Allowing the U.S. military's Special
Operations Command units to operate under the CIA would give the U.S.
greater leeway to strike at militants even without the explicit
blessing of the Yemeni government. In addition to streamlining the
launching of strikes, it would provide deniability to the Yemeni
government because the CIA operations would be covert. The White House
is already considering adding armed CIA drones to the arsenal against
militants in Yemen, mirroring the agency's Pakistan campaign.[snip]
Placing military units overseen by the Pentagon under CIA control is
unusual but not unprecedented. Units from the Joint Special Operations
Command have been temporarily transferred to the CIA in other
countries, including Iraq, in recent years in order to get around
restrictions placed on military operations.[snip]
The CIA conducts covert operations based on presidential findings,
which can be expanded or altered as needed. Congressional oversight is
required but the information is more tightly controlled than for
military operations. For example, when the military conducts missions in
a friendly country, it operates with the consent of the local
government.An increase in U.S. missile strikes or combat ground operations by
American commando forces could test already sensitive relations with
Yemen, which U.S. officials believe is too weak to defeat al Qaeda. Such
an escalation could prompt Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to end
the training his military receives from U.S. special operations forces.
If Saleh is too weak (or ideologically compromised) to get the job
done against al Qaeda, then why are we foisting our special ops training
on him and the 50% of his military that are children (though the US
insists that no children will go through our training)?
And I wonder what would have happened if we responded to the UnaBomber by dropping bombs throughout Montana?
The WSJ doesn't say it, but this may well be an effort to evade the
AUMF problem limiting the Afghan war on terror to targets who had a hand
in 9/11, which AQAP did not. We know Cheney repeatedly chose to do his
covert work through JSOC, claiming he didn't have to brief Congress on
the actions. This seems to be the opposite: Obama appears ready to brief
Congress (presumably, with the new Intelligence Authorization, the
entire intelligence committees). But by running essentially military
actions through CIA, you can avoid the whole declare war thing-you just
issue and tweak a finding, letting the Commander-in-Chief dictate the
terms of the not-war.
Meanwhile, here's a rather curious detail from our other drone war. Two top Tehrik-i-Taliban figures were reportedly shot. Like with guns, not drones.
Former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's
(TTP) commander Baitullah Mehsud's brother Yaqoob Khan has reportedly
been shot dead by unidentified men in Mir Ali, North Waziristan.[snip]
Earlier this week, a key commander of the TTP, Adnan Afridi, is
reported to have been shot dead by unknown persons in the Naseerabad
area of Rawalpindi.
Maybe these were internal disputes, maybe we didn't kill these men.
But it would be an interesting development if we started targeting
individual people, wouldn't it?
Update: See Spencer's very good piece on this.