Sunday, June 06, 2010
Special Operations forces have taken on an importance under President Barack Obama that they didn’t enjoy with the Bush administration—which wasn’t timid about employing commandoes in the war against terror. But Obama has embraced the secretive work of Special Ops and used them to carry out missions that even Bush didn’t do.
Within the past year and a half, these highly-trained warriors have seen their deployments expand from 60 countries to 75. They are now operating in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
The wider use of Special Ops has been made possible by increases in defense spending for Special Forces, SEALs, and other select units. Obama added $3.5 billion to the Special Ops budget for this year, and he’s asked for a nearly 6% jump in the next budget.
These forces are not only conducting clandestine military strikes where al-Qaeda is suspected of operating, but also training foreign counterterrorism forces and carrying out joint operations with them. In some countries like Yemen, “we are doing all three,” a military official told The Washington Post.
The same official said “we have a lot more access” to the White House, where Special Ops commanders have become “a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush’s administration,” wrote the Post.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
U.S. 'Secret War' Expands Globally as Special Operations Forces Take Larger Role (by Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post)
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