http://www.thenation.com/blog/obamas-expanding-covert-wars

The Washington Post is reporting that the Obama administration has substantially expanded the role of US
special operations forces across the globe as part of what the paper
calls Washington's "secret war" against al Qaeda and other radical
organizations. Obama, according to the paper, has increased the presence
of special forces from 60 countries to 75 countries. US Special Forces,
the paper reports, have about 4,000 people in countries besides Iraq
and Afghanistan. "The Special Operations capabilities requested by the
White House go beyond unilateral strikes and include the training of
local counterterrorism forces and joint operations with them," according
to the Post. "Plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory
strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action
when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a
specific group."

The expansion of special forces includes both traditional special forces, often used in training
missions, and those known for carrying out covert and lethal, "direct
actions." The Nation has learned from well-placed special
operations sources that among the countries where elite special forces
teams working for the Joint Special Operations Command have been
deployed under the Obama administration are: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine,
Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in
Balochistan) and the Philippines. These teams have also at times
deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC has also supported
US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico. The
frontline for these forces at the moment, sources say, are Yemen and
Somalia. "In both those places, there are ongoing unilateral actions,"
said a special operations source. "JSOC does a lot in Pakistan too."
Additionally, these US special forces at times work alongside other
nations' special operations forces in conducting missions in their home
countries. A US special operations source described one such action
where US forces teamed up with Georgian forces hunting Chechen rebels.

One senior military official told The Washington Post that the Obama administration has given the green light for "things that the previous administration did not." Special operations commanders, the
paper reports, have more direct access to the White House than they did
under Bush. "We have a lot more access," a military official told the
paper. "They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more.
They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly."

According to the Post: "The clearest public description of the secret-war aspects of the doctrine came from White House counterterrorism director John O. Brennan. He said last week that the
United States 'will not merely respond after the fact' of a terrorist
attack but will 'take the fight to al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates
whether they plot and train in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia
and beyond.'"

Sources working with US special operations forces told The Nation that the Obama administration's expansion of special forces activities globally has been authorized under a classified order dating back to the
Bush administration. Originally signed in early 2004 by then-Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it is known as the “AQN ExOrd," or Al Qaeda
Network Execute Order. The AQN ExOrd was intended to cut through
bureaucratic and legal processes, allowing US special forces to move
into denied areas or countries beyond the official battle zones of Iraq
and Afghanistan.

"The ExOrd spells out that we reserve the right to unilaterally act against al Qaeda and its affiliates anywhere in the world that they operate," said one special forces source. The current mindset in the
White House, he said, is that "the Pentagon is already empowered to do
these things, so let JSOC off the leash. And that's what this White
House has done." He added: "JSOC has been more empowered more under this
administration than any other in recent history. No question."

The AQN ExOrd was drafted in 2003, primarily by the Special Operations Command and the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict and was promoted by
neoconservative officials such as former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone
as a justification for special forces operating covertly--and
lethally--across the globe. Part of the order provides for what a source
called "hot pursuit," similar to how some state police are permitted to
cross borders into another state to pursue a suspect. "That's
essentially what they have where they're chasing someone in Somalia and
he moves over into Ethiopia or Eritrea, you can go after him," says the
source.

"The Obama administration took the 2003 order and went above and beyond," says the special forces source. "The world is the battlefield, we've returned to that," he adds, referring to the Obama
administration's strategy. "We were moving away from it for a little
bit, but Cambone's 'preparing the battlefield' is still alive and well.
It's embraced by this administration."

Under the Bush administration, JSOC and its then-commander Stanley McChrystal, were reportedly coordinating much of their activity with vice president Dick Cheney or Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Under the
Obama administration, that relationship seems to have been more
formalized with the administration as a whole. That's a change, as the Post
notes, from the Bush era "when most briefings on potential future
operations were run through the Pentagon chain of command and were
conducted by the defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff." As a special operations source told The Nation, "It used to be the strategy was to insulate the president, now they directly interface with these people regularly."

Sources say that much of the most sensitive and lethal operations conducted by JSOC are carried out by Task Force 714, which was once commanded by Gen. McChrystal, the current commander of the war in
Afghanistan. Under the Obama administration, according to sources,
TF-714 has expanded and recently changed its classified name. The Task
Force's budge has reportedly expanded 40% on the request of the chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and has added
additional forces. "It was at Mullen's request and they can do more
now," according to a special forces source. "You don't have to work out
of the embassies, you don't have to play nice with [the State
Department], you can just set up anywhere really."

While some of the special forces missions are centered around training of allied forces, often that line is blurred. In some cases, "training" is used as a cover for unilateral, direct action. "It's often
done under the auspices of training so that they can go anywhere. It's
brilliant. It is essentially what we did in the 60s," says a special
forces source. "Remember the 'training mission' in Vietnam? That's how
it morphs."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2...

Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has
significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and
other radical groups, according to senior military and administration
officials.

Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of
last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines
and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle
East, Africa and Central Asia.

Commanders are developing plans for increasing the use of such forces in Somalia, where a Special Operations raid last year killed the alleged
head of al-Qaeda in East Africa. Plans exist for preemptive or
retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put
into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked
to a specific group.

The surge in Special Operations deployments, along with intensified CIA drone attacks in western Pakistan, is the other side of the national
security doctrine of global engagement and domestic values President Obama released last week.

