Pentagon Denies Rumsfeld’s Leadership
Monday, January 24, 2005
(SNN) Today, Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita denied Donald Rumsfeld’s leadership of a new spy agency within the Department of Defense. DiRita’s statement came only a day after a Washington Post article about the agency.
There is no unit that is directly reportable to the Secretary of Defense
The article claimed that the unit is called the “Strategic Support Branch” and has been operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Georgia, the Philipines and other disclosed locations for two years. “There is no unit that is directly reportable to the Secretary of Defense for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post article of January 23, 2005,” DiRita said. Obviously the report has gotten some major details wrong. Perhaps the organization is more than two years old, or maybe it is called the “Super Secret Strategic Support Branch”
agents recruited to the SSSSR may include “notorious figures”
The purpose of the organization is to end Rumsfeld’s dependence on the CIA, which he no longer trusts for intelligence gathering, and shift the intelligence gathering responsibility to the DIA, which is one letter higher. With this new group, the DIA wishes to improve its ability in gathering Human Information, or information gathered from spies. Currently, the DIA must gather intelligence though technological means, which can not be influenced by political pressure.
Furthermore the report went on to say that the agents recruited to the SSSSR may include “notorious figures” whose association with the US government would be embarrassing if revealed. This list includes such people as Jacques Verges, Paul Shanley, Yusuf Islam, Michael Jackson, Tanya Harding, and John Waters.
This marks the first time that Rumsfeld has built his own secret spy agency since Omega Force was destroyed in their attempt to attack the Canadian National Tower.
Update 1: In the three hours since the publishing of this article, the Pentagon had admitted that the Strategic Support Branch exists and have given them credit for hidden interrogations and other aspects of the work that narrowed the search for Saddam Hussein. The Pentagon insists that the article in the Washington Post is incorrect because the group does not report to Donald Rumsfeld. Instead, they report to the DIA, which reports to Donald Rumsfeld.
