Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

Carl 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.

On September 11, without warning, they committed the most barbaric act ever carried out against the United States, one specifically designed to kill as many innocent people as possible. The most powerful nation in the world could do nothing but watch. All our military might stood passive.

Such scenes and our feelings of helplessness will remain etched in our minds forever.

Their objective was to cause us to lose trust in one another and in our government's ability to protect its citizens, to cause us to imprison ourselves. We won't do that. But if we're smart, this will serve as a wake-up call.

For years, many of us have been concerned about our vulnerability to terrorism. To us, this attack was no surprise — though the form it took was. In fact, it could have been even worse — and maybe someday it will be.

We have all had many questions in the attack's aftermath:

"Why is the United States a target?"

"How did such an attack happen here?"

"Will there be more attacks?"

Let us begin to answer them.

WHY IS THE UNITED STATES A TARGET?

Most nations and people respect the United States. Our freedoms, and the help we have given to oppressed and impoverished people, have made us a beacon and a model for much of the rest of the world. But not for everyone. Certain groups hate us so deeply that they dream of violently destroying us.

Their hatreds come from several sources: religious differences; a culture they see as promiscuous and sinful; our foreign policies, particularly our support of Israel (an especially large grievance among Shiites); the U.S. support of Iraq during the four-year Iraq-Iran war; our support for the Christian-dominated government of Lebanon in the early to mid-eighties; the Gulf War and its aftermath, the embargo of Iraq, which has harmed many innocent Arabs; and the continued presence of our troops on the sacred territory of Saudi Arabia. All of these perceptions, and many more, combine to make the United States a magnet for attacks by extremist groups.

The terrorist war against the United States probably began as far back as November 4, 1979, when militant Iranian students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and held sixty-six Americans hostage for 444 days. This event turned into a major political crisis for the United States, but far more important, it served as a catalyst for other states to sponsor terrorist organizations that could be used to pursue their own political objectives.

Thus the 1980s were dominated by terrorist attacks against U.S. interests abroad, carried out by state-supported fundamentalist extremist groups. Terrorism quickly became a calculated, formalized, and cheap means of warfare. Attacks increased in frequency and complexity, and suicide attacks (self-induced martyrdom) grew more and more common.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini declared a holy war against the United States. His objectives were to drive the United States out of the Middle East (particularly Lebanon) and to spread his Islamic revolution throughout the area.

Syria's president Hafiz Assad, a secular leader of a Muslim state, hoped to use terrorism to attain one of his chief foreign policy goals — to gain dominance over Lebanon as a strategic buffer against Israel.

In April 1983, the U.S. Embassy in Beirut was bombed and sixty-three people were killed, among them the CIA station chief and all but two of his staff, neutralizing the U.S. intelligence apparatus in that part of the world. Six months later, in October 1983, the U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut was bombed, killing 241 U.S. Marines. Shortly thereafter, all peacekeeping forces were withdrawn from Lebanon. Khomeini and Assad had each achieved major objectives.

The United States was not prepared to deal with this form of warfare, and acts of hostage-taking, hijacking, and bombings against U.S. interests increased. In 1986, Libya's Muamar Qaddafi joined the fray by launching a campaign in Europe against U.S. targets.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union changed all this for the worse. Until then, the Soviets had considerable leverage over states and organizations that sponsored terrorism, and were reluctant to sanction acts that could draw them into a confrontation with the United States. The end of the Soviet Union opened up a Pandora's box, and turned former puppet states and organizations loose to pursue their own interests, most of which were hostile to those of the United States. To make matters even worse, many Soviet scientists and technicians who had been involved in developing or producing weapons of mass destruction were now without jobs. Many were sucked up by renegade states and put to work developing advanced capabilities that could be used for attacks against the United States.

Terrorism finally reached U.S. shores in 1993, with the bombing of the World Trade Center by a group of Islamic extremists. I have never been able to learn whether this event was state-sponsored or only the work of an Islamic extremist group.

In the same year, the wealthy Saudi expatriate Osama bin Laden emerged as a mastermind and organizer of terrorism, with an especially virulent hatred of the United States. His organization, called Al-Qaeda (The Base), was a network of terrorist organizations and cells around the world, united in a holy war against the United States.

