucial role."

The Special Operations Command has not publicly disclosed the Military Liaison Element mission, and answered questions about the effort only after it was described by officials in other parts of the government who oppose the program.

"M.L.E.'s play a key role in enhancing military, interagency and host nation coordination and planning," said Kenneth S. McGraw, a spokesman for the Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, Fla. The special operations personnel work "with the U.S. ambassador and country team's knowledge to plan and coordinate activities," he added.

Officials involved with the program said its focus is on intelligence and planning and not on conducting combat missions. One official outside the military, who has been briefed on the work but is not authorized to discuss it publicly, said more than 20 teams have been deployed, and that plans call for the effort to be significantly expanded.

In a major shift of the military's center of gravity, the Unified Command Plan signed by President Bush in 2004 says the Special Operations Command now "leads, plans, synchronizes, and as directed, executes global operations against terrorist networks," in addition to its more traditional assignment to train, organize and equip Special Operations forces for missions under regional commanders.

Recently, Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the Socom commander, and his staff have produced a counterterrorism strategy that runs more than 600 pages. It is expected to be presented to Mr. Rumsfeld in the next few weeks for final approval.

According to civilian and military officials who have read or were briefed on the document, it sets forth specific targets, missions and deadlines for action, both immediate and long-term.

One goal of the document is to set the conditions for activity wherever the military may wish to act in the future, to make areas inhospitable to terrorists and to gather the kind of information that the Special Operations Command may need to operate.

Part ll

The problem is difficult in nations where the American military is not based in large numbers, and in particular where the United States is not at war. Thus, the Military Liaison Elements may not be required in notable hot spots, like parts of the Middle East, where the American military is already deployed in large numbers.

During recent travels abroad, General Brown has sought to explain the program to C.I.A. and F.B.I. officials based at embassies. Joining him for those talks is a political adviser on full-time assignment from the State Department.

Socom also held a conference in Tampa last summer to brief Special Operations commanders from other nations, followed by a session in October for Washington-based personnel from foreign embassies on a range of counterterrorism issues.

One former Special Operations team member said the trick to making the program work is to navigate the bureaucratic rivalries within embassies — and back at the command's headquarters. "All you have to do is make the ambassador, the station chief and Socom all think you are working just for them," he said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Lee H. Hamilton, who served as vice chairman of the national commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said that conflict between the C.I.A. and the Defense Department over paramilitary operations has occurred periodically for decades, and that the 9/11 commission had recommended that the Defense Department be given the lead responsibility for such activity.

But he said the embassy program raised a different issue. "If you have two or three D.O.D. guys wandering around a country, it could certainly cause some problems," Mr. Hamilton said. "It raises the question of just who is in charge of intelligence collection."

The cold war presented the military with targets that were easy to find but hard to kill, like a Soviet armored division. The counterterrorism mission presents targets that are hard to find but relatively easy to kill, like a Qaeda leader.

General Brown and the Special Operations Command now work according to a concept that has become the newest Pentagon catchphrase: "find, fix, finish and follow-up" — shorthand for locating terrorist leaders, tracking them precisely, capturing or killing them, and then using the information gathered to plan another operation.

"The military is great at fixing enemies, and finishing them off, and exploiting any base of operations that we take," said one Special Operations commander on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "But the 'find' part remains a primitive art. Socom can't kill or capture the bad guys unless the intel people can find them, and this is just not happening."

Lowell Bergman contributed reporting for this article.

Intelligence?
Death squads at American Embassies in "friendly" countries. Where does the intelligence come in? Sounds to me like they are waiting for the who to kill from above.

Checked again... where does it say "death squad"?

It doesn't, I did. That's what they are, but I'd hardly expect that to be their official title. Politically incorrect, you know. So we send these teams of John Waynes into other countries, with or without that country's knowledge/permission, to find "terrorists" and act as sheriff, Judge, Jury and Executioner.

God bless America.

I hate to be the one to tell ya, but you are full of crap. There is no such goal. These are the most professional troops in our inventory. They are not "death squads". They do a good job.

I am certain you have something to back up your assertions, so lets see them.

TheMercenary always assumes United States is only good guys. Therefore whatever the President wants, it must be good. Good work by 'professional troops' such as Guantanamo, Abu Ghriad, and maybe ten secret torture chambers throughout the world. Oh. Good guys would not do that. Therefore we can ignore recent history?

Using current and past history in The Cellar, then TheMercenary is obliged to answer why these would not become 'death squads'. Knowing that, he accuses with words about 'crap'. Anything to avoid the question.

