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Elite Troops Get Expanded Role on Intelligence
By THOM SHANKER and SCOTT SHANE
03/08/06 "New
York Times" -- -- 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.
Under guidelines established by Mr. Negroponte, the C.I.A. station
chief assigned to most American embassies coordinates American
intelligence in those countries.
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."
A State Department official said late Tuesday, "We don't have any
issue with D.O.D. concerning this," using the initials for
Department of Defense. The State Department official said the
Military Liaison Element program was set up so that "authority is
preserved" for the ambassador or the head of the embassy.
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.
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.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
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