feature article

June 2006

Special Operators Gain Civilian Assistance

By Harold Kennedy

As it plans for an extended struggle against terrorism, the U.S. Special Operations Command is realizing that it is going to need a lot of outside help, and it is reaching out to civilian agencies, allied nations and private contractors.

Lining up that help is proving to be a complicated task, SOCOM officials told a recent NDIA-sponsored conference in Arlington, Va.

While special operators now are deploying in larger numbers than they ever have before, the State Department is emerging as a key civilian partner to SOCOM, said Thomas W. O’Connell, assistant secretary for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

The office of the coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization, or S/CRS, was created in 2005 to facilitate the work of a wide range of non-military agencies, including the State, Justice and Treasury Departments.

“Our job is not to duplicate the work of other agencies nor take their place,” said Marcia Wong, acting coordinator. “Our job is to serve as a force multiplier so that all agencies involved can do their jobs better.”

In addition, Wong’s office is working with similar units that were established recently by allied nations. “The United Kingdom, Canada, France and Germany all have created offices similar to S/CRS,” Wong told the conference. “Australia, Denmark, Finland and Sweden have been active leaders in these issues, as well. We have been working closely with all of them.”

The S/CRS is exchanging ideas and information with the United Nations, European Union and NATO, Wong said. “We hope to strengthen regional organizations, such as the African Union, since the neighbors of weak or conflict-ridden states bear the brunt of refugees, disrupted trade and humanitarian assistance flow.”

With funding, training and logistical support from the United Nations, NATO and the United States, the AU — which is made up of 53 African nations — has deployed 7,000 peacekeepers to protect non-Arab black residents of Darfur, Sudan, against raids by government-supported Arab militia. The UN Security Council agreed in February to send up to 20,000 more troops within the next year.

Thus far, the State Department office’s part in such activities has been small. It started out with a staff of 39 and is growing slowly. By 2007, the office plans to have 80 full-time personnel, plus a “response corps” of State Department officers trained and ready to deploy to embattled embassies or to combat areas with U.S. and coalition military forces.

“We have an initial roster of more than 400 State Department employees — active-duty and retirees — who have volunteered to be on ‘standby’ status and available for training and deployment,” Wong said. “We also are looking to expand the surge capacity throughout the U.S. government, as well as tap into the vast experiences and skills outside of the federal government.”

Being sought are specialists in such fields as criminal justice, electrical power, fuel, sanitation, finances, social welfare, agriculture, construction and local government.

The State Department lacks the facilities to train and equip a response corps, but the Defense Department does not. Recognizing this, Congress included in the 2006 defense appropriation a provision permitting the Pentagon to spend up to $200 million a year over two years for that purpose, O’Connell noted. In addition, the State Department requested $75 million in its 2007 budget to build its civilian response capabilities, Wong said.

As part of that effort, the Defense and State Departments are cooperating with other U.S. and international agencies in a series of training exercises. In March, for example, the U.S. Joint Forces Command partnered with the State Department to launch Multinational Experiment 4, involving eight countries and NATO to practice interagency and coalition planning.

Previously, civilian agencies rarely had a chance to train with military services. In today’s environment, Wong said, “we must do it, in order ... to be more effective, to share the same vocabulary among agencies, to enhance communications and transparency and integrate better with the military.”

Not everyone, however, agrees that an enhanced State Department role in international conflict resolution is a good idea. “A standing office devoted to nation building is a cure worse than the disease,” said a recent study by the Cato Institute, a libertarian, Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

“Although failed states can present threats [to U.S. national security], it is a mistake to argue that they frequently do,” the study said.

Another civilian agency that is playing a major role in the ongoing conflict is the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Best known for protecting U.S. embassies, the secretary of state and foreign leaders visiting the United States, the service is taking on new assignments, said its director, Joe Morton.

“We are being called upon to serve in places today where traditionally the State Department would have pulled out or minimized its presence,” he told conferees. “So now, in countries that are on the forefront of the global war on terror and where democracy is just starting to take root, we are putting more people and resources on the ground.”

In Iraq alone, he said, the service has officers protecting U.S. diplomatic personnel in places as widespread as Kirkuk, Al Hillah, Mosul and Tikrit. The service also is providing security for leaders of friendly but threatened governments, such as Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Ellen Johnston-Sirleaf of Liberia and Boniface Alexander of Haiti.

The service is on the lookout for new concepts from private industry to help it perform these diverse missions, Morton said. “For example, we have sought new construction technologies, so that buildings in our new embassy compounds in high-risk environments will have overhead roof cover to protect our people from indirect rocket and mortar fire.”

Recently, in New Mexico, the service set off controlled explosions against a mock embassy building to test the effectiveness of new blast-resistant construction techniques. It also is working with the Defense Department and the private sector to develop new ways to detect and neutralize improvised explosive devices.

As the U.S. government hardens its overseas facilities, terror groups increasingly view American businesses — such as hotel and restaurant chains, oil companies and defense contractors — as softer targets, Morton said. To combat this, the service has established an Overseas Security Advisory Council to foster cooperation and information exchange with the private sector. More than 3,500 businesses, religious groups, colleges and other non-governmental organizations are participating.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, meanwhile, contractors have emerged as major factors. “We’re the second largest force in the field,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Cosumano Jr., a senior vice president for Halliburton KBR.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq 2003, the number of contractors there increased “very quickly” to more than 150,000, Cosumano said. “We’re almost like a theater support command.”

Because the military services are coming to depend heavily upon contractors, their training needs to be improved, Cosumano said.

Military leaders have complained that many of their most experienced personnel — especially special operators — are being enticed away to earn as much as $200,000 a year working as contractors.

For example, Ignacio Balderas, a director of Triple Canopy Inc., a Herndon, Va.-based security firm, is a retired command sergeant major for Delta Force. However, he insisted that his company recruits personnel only after they have left service, not while they are still on active duty. “We’re not a factor in the services’ retention problem,” he said.

Contractors face the same danger in Iraq and Afghanistan as military personnel. More than 200 have been killed.

Contractors also must contend with many legal issues, said Jeffrey F. Addicott, director of the Center for Terrorism law at St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas.

“Are contractors legal combatants,?” he asked. “The bottom line is that contractors are defined by the four corners of the contract. Both the government and the contractors are expected to do whatever the contract says.”

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