Cia

The CIA's Secret Army

Because of past scandals, the agency had largely dropped its paramilitary operations. But the war on terrorism has brought it back into the business

By DOUGLAS WALLER

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Feb. 3, 2003

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Feb. 3, 2003

The U.S. is not yet at war with Saddam Hussein. Not officially. But quietly, over the past few months, some of its savviest warriors have sneaked into his country. They have been secretly prowling the Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Iraq, trying to organize a guerrilla force that could guide American soldiers invading from the north, hunting for targets that U.S. warplanes might bomb, setting up networks to hide U.S. pilots who might be shot down and mapping out escape routes to get them out. And they are doing the same in southern Iraq with dissident Shi'ites. But the biggest surprise of all is that they are not even soldiers; they are spies, part of the CIA's rough and ready, supersecret Special Operations Group (SOG). Until fairly recently, the CIA, in an effort to clean up a reputation sullied by botched overseas coups and imperial assassination attempts, had shied away from getting its hands dirty. Until about five years ago, it focused instead on gathering intelligence that could be used by other parts of the government. Before that, traditional CIA officers, often working under cover as U.S. diplomats, got most of their secrets from the embassy cocktail circuit or by bribing foreign officials. Most did not even have weapons training, and they looked down on the few SOG commandos who remained out in the field as knuckle draggers, relics of a bygone era. Now the knuckle draggers are not just back; they are the new hard edge of the CIA, at the forefront of the war on terrorism. And, says a U.S. intelligence official, "they know which end the bullet comes out of."

It was George Tenet who began rebuilding the SOG five years ago when he took charge of the CIA, but the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, accelerated his efforts.

Confronted with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, an enemy that has no army, no fixed assets and no clearly defined territory, the Bush Administration needed an unconventional military force. It wanted combatants who could match al-Qaeda for wiliness, adaptability and, up to a point, ruthlessness. It wanted its own army of James Bonds. So in the past year, hundreds of millions of additional dollars have been pumped into the CIA budget by President George W. Bush, a man who may be predisposed to believe strongly in an agency his father once headed. He has ordered SOG operatives to join forces with foreign intelligence services. He has even authorized the CIA to kidnap terrorists in order to break their cells or kill them.

All of which could make for a more agile, effective intelligence agency. Or it could also mean a CIA that once again steps beyond the realm of collecting secrets to intervening forcibly in the affairs of foreign states. In that area, the agency's history has often been one of blunders and worse, from Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s through the Bay of Pigs fiasco under John F. Kennedy to the Nicaraguan war that led to the Iran-contra debacle in the '80s. Some longtime intelligence watchers are wondering whether a reinvigorated paramilitary wing of the CIA could be a mixed blessing for America once again. And the military itself is not too pleased. It believes its special-ops forces are perfectly equipped to handle these jobs. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has reacted in part by planning his own secret unit, which would function much like the SOG but would answer to him rather than Tenet.

Though tiny by Pentagon standards, the SOG has swelled to several hundred officers. They are planted in Pakistan, Central Asia, North Africa and East Asia. "These are people who are operating every day around the world," Jim Pavitt, the CIA's deputy director of operations, told TIME. "I can insert a team anywhere quickly and clandestinely." The future may bring even more ambitious missions. Last May, Bush signed a top-secret directive authorizing pre-emptive strikes by the Pentagon and the CIA against nations that are close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Administration sources tell TIME that the Department of Energy's nuclear-weapons experts are training SOG operatives on ways to attack enemy nuclear facilities. In the current crisis with North Korea, Washington so far is committed to diplomacy as a means of pressuring Pyongyang to give up its atomic-arms program, but it might well be a SOG team that gets called to action.

The latest debate over the wisdom of expanding CIA powers in this way has been confined mostly to a small group of professionals, escaping the public's notice. That's largely because the evolution of the CIA's mission has proceeded so quietly. Americans did get a glimpse into the world of the CIA paramilitary when American Johnny (Mike) Spann, 32, was killed in Afghanistan in November 2001 after being overpowered by Taliban prisoners he had been interrogating; uncharacteristically, the CIA confirmed that Spann was one of its own, a member of the sog. Another peek into the shadows came last November when it was revealed that the explosion that had carbonized a carful of alleged al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen was caused by a Hellfire missile let loose by a CIA Predator drone.

The outlines of this new mission are not new, but TIME has uncovered enough fresh details to construct the fullest picture yet of the CIA's secret army. It spoke to past and current intelligence officials, including an active member of the sog, as well as to detractors within the Pentagon. Our report:

INTO AFGHANISTAN

Officially, the war in Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, 2001, with the first round of U.S. air attacks. For the SOG, however, the battle opened on Sept. 26, just 15 days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That was how "John," one of the SOG's paramilitary officers, unexpectedly found himself peering out the open window of a Soviet-made Mi-17 helicopter that day as it soared over the Anjuman Pass and into the Panjshir Valley, northeast of Kabul. Just ahead