United States Special Operations Forces

David Tucker, Christopher Lamb

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780231506892
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Intelligence & Espionage
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In October and November of 2001, small numbers of soldiers from the Army Special Forces entered Afghanistan, linked up with elements of the Northern Alliance (an assortment of Afghanis opposed to the Taliban), and, in a remarkably short period of time, destroyed the Taliban regime. Trained to work with indigenous forces and personnel like the Northern Alliance, these soldiers, sometimes riding on horseback, combined modern military technology with ancient techniques of central Asian warfare in what was later described as "the first cavalry charge of the twenty-first century."

In this engaging book, two national security experts and Department of Defense insiders put the exploits of America's special operation forces in historical and strategic context. David Tucker and Christopher J. Lamb offer an incisive overview of America's turbulent experience with special operations. Using in-depth interviews with special operators at the forefront of the current war on terrorism and providing a detailed account of how they are selected and trained, the authors illustrate the diversity of modern special operations forces and the strategic value of their unique attributes.

From the first chapter, this book builds toward a set of recommendations for reforms that would allow special operations forces to make a greater contribution to the war on terrorism and play a more strategic role in safeguarding the nation's security. Along the way, the authors explain why special operations forces are:" Distinguished by characteristics not equally valued by their own leadership" Strategically crucial because of two mutually supporting but undeniably distinct sets of capabilities not found in conventional forces" Not to be confused with the CIA and so-called paramilitary forces, nor with the Marines and other elite forces" Unable to learn from the 1993 failed intervention in Somalia and the national-oversight issues it revealed" Better integrated into the nation's military strategy and operations than ever before but confused about their core missions in the war on terror" Not "transformed" for future challenges as many assert but rather in need of organizational reforms to realize their strategic potential

Despite longstanding and growing public fascination with special operators, these individuals and the organizations that employ them are little understood. With this book, Tucker and Lamb dispel common misconceptions and offer a penetrating analysis of how these unique and valuable forces can be employed to even better effect in the future.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM

THE PENTAGON, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

A Special Forces colonel who was working in the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 describes what happened and reflects on the place of Special Operations Forces (SOF) in the U.S. military and the war on terrorism.

When the first plane hit the World Trade Center, I was discussing special operations actions with the Special Operations Division [the office on the Joint Staff that has oversight of Special Operations Forces (SOF) and their missions]. Like even the president, everyone in the office thought it was an errant pilot, a mistake. Looking back on it now, we did not consider this a military responsibility. FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], NYPD [New York Police Department], perhaps FBI, but not a military issue. I had sat in most of the CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group]¹ meetings during the last year, and there was no real indicator of a threat to the United States, especially one so overt and simple. But when the second plane slammed into the World Trade Center, it was obvious that this was a deliberate attack on the United States. I was meeting with the Vice Director [of the Directorate of Operations, the office on the Joint Staff responsible for overseeing all military operations], going over briefing notes for a meeting on Bosnian war criminals, when the second plane hit. I began contacting the SOF community and gathering information that would be requested by the CSG or the vice chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the chairman, like the Director for the Operations Directorate, was not in Washington on September 11)] in order to brief the Secretary [of Defense]. Information like Special Operations Forces readiness, locations of key forces and leadership, and opening a channel of communications with the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) [the military command with responsibility for SOF]. All this was SOP [standard operating procedure].

Forty-five minutes later or so, I located the Current Operations Director in the NMCC [the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon], to give him an update. The way I remember it, other than the two officers assigned to the NMCC, it was only him and me. We were talking about what the SOCOM was doing, what SOCOM’s capabilities were and he gets a phone call. He hangs up and he says to me, “Hey, Bubba, one’s coming this way.” I remember thinking to myself, “Well, you’ve lived a good life.” A sense of contentment came over me. What seemed like minutes goes by and all of a sudden the General says, “we were hit.” The NMCC is well protected. I didn’t feel it; I didn’t feel anything. But we were standing together and he said, “I felt a change in the air pressure.” He’s a fighter pilot, so maybe that is where he gets it from, feeling the difference in air pressure. So, I immediately go out, outside the NMCC, and it’s already full of smoke. There is just all kinds of havoc, the alarms are going off. I went back to my Office to make sure people are okay. Within the [Special Operations] Division, there were a couple officers and NCOs and we had a couple who were medically trained—emergency response guys, civilian contractors—and they wanted to go over to the other side of the Pentagon, the crash site, and assist. Knowing there would be casualties, I sent them over, after taking a complete head count. Then I went back to the NMCC. The Pentagon by this time was full of smoke; it was hard to get around; it was hard to see. By the time I got back to the NMCC, the Secretary [of Defense] and the Vice-Chairman [of the Joint Staff] were there. He was the acting Chairman, since the Chairman was gone. The Director [of the Joint Staff] was there and a whole host of other people. It was a pretty crowded room. I got SOCOM on the phone and we kept the line open as things developed.

