Pentagon officials eye Cia-led force

Move may speed up exit from Afghanistan

WASHINGTON: Top Pentagon officials are considering putting elite special operations troops under CIA control in Afghanistan after 2014, just as they were during last year’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, sources said.

The plan is one of several possible scenarios being debated by Pentagon staffers.

It has not been presented to Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta, the White House or Congress yet, the sources said.

If the plan were adopted, the United States and Afghanistan could say there are no more US troops on the ground in the war-torn country because once the SEALS, Rangers and other elite units are assigned to CIA control, even temporarily, they become spies.

No matter who’s in charge, the special operations units still would target militants on joint raids with Afghans and keep training Afghan forces to do the job on their own.

The idea, floated by a senior defence intelligence official, comes as US defence chiefs try to figure out how to draw down troops fast enough to meet the White House’s 2014 deadline.

Pentagon staffers have already put forward a plan to hand over much of the war-fighting to special operations troops.

This idea would take that plan one step further, shrinking the US presence to less than 20,000 troops after 2014, according to four current and two former US officials.

Pentagon spokesman George Little denied the idea was being discussed.

“Any suggestion that such a plan exists is simply wrong,” Little said on Saturday.

“United States special operations forces continue to work closely with the intelligence community to confront a range of national security challenges across the world.”

Reducing the US presence faster would be a political boon for the US and Afghan government, with Afghan sentiment raw over incidents ranging from civilian casualties from US strike operations to the recent burning of the Quran by US troops.

But a Cia-run war would mean that the US public would not be informed about funding or operations, as they are in a traditional war.

Oversight would fall to the White House, top intelligence officials, and a few congressional committees.

Embedding journalists would be out of the question.

Two senior defence officials said that neither the CIA nor Special Operations Command had put this plan forward officially to Panetta.