Walking point
The commandos taking the lead in the war on terrorism suddenly have some new rules
Side by side. Bigger operations may be better handled by SOCOM, with its 49,848 elite special operations forces. The CIA's Special Activities Division, by contrast, fields just a few hundred paramilitary officers. The law governing covert operations, Title 50, permits the president to choose any entity he wants to conduct them, although they have traditionally been under the purview of the CIA. Several Pentagon officials agree that when the premium is on deniability, the CIA may be best suited to covert operations. Mike Vickers, a former Green Beret who helped lead the CIA's efforts to arm the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, calls it the agency's most successful covert op ever. "It is inconceivable to me," Vickers says, "that the president would have sent the U.S. military into Afghanistan and risked a major confrontation with the Soviet Union."
Since the 9/11 attacks, the CIA and SOCOM have worked side by side on many missions, with the agency using its authorization for covert operations under Title 50 and the Pentagon's special operators performing their traditional military duties under their own legal code, known as Title 10. These "blended" operations tap the strengths of each side, government officials say, though the intelligence-collection mandate has sometimes come into conflict with the objectives of the war fighters.
O'Connell's predecessor, Robert Andrews, appreciates the complexity of the issues he and Brown are wrestling with. But the former Green Beret and CIA official urges them not to lose sight of the bigger strategic questions. At a gathering of special operations commandos at Fort Bragg, N.C., last month, Andrews agreed that American forces "still have to kill or capture terrorist leaders." But he emphasized that no such efforts would bring success without America "demolishing the radical ideology that is the mainspring of this war" being waged by the terrorists. "Today," Andrews said, "I'm concerned . . . that we have a potentially fatal misperception of the threat that we face." Correcting that misperception, he suggests, is even more important than all the bureaucratic warfare being waged by his friends Doug Brown and Tom O'Connell.
EVERYWHERE AT ONCE
In a given week, roughly 7,500 special operations forces are deployed in various countries across the globe. Here's a snapshot of their organization:
PRESIDENT
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
Center for Special Operations
ARMY
SPECIAL OPS
PERSONNEL: 29,414
Special Forces
Rangers
Aviation Regiment
Psychological Operations
Civil Affairs
NAVY
SPECIAL OPS
PERSONNEL: 6,304
SEALs (Sea-Air-Land)
SEAL Delivery Vehicle Teams
Special Boat Teams
AIR FORCE SPECIAL OPS
PERSONNEL: 11,574
SQUADRONS:
Fixed Wing
Rotary Wing
Special Tactics
JOINT SPECIAL OPS COMMAND
PERSONNEL: 719
JSOC is a classified command with a battle staff that leads special mission units.
REGIONAL U.S. COMMANDERS' AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY
Special operations forces work in the following regions in conjunction with the regional U.S. military commanders.
[map labels]
NORTHERN COMMAND
SOUTHERN COMMAND
EUROPE COMMAND
CENTRAL COMMAND
PACIFIC COMMAND
Source: United States Special Operations Command
Stephen Rountree--USN&WR
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