Congress eyes once-secret Pentagon unit

[Syrinx]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top members of the Senate Armed Services Committee met with the Pentagon's intelligence chief Monday amid reports that the Defense Department has been running a beefed-up intelligence-gathering unit.

The meeting between Stephen Cambone, the Bush administration's undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and Sens. John Warner and Carl Levin follows revelations that the Defense Intelligence Agency has run a previously unknown covert operations unit since 2002 with the authority to operate clandestinely anywhere in the world.

Warner, a Virginia Republican and the committee's chairman, said in a statement issued after the meeting that he was convinced the unit's operations were "vital to our national security interests" and had been coordinated "with the appropriate agencies of the federal government."

Warner said he and Levin, the committee's ranking Democrat, would give other members a briefing.

The rest of the story.

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. Battle lines are already drawn

Unbelievable:
Warner, a Virginia Republican and the committee's chairman, said in a statement issued after the meeting that he was convinced the unit's operations were "vital to our national security interests" and had been coordinated "with the appropriate agencies of the federal government."

Guess the Constitution isn't high on his preferred reading list. Secret Police? Torture? Secret missions in hostile countries to prepare for preemptive invasions? Obviously all "vital to our national security."

Bet they're not happy about Hersh outing this story, though, a small comfort. (The bigger comfort is that there are people in the loop that care enough to endanger their careers and maybe their lives to get the word out.) Nice pic of possible Rummy reaction:

[atommom]

2. And to think some of us still think we're the good guys....

[LynnTheDem]

3. Now would that be the secrect unit bushCartel just denied ever existed?

Heh. Chickens coming home to roost damned fast lately.

[FlemingsGhost]

4. A shadow government needs a shadow intel agency, of course!

It's written in the shadow Constitution.

[soothsayer]

6. the military industrial/intelligence complex have run the US govt

for a long time. They do all kinds of major things without telling congress or even the president sometimes (think atom bomb development and testing, among other things).

[leftchick]

5. It has existed since October 2001!!!

Was this in the original WP story? If it was I missed it. WTF is congress for anyway??? Good god someone send them a memo as to why they are there!!


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&nci...

Pentagon Tries to Explain Secret Group


~snip~

Another official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal details, said the unit's origins can be traced to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, when commanders of special operations forces found they lacked the interrogation experts they needed.


This official, who has direct knowledge about the unit, said it is not a standing force but rather a "task-organized" group that is put together to meet a battlefield commander's special needs.


William Arkin, a former Army intelligence officer and author of a new book, "Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9-11 World," said in a telephone interview Monday that the DIA unit may be a permutation of a secret intelligence unit known informally as Gray Fox, which reportedly has played a role in the hunt for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).

Arkin said he was concerned that the Pentagon's expanding use of such secret intelligence units is blurring the lines between combatants and noncombatants, since some in these units don't operate in military uniforms but appear on the battlefield.

[shrike]

7. Sure did a great job with Iraq, didn't they?

Musta been the same group that scouted out all those WMDs.