On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:51:03 +0100, "NEiL DANELAW" <mail@danelaw.dk>
wrote:
>>
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29414-2005Jan22.htm
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Værs'go:
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
officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside
newly empowered special operations forces.
Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new
unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq,
Afghanistan and other places they declined to name. According to an
early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen. Richard B. Myers,
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence
initiative is on "emerging target countries such as Somalia, Yemen,
Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to
be interviewed.
The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with
independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations,"
according to an internal account of its origin and mission. Human
intelligence operations, a term used in counterpoint to technical
means such as satellite photography, range from interrogation of
prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime
recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that
recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the
U.S. government would be embarrassing if disclosed.
Perhaps the most significant shift is the Defense Department's bid to
conduct surreptitious missions, in friendly and unfriendly states,
when conventional war is a distant or unlikely prospect -- activities
that have traditionally been the province of the CIA's Directorate of
Operations. Senior Rumsfeld advisers said those missions are central
to what they called the department's predominant role in combating
terrorist threats.
The Pentagon has a vast bureaucracy devoted to gathering and analyzing
intelligence, often in concert with the CIA, and news reports over
more than a year have described Rumsfeld's drive for more and better
human intelligence. But the creation of the espionage branch, the
scope of its clandestine operations and the breadth of Rumsfeld's
asserted legal authority have not been detailed publicly before. Two
longtime members of the House Intelligence Committee, a Democrat and a
Republican, said they knew no details before being interviewed for
this article.
Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch
using "reprogrammed" funds, without explicit congressional authority
or appropriation. Defense intelligence missions, they said, are
subject to less stringent congressional oversight than comparable
operations by the CIA. Rumsfeld's dissatisfaction with the CIA's
operations directorate, and his determination to build what amounts in
some respects to a rival service, follows struggles with then-CIA
Director George J. Tenet over intelligence collection priorities in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Pentagon officials said the CIA naturally has
interests that differ from those of military commanders, but they also
criticized its operations directorate as understaffed, slow-moving and
risk-averse. A recurring phrase in internal Pentagon documents is the
requirement for a human intelligence branch "directly responsive to
tasking from SecDef," or Rumsfeld.
The new unit's performance in the field -- and its latest commander,
reserve Army Col. George Waldroup -- are controversial among those
involved in the closely held program. Pentagon officials acknowledged
that Waldroup and many of those brought quickly into his service lack
the experience and training typical of intelligence officers and
special operators. In his civilian career as a federal manager,
according to a Justice Department inspector general's report, Waldroup
was at the center of a 1996 probe into alleged deception of Congress
concerning staffing problems at Miami International Airport. Navy Vice
Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency,
expressed "utmost confidence in Colonel Waldroup's capabilities" and
said in an interview that Waldroup's unit has scored "a whole series
of successes" that he could not reveal in public. He acknowledged the
risks, however, of trying to expand human intelligence too fast: "It's
not something you quickly constitute as a capability. It's going to
take years to do."
Rumsfeld's ambitious plans rely principally on the Tampa-based U.S.
Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, and on its clandestine
component, the Joint Special Operations Command. Rumsfeld has
designated SOCOM's leader, Army Gen. Bryan D. Brown, as the military
commander in chief in the war on terrorism. He has also given Brown's
subordinates new authority to pay foreign agents. The Strategic
Support Branch is intended to add missing capabilities -- such as the
skill to establish local spy networks and the technology for direct
access to national intelligence databases -- to the military's much
larger special operations squadrons. Some Pentagon officials refer to
the combined units as the "secret army of Northern Virginia."
Known as "special mission units," Brown's elite forces are not
acknowledged publicly. They include two squadrons of an Army unit
popularly known as Delta Force, another Army squadron -- formerly
code-named Gray Fox -- that specializes in close-in electronic
surveillance, an Air Force human intelligence unit and the Navy unit
popularly known as SEAL Team Six.
The Defense Department is planning for further growth. Among the
proposals circulating are the establishment of a Pentagon-controlled
espionage school, largely duplicating the CIA's Field Tradecraft
Course at Camp Perry, Va., and of intelligence operations commands for
every region overseas.
Rumsfeld's efforts, launched in October 2001, address two widely
shared goals. One is to give combat forces, such as those fighting the
insurgency in Iraq, more and better information about their immediate
enemy. The other is to find new tools to penetrate and destroy the
shadowy organizations, such as al Qaeda, that pose global threats to
U.S. interests in conflicts with little resemblance to conventional
war.
In pursuit of those aims, Rumsfeld is laying claim to greater
independence of action as Congress seeks to subordinate the 15 U.S.
intelligence departments and agencies -- most under Rumsfeld's control
-- to the newly created and still unfilled position of national
intelligence director. For months, Rumsfeld opposed the intelligence
reorganization bill that created the position. He withdrew his
objections late last year after House Republican leaders inserted
language that he interprets as preserving much of the department's
autonomy.
Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, deputy undersecretary for intelligence,
acknowledged that Rumsfeld intends to direct some missions previously
undertaken by the CIA. He added that it is wrong to make "an
assumption that what the secretary is trying to say is, 'Get the CIA
out of this business, and we'll take it.' I don't interpret it that
way at all."
