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View Full Version : Secret order lets U.S. raid Al Qaeda around the world



-Cp
11-10-2008, 02:53 PM
WASHINGTON: The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President George W. Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

In 2006, for example, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants' compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former top official of the Central Intelligence Agency. Officials watched the entire mission — captured by the video camera of a remotely piloted Predator aircraft — in real time in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center at the agency's headquarters in Virginia 7,000 miles away.

Some of the military missions have been conducted in close coordination with the CIA, according to senior American officials, who said that in others, like the Special Operations raid in Syria on Oct. 26 of this year, the military commandos acted in support of CIA-directed operations.

But as many as a dozen additional operations have been canceled in the past four years, often to the dismay of military commanders, senior military officials said. They said senior administration officials had decided in these cases that the missions were too risky, were too diplomatically explosive or relied on insufficient evidence.

More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature. Spokesmen for the White House, the Defense Department and the military declined to comment.

Apart from the 2006 raid into Pakistan, the American officials refused to describe in detail what they said had been nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks, except to say they had been carried out in Syria, Pakistan and other countries. They made clear that there had been no raids into Iran using that authority, but they suggested that American forces had carried out reconnaissance missions in Iran using other classified directives.

According to a senior administration official, the new authority was spelled out in a classified document called "Al Qaeda Network Exord," or execute order, that streamlined the approval process for the military to act outside officially declared war zones. Where in the past the Pentagon needed to get approval for missions on a case-by-case basis, which could take days when there were only hours to act, the new order specified a way for Pentagon planners to get the green light for a mission far more quickly, the official said.

It also allowed senior officials to think through how the United States would respond if a mission went badly. "If that helicopter goes down in Syria en route to a target," the official said, "the American response would not have to be worked out on the fly."

The 2004 order was a step marking the evolution of how the American government sought to kill or capture Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the Bush administration had already granted America's intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush issued a classified order authorizing the CIA to kill or capture Qaeda militants around the globe. By 2003, American intelligence agencies and the military had developed a much deeper understanding of Al Qaeda's extensive global network, and Rumsfeld pressed hard to unleash the military's vast firepower against militants outside the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The 2004 order identifies 15 to 20 countries, including Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and several other Gulf states, where Qaeda militants were believed to be operating or to have sought sanctuary, a senior administration official said.

Even with the order, each specific mission requires high-level government approval. Targets in Somalia, for instance, need at least the approval of the defense secretary, the administration official said, while targets in a handful of countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential approval.

The Pentagon has exercised its authority frequently, dispatching commandos to countries including Pakistan and Somalia. Details of a few of these strikes have previously been reported.

Read the rest here:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/10/america/10military.php

Yurt
11-10-2008, 03:35 PM
secret?

Kathianne
11-10-2008, 04:09 PM
secret?

Right. Most likely done, hopefully successfully and final. It's Obama's calls now.

manu1959
11-10-2008, 04:24 PM
wasn't obama calling for invasions of pakistan to hunt down al queda......this is a good thing ...no?

hjmick
11-10-2008, 04:40 PM
So, just a few days after Obama receives his first security briefing, a story, using anonymous sources, about secret U.S. missions to attack al Qaeda hits the news. ;)

Monkeybone
11-11-2008, 07:30 AM
i hate all of this "anonymous" leaking basically that is going on in our country. Yah we have a right to know, but not at the time that it is happening. they were reporting about this and one of the missons that was being led by another country that we were just backing up was canceled! the Gov got cold feet when it was released and so we left. it's ridiculous!


anyone remember the line saying "loose lips sink ships"? Wait until it is over, it's ok to tell the news ppl that you have no comment, and if ya wanna blab do it after.

Psychoblues
11-11-2008, 08:37 PM
Broadcasting strategic and/or tactical capabilities and/or intent is indeed a major breach of security considerations unless of course it is the strategic or tactical intent to release such as a military objective. We did a lot of that in Viet Nam.

Psychoblues

Mr. P
11-11-2008, 08:45 PM
i hate all of this "anonymous" leaking basically that is going on in our country. Yah we have a right to know, but not at the time that it is happening. they were reporting about this and one of the missons that was being led by another country that we were just backing up was canceled! the Gov got cold feet when it was released and so we left. it's ridiculous!


anyone remember the line saying "loose lips sink ships"? Wait until it is over, it's ok to tell the news ppl that you have no comment, and if ya wanna blab do it after.

This is exactly why Reagan didn't let the press know about Granada ahead of time, Man they were PISSED!!! It was a successful operation however.

Psychoblues
11-12-2008, 03:29 AM
You don't have a clue, do you, P?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!


This is exactly why Reagan didn't let the press know about Granada ahead of time, Man they were PISSED!!! It was a successful operation however.

All Grenadans that mattered were kept fully informed at all stages of that operation. And the press, also the ones that mattered, was notified and respectfully squelched the pertinent information until they got the go ahead to publish. Hell, some of the first people I met there were civilian reporters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Psychoblues

Gaffer
11-12-2008, 03:23 PM
I said years ago that this kind of stuff would be going on. There's lots happening that doesn't get reported because its too sensitive. It's also stuff that had no business being reported on and the leakers and news agency should be prosecuted.

The fact it's been going on is not surprising to me. I expect there have been hundreds of such operations. I'm surprised the media would release it, but then again, anything that makes Bush look like an evil war monger will be broadcast and printed by the media regardless of peoples lives.

ChristopherL
11-15-2008, 08:27 PM
We need to start charging leakers with treason.