http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20060116/029587.html
Washington Post - Early Warning William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Rumsfeld's Secret Operations
Tony Capaccio's Bloomberg story < http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a3tny8L.NCo4&refer=us > last week that the Pentagon is increasing the size of U.S. special operations forces by almost 25 percent is another sign of the unchecked growth of secret operations in the Bush administration.
According to a December 20 budget memorandum signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, 12,000 new positions will be added to Special Operations Command in the 2007-2011 five-year defense plan, augmenting an already expanded force of 51,000 Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and other commandos.
England calls for adding $7.4 billion to the five year SOCOM budget, a budget that has almost doubled since 9/11.
Donald Rumsfeld's "SOCization" of the U.S. military -- as some insiders call it -- is already responsible for short-sighted decisions that have led the current Iraq mess. What is more, the growth of secret and compartmented operations in the Defense Department -- not just special operations but also "information" operations and other intelligence organizations, goes forward without any real appraisal as to success or costs.
Welcome to the Rumsfeld doctrine of immediate victory. Far after the current Secretary of Defense is gone, America will be paying a price for these secret operations, and for the stiff arming of overt and conventional military missions at the altar of the "special."
Ever since the war in Afghanistan started in October 2001, Donald Rumsfeld has shown a propensity for special operations. On the surface, this makes sense to fight the war on terror and face the long-term challenges of "asymmetric" warfare of the 21st Century.
A combination of special operations and air power toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan and sent Osama bin Laden on the run. In Iraq two years later, special operations dominated in northern and western Iraq, contributing to the spectacular three-week conventional military defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime.
We don't really know what else overt and clandestine special operations have really done -- or accomplished. We know that they have had ongoing operations in the Philippines, in Georgia and other countries in the "stans," in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, in Columbia and the Andes, and in Southeast Asia. How much of the "successes" are to be attributed to special operations, and how much is attributable to the CIA's own clandestine services -- or to local secret services -- is a huge unknown.
What we do know is that Rumsfeld's urge to starve conventional military forces -- that is, to overrule objections from any calls for larger ground forces or more prolonged preliminary air attacks -- and to push for speed has had immediate effect with questionable long-term benefit. What is more, though the Pentagon and the government speak of "non-military" approaches to fighting the war on terrorism -- better information, more attention to civil affairs, diplomacy and neighborliness to match our military prowess -- a hidden cost of secret operations is that they require more attention from the government leadership, hence starving attention from the non-secret.
Under the Rumsfeld doctrine of immediate victory, there is no question that the vanquishing of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and the toppling of Saddam prevented another 9/11 at that moment. The use of light forces moving quickly scattered the enemy so that it could not organize and plan another spectacular attack on the United States, and so that it also could not breathe long enough to develop weapons of mass destruction.
That is the theory.
We all know what happened next, at least in the mid-term. In Afghanistan and Iraq, more and more conventional military forces have had to be brought in to repair the flaws associated with the doctrine of immediate victory. And though special operations continue to play a central role in those countries, terrorist networks have not only proliferated and grown, but they have also strengthened in parts of the world -- Pakistan, Syria, North Africa, Saudi Arabia -- where U.S. special operations, even clandestine special operations, have minimal effect.
Donald Rumsfeld's "SOCization" of the U.S. military hasn't necessarily "starved" conventional military forces -- I'm not making that argument. It is more that the singular desire to "take the fight to the enemy'' has slighted "conventional" approaches in a dogma of immediate gratification. This is another ironic and unintended side effect for a Secretary who has articulated that the war on terrorism will be a long war from the very beginning. But it is a clear effect of prizing stopping another 9/11 on our shores today at any cost tomorrow.
The growth of special operations, like the growth of Pentagon domestic spying and warantless NSA surveillance, is another example of the propensity as well for the Bush administration to fight the war on terrorism through secret government. Whether one is for secrecy to protect American assets or not, without the light of day, we just can't know whether or not the pursuit is really most effective, how successful it has been, or how other alternatives would stack up.
By William M. Arkin | January 9, 2006; 09:30 AM ET |