New spy agency at Pentagon operating secretly in Iraq, Afghanistan: report

[SharonRB]

Check this out. See what Rumsfeld is up to now.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&u=/afp/20050123/wl_mideast_afp/usmilitaryintelligence&printer=1

[Streetdoc270]

1. yes, and note the name

Stragic Support or just The SS...

[Avalux]

2. Say hello to the SS

heard about this over the weekend. Heil!!!!

[ROC]

3. I like the plan

If the conduct of the run up to and the war itself shows a weakness it is the lack of intelligence. The need is for more humint which is what Secdef is going for.

[ashmanonar]

4. i agree that humint is important.

but i don't agree that the failures in the war are intelligence based...they're leadership based. if the original intelligence information had been acted upon by POTUS or SecDef, we wouldn't be in this whole mess.

[JoMama49]

5. Big Eddie reported (on his show today) that he thought this was

the biggest story of the day. He remarked that if they are doing this kinds of secret espionage, why wouldn't you think they were doing this same kind of thing with elections in this country?

Top Stories - washingtonpost.com

By Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Pentagon (news - web sites), expanding into the CIA (news - web
sites)'s historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is
reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld
broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to
interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support
Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total
dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to
operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct
control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case
officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside
newly empowered special operations forces.

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit
has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq (news - web
sites), Afghanistan (news - web sites) and other places they declined to name. According to an early planning memorandum to Rumsfeld from Gen.Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the intelligence initiative is on "emerging target countries such as
Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia." Myers and his staff declined to be interviewed.

The Strategic Support Branch was created to provide Rumsfeld with
independent tools for the "full spectrum of humint operations,"
according to an internal account of its origin and mission. Human
intelligence operations, a term used in counterpoint to technical means
such as satellite photography, range from interrogation of prisoners and scouting of targets in wartime to the peacetime recruitment of foreign spies. A recent Pentagon memo states that recruited agents may include "notorious figures" whose links to the U.S. government would be
embarrassing if disclosed.