AMERICA'S SECRET MILITARY FORCES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: April 22, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
'
i
Military Forces
S1+ FFK
22 April E
America's Secret
lief workers in 1983, two Delta
Force officers using a suitcase-
size receiver obtained photos of
vast uncharted desert areas and
pinpointed the rebel com-
pound. Perhaps the most con-
troversial weapon was devel-
oped even before Reagan and is
now prepositioned in Ger-
many: a nuclear land mine one-
twelfth as powerful as the bomb
at Hiroshima. A smaller ver-
sion-the "backpack nuke"-
can stop an enemy advance,
crater a landing strip or destroy
key tactical targets.
Avionics: Helicopter tech-
nology has also improved since
the Iran fiasco. In fact, better
equipment was available at the
time. NEWSWEEK has learned
A Green Beret in training at Fort Bragg: No overall strategy? that if there had been indica-
h VU
tm
ll
ows-from the relatively well-known Army
Rangers and Green Berets to Task Force
160, the Army's secret helicopter unit
whose existence was revealed for the first
time only last year. Other special-operations
units include Delta Force, the counterter-
rorist commandos involved at Desert One,
and "psyops"-psychological operatives
assigned to win hearts and minds behind
enemy lines. In the Navy, the SEALS-Sea,
Air and Land Soldiers-are expert in under-
water demolition and reconnaissance. And
the Air Force's First Special Operations
Wing is trained and equipped to transport
special-operations troops in and out of hos-
tile territory.
Grab Bag: The activities of the units are
even more closely guarded. U.S. counter-
terrorist personnel have assisted or ob-
served as many as 50 hostage situations
around the world in the last five years, as
forces" for just such counter-
terrorist missions and other an-
gry little wars. But five years
after the fiasco at Desert One,
there are serious doubts-even
among administration officials
directly involved-that the
United States could successful-
ly field such a mission today.
The special-forces buildup
itself has been shrouded in se-
crecy. Manpower has grown
from 10,000 to 15,000, and the
units' budgets have more than
doubled-to $500 million last
year. But some of the appropri-
ations have been disguised in
the defense budget just as
some of the personnel sport ci-
vilian haircuts or false insignia
to camouflage their move-
ments. The units themselves
range in and out of the shad-
S hortly before dawn on April 25, 1980, recently as the hijacking of a Kuwaiti air-
the most ambitious peacetime comman- liner in Iran last December. (One Task
do raid in U.S. military history lay in smol- Force 160 pilot on standby deployment for
dering ruins in the Iranian desert-grim the Los Angeles Olympics last summer was
testimony to America's seeming impotence asked about his mission by a National
against terrorist threats. The botched hos- Guardsman. "If I tell you, I'll have to kill
tage-rescue attempt was attributed to insuf- you," he replied.) A grab bag of other spe-
ficient helicopter support, inadequate plan- cial-operations forces-including Delta
ning, confusion over command and failure Force and Task Force 160-was used in the
to use the best resources the military afford- assault on Grenada-and their presence
ed. Since then, the Reagan administration was one of the reasons the Reagan adminis-
has undertaken an intense effort to revitalize tration banned reporters from the early
America's elite, secret "special operations hours of the conflict. Last year three con-
ons"is glamorous-and controversial.
Special operat
a ome
Lions that Ayato
gressional committees investigated charges planned to kill the hostages, the U.S. mili-
that such units have been used in combat in tary was prepared to attempt a second res-
Central America in violation of the War cue-Operation Honeybear-using nine Si-
Powers Act. Congress found no evidence to korsky HH-53 helicopters designed for
support the charges, and U.S. officials vig- search and rescue missions.* Outfitted with
orously deny that the special-operations airborne refueling capabilities and avionics
personnel have done more than advise and including terrain-following and avoidance
train indigenous forces there. radar, the HH-53s are far better equipped to
More details about the nation's "secret navigate through a sandstorm like the one
armies" may come to light this spring when that hobbled Desert One. What's more, the
the House and Senate Armed Services Com- Air Force has outfitted some HH-53s and
mittees begin a new round of inquiries-this some Combat Talon choppers with Stealth-
time, to determine why the military has like radar-resistant properties.
