US may use CIA cloak to hide Afghan presence

Published time: March 04, 2012 21:01
Edited time: March 05, 2012 02:16
Afghan men walk past by US soldiers in Ghazni province on February 2, 2012 (AFP Photo / Aref Yaqubi)

The Pentagon is reportedly deliberating over putting elite troops and Special Forces in Afghanistan under CIA control. The move would reduce official US presence with a view to meeting Obama’s promise of total withdrawal from the country by 2014.

Top US military sources told Agence France-Presse that the idea had been circulated by senior defense intelligence as a way to reduce US presence in Afghanistan before the 2014 deadline.

It is one of several initiatives currently under discussion in the Pentagon, according to AFP sources. The proposals have not yet been presented to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Washington has denied the existence of such a proposal, with Pentagon spokesperson George Little calling the claims “simply wrong.”

If the plan were to go ahead, Washington would be able to say it had no soldiers on the ground, as putting troops under CIA control would re-classify them as spies. As such the US could legitimately maintain its military presence in the war-torn country.

Moreover, the US government would not be obliged to inform the American public over funding or military operations of CIA-controlled troops. Administration would fall to the White House, with top intelligence officials effectively turning it into a covert operation.

In order to be approved, the plan would have to pass through the White House, congressional oversight committees and the Afghan government.

Special Forces under the guise of the CIA were used last year in the operation to raid Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

US forces currently stationed in Afghanistan work in tandem with local security forces, training Afghan troops and conducting raids on Al-Qaeda stronghold areas. The Obama administration had promised a complete withdrawal of US presence from the country by 2014, and is currently implementing a gradual handover of security to Afghan hands.

The deteriorating relationship between the two cooperating forces has recently been marred by reports of US troops burning Korans. Over 30 people died, including several Western soldiers, in the ensuing protests across the country.

Comments (9)

A.Smith 21.03.2012 07:52

Sadly, rotating US Special forces teams into Afghanistan for live exercises in carrying out live fire exercises on Afghanistan villiages, kill missions on goat herders and the occassional Pakistan Taliban to keep the skill level up for the US Special forces is likely going to go one for decades.

99.9 % of all Afghanistan citizens never met Osama bin Ladin, nor had anything to do whatsoever with bin Ladin's gang of thugs (who were mostly Saudi Arabia citizens) yet they are the ones harassed, shot at, bombed and terrorized on a daily basis by US/NATO troops and low level fighterjets deliberately going supersonic at low levels over their homes, villages, livestock herds.

Once a very exotic and interesting place for US/Western tourists to visit, now it would likely be a death sentence for any wayward Yank or Brit to hike thru the Afghanistan mountainside where they'd quickly be surrounded by rightly irate and extremely angry Afghan's who would quickly determine they were tourists from the West and 'that would be that' as they say...

Winnin g the Heart's and Minds of the Afghan and Middle East People? What a moronic comment from Western Leaders to spew. They hate US/UK even more than they ever did before and rightly so.

I hope the US taxpayers wake up and pull the plug on funding this terror program being played daily on the Afghanistan people by the goose stepping Zionist led US Pentagon.

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peace 12.03.2012 10:05

All the white house people in Washington&n bsp;dc majority are full of Zionist,&nbs p;Israel and&nb sp;mossad .Its like non treatable cancerous tumor  for the USA government& nbsp;and its people. in 2014 they will say will evacuate on 2018 and so on.After few decades US will be slave to Israel. Wake up US its know or never. 

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John Ellis 05.03.2012 16:02

Empire USA enslaving lower half of society --- Worldwide In our homeland we see legalized killers establishing a police state over the uneducated lower half of society. For law enforcement is all of the intelligent middle-class, they spend 95% of their time policing laboring men, and they have a license to kill any man in a slum who refuses to instantly raise his hands in the air. In the lower-class farm lands and rural areas of Africa, the Middle-East and all of Asia, we see intelligent middle-class Drone technicians assonating and target killing the lower half of society. For have you ever heard of a Drone attack in any city where the upper-half of society reside? For Empire USA is ruled by the voting majority, the 51% most educated and wealthy, and a service to God they figure is it to reduce the population of the uneducated lower half. For is this not what the religion of evolution is all about?

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