Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3

by Tom Clancy

  Air interdiction of Iraqi flights continues under NORTHERN WATCH, paralleling efforts in the south under Operation SOUTHERN WATCH.

  DEBRIEF

  "Why do we need Special Forces guys to do this?" Stan Florer asks.

  "Because nobody else has all it takes to do the job — the capability to organize and direct, together with the security edge. Civil Affairs guys don't have all that. Our solders are packing an advantage, and they know how to use it."

  Or to put it another way: Fifty armed Americans add an eloquence of persuasion to any suggestion. It's not so much "You better get your act together or we're going to shoot" as "Here is a strong, steady, and secure structure within which you can operate. With that in place, you can begin to take charge of your own needs."

  Similar conditions apply in dealings with external relief organizations. These are all fine people, but they tend to run off every which way, and tending to horrendously complex needs in an utterly chaotic situation requires focus, direction, and order.

  Carl Stiner points out that the Army's — and especially the SF's — streamlined command structure facilitates getting things done, and getting cooperation from such organizations. "We obviously won't use force on them, but if they persist in wanting to do their own thing, the CINC can step in and say, 'I am responsible for this whole area and you are going to comply. And here is the schedule you're going to operate under if you want security, and if you don't, you are on your own."'

  "What was interesting about this was its relationship to the larger political picture, a larger connection to DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM obviously, and the combat relationship," Florer comments. With more than two dozen government and nongovernment relief agencies involved, Special Forces' ability to work with a variety of groups under difficult conditions proved to be critical. While strict discipline is necessary for any military operation, PROVIDE COMFORT demonstrated what Bill Yarborough and others long ago foresaw, that flexibility and creativity are a major force multiplier.

  The same attributes that make Special Forces soldiers so valuable in combat actions — the ability to adapt to unexpected situations, to use cutting-edge technology to its fullest, to think creatively, to act quickly, decisively, and independently — turned out to be the qualities most needed to help the Kurds in the free-flowing crisis following the war with Iraq.

  Training for war goes hand in hand with the battle to save lives. Tomorrow's SF soldier will continue to find his role in a shadowy territory, where there are few boundaries between armed conflict with bad guys, on the one hand, and working closely and productively with local friendlies, on the other.

  "In a way," Dick Potter recalls, "the Special Forces legacy lives on in that part of the world. If you travel in northern Iraq and visit a Kurdish settlement, you're likely to encounter children in the ten-to-eleven-year group. Ask the parents and the elders their names. If they were born in the camps on the Turkish border during the great migration, you will find a middle name of Smith, Jones, Swicker, or Gilmore — the Kurds' tribute to men of the 10th Group, a living honor to the men that saved them."

  FACING FORWARD

  During the next ten years, special operations optempo greatly increased, with many more humanitarian assistance missions, and many more missions across the broad range of SOF capabilities. From Somalia, Haiti, and Afghanistan to Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, they were busy men.

  A small sample of what they were doing during that busy decade:

  SOMALIA During the '90s, SOF missions called on them to prevent fighting — or keep the lid on it — more often than to engage in combat. Through no fault of their own, their peacemaking efforts did not necessarily yield freedom from strife, most notably in Somalia, where several special operators on a UN-sponsored peacekeeping and humanitarian operation sacrificed their lives in the fiercest close combat engaged in by American forces since the Vietnam War. Two of the men earned Medals of Honor.

  This incident took place in Mogadishu in October 1993, and generated much press and a bestselling book. Its notoriety has tended to overshadow the genuine successes of American and UN operations in that benighted country. In the early 1990s, many Somalis were starving, and anarchy is too kind a word to describe the chaos. The country was divided among warring tribal factions; many of these were ruled by warlord-thugs, most were engaged in "civil wars" with the others, and some were fundamentalist Muslims, hostile to the United States.

  Mending Somalia — like mending Afghanistan — will not be a quick fix.

  Nevertheless, during the period from 1992 to 1995, SOF made a positive difference there. They conducted reconnaissance and surveillance operations (SOF elements drove more than 26,000 miles); assisted with humanitarian relief (bringing an end to starvation); conducted combat operations; for a time tamed many of the warring factions; and protected American forces (capturing hundreds of weapons and destroying thousands of pounds of ordnance). PSYOPs troops hired and trained thirty Somalis as a nucleus for radio broadcasting and newspaper publishing. They put out a newspaper, Rajo—"Truth" — set up a radio station, and distributed millions of leaflets. Civil Affairs troops helped coordinate overall UN and NCO humanitarian efforts, and were involved in great and small projects — from rebuilding the Mogadishu water supply system to setting up playgrounds in the city in order to give children something better to do than throwing rocks at military vehicles.

  HAITI In 1990, after hundreds of years of corruption and oppression, Haiti — always in a bad way — seemed about to lurch at last into the twentieth century. In their first free election, the Haitian people selected a civilian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

  The new freedom did not last long. In September 1991, the legitimate government was thrown out by a military government, headed by General Raoul Cedras. After diplomatic efforts and a UN-mandated embargo failed to force the Cedras clique to step down, and with thousands of Haitians fleeing the impoverished country in rickety, leaky boats (many perished at sea), a U.S. invasion was planned — Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY, modeled on Operation JUST CAUSE (Panama).