lagged in responding to Reagan's revitaliza- But that helicopter capability is at the
tion order. "[By 1983] we found that people heart of the biggest special-operations dis-
were dumping water on our heads and tell- pute in the administration. Last May, with-
ing us it was raining," fumes Assistant Sec- out consulting the Pentagon's civilian lead-
retary of Defense Noel Koch, head of the ership, the Air Force and Army proposed to
revitalization effort. "There was no prog .The HH-53s, stationed in New Mexico, were not used in
ress on this-nothing." The problems range the original mission because the military preferred the Sea
from inter-service rivalries to the military's Stallions already on the nearby carrier Nimitz.
STAT
long-standing ambivalence about special-
operations forces in general. Even helicop-
ter support remains uncertain. Of nine Air
Force choppers specially designed for coun-
terterrorist operations. only seven are func-
tioning-one fewer than were planned for
the Iran mission. In the meantime, the
Army's Task Force 160 has been trying to
duplicate the Air Force's capabilities with-
out its sophisticated gear. As a result, the
unit has suffered a startling number of casu-
alties in training accidents (page 24).
There have been some improvements un-
der the Reagan initiative-most notably, a
host of new military technology worthy of
James Bond's "Q." Using a sort of underwa-
ter garage and a series of "swimmer delivery
vehicles," Navy SEALS can leave a sub-
merged submarine and carry out reconnais-
sance and demolition operations without
ever surfacing. Portable satellite-linked
communications terminals now enable
commandos in remote desert regions to call
anywhere in the world and even receive
copies of intelligence data, maps and photo-
rg aphs_NEWSWEEK has learned that when
Sudanese rebels kidnapped five Western re-
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7 ?'L-
have the Army take over the helicopter
mission-even though it lacked the Air
Force's sophisticated avionics and highly-
trained crews. Koch charges that the Air
Force is trying to get out of the special-
operations role altogether-seriously ham-
pering the revitalization effort. Last fall,
Deputy Defense Secretary William Howard
Taft IV put the transfer on hold until the
Army demonstrated it could assume the
responsibility and the Air Force ensured
that it would shoulder it in the interval. Air
Force officials insist they are committed to
special operations and that their report to
Taft in coming weeks will prove it. Koch
remains unconvinced. "What existed before
this whole controversy began was inad-
equate," he says. "Since then, ... there has
been a degradation of the mission."
Coordination: Command structures also
remain problematic. The Pentagon has con-
solidated authority for counterterrorist ac-
tivities under the Joint Special Operations
Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. But the
JSOC controls only about 10 percent of all
U.S. special-operations forces-mainly
Delta Force, trained primarily for hostage-
rescue operations where the host country is
cooperating. A counterterrorist raid in a
hostile environment like Teheran would re-
quire a far larger force. The lack of coordina-
tion was evident in Grenada: Delta Force
was unable to complete the capture of Rich-
mond Hill prison-in part because an inter-
service timing snafu caused the commandos
to be delivered an hour behind schedule.
In addition, four highly trained SEALS
drowned in a highly classified mission that
baffles even special-operations experts.
Even today, planning for such an operation
would still be ad hoc, with units thrown
together at the last minute and a command-
er still to be named. "The first thing they
would do is hold a get-acquainted social,"
scoffs one congressional staffer.
Special-operations experts complain that
virtually no one in the top ranks of the
military has a clear understanding of what
the forces should be used for. And without
an overall strategy, training for the units is
often misdirected. Assigned to raise and
direct indigenous forges behind enemy lines,
the Green Berets, for example, need special-
ized training in everything from language
skills to pyschology. But they often must
spend valuable time on administrative and
even clean-up duties that could be be per-
formed by other units.
