Reply #144: More on the Task Force 5 link.

[robertpaulsen]

Not sure how this ties in with Plame, but it's interesting:


Early 2002
Most of Task Force 5's members are called home from Afghanistan to prepare for operations in Iraq. In early 2002, there were roughly 150 Task Force 5 commandos in Afghanistan. After the massive transfer, Task Force 5's numbers dip to as low as 30 men. Task Force 5 is a top-secret elite group that includes CIA paramilitary units and military “special mission units,” or SMUs. One of the SMUs is the former Delta Force. The name of the other unit, which specializes in human and technical intelligence operations, is not known. “These elite forces, along with the battlefield intelligence technology of Predator and Global Hawk drone aircraft, were the scarcest tools of the hunt for jihadists along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” the Washington Post notes in June 2004. According to Flynt Leverett, a career CIA analyst assigned to the State Deparmtent, “There is a direct consequence for us having taken these guys out prematurely. There were people on the staff level raising questions about what that meant for getting al-Qaeda, for creating an Afghan security and intelligence service . Those questions didn't get above staff level, because clearly there had been a strategic decision taken.”
People and organizations involved: Flynt Leverett

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq&startpos=200#complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_2959



As always, CCR makes a great timeline.