Bin Laden is believed to be responsible for the bombings of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, as well as the suicide attack on the USS Cole in 2000, in the harbor of Aden, Yemen. And he is considered the prime suspect in the attack of September 11,2001.

In other words, a war has been waged against the United States for several years. It took the attack of September 11 to wake us up to it.

HOW DID SUCH AN ATTACK HAPPEN HERE?

The answer is simple: Our intelligence services failed us massively in the days before September 11, 2001. They must be much improved.

Let's look at a few facts:

The infrastructure necessary to support operations of such magnitude and sophistication had to be very sizable. The terrorists had to operate abroad as well as here in the United States. And these operations had to have been launched long before the act itself was committed.

The attack was extraordinarily efficient. Agents had to case airports to determine security operations. Support cells and infrastructures had to rehearse their parts so they could perform efficiently at the appropriate time. The hijacking teams probably rode on flights like the ones they would actually hijack when the code signal came.

Such a vast organizational and operational effort inevitably leaves traces that should have been apparent to our intelligence agencies — but weren't.

Many other reasons will eventually be given for the failure; these will all be examined in congressional hearings, and fixes will be made — unfortunately too late. They'll be closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted.

Fundamental to our vulnerability is our current lack of what is called HUMINT (human intelligence). We have had that deficiency for years. IIUMINT is necessary to penetrate clandestine religious-based terrorist organizations.

Overhead systems (satellites) can't do that job. Neither will the hiring of agents from other countries bring a quick fix.

Unfortunately, it takes years to train operatives and to establish an effective I IUMINT intelligence capability — and we are way behind the time curve in this war.

WILL THERE BE MORE ATTACKS?

As long as fanatical groups and the forces of darkness continue to exist, we are vulnerable to attack. The real question is: Will we be able to prevent it?

As 1 said before, the attack of September 11 could have been even worse. Terrorist organizations have become much more sophisticated and may soon have access to weapons of mass destruction — if they don't have them already — not to mention chemical and biological warfare. As always (like Mao's guerrillas), they will attempt to maximize fear and terror by hitting us where we are most vulnerable, and at a time and place of their choosing. We face an enemy like we have never faced before, who does not operate on a linear battlefield, his forces in mass. It is called "asymmetrical warfare" — assaults on our weaknesses rather than on our strengths.

So, yes, even after we have spent billions improving our security, there will most likely be another attack, but in another form — if for no other reason than to show us they can still do it.

1 doubt that we will ever eliminate terrorism. It will be with us as long as there arc men who dream of bringing down a nation. But we can climinate the leaders and the resources it takes to sustain them and their operations. Hopefully, too, as with Noriega, we can eliminate the places where they lay their heads. But this will take a lot of time.

RESOLVE, ACTION, AND JUSTICE

What must we do?

First, I believe that President Bush's strategy for combating terrorism — the application of all available national options concurrently — is right on the mark.

Second, I would recommend one more arrow in the Presidents long-range quiver (and I'm sure it is being considered at the national level), and that is a PSYOPs campaign. The goal is not to change the minds of terrorists — which is probably impossible — but to deny them the population they need for their support and recruits. We must — to use an old phrase — win their "hearts and minds." Far too many in the Islamic world look up to the new terrorists as heroes and saviors. We have to bring the truth to these people, and to all the peoples of Islam that these men represent a perversion of Islam and not its highest expression; and in the meantime we have to show them by our actions that we respect them and their faith. But this job could take years, or decades.

In the near term, we must clean out all the terrorist cells and sympathizers in the United States. We must also improve our security systems and procedures. As the President has indicated, unilateral action by the United States will not solve this problem. We must build a strong multinational coalition that will cooperate in every way possible, and this coalition must include the modern Arab nations. We must have the help of other governments' intelligence services. We must stand behind the President and not become complacent.

Success will be a long, drawn-out process. Victory will be ambiguous; and there will be few victory parades. We will lose good people in the struggle, but we must not weaken in our resolve.