Veterans of special-operations units com-
plain that the whole range of sabotage train-
ing aimed at water supplies, utility compa-
nies and communications is outmoded and
unrealistic. "Suppose you wanted to turn
out the lights in Teheran as a diversion,"
says one officer. "There's no real training for
that." In a recent article in the Armed
Forces Journal (cleared by military brass),
Special Forces Capt. William Burgess com-
plained that special-operations units have so
little understanding of sabotage, infiltration
and other terrorist tactics that they rely on
TV, movies and even sabotage manuals sold
in the open press for guidance. Some "target
folders" that should contain mission plans
are empty, Burgess reported, and some units
are operating under erroneous assump-
tions-like the notion that a .45 automatic
could cripple a large electrical transformer.
Even as the debate rages over how special-
operations units should be trained, the na-
ture of the threats they face is changing.
Since 1983, terrorists have largely shifted
away from hostage-taking tactics to suicide
bombings and isolated kidnappings. Coun-
tering such assaults requires another set of
capabilities-from preplanned surgical re-
taliation to locating and neutralizing perpe-
trators before an attack. But the intelligence
to support such missions remains deficient.
In the aftermath of the Iran mission, when
the CIA had no ground agents in Teheran,
the military formed the Intelligence Sup-
port Agency to put such networks in place.
But an FBI investigation last year disclosed
that ISA operatives had engaged in such
activities as lavish trips with their wives-
and last fall, the Army disbanded the unit.
Jitters: Incidents like the ISA scandal
have fueled long-standing congressional jit-
ters about special-operations forces. Liber-
als fear that the clandestine nature of the
units means they could be used to secretly
intervene in foreign countries and conflicts.
Administration officials argue that special-
operations forces can serve as a deterrent to
would-be terrorists and Soviet surrogates-
and forestall the need to commit large num-
bers of U.S. troops later. They also con-
tend-with much justification-that the
United States is far more likely to face ter-
rorist actions and angry little wars than the
kind of full-scale engagements that the mili-
tary establishment has traditionally pre-
pared for. Still, even under Reagan's most
ambitious plans, special operations would
account for less than I percent of the U.S.
military budget through 1990.
The coming debate on Capitol Hill may at
last bring some order to the special-oper-
I ations effort. For the first time, a special
House subcommittee, headed by Rep. Dan
Daniel of Virginia, has been empaneled to
oversee the secret forces. And NEWSWEEK
has learned that Daniel, other congressmen
and top-ranking defense officials have dis-
cussed a variety of options that could revo-
lutionize the direction of the special
forces-among them, appointing a special
assistant secretary of defense, establishing a
joint military command or creating a major
new government agency to command the
disparate units. Whatever the mechanism,
the defense establishment must ensure that
it has a special-operations capability that
can match the growing, changing threats
the United States faces around the world.
MELINDA BECK with NICHOLAS M. HORROCK
and RICHARD SANDZA
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7 j
mand lust three days be-
fore the Lake Michigan
crash, immediately halt-
ed the rubber-duck mis-
sions, court-martialed
the maintenance crew
involved in the Ten-
nessee accident and bad-
ogered the Pentagon into
;supplying more modern
equipment; the ArmN
had already set a prec-
edent by providing
,TF160 with sleek new
=Hughes 500 helicopters
like those used by yte
:CIA. And since October
s 1983, there have been no
A Hughes 500 helicopter: Modern equipment-shared onl v by the CIA-for a crack Armv chopper unit
`Death Waits in the Dark'
The U.S. Army formed Task Force 160 in October 1981 as its
own answer to the disaster at Desert One. Henceforth, it boasted, if
Delta Force or other special-operations commandos needed heli-
copter support, the Army's own crack chopper unit would do the
job. Based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and nicknamed the `Night
Stalkers" for its daredevil night-training exercises, the TF160
adopted the motto, "Death waits in the dark. "The slogan proved
all too prophetic, as NEWSWEEK'S Richard Sandza reports:
Three Vietnam-era Chinook helicopters spent the afternoon
of March 20, 1983, practicing "rubber duck" insertions-drop-
ping a rubber boat full of infiltrators into the water from a low
altitude and then flying off. Leading the trio back to Chambers
Air Station near Norfolk, Va., instructor-pilot Ralph Thompson
decided to try one more run. His Chinook, with five on board,
began to vibrate, then pitched into the ocean. "I heard a sploosh.
