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Pentagon Secret Unit Helped Find Saddam
When U.S. troops pulled Saddam Hussein from a hole in the ground a year ago, the capture was described afterward as the work of a team of conventional and special operations troops. Nothing was said about an assist from an intelligence unit that the Pentagon created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to expand the military's ability to collect human intelligence — information from spies as opposed to listening devices or satellites.The unit's existence was revealed by The Washington Post on Sunday. Pentagon officials said Monday that the unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, had a hidden hand in interrogations and other aspects of the clue-sifting work inside Iraq that narrowed the search for Saddam and led eventually to the cramped underground chamber where he was hiding. The Post said the unit also has been used in Afghanistan and other undisclosed locations. In addition to interrogation, it provides linguistic help and close-in surveillance of targets. On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers called for hearings on the matter, but Republicans took a quieter approach. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he did not know enough yet about the matter to judge whether Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had exceeded his authority. "I'm not sure whether it's going to require hearings or not," he said. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was confident the Pentagon was taking the right approach. "The notion by some that various steps taken by the Department of Defense to enhance such intelligence is somehow sinister and illegitimate is nonsense," Hunter said. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., wrote a letter to Hunter calling for hearings into the scope and capability of the unit. "While I fully support improving the ability of our men and women in the field to get accurate real time intelligence, the creation of this unit raises a number of questions that this committee has a duty to examine," Tauscher wrote. Larry Di Rita, spokesman for Rumsfeld, did not confirm the spy unit's role in Saddam's capture, but he acknowledged the existence of the Strategic Support Branch, which he said was managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Human Intelligence Service. "There is a desire to connect better intelligence to battlefield operations," Di Rita said, and the DIA unit is an example of ways that can be done in support of commanders in the field. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, "Generally speaking, the president is aware of the Department of Defense's efforts to expand and enhance humanitarian intelligence capabilities. That was something that was emphasized in the 9/11 commission report. They said it needs to be improved across-the-board. So we support efforts by the Department of Defense to collect intelligence to enhance battlefield capabilities." 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 Arkin said he is 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. Di Rita, while acknowledging the existence of the Strategic Support Branch, denied the Post's report that it answers directly to Rumsfeld. "There is no unit that is directly reportable to the secretary of defense for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post article," Di Rita said in a written statement. "Further, the department is not attempting to 'bend' statutes to fit desired activities, as is suggested in this article." The Post said the Pentagon was reinterpreting U.S. law to give Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad. Posted by: tipper 2005-01-24 |
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