The Pentagon had open communications with the FAA, with the Department of Justice, and others as they were trying to figure out what else was going to happen. At this point there was a huge amount of raw data coming in. I felt like we were living out… War of the Worlds. The data coming in led everyone to believe there were multiple attacks or potential attacks throughout the country. There were reports of planes not obeying the FAA [order] to turn around and clear the airspace. There were reports of planes on the runway reporting or signaling distress. It seemed as if there were about fifteen different events going on at one time, and I thought “this is a well-coordinated attack going beyond our [SOF] capability and other government agencies’ [capability to respond].” But we stayed up with SOCOM, trying to keep them aware of what was going on and SOCOM stood everybody up [put everybody on alert], gathering the intelligence and waiting for guidance.

About a half hour after the attack, when things settled down a little bit, everybody was ordered to evacuate the [Pentagon]. I knew that the other shops [offices] under the Joint Staff were leaving, but somebody had to stay and help the senior leadership do what they had to do. So, I went over to the office and I said, “Listen, everybody is leaving the building; they’re all evacuating the building because of the fire and the smoke, but we can’t.” I said, “Somebody’s got to stay and help the Secretary and the Vice-Chairman.” What I was asking them to do was to stay as long as they could. And they did exactly that. They stayed there, despite the smoke, the fire, the danger of further attacks. They were doing their jobs until the last minute, helping out. I was very proud of them; no one would have faulted them for leaving, but they stayed because they knew it was important.

One story tells you about the special operations ethos. When I went back to the office [of the Special Operations Division], I found an officer who had signed out and was on his way to his next duty assignment—and he couldn’t wait to leave [his tour as a desk officer], just like most of them—who was trying to get into our secured area. He was wearing a breathing mask, one of those painter’s masks, and trying to open the office door. He didn’t know we had changed the code on the cipher lock. I said, “You should already be on your way to Hurlburt Field!” And he looked at me and said, “I thought you needed me.” I wondered how he got into the building, decided not to ask, and said, “I really appreciate that but I think everybody’s gone now.” So, anyway, he left and I went back to the NMCC and we continued to filter through raw data and try to get the real scope of what had happened.

I am not sure if I went home that night. I don’t remember. If I did it was very late, just to go home and shower and shave and come back. In fact that was a signal we wanted to send everybody. The Pentagon was obviously a symbol of our military strength. You just can’t shut it down. So we went back; the next day everyone came in. This was a very dramatic time. I mean, you’ve got a new Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of Operations are out of the country, the building is on fire with hundreds of casualties, and the senior leadership is trying to do something never attempted since the Civil War, defend the continental United States while under attack. I was very proud of what I saw. It just amazed me how calm, collected, and directed everybody was, [with] not any immediate concern about their own safety. It was “how do we get the planes up to provide combat air patrols [over American cities]? Where are we going to position the ships? How do we help [rescue operations at] the World Trade Center? What about our own people, those in the Pentagon?” The NMCC was like a TOC [Tactical Operations Center], only this one was under attack. It was a very natural reaction to the events by the senior leadership. They were very directive, they were very focused and I will say I was impressed with the way they were handling the situation.

So, September 12 I worked out of my office providing special operations planning to the Joint Staff. The computers were up, the phones were up, the SIPRNET [classified Internet] and things like that were all working. We continued working contingency planning with SOCOM and also all the daily business too. You still had to do deployment orders to Colombia and the daily actions that you would normally do. It doesn’t change. Probably 80 percent of our work was related to the impact of September 11, and 20 percent of it was doing the normal actions. But of course we were in a very hyper-secure environment. The building was being evacuated at least two or three times a day for the next couple of weeks, because somebody would get a call or they would hear a plane fly overhead—it would happen to be a military plane, but they would pull the alarm and the next thing you know everybody is running out of the building. You really had to wonder if you were safer inside the building than you were running out into the open courtyard. But the whole building was now reacting to what we would later know was the new way of doing business.

We started preparing military plans, knowing the president was going to call for some kind of response, and Afghanistan was the clear and obvious target. The Commander of SOCOM, of course, was very involved in the process, in presenting his plans, and [explaining] what SOF can do. This was the time for the Commander to look at the whole global network of terrorism, and SOCOM was called upon to develop those plans.

