Pentagon v. State Dept.
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.
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