One advantage of using "secret" forces for such missions is that they rarely discuss their operations in public. For a Democratic president
such as Obama, who is criticized from either side of the political
spectrum for too much or too little aggression, the unacknowledged CIA
drone attacks in Pakistan, along with unilateral U.S. raids in Somalia
and joint operations in Yemen, provide politically useful tools.

Obama, one senior military official said, has allowed "things that the previous administration did not."

'More access'

Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush's administration, when most briefings on potential future operations were
run through the Pentagon chain of command and were conducted by the
defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We have a lot more access," a second military official said. "They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to
get aggressive much more quickly."

The White House, he said, is "asking for ideas and plans . . . calling us in and saying, 'Tell me what you can do. Tell me how you do these
things.' "

The Special Operations capabilities requested by the White House go beyond unilateral strikes and include the training of local
counterterrorism forces and joint operations with them. In Yemen, for
example, "we are doing all three," the official said. Officials who
spoke about the increased operations were not authorized to discuss them
on the record.

The clearest public description of the secret-war aspects of the doctrine came from White House counterterrorism director John O. Brennan. He said last week that the United States "will not merely respond after
the fact" of a terrorist attack but will "take the fight to al-Qaeda
and its extremist affiliates whether they plot and train in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond."

That rhetoric is not much different than Bush's pledge to "take the battle to the enemy . . . and confront the worst threats before they
emerge." The elite Special Operations units, drawn from all four
branches of the armed forces, became a frontline counterterrorism weapon
for the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Obama has made such forces a far more integrated part of his global security strategy. He has asked for a 5.7 percent increase in the
Special Operations budget for fiscal 2011, for a total of $6.3 billion,
plus an additional $3.5 billion in 2010 contingency funding.

Bush-era clashes between the Defense and State departments over Special Operations deployments have all but ceased. Former defense secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld saw them as an independent force, approving in some
countries Special Operations intelligence-gathering missions that were
so secret that the U.S. ambassador was not told they were underway. But
the close relationship between Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is said to have smoothed out the process.

"In some places, we are quite obvious in our presence," Adm. Eric T. Olson, head of the Special Operations Command, said in a speech. "In
some places, in deference to host-country sensitivities, we are lower in
profile. In every place, Special Operations forces activities are
coordinated with the U.S. ambassador and are under the operational
control of the four-star regional commander."

Chains of command

Gen. David H. Petraeus at the Central Command and others were ordered by the Joint Staff under
Bush to develop plans to use Special Operations forces for intelligence
collection and other counterterrorism efforts, and were given the
authority to issue direct orders to them. But those orders were
formalized only last year, including in a CENTCOM directive outlining
operations throughout South Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Middle
East.

The order, whose existence was first reported by the New York Times, includes intelligence collection in Iran, although it is unclear whether
Special Operations forces are active there.

The Tampa-based Special Operations Command is not entirely happy with its subordination to regional commanders and, in Afghanistan and Iraq,
to theater commanders. Special Operations troops within Afghanistan had
their own chain of command until early this year, when they were brought
under the unified direction of the overall U.S. and NATO commander
there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and his operational deputy, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez.

"Everybody working in CENTCOM works for Dave Petraeus," a military official said. "Our issue is that we believe our theater forces should
be under a Special Operations theater commander, instead of . . .
Rodriguez, who is a conventional [forces] guy who doesn't know how to do
what we do."

Special Operations troops train for years in foreign cultures and language, and consider themselves a breed apart from what they call
"general purpose forces." Special Operations troops sometimes bridle at
ambassadorial authority to "control who comes in and out of their
country," the official said. Operations have also been hindered in
Pakistan -- where Special Operations trainers hope to nearly triple
their current deployment to 300 -- by that government's delay in issuing
the visas.

Although pleased with their expanded numbers and funding, Special Operations commanders would like to devote more of their force to global
missions outside war zones. Of about 13,000 Special Operations forces
deployed overseas, about 9,000 are evenly divided between Iraq and
Afghanistan.

"Eighty percent of our investment is now in resolving current conflicts, not in building capabilities with partners to avoid future ones," one
official said.

Questions remain

The force has also chafed at the cumbersome process under which the president or his designee, usually Gates, must authorize its use of
lethal force outside war zones. Although the CIA has the authority to
designate targets and launch lethal missiles in Pakistan's western
tribal areas, attacks such as last year's in Somalia and Yemen require
civilian approval.

The United Nations, in a report this week, questioned the administration's authority under international law to conduct such
raids, particularly when they kill innocent civilians. One possible
legal justification -- the permission of the country in question -- is
complicated in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, where the governments
privately agree but do not publicly acknowledge approving the attacks.

Former Bush officials, still smarting from accusations that their administration overextended the president's authority to conduct lethal
activities around the world at will, have asked similar questions.
"While they seem to be expanding their operations both in terms of
extraterritoriality and aggressiveness, they are contracting the legal
authority upon which those expanding actions are based," said John B.
Bellinger III, a senior legal adviser in both of Bush's administrations.

The Obama administration has rejected the constitutional executive authority claimed by Bush and has based its lethal operations on the
authority Congress gave the president in 2001 to use "all necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" he
determines "planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the Sept. 11
attacks.

Many of those currently being targeted, Bellinger said, "particularly in places outside Afghanistan," had nothing to do with the 2001 attacks.