This direction came from the civilian leadership. They had probably a better appreciation, I would argue, than our military leaders did of the [difference between] special operations and conventional operations, particularly with regard to capabilities. Believe it or not, September 11 probably happened at an opportune time, because we had a new civilian administration on board, so they were still learning what the different capabilities were within the Department. So, instead of relying on preconceived notions of who does what, they were getting the textbook briefings about naval operations, army maneuver brigades, and special operations. In terms of special operations, senior leaders [had been] invited to Fort Bragg [before 9/11] and received capability demonstrations and briefings. So, the leadership had a clear, unfiltered view of special operations capabilities. This was the case with the Vice Chairman. Being an Air Force pilot, I don’t think he had too much experience with special operations, but he was a very quick learner. The service chiefs—their perspective on special operations was already well honed from the Vietnam War and their experiences with SOF there. So, that’s why I am saying that I thought that, other than the Vice Chairman, the civilians had a more unbiased view, and because of this I felt the senior [civilian] leadership fully expected the capability that they were shown. And the lesson is, if you say you can do unconventional warfare, you better be prepared to execute. And they would say, “that’s what we have special operations [forces] for, so, damn it, they’re going to do that.”

Immediately after September 11, instead of getting into parochial arguments, things like “Well we’ve got a Marine Corps MEUSOC [Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable]; it has the words “Special Operations Capable”—why not send them?” It never got to that. There was never any of that discussion. It was a Special Ops mission. So, it was the civilian leadership that pushed for a special operations capability and wanted special operations involvement in the War on Terrorism. Truth be known, the military could have responded better, but I believe we were not used to such an aggressive style of [civilian] leadership and it took us a bit of time to adjust. The planning was very aggressive and the requirements went out immediately to the regional combatant commanders. They were the first to reply and provide a response to the SECDEF [Secretary of Defense]. Whether SOCOM is a combatant commander or not, we still have regional commanders out there who are responsible for those areas, so the messages immediately went out to them to develop the plans, identify the targets, and then we would apply the right resources to those targets. Meanwhile, SOCOM was given the responsibility of working on a worldwide counterterrorism plan. There was (at least at my level) very little talk of Iraq. [The talk was of] a global terrorist network and defeating this terrorist network, to include state sponsorship. But, again, the SOF focus was on the global network; any Iraq planning was done by another [non-SOF] office in the Joint Staff.

Given what we knew about this network and how we had to infiltrate this network, [we] required some new techniques, new tactics and procedures. [Secretary Rumsfeld] didn’t think the military had them. In fact, we did but [in] very small [numbers]. He was very excited once he found out about this capability, and he wanted to expand those capabilities; but of course this could not be done immediately and would take years.

The planning for Afghanistan was going full bore in CENTCOM [Central Command, the regional headquarters responsible for Afghanistan] and the Joint Staff. My impression was that SOCCENT [the Special Operations Command in CENTCOM] was developing a very specific UW [unconventional warfare] campaign plan, right down to the doctrinal phases of a successful UW campaign.² I remember reviewing it, starting to get it around the Pentagon and Washington for approval. But of course there were also competing conventional military plans being worked at the same time. The optimist would say that “this gives the decisionmaker a range of options to select from.” In the Pentagon and on the Joint Staff there is a “sister division” [to the Special Operations Division] called the Joint Operations Division, the JOD, and they handle all the conventional military planning. So, of course, they would be working the conventional alternatives to a special operations plan, likewise in CENTCOM. [It’s] probably a good argument [for] why we should integrate special operations and conventional planners together, instead of separating them as we do now. I got the impression that the UW planning process was being received by the Commander of CENTCOM and his staff very favorably. I know it was also being responded to favorably within the Pentagon, particularly on the Joint Staff, given the difficulty of getting conventional forces into the theater. Couple that with what I mentioned earlier, about the senior leaders not being saddled with “negative baggage” about special operations, and you have the ingredients for a likely deployment of special operations in a lead role. A very, very rare combination and outcome, likely not to happen again, for a variety of reasons.

Once the decision was made to introduce special operations into Afghanistan as the lead military force, SOF responded well, linking up with indigenous rebel forces, grabbing HVTs [high value targets], preparing the ground for the introduction of conventional forces. SOF performed and became the darling of DOD and the American public. SOCCENT, I thought, had a very good plan. It was a very realistic plan. It spoke doctrinally about how an unconventional warfare mission was going to go and how long it was going to take, what those requirements were. I thought it was well received. I would argue that they actually used that plan in the initial days but there was always in the back of the [senior, conventional commanders’] mind “we are going to use this until the 10th Infantry Division can get there,” and in fact that’s when [the unconventional plan] unfortunately stopped and then it became more of a “occupied by mass” kind of thing.

