http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,111731,00.html
New Task Force to Spearhead War on Terror
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Jason Sherman | August 29, 2006
The Pentagon is establishing a high-level task force designed to marshal counterterrorism efforts across the defense bureaucracy, according to Pentagon officials.
The move is part of a sweeping new reorganization of its policy directorate, first reported August 28 by InsideDefense.com.
The new shop -- the Global War on Terrorism Task Force -- is expected to comprise as many as 20 experts drawn from across the Pentagon. It will provide a day-to-day focus on issues related to the U.S. military’s fight against Islamic extremists around the world. These experts will periodically rotate and assist the defense secretary in dealing with a wide range of issues related to the war on terror -- from weapon system investments to contingency plans to public diplomacy.
“The organization will have a focus that is near term and operational and also long term, reaching out to the joint capability requirements [which influence weapon system needs] that we might need 10 to 15 years down the road,” said a senior Pentagon official involved in crafting the new task force.
Pentagon officials have not yet identified who will run the new office, but its mission will be to coordinate policy issues with the Joint Staff, combatant commanders, the military services and the National Counterterrorism Center.
Defense Department officials involved in helping establish the charter for the new task force said it is the result of work conducted last year during the Quadrennial Defense Review, during which the Pentagon's leadership concluded the military required “new horizontal organizations” for the global war on terrorism.
While the final QDR report, delivered to Congress in February, recommended further study of the issue, a Jan. 13 briefing prepared by officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense concluded the global war on terror mission “is so complex that no single, expert organization can manage it end-to-end.”
“To create the body here within [the office of the under secretary of defense for] policy was a very direct result of that discussion begun under the QDR,” said the official.
Pentagon officials in recent weeks declined to detail the new task force’s specific charter. However, the January briefing, which argued for establishing a task force, proposed a new organization that would establish measures of success and monitor their progress; ensure a unified Defense Department message to other parts of the federal government, international partners and adversaries; facilitate “rapid policy decisions during ongoing operations”; ensure “integration of combat and non-combat” considerations; and advise on the “probability of success of proposed uses of military” capabilities.
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