  As in Panama, the XVIII Airborne Corps would run the operation, with extensive support from Army, Air Force, and Navy SOF. Special operators would take down key governmental sites, followed by linkup with conventional forces. Special Forces teams would then fan out and secure the countryside.

  In September 1994, former president Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn, and retired General Colin Powell negotiated a last-minute deal with Cedras that aborted the invasion. Cedras stepped down in favor of Aristide, and the U.S. forces were quickly reconfigured for peaceful entry. The invasion metamorphosed into a large-scale humanitarian mission.

  Lieutenant General Henry Shelton, the XVIII Airborne Corps commander, used conventional forces (most of the from the 10th Mountain Division) to secure Port-au-Prince, the capital. To secure the rest of the country, he called on Brigadier General Dick Potter to form an SF task force (called Joint Task Force Raleigh). A-Detachments fanned out into the villages and countryside, and became the only source of law and order until the Haitian civilian government could move in and take over.

  The PSYOPs campaign used leaflets, radio broadcasts, and airborne loudspeakers to send the message that cooperating with American forces and staying out of bloody conflicts with the remnants of the illegal regime would be the quickest route to a restoration of democracy. Civil Affairs troops made a start on restoring Haiti's long-wasted civilian infrastructure. For example, in an operation they called LIGHT SWITCH, they brought electricity back to Jeremie, Cap Haiticn, and other northern cities and towns — places that hadn't had electricity in years.

  THE BALKANS

  In the early 1990s, Yugoslavia fractured into rival independent states, each striving to attain some dream of ethnic-religious purity — Eastern Orthodox, Muslim, or Roman Catholic. An impossible dream — the different ethnic groups were scattered pretty much all over the map. Tragedy followed, when the ethnic factions tried to brin
g about ethnic purity by force — and acted out age-old hatreds in the process. Thousands of people were driven from homes their people had lived in for centuries — or worse, they were massacred.

  From 1992, the UN and NATO sent forces to the region in order to impose peace, but it took a coordinated bombing of Serb targets (Operation DELIBERATE FORCE — August to September 1995) to bring about a cease-fire among the warring factions. This in turn led to the Dayton Peace Accords of November 1995 and the Paris Peace Agreement of December 1995. The peace agreements were to be implemented by Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR (December 1995 to December 1996).

  SOF had an important mission in support of JOINT ENDEAVOR — primarily to interact with foreign military forces, as they had done in DESERT STORM and Somalia. But other missions included personnel recovery (such as downed pilots) and fire support.

  For their primary mission, Special Operations Command on the scene sent out Liaison Coordination Elements (LCEs) to both NATO and — far more important — to non-NATO battalion or brigade commanders within each area of operations. The LCEs made certain that the intent of information and instructions passed on to the battalion or brigade commander was understood.

  LCEs conducted daily patrols with their assigned units, maintained communications, assessed the attitudes of the local populace and the various warring factions, provided accurate information about violent incidents, and made general reconnaissance. Since they had their own vehicles, they were not tied to the transport of their assigned units.

  Civil Affairs coordinated reconstruction of the civil infrastructure and organized relief — a big job; there were better than five hundred UN, government, and nongovernment organizations to harmonize. Civil Affairs units helped in several ways: coordinating the repatriation of refugees; restoring public transportation, utilities, public health, and commerce; and organizing elections and setting up new national and local governments.

  PSYOPs got out factual information through print and broadcast media, and conducted a mine-awareness campaign, aimed mostly at children.

  Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR gave way to further stabilization efforts (Operations JOINT GUARD and JOINT FORCE — December 1996 through 1999). Most SOF personnel were involved with PSYOPs and Civil Affairs specialists.

  In March 1999, NATO initiated Operation ALLIED FORCE to bring an end to Serbia's violent ethnic-cleansing campaign against ethnic Albanians (primarily Muslim) in Kosovo. The nineteen-nation NATO coalition heavily bombed Serbia for seventy-eight days, at the end of which the Serbian President, Milosevic, threw in the towel and agreed to stop the ethnic cleansing. By then, the better part of a million refugees had been forced out of Kosovo.

  During ALLIED FORCE, Civil Affairs units coordinated large-scale humanitarian relief with other U.S. agencies and international relief organizations. SOF aircraft airlifted food and supplies. PSYOPs EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft broadcast Serb-language radio and TV programs to inform the people of their government's genocidal policies and to warn them against committing war crimes in support of those policies.

  SOF Combat Search and Rescue MH-53 Pave Low and MH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters rescued two U.S. pilots (one from an F-117, the other from an F-16) downed in Serbia. These two missions each took less than a minute on the ground.

