Pentagon to double Special Forces
25 Oct 2008
Washington: The Pentagon expects to increase its Special Operations Force to about 65,000 in the next few years, about twice the levels that existed before the 11 September 2001 attacks, a defence official said Friday.
Michael Vickers, the assistant secretary of defence who oversees special operations and low-intensity warfare, said this total should provide enough Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other elite units to adequately confront militant threats to US interests worldwide.
"Probably early in the next decade, our special operations will be essentially almost twice as large as they were at the beginning of the decade," Vickers told a forum hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"By the time we're done ... we will have the elements in place for what we believe is the special operations component of the global war on terrorism."
About 15,000 Special Forces troops, or 30 per cent of a current force of 50,000, are considered the operational core. According to Vickers, the operational core would grow by nearly 5,000 under the ongoing expansion plans.
"This is the largest growth in special operations force history," he said.
Eighty percent of these are deployed in the Middle East and South West Asia, with the bulk in Iraq and Afghanistan.
US Special Forces unveiled an aggressive expansion programme in early 2006 and are now deployed in about 60 countries. Operationally such forces are trained to fight in small units and are involved in a range of activities, from clandestine operations to counterinsurgency training for foreign militaries.
