The Rise of the JSOC

Cue ominous organ music . . .

In case you missed it over the long weekend, the Washington Post promoted a new book by its writers, Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, with an excerpt highlighting the expansion of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.  The article offers some interesting information on Stanley McChrystal's efforts to revitatalize the command, as well as the success of "Operation Arcadia," the offensive of raids that eventually resulted in the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and along with the Anbar Awakening and the Surge, resulted in pulling the Iraq war back from the abyss into a strategic victory for the United States.  

However, the article buckles under the weight of its own attempts to be sensationalistic, something that plagued Priest and Arkin's earlier reporting.  In the first four paragraphs, Priest and Arkin describe JSOC as a "mysterious organization," a "secretive group of men," and "America's secret army," adding: "When members of [SEAL Team 6] killed Osama bin laden in Pakistan in May, JSOC leaders celebrated not just the success of the mission but also how few people knew their command . . . even existed."  Huh?!?  Does anybody honestly think cigars were lit on May 1st over their anonymity?  If anything, there was probably some trepidation that the raid's success would bring increased scrutiny and oversight of what even the authors admit is "arguably the most effective weapon in the U.S. counterterrorism arsenal." 

Hopefully the book will prove less prone to hyperbole than the excerpt.

Qaddafi Watch, 9/6 Edition

Apparently, the hunt for Qaddafi isn't going so well.  According to the Washington Post, "A chaotic and apparently ill-coordinated effort by rebels to track down Moammar Gaddafi is being led by competing factions of military commanders and bounty hunters, as well as Libyan commandos commissioned by civilian leaders."

This scenario was easily foreseeable.  In my recent Guardian piece, I noted that "bounties can even have a counterproductive effect on manhunts" as the hunters attempt to separate actual leads from wild rumors by people seeking to cash in.  Subsequently, the Post reports "Scarcely a day goes by without someone claiming to know exactly where Gaddafi is hiding within that triangle.  The problem is that they do not always agree with one another."  Consequently, two different officials within the Transitional National Council are quoted as citing two different locations for the deposed dictator.

Interestingly, the article also supports two other themes from my book, noting that Qaddafi appears to be avoiding the use of satellite phones that NATO could trace, and that the territory in which he would be travelling through "is so vast that it would be difficult to spot from the air a convoy that could be sheltering Gaddafi."

Today in Manhunting History -- September 6, 2003: The Arrest of Nasir al-Muslit

In the late summer and fall of 2003, the specter of the missing Saddam Hussein continued to have a damaging effect on Iraqi morale and reconstruction. From hiding, Saddam had issued at least five audio recordings calling upon Iraqis to attack Coalition forces. At the same time, the level of violence in Iraq rose dramatically. Nearly one soldier per day was being killed by hostile action, and in August alone car bombs had destroyed the Jordanian embassy and UN Headquarters in Baghdad, and killed more than 200 Shi’a worshippers at the sacred Imam Ali mosque in Najaf. General Sanchez deemed killing the fugitive Iraqi leader to be critical, as it would “relieve the people of Iraq of the fear of his return.”

Meanwhile, in one of Saddam’s ornate palaces along the Tigris in Tikrit, Task Force 20’s intelligence analysts were conducting social network analysis of top- and mid-level Ba’athist activists functional and tribal ties to the fugitive tyrant. (The 4th Infantry Division was independently conducting a similar analysis). When interrogation specialist, Staff Sergeant Eric Maddox joined the secretive unit in July, an interpreter showed him a list of all the former bodyguards who lived in the area, as well as their kin. On September 6, the Iraqi police arrested a former bodyguard named Nasir Yasim Omar al-Muslit, one of 40 al-Muslits on Maddox’s list. Under questioning, Nasir eventually provided Maddox with the blueprint to the operation of Saddam’s bodyguards. Whereas Maddox had been working off a list of 200 bodyguards of uncertain importance, Nasir gave him the key to the inner circle of 32 Hamaya, the individuals most trusted by Saddam.