Crunch," reported Chief W arrant Officer Thomas Crossan, who
was piloting the chopper just behind. "We hovered, waiting for
someone to bob up. After the first five minutes, we knew there
wasn't going to be anyone."
Four months later, Crossan and five others were killed when
their Chinook slammed into a tiny island in Lake Michigan. The
next month, a Black Hawk helicopter came apart in midair over
southern Tennessee, killing all three crew members. Six weeks
later, a pilot-in-training flew another Black Hawk into the ocean
off Panama, killing his instructor and his crew chief. In all, 16
Night Stalkers died in training accidents in 1983-60 percent of
all Army helicopter fatalities-even though the unit flew fewer
than 2 percent of Army choppers.
`John Wayne': Army officials insist that TFI60 is not simply
duplicating Air Force capabilities, but serving as a test bed for
new equipment and skills-pushing the
outside of the envelope for helicopter
flying. "Getting killed is one of the job
risks," says Army public-affairs officer
Craig Mac Nab. But some former unit
members say that the risks were not all
necessary. Several pilots who com-
e plained about safety were transferred for
not being "John Wayne enough"; others
were stripped of first-string status. "Safe-
ty was not first in the 160," says one
former unit member. "It came in when
you got to it."
Col. Terence Henry, who took com-
his wake. When his buddies to or-
dered on disclosure of their activities,
one officer cleared civilians from the
room and chewed out TF160 personnel.
So secret are the unit's operations that
there has been speculation that some of
the 1983 training accidents were staged
to cover up fatalities the unit incurred in
Central America. The Pentagon and
TF160 members vigorously deny that
unit personnel have ever been deployed
in Central America. But if lives were lost
in unnecessarily hazardous training, the
Colonel Henry: A stabilizing influence : truth is just as scandalous.
fatalities. Henry, now
head of the Army Safety
Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., is credited with stabilizing
TF160-and, he says, the unit "can perform any mission the
Army Special Operations Commmand would send it on."
But there are still questions about the 1983 deaths. Though
Henry claims that pilots and maintenance crews failed to follow
procedure, some former unit members and other critics say the
task force had to perform hazardous exercises with inadequate
equipment-like the unit's night-vision goggles. The NVG's had
proved so unsuitable for low-altitude flying (like "looking
through two toilet-paper tubes") that other Army Chinook
pilots were barred from using them. "You can't see and you can't
tell that you can't see," says Frank McGlade, a former Army
safety director. Wearing his NVG's, Crossan probably mistook
the trees and hills of the island in Lake Michigan for ground fog,
former TFI60 members say. In all, at least nine TF160 pilots
have been killed under NN G navigation. Others have returned to
base with wires dangling from chopper skids-evidence that
they flew through wires and miraculously survived.
Gadgetry- Veterans contend that Crossan's Chinook never.
would have crashed had it been equipped with advanced radar
available to Air Force and Navy aircraft. But Army brass are
skeptical of high-tech gadgetry. There are still no public plans,
for instance, to provide TF160 with the Air Force's new Night
Hawk helicopter, specially equipped to make night forays safer.
"Why would they want Night Hawks?" Henry asks. "I'm not
interested in buying somebody else's thing."
Such reasoning infuriates the Pentagon's civilian leadership.
But the debate has raged mostly in secret, like most of TF160's
operations. Until recently, TF160 mishaps didn't appear on
Army accident reports; task-force members injured or killed
were listed elsewhere. Some families had to file Freedom of
Information Act requests to learn details of their sons' deaths;
others were told the information was classified. The unit's
secrecy even followed one victim of the Lake Michigan crash to
lkb
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/08/21 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000100410002-7