Growing support for CIA control of special forces: report

[maddezmom]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — Support is growing in the US military and administration of President Barack Obama for shifting to the CIA operational control over elite special forces teams secretly in Yemen, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the foiled mail bombing plot by suspected Al-Qaeda militants in Yemen has added urgency to an administration review of expanded military options.

Officials said such a shift would allow the United States to strike suspected militant targets unilaterally with greater stealth and speed, the report said.

Allowing US Special Operations Command units to operate under the Central Intelligence Agency would also give the United States greater leeway to strike without the explicit blessing of the Yemeni government, the paper said.



Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g-lWtk7hISomUlF_RQQRNCvXk2og?docId=CNG.90fcc3fb8fe0939f953755a219011833.781

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Wanted Cleric has lived in UK and evaded
By Jane Bradley
ALTHOUGH he has not been seen publicly for three years, Anwar al-Awlaki has been credited with "inspiring" many of those behind a string of chilling terrorist plots in recent years, and his name is again in the frame in connection with the cargo plane plot.

From his hiding place, thought to be in rural Yemen, the 39-year-old US-born Muslim cleric is, through sermons and internet broadcasts, believed to have incited violence and hatred in young Muslims who have gone on to carry out attacks on the West.

According to US officials, these may include Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up a passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day last year, while he also met and spoke to a number of the terrorists behind the 11 September attacks - including Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi - while working as an imam - an Islamic worship leader - at a mosque in Colorado in the US.

Awlaki, who is of Yemeni descent, was born in the southern US state of New Mexico, where his father, Nasser, a future Yemeni agriculture minister and university president, was studying agricultural economics.

As a teenager, he moved back to Yemen, where he studied Islam, before returning to the US to attain a degree in engineering from Colorado State University and a master's in education at San Diego State University.

He spent about two years in the UK, after leaving the US shortly after the 11 September attacks - claiming he felt he had been hounded out.

more:http://www.scotsman.com/news/Wanted-Cleric-has-lived-in.6607061.jp

[boppers]

1. Meh. Wrong group.

CIA already has their own covert folks, this seems like a silly power grab by bureaucrats to increase their operational capabilities.

[pinboy3niner]

2. More than that, it removes public accountability

For the military there's at least some possibility of accountability. The CIA has secret hearings on the Hill for its programs and it classifies everything willy-nilly.

Special Forces should NOT become an arm of the CIA That would corrupt its original purpose and function. It would be like placing the Peace Corps under the CIA.

[boppers]

3. "placing the Peace Corps under the CIA"

This made me LOL, and then think of "Voice of America" and "USAAID".

[pinboy3niner]

5. Both lol--and scary, isn't it?

I served in the Army, and I know how cover-ups occur even there, in what is supposed to be a department that is open to investigation and subject to civilian oversight and accountability. Can you imagine the effects on SF if it became a CIA tool?

I happen to know a guy who was in SF at the beginning. President Kennedy presented him with his green beret (which, many years later, he placed at his brother's panel on lthe Wall). I'm going to have to ask him what he thinks about this. I pretty much know what his reaction will be, but I want to hear it from his own lips.

[Ghost Dog]

9. You refer to potential problems operationally?

As well as legally?

[iamtechus]

4. This is just an attempt to keep the neocons' wars secret.

[harun]

13. Been doing it for a long time, same as with Laos

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu

[Wilms]

6. And then they'll outsource it to you know who. n/t

[aquart]

7. Oh, what a regrettable idea.

And we will regret it.

[guruoo]

8. Nothing much new here, really...

The CIA Solution
by James Dunnigan
March 21, 2009
The U.S. Army Special Forces and the CIA are trying to get Congress to allow the two organizations to officially merge some of their operations, and share personnel. This is a process that started both during World War II, and a decade ago.

The CIA routinely requests Special Forces operators to work directly for them, a custom that goes back to the early days (1950s ) of the Special Forces. But SOCOM (which controls the Special Forces, as well as U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Air Force special operations aircraft) increasingly found that they could compete with the CIA in producing quality intelligence. The Department of Defense now allows Special Forces troops to be trained for plain clothes, or uniformed, espionage work in foreign counties. The Special Forces have unofficially been doing this sort of thing for decades, sometimes at the request of the CIA. In 1986, the Special Forces even established an "intelligence operations" school to train a small number of Special Forces troops in the tradecraft of running espionage operations in a foreign country. In practical terms, this means recruiting locals to provide information and supervising these spies, agents and informants.

By law, the CIA controls all overseas espionage operations. But the CIA and Special Forces were both founded by men who had served with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II and the relationship continued after the OSS veterans retired from their CIA and Special Forces careers.


http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/The-CIA-Solution-3-21-2009.asp

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

[bemildred]

11. Oh good, another new org-chart. nt

[Javaman]

12. This has such long range implications.

frankly, I have an issue with creating our own praetorian guard. go figure?