New Special Forces Regiment for the British Army
Published Tuesday 5th April 2005
The SRR cap badge
consists of a Corinthian helmet placed in front of a Special Forces sword with
a scroll underneath depicting the word 'reconnaissance'. This reflects the SAS
and SBS cap badges in design, ensuring conformity within the UK Special Forces
Group. The Corinthian style helmet, favoured by the ancient Greeks, was used
from the early 7th to the 4th centuries BC. The helmet is facing forwards and
suggests the viewer is being watched, while the wearer behind the mask is
anonymous.
On 5 April 2005 the Secretary of State for Defence,
Geoff Hoon MP, announced the creation of a new "Special Reconnaissance
Regiment", which has been formed to meet a growing worldwide need for special
reconnaissance capability.
In a written statement to
Parliament, Mr Hoon declared the 'Special Reconnaissance Regiment' (SRR) will
be operational from April 6th 2005. Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said:
"The creation of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment demonstrates
our commitment to shaping our Armed Forces to meet the ongoing challenge of
tackling international terrorism. The new Regiment will help to meet the
growing need for special reconnaissance capability."
The new
Regiment has been formed to meet a growing worldwide demand for special
reconnaissance capability - as announced in the Strategic Defence Review New
Chapter in July 2004.
The Regiment will ensure improved support to
international expeditionary operations at a time when it is most needed in the
ongoing fight against international terrorism. Special reconnaissance covers a
wide range of specialist skills and activities related to covert surveillance.
The SRR will draw personnel from existing capabilities and recruit
new volunteers from serving members of the Armed Forces where necessary. Due
to the specialist nature of the unit it will come under the command of
Director Special Forces and be a part of the UK Special Forces group.
In a Written Ministerial Statement to the House of Commons, Mr
Hoon said:
"The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) New Chapter
published in July 2002 stated that we planned to enhance and build upon the
capabilities of UK Special Forces. As part of this programme, the 'Special
Reconnaissance Regiment' (SRR) will stand up on April 6 2005. This regiment
has been formed to meet a growing worldwide demand for special reconnaissance
capability. Consistent with the SDR New Chapter, this regiment will provide
improved support to expeditionary operations overseas and form part of the
Defence contribution to the Government's comprehensive strategy to counter
international terrorism. The SRR will bring together personnel from existing
capabilities and become the means of the further development of the
capability. Due to the specialist nature of the unit, it will come under the
command of the Director Special Forces and be a part of the UK Special Forces
group."
http://news.mod.uk/news_headline_story.asp?newsItem_id=3210
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P2OG------------------------------------------------------
'P2OG'
allows Pentagon to fight dirtyBy David Isenberg
"Run away
from the light": Such might be the motto of a new, covert policy that the Bush
administration is considering implementing. According to recent news reports,
it would be the largest expansion into the world of black ops and covert
action since the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s.
And that's
saying quite a lot, considering that since Vietnam the Pentagon has not
exactly been dormant in this area.
As well-known military analyst
William Arkin pointed out in an October 27 column in the Los Angeles Times,
the development of the Pentagon's covert counter-terror capability has its
roots in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The army created a highly
compartmentalized organization that could collect clandestine intelligence
independent of the rest of the US intelligence community, and follow through
with covert military action. Today, it operates under the code name Grey Fox.
In Afghanistan it operated alongside the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA)
paramilitary Special Activities Division and the Pentagon's Joint Special
Operations Command.
Then there are numerous recent initiatives,
such as net assessment capabilities at combatant commands, a new campaign
support group at Fort Bragg, a counter-terrorism Technology Support Office, to
name just a few.
Yet the Pentagon wants more. Its Defense Science
Board (DSB) conducted a 2002 "Summer Study on Special Operations and Joint
Forces in Support of Countering Terrorism". Excerpts from that study, dated
August 16, were leaked and obtained by the Federation of American Scientists,
which posted them on their website. The report was produced by a 10-member
panel of military experts that included Vice Admiral William O Studeman,
former director of the National Security Agency.
According to the
leak, the United States is engaged in a global war on terrorism that is "a
real war" in case anyone doubts it. This means, among other things, a
"committed, resourceful and globally dispersed adversary with strategic reach"
against whom the US will wage "a long, at times violent, and borderless war"
which "requires new strategies, postures and organization".
That
explains why the United States has, so to speak, decided to fight fire with
fire. Although the study is filled with lots of the usual buzzwords and
phrases that Pentagon planners love, such as "robust connectivity, agile
ground forces, adaptive joint command and control and discriminant use of
force", one thing that does stand out is its call for
"preemption/proaction/interdiction/disruption/quick-response capabilities".