Question goes right to the credibility and political bias of TheMercenary who would have no problem should they became 'death squads'. Why would these not become 'death squads'? Somehow TheMercenary need not answer that questions - because he just knows they will not? Why would these not become 'death squads' - which asks the question TheMercenary must avoid. Why would these not become 'death squads' - asked multiple times because that questions goes right to TheMercenary's assumptions.

Smite the anti-American antidemocrats. What could be better? Leaving them alone to pursue fascist-pig and/or commie-rat goals?

Really, democracy ought to devour a thousand or so anti-democrats every month, just to stay in shape. And attempts by a certain Cellarite to cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the endeavor should be regarded as his attempt to further the interests of anti-American factions.

Yea. What he said.
What did he say?

Jesus UG, that was definitely a mouthful...even for you. lol

Anyone who doesn't believe that governments send 'operatives' in to do the dirty work they don't want anyone knowing about are living in lala land.

Why do you think Tony Blair sent David Beckham to the US? ;)

wait a minute, wtf are we paying the CIA for?

Are you trying to tell me that these guys.... are looking for a fourth for bridge?

Hello... anybody in there... they are placed in foreign countries to search out and kill anyone they feel is a terrorist. Sheriff, Judge, Jury and Executioner, from your own story, don't you read what you post.
I'd bet money there's a wee bit of torture in there, too.

Most professional troops in our inventory? I wouldn't dispute that at all, but what is their profession? To find and kill? To take the initiative like Ollie North? Certainly not to win friends and influence people, with their charm and social graces. They are killers, and damn good ones.

To bicker with the FBI over who has the right to fuck Americans and where.

I thought the FBI fucked Americans and the CIA fucked non-Americans?

I think everyone fucks everyone don't they?

Prettymuch...

Well maybe you do, I don't do redheads...

What's wrong with redheads?

They are obviously sub-humans.

It is kind of an inside joke for me. Whenever I randomly decide to jokingly discriminate against a group it is always redheads and lefties.

I always hit lefties when I pitched for baseball and I don't know why I picked redheads...

I reckon you're limiting your options by leaving out redheads. :) you might think about reconsidering one day.

Actually, it's what you're saying: it shows that for someone who seems never to have read his Orwell, you're awfully adept at doublethink -- the art of artful incomprehension. Whether you've mastered duckspeak as well I will leave to the rest of the readership.

"Death squads" in this context are small potatoes to them Bruce. Look for the key words from my response below, in the 4th para of the linked page, for a hint towards the magnitude of what they can actually do. ;)

It's probably just that no redhead has ever given him the green light! :D

Fourth paragraph. That's what I'm talking about... "and damn good at it". A "team" of this nature, operating out of an embassy, could create a ton of havoc.
My concern is oversight... power corrupts, ya know? Power with a skewed perspective is very dangerous when it's corrupted.

Just taking the fight to the bad guys. I have no problem with it. Glad they are doing it. I still don't buy the "death squad" lable.

Yeah, Bruce, they're just an elite specialized highly-trained squad who are there to take the fight to the bad guys, of course! They are in NO way a 'death squad!'

*snort*

How do you know they are only.... uh, neutralizing, bad guys?

You're a god damn fool.

Bad guys? Its a lot more complicated then that. I get very suspicious when there is a clear cut good versus evil.

Well, you're clearly not a good republican.

Eh, I don't think I'm a good *insert any political philosophy*

You don't buy the 'death squad' label because like a good extremist conservative, you therefore magically know? You need not say why you know. Because you are an extremist conservative, then we should trust you to know? Others have suggested 'death squad' simply by using lessons from history. But TheMercenary magically knows 'death squads' will not happen. Zieg Heil? Is that why you magically know? Is that why you repeatedly ignore the question?

As piercehawkeye45 demonstrates, only you can be trusted to know which are the good guys and which are the bad.

tw, the bad guys are the ones who don't agree with you (collective you). :)

Which to the George Jr administration (especially Pres. Cheney) means most of the world (including American allies) are evil.

No wonder this administration must wiretap anyone without judicial review - even when a secret court was established to maintain security. So who is the enemy - the evil one? We (collectively) are. We have met the enemy and he is us. How many remember evil created by "The Best and the Brightest" ... or remember enough of history to appreciate the meaning behind those various expressions.

How many reacted to the phrase 'big dic' in emotional terms - or instead recognized the 'evil' behind such mentalities?