[The military is] always going to tilt toward the conventional forces because they are represented in the Pentagon twenty-four hours a day and SOCOM really isn’t. First, [SOCOM] is in Tampa and [its] lead representation in the Pentagon is an 06 [colonel]³ working for the Joint Staff. There was some friction [between SOF and conventional forces and commanders]. But I only remember one officer above the 06 level, one officer of senior rank, in a senior decision-making position, who made a comment, and he said he personally didn’t agree with it [SOF growing beards and wearing Afghan hats to blend in with the population in Afghanistan]. He didn’t think it sent the right message. Okay, we probably did ourselves some disservice in that regard too. Some of our guys took it a little too far, in the sense that you’ve got to know your audience and you’ve got to know your environment. What you wear in the deep woods is something different than you wear in downtown Kabul, you know what I mean? And if you don’t make that differentiation then you are just pissing on your own boots. But that same officer had the influence to shut that down [growing beards and wearing Afghan clothes]. And he didn’t because I think he understood that there was a capability [that was needed]. It was a kind of T.E. Lawrence relationship about these things. “We need you; this is the time we need you but as soon as it’s done we will get rid of you.” We conventionalized the effort after that, because I think it gets back to the relationship of SOCOM with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now that’s two different organizations; two distinctive, different organizations. As long as the Joint Chiefs of Staff can influence the operational requirements, then you are going to have this conventionalization because that is who they represent [the services]. There is no SOCOM rep at the Joint Chiefs of Staff table, the tank.⁴ Also, a lot of your combatant commanders don’t believe that you need specially trained, specially equipped forces to do a special operations mission.

AFGHANISTAN, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER, 2001

A Special Forces captain, who was the leader of one of the first “A teams” to go into Afghanistan, describes his experience.

We were supposed to go into Afghanistan October 20 but there were weather delays. The pilots didn’t think they could get in. So we actually went on November 1. It was a 6½-hour helicopter flight. We landed in the… early morning hours [of] November 2. We were supposed to hook up with the Northern Alliance⁵ commander in the region. He was one of the subordinate commanders in the whole alliance but in charge of this area. Some of his people were supposed to meet us. But nobody really knew the commander. We requested intelligence on him and they sent us stuff on a guy with a similar name but the meeting was set up through the Northern Alliance, so we flew in to meet up with his people. We landed at night and there was snow on the ground, which was cool. You know, we had done all these rehearsals to try and offload quickly because we were bringing in a lot of stuff. We took two bags of medical equipment, five parachute kit bags full of beans, five parachute kit bags full of rice, a couple dozen blankets, wool blankets because it’s freezing, these guys are suffering ‘cause they have no food, no blankets, no nothing, and they are trying to fight a war. And we had two kit bags full of medical supplies like bandages and stuff like that, that we wanted to give them right off the bat to establish that we understand their situation and get them strengthened up a little bit. So we rehearsed getting it off quickly but with the snow we just took the stuff on the bird [helicopter] and threw it on the snow, and because of the slope of the snow it just slid out of the way. We didn’t have to carry it. Really, you could just kind of sling it, and it would slide down the mountain. So we got it off quickly and the helicopter got out of there and we took off. We’re through and we were gone. And then we walked and walked and walked, all night.

Well the following morning, we hadn’t been to bed yet, a big defection [from the Taliban] took place. All these bad guys were marched into a little courtyard. They all bowed and the commander’s men had them under guard. They are drawn down on them [pointing weapons at the defectors] in this little courtyard and the commander brings out a video camera, which shocked the hell out of us. And he starts videotaping this defection and he is talking to them. They are standing there almost in a file and rank, and he is talking to them and I can’t understand a word he is saying, and we don’t have any interpreters and he is talking, but it is obvious that it’s his deal. And everyone paid homage to the commander, the guy we were supposed to work with. They kissed his hand or bowed or whatever, in some way they paid him homage and then some of them, right there just picked up guns, right there on the spot. And this was hairy, like, holy shit, these guys just bowed three seconds ago and now because they promise to behave, they can carry guns? But these defectors were all Afghans. To the Afghans, this made sense. When they pledged their allegiance to [the commander] they meant it and most of them stayed with us all the way through the fight. This wasn’t like [what happened later] at Mazar-e-Sharif;⁶ those were foreigners. That turned out to be a perfidious surrender.

I was th...