This is consistent with the administration's new National Security
Strategy, which called for preemption; indeed, since the DSB study preceded
the release of the strategy, it is possible that the strategy was written to
incorporate some of its aspects.
The study urges the Pentagon to
"take the terrorist threat as seriously as it takes the likelihood and
consequences of major theater war", urging officials to launch secret missions
and intelligence operations to penetrate and disrupt terrorist cells abroad.
Some of those operations should be aimed at signaling to countries that harbor
terrorists that "their sovereignty will be at risk".
If adopted,
some of the proposals appear to push the military into territory that
traditionally has been the domain of the CIA, raising questions about whether
such missions would be subject to the same legal restraints imposed on CIA
activities.
But William Schneider Jr, chairman of the DSB,
rejected such concerns, saying that the panel set out to identify ways that
special operations units could do more to assist the war on terrorism, not
encroach on other agencies' authority.
"The CIA executes the plans
but they use Department of Defense assets," Schneider said. He emphasized that
the board was not recommending any changes to long-standing US policies
banning assassinations, or requiring presidents to approve in advance US
covert operations. Nor, he said, was the panel advocating changes that would
erode congressional oversight.
Yet lawmakers have expressed
concern with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's push to expand the Pentagon's
covert capabilities, mainly because the Pentagon is not subject to rules that
require the CIA to report its covert activities to Congress.
The
DSB summary document suggests that many changes are already under way. It
cites the expansion of existing intelligence analysis centers and the creation
of new management teams to direct covert operations at such installations as
Fort Bragg, where US special forces such as Delta Force are based.
It recommends the creation of a super-Intelligence Support
Activity, an organization it dubs the Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
(P2OG), to bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare,
intelligence and cover and deception. For example, the Pentagon and CIA would
work together to increase human intelligence (HUMINT) forward/operational
presence and to deploy new clandestine technical capabilities.
To
bolster government HUMINT capabilities, the task force advances the idea of an
intelligence "surge/unsurge" capability - a "robust, global cadre of retirees,
reservists and others who are trained and qualified to serve on short notice,
including expatriates". This group could be pressed into service during times
of crisis.
P2OG would launch secret operations aimed at
"stimulating reactions" among terrorists and states possessing weapons of mass
destruction, meaning it would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing
them to "quick-response" attacks by US forces. The means by which it would do
this is the far greater use of special operations forces.
Responsibility and accountability for the P2OG would be vested in
a "Special Operations Executive" in the National Security Council (NSC). The
NSC would plan operations but not oversee their execution in order to avoid
comparisons to past abuses, such as the Iran-Contra operations run out of the
NSC by Oliver North during the Reagan administration. Under the board's
proposal, NSC plans would be executed by the Pentagon or the CIA.
Costs would include developing new means to enable "deep
penetration of adversaries" ($1.7 billion annually); exercises and gaming
($100 million annually); development of technical capabilities and the hiring
of 500 new staff ($800 million annually); establishment of centers of
excellence to handle increased workload ($500 million annually); and expansion
of the Joint Forces net assessment activity ($100 million annually). The total
cost is envisaged as $3.3 billion.
The DSB study also provides
tantalizing glimpses of new capabilities already in the works, referring to
new high-tech sensors in development that would enable the United States more
closely to track the movements of vehicles or even individuals by satellite.
Some of these capabilities are already advanced, such as high-altitude
airships, thermobaric weapons and improved urban assault capabilities. Other
new projects are being executed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency.
If the DSB proposal is adopted, it would only reinforce
recent Pentagon activity. The Washington Post reported last month that the
Pentagon was preparing to consolidate control of most of the global war on
terrorism under the US Special Operations Command, signaling an intensified
but more covert approach to the next phase in the battle against al-Qaeda and
other international terrorist groups.
Special Operations units
have been active in Pakistan for months and are training military forces in
Yemen and Georgia. These missions could provide a cover for conducting any
covert raids and other actions against suspected al-Qaeda members in the two
countries.
The United States has also placed more than 500
Special Operations troops in the African nation of Djibouti, where they are
near potential hot spots such as Yemen and Somalia. The USS Belleau Wood, an
amphibious assault ship that carries attack helicopters and a handful of
Harrier jump jets, has been stationed off the Horn of Africa for about six
weeks, ready to carry those troops and some specialized helicopters.
And, in early October, the Washington Times reported that US
commandos hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda guerrillas in Afghanistan gained
permission to employ "source operations" - clandestine tactics typically
confined to the CIA.
"Source operations" generally refers to
recruiting and maintaining spies within the enemy's camp. In Afghanistan, it
means finding Afghans and Arabs, possibly within the Taliban and al-Qaeda
network, who would supply intelligence to US special-operations
forces...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DK05Ak02.html