SSG Eric Maddox

Today in Manhunting History -- September 5, 1885: Geronimo Literally Runs Davis Out of the Army

Recognizing the futility of hunting the Apaches with cavalry and a pack train, in August 1885 Captain Emmet Crawford ordered Lieutenant Britton Davis and Chief of Scouts Al Sieber to pursue Geronimo with about 40 handpicked scouts. Geronimo led this detachment on a long chase, crossing the Sierras into Chihuahua before turning north to slip across the boundary into New Mexico, eluding the soldiers stationed there and disappearing into the interior of the Territory. Davis and the scouts had to pursue every lead while avoiding the natural barriers ripe for ambush in the mountainous terrain, and thus traveled “a hundred and forty or fifty miles to cover a hundred as the crow flies.” Davis’s detachment was given provisions for three days, which they made last for six. When their rations gave out, they kept on Geronimo’s trail, living “on the flesh of the ponies the hostiles had killed and such roots, berries, etc., as the country afforded and the scouts knew to be edible.” Lieutenant Davis’s men rode and walked 500 miles through the mountains and deserts before finally limping back across the border at Texas and reaching Fort Bliss on September 5.

Filthy, exhausted, and sick of the war, Davis resigned his commission and set off to manage the ranch of a family friend in Mexico.

CIA Shifting Focus to Capture/Kill Operations?

An interesting piece by Greg Miller and Julie Tate in today's Washington Post on the transformation within the CIA from strictly gathering intelligence and providing policymakers with analysis to increasingly devoting personnel and resources to capture or kill operations.  Money quote from a "former senior U.S. intelligence official": You've taken an agency that was chugging along and turned it into one hell of a killing machine.  (Another CIA veteran quoted the head of the Counter Terrorism Center as saying "We are killing these sons of bitches faster than they can grow them now.")  Undoubtedly, the CTC, especially in coordination with Joint Special Operation Command forces has become incredibly efficient at targeting al-Qa'ida leaders and reducing the networks threat to the U.S. homeland.

In addition to describing the CTC's growth in personnel and resources, the article also echoes a concern I've heard from some friends in the intelligence community that these types of operations should fall under the purview of the JSOC so that the CIA can return to its core mission of gathering intelligence on broader strategic issues and offering neutral assessments/analysis to policymakers.  To be honest, given how complex the underlying issues and authorities are (something Miller and Tate make clear), I'm hesitant to offer an opinion.  But whether so much lethality should be invested in a covert organization is a legitimate line of inquiry, I think.  

Qaddafi Watch, 9/2 Edition

After being "cornered" in Bani Walid, the Transitional National Council announced yesterday that the wily military genius Colonel Qaddafi has escaped and is now apparently fleeing sought across the Sahara Desert, heading to Niger via the town of Sabha.  Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani predicted that Qaddafi "wouldn't remain long in the sprawling garrison town" but would flee another 350 miles into the military-controlled neighbor to the South.

Call me crazy, I'm starting to think the TNC doesn't have as firm a grasp on Qaddafi's whereabouts as they are projecting, although Google's Driving Directions suggest Qaddafi could have made the trip in 12 hours, 38 minutes.

In Today's Headlines

The AP reports "a new documentary reveals that a last-minute double-check of intelligence before" the Abbottabad raid by a "special 'red-team' of terrorism experts" cast doubts on whether Osama bin Laden was really in the compound, "primarily because they didn't believe he would risk having as many visitors as he did."  I don't doubt there is some truth to this, as even the intelligence analysts who discovered the compound only estimated it was eighty-percent likely that bin Laden was there.  But given that the Obama administration has lowered the probability estimates before to make the President's decision seem more courageous (which it indisputably was, thereby making their constant lowering of the probability so silly), until these red-teamers go on the record I'll remain slightly skeptical.  Either way, "Targeting Bin Laden" airs next Tuesday on The History Channel.

Also, yesterday an official in the Transitional National Council said its fighters had cornered Colonel Moammar Qaddafi in a desert redoubt 150 miles from the capital in Bani Walid and were exhorting him to give up.  Qaddafi's son and heir apparent, Seif al-Islam (not to be confused with Yusuf Islam, ne Cat Stevens) immediately denied the claim, saying "Our leadership is fine.  We are drinking tea and coffee" somewhere in a Tripoli suburb.

Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam: Not on the run from Libyan rebels (as far as we know).