Washington Post:
Ever since 9-11 it has been openly acknowledged that one of the biggest failings of the CIA was the lack of human intelligence about the enemy. The department of the CIA thatis responsible for human intelligence was one of the first to receive a shakeup when the new director took over. To defeat an insurgency one of the most critical items is developing human intelligence. Perhaps the most successful counter insurgencies of all time was that mounted by the Soviets in Eastern Europe after the end of World War II. The Soviets had so successfully penetrated British intelligence that every clandestined operation was known in advance including who, what, when and where. The Soviets had also penetrated the indigenous forces fighting them so that if someone did slip through there net, they were quickly caught.
The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA'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.
The forces that were lined up against the Soviets were significantly greater than those currently operating in Iraq against the US coalition. The Soviets were much more unpopular in Eastern Europe the US forces are in Iraq. What the Soviets showed was that through excellent human intelligence they could quickly defeat a popular insurgency.
Rumsfeld is doing what any good leader would do. If you cannot count on those normally responsible for human intelligence, you find a way to get the intelligence you need.
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Rumsfeld's efforts, launched in October 2001, address two widely shared goals. One is to give combat forces, such as those fighting the insurgency in Iraq, more and better information about their immediate enemy. The other is to find new tools to penetrate and destroy the shadowy organizations, such as al Qaeda, that pose global threats to U.S. interests in conflicts with little resemblance to conventional war.
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