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| Law Gives Spending Power to Special Operations Forces |
| 2005-02-01 |
| Congress has given the Pentagon important new authority to fight terrorism by authorizing Special Operations forces for the first time to spend money to pay informants and recruit foreign paramilitary fighters. The new authority, which would also let Special Operations forces purchase equipment or other items from the foreigners, is spelled out in a single paragraph of an 800-page defense authorization bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush in October. It was requested by the Pentagon and the commander of Special Operations forces as part of a broader effort to make the military less reliant on the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Congressional and Defense Department officials. A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said the new authority was necessary to avoid a repetition of problems encountered in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. During that conflict, Special Operations troops had to wait for the C.I.A. to pay informants and could not always count on timely support because the agency's resources were often stretched thin, the Pentagon concluded. "This is an important authority that we've been seeking for some time," Mr. Whitman said. The new law authorizes the secretary of defense to spend as much as $25 million a year through 2007 "to provide support to foreign forces, irregular forces, groups or individuals" who help Special Operations missions to combat terrorism. It also specifies that Congress is not providing authorization for the Pentagon to conduct covert action, which has traditionally been undertaken by the C.I.A. and requires explicit presidential authority. Senior military officials and a retired Army intelligence officer said the money could be used for purposes as diverse as buying a truck for an urgent mission or paying cash to irregular allies, like the Northern Alliance in the Afghan war against the Taliban. "This could also be used to pay bribes on the ground to help a mission along," said the retired Army intelligence officer. The authority is spelled out in the public version of the law, but it had not previously been described in detail. It provides one example of what intelligence officials have described as a determined effort by the Pentagon to expand its role in intelligence-gathering and other areas that have traditionally been the domain of the C.I.A. The measure was initially approved by the House, and included in the final version of the bill by a House-Senate conference committee. A Congressional official said the commander of the Special Operations Command, Gen. Bryan D. Brown of the Army, had been a leading supporter of the effort. Defense Department officials did not call attention to the program even at a briefing last week in which they confirmed news reports about other steps to broaden the military's involvement in intelligence operations. Those include the formation of a new clandestine unit within the Defense Intelligence Agency to work more closely with Special Operations forces in supporting battlefield missions, including counterterrorism operations. A C.I.A. official said the new authority would not rival the agency's own programs. "The fact that D.O.D. has fixed a gap in its capability is a good thing," the official said. "But the C.I.A. exists to do exactly this. Just because another agency has a new authority doesn't mean we stop doing what we're doing. In fact, the president has asked us to increase our capability by 50 percent." Another intelligence official said that additional authority provided to the Pentagon could prove beneficial as long as operations were properly coordinated by the C.I.A. station chiefs in the countries involved. Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, and Congressional officials said that the Pentagon had yet to use the new authority but would do so this year, and that aides to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were drawing up procedures under which the money would be spent. Under provisions added to the bill by Senate negotiators during the House-Senate conference, the secretary of defense is required to notify Congressional defense committees about those procedures before using the new authority, and to notify the committees in writing within 48 hours any time the authority is used. The $25 million that may be spent each year is a tiny sum compared with the hundreds of billions that Congress appropriates each year for the military and intelligence agencies. But some Congressional officials said the amount was less important than the precedent it set. In some combat situations, like the war in Iraq, American commanders have been authorized to spend large amounts of money on development and other projects. In Iraq, however, the money came from assets seized from the former Iraqi government. But Congressional officials said the new authority provided by Congress was broader than that given to American commanders in the past. They said the measure authorized the defense secretary to draw the $25 million from existing funds for operations and maintenance, so a further appropriation would not be required. "The money isn't for 'information gathering' per se, although that may be part of how Special Operations forces use it," said a senior House Republican aide. "This was a problem in Afghanistan, where S.O.F. had to rely on the C.I.A. to bring money to the table when it came to dealing with various factions within the Northern Alliance," the Afghan force that helped overthrow the Taliban. |
| Posted by:Steve |