Our strength is in our unity and in that resolve. For both our sake and our children's sake, we must be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to win this war. We have invested too much in the defense of our freedoms to be cowed by such as bin Laden.

WHEN WILL WE STRIKE? WHEN WILL WE GO GET HIM?

In the time that has passed since the tragic September strike, I have been asked both of these questions hundreds of times — by all kinds of people, from ordinary citizens to those in the media. My usual answer has been "We will strike when it is to our advantage, and when we are ready. But it is just not 'him' we will be after; we are after the leadership and infrastructures of terrorist organizations around the world."

At the beginning of this book, our Authors' Note indicated that concerns for the safety of operational forces and their families, as well as security concerns, would prevent me from discussing some matters in which readers will legitimately be interested. That restraint applies now more than ever.

The national media, for example, has announced that U.S. and British Special Operations forces have already been inserted in Afghanistan. 1 cannot confirm the truth of this report, but if special operations forces are there, the announcement most certainly increased the risk associated with their mission.

I can say, therefore — without revealing details of how special operations forces will be used in the war against terrorism-that they will most certainly be involved. This has already been announced by our national command authorities. Because of their cultural orientation and language capabilities, and their unique skills, which span the entire spectrum of warfare, they will most certainly play a key role. All other forces will surely bring important capabilities into the mix, but it is the versatility of special operations forces that will make them the forces of choice at the point of the spear.

When Special Operations forces are committed to the campaign, we can also expect that they will conduct actions related to all their assigned mission areas of responsibility: Direct Action, Special Reconnaissance, Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, Psychological Operations, Civil Affairs, Countcrprolifcration, Coalition Support, and Combat Search and Rescue — specifically choosing and tailoring each applicable capability for the most effective mission accomplishment.

It can also be expected that most SOF operations will be covert-meaning that the American public will rarely hear of them. In far-reaching operations like these, media reports could not only mean increased risk for the forces involved, but affect political and tactical options for future operations. Information will therefore be released only by the National Command Authority, and only after coordinating with coalition partners.

It is common knowledge that Special Operations forces played unique roles in our operations a few years ago in Panama, Kuwait, Iraq, and Somalia, and contributed greatly to them. They will most certainly draw on these experiences. But there are major differences.

In Operations JUST CAUSE and DESERT STORM, the recognized governments of Panama and Kuwait supported our actions. We knew the enemy, we had selected the targets in advance, and we had rehearsed the operations to the extent necessary for success. The majority of the civil populations of both countries were friendly to the United States and supported our actions.

The war against terrorism will be in stark contrast to any threat we have faced before, and carries with it greater challenges and risks. In the first place, we will not be focusing our efforts on just one individual or target, or even on several — as in Panama, where we had twenty-seven. We will be focusing on all key personnel and infrastructures associated with the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and will attack several targets embedded covertly in many nations throughout the world. We have yet to identify most of these cells; critical intelligence is not available, and in many cases forces will have to produce their own.

Numerous sovereignty issues will also have to be worked out at the national level. We will encounter hostile governments and hostile populations, and most operational environments are likely to be nonpermissive.

We will be required to operate in very rugged terrain and in urban areas, and we will be at great distances from our logistical bases. The enemy is elusive; he does not stand and fight on our terms. He has better field intelligence than we do. He knows the terrain, has his own support infrastructures, and uses civilians as shields. He does not recognize treaties, our principles of warfare, or our ethics. The organizations we will face do not take prisoners.

There will be many necessary missions, and each will be unique. Tactical, "cookie cutter" solutions will not be available from past military studies. The solutions to such tactical challenges are best left to those who will fight the battles. Therefore, the most effective solutions for dealing with this enemy will have to be unconventional.

All this will take time. Our enemies believe that the United States has no "staying power — as demonstrated by our "abandonment" of Somalia and Lebanon after terrorist onslaughts. They will learn a different lesson in the coming months — or, if necessary, years.

As a nation, we arc very fortunate to have special operations forces of such quality. We must give them the necessary latitude to deal with the challenges they will face. They have the judgment and skills to react appropriately and do what must be done.

The least we can do as a nation is to be patient and to stand behind them. We have no other alternative.