February 3, 2006
Pentagon Plans Increase in Special Operations Forces
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon Friday announced plans to significantly increase special operations forces, expand psychological warfare and develop a program to counter biological terrorism as part of a new broadbased military strategy for the 21st century.

The plan comes three days before President Bush sends Congress a 2007 budget that seeks a nearly 5 percent increase in Defense Department spending, to $439.3 billion, with significantly more for weapons programs, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Under the long-range plan released Friday, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, the Pentagon will increase special operations forces by 15 percent, including the establishment for the first time of a Marine Corps commando unit. And there will be a one-third increase in troops assigned to psychological warfare units.

There also will be a new $1.5 billion program to develop medical countermeasures for bioterrorism threats.

The plan will reduce the number of Minuteman III land-based nuclear missiles from 500 to 450, and calls for the conversion of a small number of nuclear missiles aboard Trident submarines to non-nuclear ballistic missiles.

The long-range strategy document, more than a year in the making, outlines broad plans to reshape the military into a more agile fighting force better able to fight terrorism, in what the document calls the Long War, while still preserving the ability to wage large conventional wars. The review, which does not call for the elimination of any of the largest weapons programs, as initially expected, will guide how dollars are spent within the Pentagon budget.

''Now in the fifth year of this global war, the ideas and proposals in this document are provided as a roadmap for change, leading to victory,'' said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a letter accompanying the document. This represents the second four-year review that Rumsfeld has led during his tenure heading the department.



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