  During the follow-up Operation JOINT GUARDIAN, SOF liaison teams initiated street patrols throughout their operational area in Kosovo. In the process, they arranged meetings between local Albanians and Serbs, to defuse ethnic violence, searched for illegal weapons caches, and helped war crimes investigators find massacre sites. Though SOF teams did not end violence, they managed to establish rapport with both ethnic factions, and their on-the-scene eyeball reports gave the leadership a clear view of local conditions.

  HUMANITARIAN DEMINING OPERATIONS

  In 1988, millions of mines left over from the Soviet invasion remained in Afghanistan, stopping millions of refugees from returning to their homes. Troops from the 5th SFG deployed to Pakistan to work with UN personnel and Afghan refugees to find a way to remove this tragic legacy safely. The results became a prototype for other SOF and UN humanitarian demining programs.

  It was not an easy job. There was then no effective Afghan government, and there was a multitude of organizations to coordinate. The SOF troops had to more or less invent the program on the spot, and then sell it to everyone else involved. The fractious and suspicious Afghan tribes and factions did not make things easier. Special Forces had to use their political even more than their technical skills.

  Practically, SOF training programs taught millions of Afghans how to identify, avoid, report, or destroy mines — and how to set up training programs they could run themselves. When SOF troops left Afghanistan in 1991, the Afghans were able to manage demining without further outside help.

  Other SOF demining training programs were later set up in Cambodia, Laos, the former Yugoslavia, Central America, and elsewhere — with PSYOPs and Civil Affairs units playing a large part in making local people aware of the danger from land mines, as well as showing them how to clear them.

  AFRICAN CRISIS RESPONSE INITIATIVE

  After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and unrest the following year in its neighbor Burundi that pointed to a similar outcome, the U.S. Defense Department worked out a plan to deal with the situation — and others like it — based on training battalion-sized units from free and democratic African states to conduct peacekeeping operations within the continent. This plan matured into the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which the State Department launched in the fall of 1996.

  Though military assets from the United States and its allies were used in the ACRI program, Special Forces troops soon found themselves at its heart.

  The 3rd SFG, under EUCOM's command and control, developed an instruction program and sent teams to work the training. SF planners developed common peacekeeping tactics, techniques, and procedures. Training the African battalions in common doctrine and standards allowed the multinational forces to work effectively together.

  The 3rd SFG-designed ACRI training came in two phases: First there was an intensive sixty-day training for individuals, platoons, companies, leaders, and staff. This was followed by exercises to practice what they had learned.

  At the end of 1999, SF teams had trained ACRI troops in Malawi, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Benin, and the Ivory Coast.

  NEOs SOF troops also took part in a number of noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs) — usually Embassy personnel in danger during revolutions or civil wars.

  In April 1996, SEALs and SF troops provided security for the American Embassy in Liberia during the evacuation of Americans and third-country nationals. Using Air Force SOF MI I-53J — and later Army MII-47D — helicopters, 436 Americans and nearly 1,700 foreign nationals were safely flown out of the country.

  SOF also took part in NEOs in Sierra Leone, Congo, and Liberia (again).

  PEACEKEEPING AND TRAINING

  SOF troops continue to be deployed in many countries in peacekeeping and/or training roles. Examples include many African nations, Kuwait, Venezuela, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and Macedonia.

  And then, in September 2001, a new mission came to SOF….

  XV

  TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

  C arl Stiner: Tom Clancy and I began this story with an account of a terrorist assault on an ocean liner more than fifteen years ago. We are ending it in the aftermath of another terrorist attack — the September 11, 2001, assault on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. A score of fanatics commandeered ordinary civilian machines — fuel-laden ailiners — and turned them into weapons of destruction. The differences between the two events are striking.

  Both involved careful planning and wanton disregard of human life, but the greatest distinction is in the scale — not only in the sheer magnitude of the devastation, loss of lile, and horror, but also in the obvious size and skill of the organization that let loose such savagery. In the past, you
needed governments for that. But apparently no longer.

  It's far too soon after these acts to predict possible long-term consequences, and we won't presume to attempt it. However, several implications are worth exploring, even at this early date.

  Terrorism has been with us for a long time, and it will stay with us as long as men find cause to rage against an establishment they view as oppressive. Terrorist tactics were bad enough before, when they blew up shops and buses, hijacked planes, held people hostage. But now we arc under attack by men who wreak havoc on a scale earlier terrorists could only dream about. We no longer just face single individuals with a gripe, or small groups bent on changing a political system. These new terrorists are bent on purging civilization of all those who do not share their beliefs.

  The new terrorists have created an organizational web of cells operating in many different countries, but outside of any country's laws — cells that can be called upon to wage war on a scale much larger and more complex than ever before. What they have become, in fact, is their own virtual — or shadow — government, powerful enough to intimidate and strike fear into many actual governments. They are directly supported — financially, militarily, or otherwise — by sympathetic "legitimate" governments, and receive support from sympathetic wealthy individuals or organizations.

  Islam is one of the world's great faiths, one that brings great riches to all the world's human community. Most of these new terrorists proclaim their total and undying faith in Islam, yet they justify their actions by their own interpretation of their religion. Their Islam is not the true Islam. In effect, they have hijacked their own religion.