| In his latest article in the New Yorker, Pulitzer
Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh writes:
“The Bush Administration has authorized a major escalation
of the Special Forces covert war in Iraq. In interviews over the
past month, American officials and former officials said that
the main target was a hard-core group of Baathists who are
believed to be behind much of the underground insurgency against
the soldiers of the United States and its allies. A new Special
Forces group, designated Task Force 121, has been assembled from
Army Delta Force members, Navy seals, and C.I.A. paramilitary
operatives, with many additional personnel ordered to report by
January. Its highest priority is the neutralization of the
Baathist insurgents, by capture or assassination.
“The revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory
for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who has struggled for
two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy
of what he calls ‘Manhunts’ — a phrase that he has used
both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications. Rumsfeld
has had to change much of the Pentagon’s leadership to get his
way. “Knocking off two regimes allows us to do extraordinary
things,” a Pentagon adviser told me, referring to Afghanistan
and Iraq.
“One step the Pentagon took was to seek active and secret
help in the war against the Iraqi insurgency from Israel,
America’s closest ally in the Middle East. According to
American and Israeli military and intelligence officials,
Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working
closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces
training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to
help them prepare for operations in Iraq.”
- Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
for the New Yorker. His latest piece is titled "Manhunt
in Iraq"
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