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Pentagon v. State Dept.

By TChris, Section War on Terror
Posted on Thu Feb 24, 2005 at 09:33:19 AM EST
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by TChris

Believing it should be a government unto itself, unhindered by checks and balances, Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon "is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said."

The plan would weaken the long-standing "chief of mission" authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the president's top representative in a foreign country, decides whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on political and diplomatic considerations. The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from the foreign country, if any.

The Pentagon hopes to avoid "time-consuming debates" about the advisability of transgressing the borders of a sovereign nation. To its dismay, the pesty State Department has been standing in the way of the Pentagon doing anything it pleases.

The State Department and the CIA have fought the proposal, saying it would be dangerous to dilute the authority of the U.S. ambassador and CIA station chief to oversee U.S. military and intelligence activities in other countries. Over the past two years, the State Department has repeatedly blocked Pentagon efforts to send Special Operations forces into countries surreptitiously and without ambassadors' formal approval, current and former administration officials said.

The State Department has reason to oppose the change of policy, given its experience with Special Forces operations. In one instance, it blocked a plan to send Special Forces soldiers into Pakistan without ambassadorial approval.

The soldiers eventually entered Pakistan with proper clearance but were ordered out again by the ambassador for what was described as reckless behavior. "We had SF [Special Forces] guys in civilian clothes running around a hotel with grenades in their pockets," said one source involved in the incident, who opposes the Pentagon plan.

In another, "a group of Delta Force soldiers left a bar at night in a Latin American country and shot an alleged assailant but did not inform the U.S. Embassy for several days."

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    Pentagon v. State Dept. | 35 comments (35 topical)
    Re: Pentagon v. State Dept. (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 24, 2005 at 10:05:15 AM EST
    I remember when there was a country where the American Embassy was overran and all the Americans were held hostage. How would the discovery of a secret military force on the homeland be responded to. Wouldn't our Diplomats be endangered. Somebody with a brain has got to talk to these folks.

    Re: Pentagon v. State Dept. (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 24, 2005 at 10:14:14 AM EST
    Sooo....It is A-OK for the CIA to conduct ops without informing the Mission, but not the Pentagon? BOTH already require a finding or some form of authorization from the Executive Branch. This would seem to be a streamlined, common sense approach that also allows for an additional layer of Operational Security (less in the know the better).

    Re: Pentagon v. State Dept. (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 24, 2005 at 10:16:59 AM EST
    Beckmann- Your concern seems to be more focused on whether o not the Pentagon should even conduct these sorts of Ops, rather than what protocols should be in place.

    Re: Pentagon v. State Dept. (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Feb 24, 2005 at 10:24:54 AM EST
    Given that the Ambassador is responsible for relations with a country, not military activities, and given that most Ambassadors are political types or siginificant campaign contributors who lack any real knowledge of either diplomacy or military operations, they should ha