US special forces helped Colombia find hostages

Washington Post:

For months before a group of disguised Colombian soldiers carried out a daring rescue of three American citizens and a prominent Colombian politician from a guerrilla camp, a team of U.S. Special Forces joined elite Colombian troops tracking the hostages across formidable jungle terrain in the country's southern fringes.

The U.S. team was supported by a vast intelligence-gathering operation based in the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, far to the north. There, a special 100-person unit made up of Special Forces planners, hostage negotiators and intelligence analysts worked to keep track of the hostages. They also awaited the moment when they would spring into action to help Colombian forces carry out a rescue.

That moment came in June after a Colombian army major hatched an unconventional plan. Further developed by Colombian intelligence agents, the plan abandoned the idea of a military raid and relied instead on tricking a rebel group notorious for killing hostages into simply handing over 15 of their most prominent captives. Those included three U.S. Defense Department contractors who had been imprisoned five years in remote jungle camps, as well as Ingrid Betancourt, a politician of French-Colombian citizenship whose plight had become a cause celebre in Europe.

As Colombian planners made last-minute preparations June 30, the U.S. ambassador in Bogota, William R. Brownfield, briefed Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials in a videoconference call. Two days later, Colombian commandos scooped up the Americans, Betancourt and 11 Colombian soldiers and policemen, receiving praise from around the world for a plan deftly executed.

U.S. troops did not participate directly in the operation, but behind the rescue in a jungle clearing stood years of clandestine American work. It included the deployment of elite U.S. Special Forces in areas where rebel fighters roam, a vast intelligence-gathering operation against the guerrillas, and training programs for Colombian troops and communications specialists in how to intercept and subvert rebel communications.

"This mission was a Colombian concept, a Colombian plan, a Colombian training operation, then a Colombian operation," Brownfield said in an interview Monday in which he recounted details of the U.S. role. "We, however, had been working with them more than five years on every single element that came to pass that pulled off this operation, as well as the small bits that we did on this operation."

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Colombian officials have said the American assistance, especially in intercepting FARC communications, has been essential. And Sergio Jaramillo, vice minister of defense, said the Americans have been instrumental in creating "a professional Special Forces culture" in Colombia's elite jungle units. (Emphasis added.)

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The highlighted phrase makes clear how important intercepts of enemy communications is to this type of operation. Do you think Colombia has to deal with a FISA court to intercept the communications of FARC? The very suggestion is ludicrous, yet that is what Democrats want for the US to do in dealing with al Qaeda ops communicating with their people in the US.

In recorded history there has never been a time when people have been so interested in enemy privacy rights that the Democrats are pursuing. In fact they are much more interested in that than catching and destroying the enemy.

What this operation showed is that with intelligence ont eh enemy and his communications, not only can lives be saved in preventing attacks, but the enemy can be thwarted without firing a shot.