Monday, January 24, 2005

Pentagon runs clandestine intelligence-gathering infrastructure

The official said the role of the Strategic Support Branch -- described first in Sunday's Washington Post -- "is to provide an intelligence capability for field operation units" including the U.S. military's secretive special forces unit.
The Strategic Support Branch (SSB) got its name in 2004 after operating under a different, undisclosed name before then, said the official, who confirmed the unit's existence and mission to CNN.
See also:
The Pentagon acknowledged Sunday that it is trying to improve its network of spies abroad but denied a published report that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had reinterpreted U.S. law to create an espionage unit under his control.
Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said it was "accurate and should not be surprising" that the Pentagon would try to improve its human spying capability, an area that the 9/11 Commission concluded was inadequate.

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