Gen Curtis LeMay feared containment; advocated pre-emption. He decided the US and USSR would go nuclear anyway. Therefore America should unilaterally attack ('Pearl Harbor') the USSR before that war started. Gen Curtis LeMay was a good guy. Right? Yes, according to reasoning by TheMercenary who somehow automatically knows who the good guys are. One need only return to reasons presented many years ago by MaggieL to attack Iraq. Again, she *knew* who were the good guys meaning a unilateral attack ('Pearl Harboring') of Iraq was completely justified.

One way to identify the 'evil' ones? They view the world in simplistic (and extremist) terms of 'good and evil'.

What does a 'real' good guy know? So why does TheMercenary automatically assume these are not 'death squads'? He does not even reply with a sophomoric insult. Demonstrated is a symptom of extremism where even our overt (France, Turkey, etc) and covert (Syria) allies get accused of 'evil'.

Trying to know by learning 'why' is just tooooo hard. Easier is when Rush Limbaugh tells us who is good and who is evil. Hitler's Brown Shirts also knew using same logic.

Those who ask embarrassing 'why' questions such as "what is the strategic objective?" or "when do we go after bin Laden?" .... must be evil.

Tw's working assumption here seems to be that all anti-Americans are, by virtue of this, highly intelligent. Just like him!

But he is not.

What is an anti-American?

It seems the anti-Americans are the ones the most symbolize the Americans during the revolutionary war. They are rebellious, don’t like the current regime, and are looking for a better way to live. Basically the biggest difference is the "anti-Americans" of today aren't doing it for capitalism.

They'd be the 'rebels' pierce. lol

Careful, you're heading for another revolution. I hope UG has plenty of ammo. Scarlet's gonna get him. :D

Ironic how much these little teams sound just like a terrorist cell, huh?

And there would be their grossest and chiefest error. Capitalism is what humans do with their wealth when freed of gross governmental interference. People try to alienate business from humanity -- and the damn fools forget or never knew that business, simply put, is humanity. The activity and the identity cannot be separated.

An eternal dance, if you will, between wealth and force. But act against capitalism and you act for impoverishment. That is what the fall of communism explicitly shows us, and also, though less clearly, the departure from socialism and the welfare state.

You can organize scarcity or you can create wealth. Creation of wealth is the capitalist approach.

I see I've made my point.

Here is encapsulated tw's habit of playing the snake in Eden. It is illustrative of his want of something essential -- penetration? perspicuity? people skills? -- that he doesn't know we can see him doing it. The evil ones will tell you, straight faced and expecting to be credited, that there is no good and evil. And they'll insist on repeating it, believing apparently that value, or credibility, will go with repetition. That this belief is pathological remains unknown, unconceived -- to them.

The fall of communism has made a small group of people very wealthy, a large group of people have more money, but it's more than offset by inflation and another group that's poorer and getting desperate.

UG, you are only thinking in modern history.

Did the people 100,000 years ago use capitalism when there was no government? No, of course not.

We are taught to have a capitalistic mentality and that is why communism failed. We are taught to be selfish, it is not a human trait or life as we know it would not exist because the tribes of a million years ago would have fallen apart instantly.

There are alternatives to capitalism that could work if we had the mentality, but we are taught not to have that mentality so those systems will inevitably fail.

You don't believe some of the cavemen had more spears, more pelts and more women?

Ummm... ok mention one more successful or one that has been tried and worked better or failed that would work here? I have studied politics for quite a while and have not seen anything that would be better but I would love to hear your views.

That’s not capitalism though. People worked with the community to get their needs, not pure competitiveness like capitalism is. You don’t have to have perfect equality to be a non-capitalist society.

As for selfishness, there is a difference between working for the best for an individual and working for the best of the community. I was talking non-selfish by saying we can work for the best of the community and not the individual as we normally do now. Sorry if I explained that badly.
Capitalism has been the best system so far for capital gain but it is showing some major flaws and now we need to look forward and find a system that can replace capitalism to accomplish what the people want. It might not produce as much capital gain but it can work on many different aspects of society.

Everyone is not going for the same thing as well, take Venezuela for example. The class inequality was enormous and now they are trying to close the gap while still proceeding forward. These arguments are all perspective because I am sure we have different ideas of what a better system is. If we are looking at different endings, we will never find something we both like.

Well have you seen the news about how happy the people are with the progressive changes in Venezuela in the last few days??? I don't thing are so rosey and the chinks in the plan are beginning to show.

Cavemen who had more than one woman never survived. God smite them for their sins. (Today we have drugs so that god cannot smite us. We have made it safe to sin.)

