U.S. ARMED FORCES; Special Ops No Model for Military

William M. Arkin

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. -- A team of Navy SEALs slithers ashore from a
waiting submarine, but it is not alone.

Friendly robots search for mines and other obstacles in the waters off
the beach. On shore, unattended ground sensors detect and report sounds
and movements up ahead. Overhead, unmanned flying vehicles conduct
aerial surveillance.

The special operators move inland, connected to the sensors and their
mother ship by laptop computers with a wireless network. At their
target, they place remotely controlled digital cameras and
chemical-agent detectors cleverly camouflaged to blend into the
surroundings. The SEALs also take soil samples, then silently withdraw.

Back on the submarine, technicians analyze the samples, and intelligence
specialists evaluate data from the myriad sensors. They identify the
location as a covert terrorist laboratory for weapons of mass
destruction. The secretary of Defense orders an immediate missile
attack. The emplaced sensors and cameras report back the results.
Mission accomplished.

This is no Hollywood script. It was a military exercise conducted in
January at Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas.

When Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld speaks of his agenda for
the war on terrorism and military "transformation," what is uppermost in
his mind are futuristic rock 'em, sock 'em experiments such as January's
"Giant Shadow." It is a seductive vision.

Both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were toppled quickly by campaigns
that relied heavily on U.S. special operations -- supported by
unprecedented intelligence, amazing air power and the best gadgets money
could buy. Now, special operators, with their clandestine ease and
instant-response capability, are the centerpiece of the Bush
administration's war on terrorism throughout the world.

Yet the impeding two-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in New
York and the Washington area finds us with that war far from finished.
Iraq is in turmoil, with more Americans killed since the Pentagon
declared major combat operations over than died during the war. The
Taliban is reconstituting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Al Qaeda and
other terrorist organizations remain potent and threatening.

Sure, the post-9/11 wars have had their successes, and special operators
have performed well. But the question must be asked: Is there something
about the special operations man-to-man, blow-it-up strategy that leaves
us where we are today?

Everyone knows about the amazing rout of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in
Afghanistan: A few hundred special operators working with local warlords
did what hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers could not do.

But many also remember Tora Bora, the mountain battle on the Pakistani
border. Osama bin Laden was supposedly trapped; somehow, he got away,
along with many of his senior aides. The rest is history.

"They just moved," says retired Army Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, former
European and Bosnia task force commander and now a professor at the
University of Texas in Austin. Thousands of U.S. troops and special
operators remain in and around Afghanistan, picking off guerrillas and
suspected terrorists when they can find them. But all the while,
terrorism grows outside of their area of control. So does opposition to
the government the United States established in Kabul.

This is the problem with a special operations strategy that, by
definition, relies on small numbers. These forces can move quickly, blow
things up, bolster and protect friendly forces. But they cannot cover
all of the avenues of escape or occupy territory. And they cannot
establish popular support when they are here one day and gone tomorrow.

What was the biggest complaint about Operation Iraqi Freedom, as the
combat phase of U.S. intervention in Iraq was called? It was that the
United States was not deploying enough troops. After Baghdad fell in
just three weeks, most of the complaints about the war plan subsided.
But the peace plan is a shambles: There are not sufficient troops on the
ground to maintain security. Nor is there a basic strategy beyond the
"raid over the beach" approach.

Is a special operations bias partially responsible for the state of
affairs in Iraq? President Bush changed the entire Iraq war plan to
attack a compound in Baghdad on March 19 based on "actionable
intelligence" and special operations. Did the tipping of the U.S. hand
allow Hussein and his deck of cards to find safety and ride out the
attack?

North and west of Baghdad, special operators pinned down Iraqi forces
and conducted a fanciful search for weapons of mass destruction. But
those few thousand special forces soldiers did not actually meet
Hussein's loyalists and defeat them. Nor were the special forces
numerous enough to seal the back doors of the capital city as the heavy
conventional American forces came up from the south. Like Bin Laden in
Afghanistan, Hussein and company just moved.

Is it only coincidental that in southern Iraq -- where the Iraqi army
was thoroughly destroyed and the U.S. and British armies became
occupiers in a classic sense after total defeat of the enemy -- the
level of postwar deaths has been far lower than in the central and
northern sectors of the country? Are Iraq's borders so porous and is
Baghdad so lethal because Iraqi opponents chose to emulate their Taliban
and Al Qaeda brethren and fade away rather than fight toe to toe with
America's super-warriors?

The answers to these questions are far from clear. What is clear is that
the Pentagon is not addressing them in an objective manner. That is
because at the top of the Defense Department there is a love affair with
the clandestine, with the easy-to-employ force of lethal special
operators and their brethren in covert intelligence. So much so that
Rumsfeld insiders have begun to speak of "SOC-izing" the force, that is,
transforming conventional forces to be more like those of Special
Operations Command.

Retired Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, Rumsfeld's director of transformation,
told an audience at the Heritage Foundation in May that the capabilities
of special operators "are all very, very powerful attributes that the
entire force should possess."

"The general rule is that small forces with a depth of local knowledge
have more power than very large formations that come from [elsewhere],"
he said at another recent presentation.

Though special operators are known for their regional focus, language
skills and maturity, the community is actually divided between "raids,
rescue and Rambo" types, that is, those focused on "kinetic kill and
direct action," and the "softer" types, who focus on psychological
warfare, civil affairs and building popular support.

A retired Air Force special operator and counter-terrorism expert, Col.
Wray R. Johnson, says the administration, as well as the Special
Operations Command, has clearly focused on the direct-action side at the
expense of the softer side in the war on terrorism. "I myself side with
the softer side of SOF," Johnson says. "Kill terrorists when and where
we find them, but, thinking strategically, we should emphasize
ameliorating if not eliminating the conditions that generate support for
the bad guys."

Retired Gen. Wayne Downing, the former commander of all special
operations, agrees: "We're knocking them off and interdicting
operations, but every day another 10, 15, 20 recruits are coming into
the training camps."

Critics of the administration hold that the mere presence of American
forces in Iraq is an irritant that feeds terrorism. But the opposite may
be true: In reality, fanaticism may flourish where there is too little
contact with U.S. forces. In a full-scale occupation, the people cannot
help learning the true character of our army. And in this case, whatever
other feelings or forces may be at work, where the presence is strong,
people cannot fail to see that soldiers are working to make things
better -- feeding people, tending the sick and wounded, trying to build
and protect local institutions.

Ironically, one of the basic tenets of Rumsfeld's cherished special
operations, and the basis of successful guerrilla warfare, is to build
an authentic relationship with the people.

As more and more questions arise about the situation in Iraq, many are
pushing an "occupation light" based on special operations. If such a
force was centered on the "softer" side of civil affairs and not on the
covert hunt, it might make sense. But for now, the Pentagon leadership
remains blinkered when it comes to fighting the war on terrorism.

It is lost in its own "Giant Shadow."

* NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 <U.S.C.> Section 107, this material
* is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a
* prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
* educational purposes only.