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The Defense Department is accepting an independent report’s recommendation to raise the headquarters of the military’s most secret units from a two-star to a three-star command and expand its array of flag officers.

Structural changes in the Joint Special Operations Command will give its chief more authority and influence in dealing with other leaders and give his headquarters greater ability to simultaneously lead multiple task forces, said several sources familiar with the report.

But the Pentagon rejected another recommendation to temporarily pull JSOC out of its parent organization, U.S. Special Operations Command, and have it report directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

That recommendation was prompted by problems that the report’s authors — and others — perceive SOCom to be experiencing as it shoulders new responsibilities in the war on terrorism.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, JSOC has been one of the busiest outfits in the military. Historically geared for short-notice hostage rescues, it now has the additional mission to hunt down and kill or capture terrorist leaders.

It has enjoyed some success, capturing Saddam Hussein and killing or capturing members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaida group in Iraq. But it continues to be frustrated in its pursuit of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi himself.

The decision to make the JSOC commander a three-star was based on a recommendation in a classified report written for the Pentagon last year by a three-man team headed by retired Gen. Wayne Downing, a former JSOC and SOCom commander.

The other team members were retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Garrison, a former JSOC commander, and Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces officer and CIA operative.

The state of spec ops

The report was commissioned after an Oct. 5 meeting of senior Pentagon leaders during which Rumsfeld became angry when Vice Adm. Eric Olson, deputy SOCom commander, showed a slide that appeared to state his command’s capabilities had declined, according to two sources familiar with the briefing.

“It made it look like [special operations forces were] getting worse, rather than better, which really wasn’t true,” said a Washington source. “That triggered the secretary to say, ‘Well, why the hell have we been adding all this money [to special operations] and we’re going down the tubes?’”

Afterward, Rumsfeld issued a number of highly critical memos that expressed his lack of confidence in what he was being told and the need for an independent review, the source said.

Within about a week, the Pentagon commissioned Downing to produce an independent assessment of the state of special operations forces, the source said.

In late October and early November, Downing, Garrison and Vickers interviewed active and retired special operations officers, as well as officials from SOCom and the office of Thomas O’Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

They turned in their report during the second week of November. Part of the report focused on comparing special operations capabilities in 2001 and late 2005, the source said.

“The basic answer there was ... we’ve gotten better, but there are still things that need to be done,” the source said.

To that end, the report called for making the JSOC commander a three-star, with a pair of two-star deputies and a pair of one-star officers beneath him. JSOC is now commanded by a two-star, with two one-star deputies.

Structural shake-up

Part of that recommendation is being implemented. On Feb. 6, the Pentagon announced that JSOC commander Army Maj. Gen. Stan McChrystal has been nominated for a third star and to continue in his present job. McChrystal, who took over JSOC in September 2003, likely will stay for another year, special operations sources said.

According to several sources, McChrystal will get a single two-star deputy, rather than the two called for in the Downing report — Army Brig. Gen. (P) Frank Kearney, chief of U.S. Central Command’s Special Operations Command and a former JSOC J-3, or operations officer.

Under McChrystal and Kearney will be at least two one-star officers, one each from the Navy and the Air Force, as at present.

The Pentagon also may add a third one-star to JSOC, according to a retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel who is still actively involved in these issues.

The reappointment of McChrystal and the arrival of Kearney — both highly respected, with strong Ranger backgrounds — will reinforce the Ranger community’s grip on JSOC. The moves also mean that despite its status as the premier special mission unit for most JSOC operations, the Army’s Delta Force remains absent from the résumés of JSOC’s senior leaders.

Only two Delta operators have served as JSOC chief, the most recent being Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, who left JSOC in August 1996, according to a former special mission unit operator.

In a prepared statement Feb. 7, SOCom spokesman Ken McGraw said the move to make JSOC a three-star command “has been underway for some time.” He referred other questions on the Downing report to the Pentagon, which declined to comment.

