WASHINGTON – The military command overseeing the nation's most elite forces has moved away from a contentious plan that gave it broad control over anti-terrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the globe.
The expanded authority for U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., was hammered through by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld well before he resigned in November 2006. The shift caused friction among leaders at other war-fighting organizations who saw it an intrusion into their geographic domains.
Navy Adm. Eric Olson, the command's senior officer since July 2007, has steered clear of micromanaging specific missions against al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The command's primary focus is to ensure that these plans are fused into a broader strategy for defeating extremist ideologies. That reflects Olson's position that the troops closest to the action know best how to handle it.
“It's a much different place,” Army Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, a Green Beret who runs the command's Center for Special Operations, said in an interview.
The command, with an annual budget of more than $7 billion and nearly 50,000 military and civilian personnel, is also responsible for training and equipping the Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs and Air Force combat controllers.
Olson, a Navy SEAL, was deputy commander of special operations when he was named to the top job after Army Gen. Bryan Brown retired.
