NY Times, May 13, 2009
Man in the News
A General Steps From the Shadows
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the ascetic who is set to
become the new top American commander in Afghanistan, usually eats just
one meal a day, in the evening, to avoid sluggishness.
He is known for operating on a few hours’ sleep and for running to and
from work while listening to audio books on an iPod. In Iraq, where he
oversaw secret commando operations for five years, former intelligence
officials say that he had an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge
about the lives of terrorists, and that he pushed his ranks aggressively
to kill as many of them as possible.
But General McChrystal has also moved easily from the dark world to the
light. Fellow officers on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he is
director, and former colleagues at the Council on Foreign Relations
describe him as a warrior-scholar, comfortable with diplomats,
politicians and the military man who would help promote him to his new job.
“He’s lanky, smart, tough, a sneaky stealth soldier,” said Maj. Gen.
William Nash, a retired officer. “He’s got all the Special Ops
attributes, plus an intellect.”
If General McChrystal is confirmed by the Senate, as expected, he will
take over the post held by Gen. David D. McKiernan, who was forced out
on Monday. Obama administration officials have described the shakeup as
a way to bring a bolder and more creative approach to the faltering war
in Afghanistan.
Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains
classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the
Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the
Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence. But former
C.I.A. officials say that General McChrystal was among those who, with
the C.I.A., pushed hard for a secret joint operation in the tribal
region of Pakistan in 2005 aimed at capturing or killing Ayman
al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld canceled the operation at the last
minute, saying it was too risky and was based on what he considered
questionable intelligence, a move that former intelligence officials say
General McChrystal found maddening.
Full: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/world/asia/13commander.html
---
The Daily Telegraph (Australia), March 28, 2007
Friendly fire death cover-up
By Richard Sisk
WASHINGTON: Four generals and five other officers were involved in a
plan to cover up the friendly-fire death of football star-turned-soldier
Pat Tillman, the US Army has admitted.
Their actions ''brought discredit on the army'' -- and let the Tillman
family go to his nationally televised funeral believing their son had
died charging an enemy position, acting Army Secretary Pete Geren said…
Former army Special Operations Command head Lieutenant General Philip
Kensinger met the Tillman family at the funeral but said he believed
''it was not the right time'' to disclose details of the death.
Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal allowed false information to be
entered in the citation, posthumously awarding the Silver Star to
Corporal Tillman, investigators said.
---
NY Times, March 19, 2006
Task Force 6-26
In Secret Unit's 'Black Room,' a Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse
By Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall
As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special
Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military
bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American
soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into
their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat
prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a
nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer
paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down
Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense
Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its
operations.
The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the
secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26.
Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop
for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.
Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO
FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained,
reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them
bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists
who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into
a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and
confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules
there," another Pentagon official said…
Some detainees may have been injured resisting capture. A spokesman for
the Special Operations Command, Kenneth S. McGraw, said there was
sufficient evidence to prove misconduct in only 5 of 29 abuse
allegations against task force members since 2003. As a result of those
five incidents, 34 people were disciplined.
"We take all those allegations seriously," Gen. Bryan D. Brown, the
commander of the Special Operations Command, said in a brief hallway
exchange on Capitol Hill on March 8. "Any kind of abuse is not
consistent with the values of the Special Operations Command."
The secrecy surrounding the highly classified unit has helped to shield
its conduct from public scrutiny. The Pentagon will not disclose the
unit's precise size, the names of its commanders, its operating bases or
specific missions. Even the task force's name changes regularly to
confuse adversaries, and the courts-martial and other disciplinary
proceedings have not identified the soldiers in public announcements as
task force members.
General Brown's command declined requests for interviews with several
former task force members and with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who
leads the Joint Special Operations Command, the headquarters at Fort
Bragg, N.C., that supplies the unit's most elite troops.
Full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/international/middleeast/19abuse.htm
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