United States: United States defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has approved an ambitious plan to enable special forces to take anti-terrorist action in countries where the US is not at war and to retaliate more quickly in the event of a terrorist attack, according to a report in the Washington Post.
The Pentagon yesterday declined to comment on the report that three 100-page documents outline "overt and clandestine military activities - such as man-hunting and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks; attacks on terrorist training camps and recruiting efforts; and partnering with foreign militaries to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries".
The US has already deployed small teams of special forces to its embassies in 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America to plan military anti-terrorist operations. Under the new plan, the Pentagon would no longer need the permission of the US ambassador to carry out military operations where the US is not at war.
Special Operations Command, which Mr Rumsfeld identified in 2003 as the lead command in the "global war on terror", has since then seen its budget swell by 60 per cent to $8 billion allocated for 2007. The command currently has 7,000 troops posted outside the US, most of them in Iraq and Afghanistan but is recruiting 13,000 more.
Yesterday's report came as former president Gerald Ford expressed support for Mr Rumsfeld in the face of criticism from disgruntled former generals.
"Allowing retired generals to dictate our country's policies and its leadership would be a dangerous precedent that would severely undermine our country's long tradition of civilian control of the military. It would discourage civilian leaders at the department from having frank and candid exchanges with military officers," Mr Ford said.
Former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry praised the generals and compared dissenting voices over the Iraq war with his own youthful opposition to the war in Vietnam. "I believed then, just as I believe now, that it is profoundly wrong to think that fighting for your country overseas and fighting for your country's ideals at home are contradictory or even separate duties. They are, in fact, two sides of the very same patriotic coin," he said.