Downing, reached via e-mail, also declined to comment, citing the report’s classified nature.

Sources said the decision to expand JSOC’s flag officer complement was a reaction to the command’s increased operational tempo after Sept. 11, 2001.

“Before 9/11, JSOC was essentially seen as a hostage-rescue unit or ‘render-safe’ unit,” said the retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel. “You train, you train, you train, then all of a sudden you get on a plane and you go somewhere, do a mission, it’s over in 36 hours, and you come back.”

Now the command is deployed somewhere “24/7,” he said. Since the Iraq war began, JSOC has kept at least one task force, and sometimes two, deployed there, with another in Afghanistan.

The command has shifted to “continuous operations,” added the Washington source familiar with the Downing report.

More bureaucracy?

Until a couple of years ago, JSOC had just two flag officers — a two-star commander and a one-star deputy. But even after the addition of a second one-star deputy, the headquarters has found itself stretched, trying to command and control multiple task forces in different combat theaters while retaining enough capability in reserve to respond to a no-notice mission such as a hostage rescue in Colombia.

This is why the Downing report argued for beefing up JSOC’s top command structure, sources said.

“JSOC had the shooters to handle three operations, but they only had the command and control to handle maybe two,” said the retired Special Forces lieutenant colonel.

But some special operations officers worry that the changes will only add an unneeded layer of bureaucracy over special mission units, where short decision cycles are essential.

A major lesson learned from Afghanistan and Iraq is that the war on terrorism requires streamlining headquarters and pushing “the enablers and assets down to the lowest levels,” one special operations officer said.

“But now ... that things are slowing down, we’re reverting to our old ways,” he said. “Everything that was pushed down is being brought back up and centralized — not what we want to do” in fighting al-Qaida around the world.

A field-grade Special Forces officer in the Washington area said his peers agreed with this view.

“They’re all convinced that all this does is move everybody one step lower on the pecking order,” he said.

Not everyone agrees. “I don’t think it’s adding a layer, like adding a corps or division,” said the Washington source, but rather providing “a more global capability to have multiple joint task forces — a flatter organization spread in different places.”

In practice, the extra senior officer probably will be in another combat zone leading a JSOC task force, not slowing down the decision cycle for that squadron’s operations, sources said.

Making JSOC’s commander a three-star also will give him more weight in dealing with U.S. and foreign leaders, special operations sources said. But another factor in the decision appeared to be a desire to keep McChrystal in command at JSOC while rewarding him with a third star for the job he has done so far.

A former special mission unit operator said McChrystal is a popular commander who “has come a long way toward ‘getting it’ and letting the guys run the show on the ground.”

But, he added, “customizing the headquarters based on one or two individuals” is a risky proposition.

He also said raising JSOC to a three-star level will greatly limit the number of officers eligible to command it in the future.

No direct line to Rumsfeld

While the Defense Department has moved ahead with Downing’s recommendation to give JSOC a three-star billet, the Pentagon will not implement another proposal: that JSOC be temporarily removed from SOCom and instead report directly to Rumsfeld.

The genesis of that proposal lies in the evolution of SOCom from a force provider to both a force provider and war fighter at a time of expansion in the special operations community.

A special operations source said there have been problems in getting the geographic combatant commands to “get with the program and allow SOCom to have certain authorities within their area of operations.”

The rationale for temporarily placing JSOC directly under Rumsfeld was that it would, in essence, force the geographic commands to learn to deal with at least one portion of SOCom in the global war on terrorism for a while as SOCom “got its birthing pains over,” the source said.

The former special-mission unit operator said a direct line from JSOC to Rumsfeld would be “a huge improvement over the current system,” but it also would mean “neutering” the flag officers of four different commands.

“I heard that’s why they ... put the kibosh on it,” he said. “SOCom fought it vehemently.”

“My understanding is that the recommendation was shot down [by] the Joint Staff,” including Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the Washington source familiar with the Downing report. “I don’t even think Rumsfeld liked it.”