The reason capitalism has been desirable is that it gives the people the freedom to do what they want, i.e. set their own goals and agendas, more than any other system.

I'm confident you'll never get 300million people to agree on anything... someone will say the sky is not blue(yes, I know). So you need a system that lets people do what they want or they won't buy into it voluntarily.

That was the beauty of the US Constitution which said, have a good time, be careful not to hurt anybody and don't be out too late... one positive, one caution, one negative.... balanced.

That's better than, keep your skirt down, pants up and come home from school in a group..... all negatives.

Have you been putting salt peter in my food again?

Of course not everyone like the new system in Venezuela but these past events had nothing to do with free speech, just against the government.

MCTV committed treason and that is why Hugo declined to renew their contract. During the 2002 attempted takeover MCTV told Venezuelans to "go out and fight" and lied about Chavez stepping down. That is treason and a TV station in America would never get a renewed contract if they did that against Bush or any other president.

It is suppose to do that and will do that for a while but once it starts building up steam it starts causing all the problems. Monopolies and imperialism are not the freedom that everyone wants, but only to the ones in power.

Monopolies are, well, uncapitalistic. They trammel a free market and are thus undesirable.

Pierce's whole line of argument in this thread shows an enthusiasm for socialism. I, of course, do not share it -- and it won't last in any case:

I think the one attributed to Churchill runs "If a man isn't a socialist at twenty he has no heart; if he's still a socialist at forty he has no brain."

I guess I may congratulate myself on having always been brainy. As for Pierce, I wish him speedy recovery from his socialist disease.

I'm indebted to Heinlein for that phrase.

Does tw know the past tense of smite is smote, or was this a particularly infelicitous typo? With tw's inability to copyedit, we may never know.

I must have no heart... I was never a socialist, I saw that it was ignorant from day one. No two people have the same work ethic and, therefore, deserve the same pay/reward. I guess it was because at twenty I was a foreman.
He does not believe in freedom or equality, you are talking to a wall.

What’s your definition of capitalism then UG? You can make the most profit from a monopoly. Just because monopolies form because of capitalism, you can't just change the definition because you don't like it. You have to take the bad with the good.

I do not claim to be socialist because there hasn’t been a form that I think that will be overly successful. Socialism is something that has to be perfected and we are far from that right now so we will not see the desired affects right away.

I think socialism is a very good idea for Venezuela and the rest of South and Central America right now and it seems to be working. Profits are up and then only thing they have to worry about is inflation and ridding there self of an oil dependency, which they also seem to be working on with the help of some capitalism I will admit.

You are taking a completely ridiculous statement out of its thread. Class if I've ever seen it.

It's called old age. Welcome to the club.

Everyone serves someone in any organization. Call it what you want, dress it up as you like. Someone is going to be in charge and making the rules. I prefer our current system. I can use some improvements, certainly, but it beats all the others out there hands down.

BTW, I bet any TV station in the US could pretty much say anything they wanted against Bush and their ratings would more likely than not go up. The US Government has never, to limited understanding, shut down a previous licensed TV or Radio Station. They have been fined, but not shut down because of something they broadcast. Hell, think of War of the Worlds, they didn't even shut them down after all the chaos they caused.

Shut Down, hell they are lucky they weren't all shot and the station blown up, at the time.

Instead they have wacko extremists manipulate stations for them. Ted Koppel simply devoted one Nightline to honor all American dead from "Mission Accomplished". Wacko extremists such as Sinclair Broadcasting would not air that episode and joined a campaign for force ABC to limit programming that extremists did not like. Eventually rules even included as least two conservatives for each liberal guest.

ABC was plummeted with mail condemning a new TV show because its first episode was so disliked (All in the Family? no). Problem was: that show had not even aired. Extremists began attacking it only because they were told to. The show: Three's Company. Clearly it was evil only because wacko extremists feared we all might sin.

The Smothers Brothers simply told a truth about Vietnam. That show eventually aired in limited markets. Nothing extremist in it. It simply made an accurate point about government lies and Nam. But again, wackos got ignorant and extremists supporters to impose their morality on all others. Same wackos advocated deaths of millions of Vietnamese and called that 'patriotic American'. Same mentalities want same in Iraq.

Government need not impose its will when it has wacko extremists to do so - encouraged by government mouthpieces such as Rush Limbaugh.

Even overthrow the government?

That, my friend, is repeating the spin of the Chavez government. You really believe them?

You are right. MoveOn.Org has a huge following of leftists in the US and TV and Radio loves to spew their crap.:rolleyes: