Relentless Strike : The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (9781466876224) by Sean Naylor Read Free Book Online Page B

to be an iterative plan. Come up here with a 50 percent solution so I can look at it.”
    Now Holland was in the Pentagon to answer Rumsfeld. Dozens of senior defense officials and their aides had gathered to hear the SOCOM commander. Thirteen days had passed since Al Qaeda had struck America. The U.S. military, which Rumsfeld commanded, had yet to hit back. The defense secretary was expecting his top special operations officer to specify how that might happen. He was to be bitterly disappointed.
    â€œHolland started out saying, ‘You tasked us to get some possible targets for us to go after Al Qaeda,’ then he talked about Al Qaeda or extremist elements in the tri-border area in South America, in the Philippines, Mauritania, and then some transshipment points off the Somali coast, loading weapons and stuff,” said an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). As Holland spoke, “Rumsfeld was getting sort of excited about the idea of being able to go to Bush and say ‘We’re going to hit these sons of bitches tomorrow night all around the world.’ So then Rumsfeld said, ‘When can we get these guys?… Let’s hit them,’ because what Rumsfeld wanted to do originally was to [get] back at Al Qaeda with a series of blows around the world to show our reach.”
    But Rumsfeld’s question didn’t elicit the answer he wanted. “Well, you know, we don’t have the actionable intelligence to go after individual leaders in those areas,” Holland said. “We don’t know who they are or where they are.” His comments “took Rumsfeld by surprise,” the OSD official said.
    Another nasty shock was waiting for the secretary. When would the first Special Forces A-teams fly into Afghanistan from Uzbekistan and link up with the Northern Alliance, he asked. “Well, when the CIA gives us clearance,” Holland replied. “That got Rumsfeld’s goat, too,” the OSD official recalled. “Rumsfeld said, ‘You mean we have to get clearance from the CIA to go in there?’ And Holland said, ‘Yeah,’ sort of lamely. And everything sort of fell apart there.”
    The meeting began to break up, but there was still time for one more awkward, telling exchange between Holland and Rumsfeld that simultaneously revealed the SOCOM commander’s reluctance to seize the initiative and the defense secretary’s ignorance of special operations. Although he was on his second tour as defense secretary, neither SOCOM, JSOC, nor any of the special mission units had existed during his previous tenure in the mid-1970s. During the course of the meeting it had become clear that Rumsfeld thought Holland had direct command of special operations forces around the world, according to the OSD official. Rumsfeld was wrong, but on the basis of this assumption, he announced a far-reaching decision.
    Holland was chatting with another special operations official when Rumsfeld approached the pair. “This is a global fight, and I want you to be the global commander,” he told the general. Holland, a mild-mannered, nonconfrontational officer, wasn’t keen on that idea, which would have required him often to go toe-to-toe with the regional commanders-in-chief. He preferred to work through the theater special operations commands—offices inside the regional commands that reported to the CinCs. Holland also knew he had no real command authority over forces overseas. But the SOCOM commander wasn’t about to correct his boss. Instead, Holland’s response was along the lines of “Yes, I hear you,” not “Yes, I will,” said an OSD official who observed the exchange.
    â€œSo Rumsfeld that day learned that we didn’t have actionable intelligence, we needed a global command capable of fighting a global war, and that we relied on the CIA to tell us when to go in,” the official said. Those three lessons