"The secretary actually has more responsibility to collect
intelligence for the national foreign intelligence program . . . than
does the CIA director," Boykin said. "That's why you hear all this
information being published about the secretary having 80 percent of
the [intelligence] budget. Well, yeah, but he has 80 percent of the
responsibility for collection, as well."
Pentagon officials emphasized their intention to remain accountable to
Congress, but they also asserted that defense intelligence missions
are subject to fewer legal constraints than Rumsfeld's predecessors
believed. That assertion involves new interpretations of Title 10 of
the U.S. Code, which governs the armed services, and Title 50, which
governs, among other things, foreign intelligence.
Under Title 10, for example, the Defense Department must report to
Congress all "deployment orders," or formal instructions from the
Joint Chiefs of Staff to position U.S. forces for combat. But
guidelines issued this month by Undersecretary for Intelligence
Stephen A. Cambone state that special operations forces may "conduct
clandestine HUMINT operations . . . before publication" of a
deployment order, rendering notification unnecessary. Pentagon lawyers
also define the "war on terror" as ongoing, indefinite and global in
scope. That analysis effectively discards the limitation of the
defense secretary's war powers to times and places of imminent combat.
Under Title 50, all departments of the executive branch are obliged to
keep Congress "fully and currently informed of all intelligence
activities." The law exempts "traditional . . . military activities"
and their "routine support." Advisers said Rumsfeld, after requesting
a fresh legal review by the Pentagon's general counsel, interprets
"traditional" and "routine" more expansively than his predecessors.
"Operations the CIA runs have one set of restrictions and oversight,
and the military has another," said a Republican member of Congress
with a substantial role in national security oversight, declining to
speak publicly against political allies. "It sounds like there's an
angle here of, 'Let's get around having any oversight by having the
military do something that normally the [CIA] does, and not tell
anybody.' That immediately raises all kinds of red flags for me. Why
aren't they telling us?"
The enumeration by Myers of "emerging target countries" for
clandestine intelligence work illustrates the breadth of the
Pentagon's new concept. All those named, save Somalia, have allied
themselves with the United States -- if unevenly -- against al Qaeda
and its jihadist allies.
A high-ranking official with direct responsibility for the initiative,
declining to speak on the record about espionage in friendly nations,
said the Defense Department sometimes has to work undetected inside "a
country that we're not at war with, if you will, a country that maybe
has ungoverned spaces, or a country that is tacitly allowing some kind
of threatening activity to go on."
Assistant Secretary of Defense Thomas O'Connell, who oversees special
operations policy, said Rumsfeld has discarded the "hide-bound way of
thinking" and "risk-averse mentalities" of previous Pentagon officials
under every president since Gerald R. Ford.
"Many of the restrictions imposed on the Defense Department were
imposed by tradition, by legislation, and by interpretations of
various leaders and legal advisors," O'Connell said in a written reply
to follow-up questions. "The interpretations take on the force of law
and may preclude activities that are legal. In my view, many of the
authorities inherent to [the Defense Department] . . . were winnowed
away over the years."
After reversing the restrictions, Boykin said, Rumsfeld's next
question "was, 'Okay, do I have the capability?' And the answer was,
'No you don't have the capability. . . . And then it became a matter
of, 'I want to build a capability to be able to do this.' "
Known by several names since its inception as Project Icon on April
25, 2002, the Strategic Support Branch is an arm of the DIA's
nine-year-old Defense Human Intelligence Service, which until now has
concentrated on managing military attachés assigned openly to U.S.
embassies around the world.
Rumsfeld's initiatives are not connected to previously reported
negotiations between the Defense Department and the CIA over control
of paramilitary operations, such as the capture of individuals or the
destruction of facilities.
According to written guidelines made available to The Post, the
Defense Department has decided that it will coordinate its human
intelligence missions with the CIA but will not, as in the past, await
consent. It also reserves the right to bypass the agency's Langley
headquarters, consulting CIA officers in the field instead. The
Pentagon will deem a mission "coordinated" after giving 72 hours'
notice to the CIA.
Four people with firsthand knowledge said defense personnel have
already begun operating under "non-official cover" overseas, using
false names and nationalities. Those missions, and others contemplated
in the Pentagon, skirt the line between clandestine and covert
operations. Under U.S. law, "clandestine" refers to actions that are
meant to be undetected, and "covert" refers to those for which the
U.S. government denies its responsibility. Covert action is subject to
stricter legal requirements, including a written "finding" of
necessity by the president and prompt notification of senior leaders
of both parties in the House and Senate.
O'Connell, asked whether the Pentagon foresees greater involvement in
covert action, said "that remains to be determined." He added: "A
better answer yet might be, depends upon the situation. But no one I
know of is raising their hand and saying at DOD, 'We want control of
covert operations.' "
One scenario in which Pentagon operatives might play a role, O'Connell
said, is this: "A hostile country close to our borders suddenly
changes leadership. . . . We would want to make sure the successor is
not hostile."
Regards Croc®