Since the war on terrorism began, [the] flexibility and secretiveness of [special operations forces] have made them a favorite with the Bush administration and with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has pushed for an ever bigger role for special operations.
Even as the president was making his case to the public for going to war, special operations forces were already at work inside Iraq. When Turkey denied U.S. ground forces permission to use its territory, special ops were allowed in anyway. After Jordan and Saudi Arabia publicly restricted U.S. troops from their soil, they still privately let thousands of special operations forces work from their bases.
In the end, of course, there were no Scud missiles for Iraq to launch at Israel, and there were no weapons of mass destruction on the battlefield. At Hadithah and other dam sites, the U.S. found no firm evidence that Iraqis were preparing to blow them up. In the northern and southern oil fields, Iraqi demolition efforts were nothing like the methodical sabotage by Iraq of Kuwait's oil infrastructure in 1991. Local forces south and east of Baghdad successfully destroyed a couple of bridges, but the Iraqi command doesn't appear to have attempted a scorched-earth plan.
What special operators actually achieved on the ground is therefore difficult to confirm.
Rumsfeld's enthusiasm for special operations remains unchecked by any questions about their effectiveness.
Perhaps most discomforting, though, is the culture of special operators. Like intelligence professionals, they are attracted to the mystique associated with secret operations. They have a "desire," as one senior officer told me, "to be clandestine." Sometimes secrecy is crucial. And sometimes it's just a way of life — one that prevents operators from ever having to worry about public and media scrutiny.
Let's repeat: "Even as the president was making his case to the public for going to war, special operations forces were already at work inside Iraq."
So "making the case" was just a charade, right? So the Congressional resolution was just a charade, right? So the power of Congress to declare war is just a charade, right?
And our secret, unaccountable shadow government grows and grows and grows....