Spec ops vet Vickers tapped as DoD intel chief - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Spec ops vet Vickers tapped as DoD intel chief

The White House has nominated Michael Vickers, a former Special Forces soldier and Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary operations officer, to be undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Since July 2007, Vickers has served as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. During his 13 years in Special Forces, he said he served on both the “black” and “white” — covert and overt — sides of special operations, Vickers told Congress.

According to his Defense Department biography, during his Special Forces and CIA years Vickers had operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, spanning covert action and espionage, unconventional warfare, counterterrorism (including hostage rescue operations), counterinsurgency, and foreign internal defense.

His tenure as a CIA operative included serving as a “principal strategist” of the largest covert action in CIA history, the arming of Muslim insurgents in Afghanistan in 1980s against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. The paramilitary operation ended with the Soviet Union withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The undersecretary for intelligence, one of the most senior positions in the Defense Department, reports directly to the secretary of defense. If his nomination is approved by the Senate, Vickers would replaces James Clapper, who was recently appointed to serve as director of national intelligence, a job created in 2004 to oversee 16 intelligence agencies.

Vickers and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have a “long professional relationship” that dates back to their time together at the CIA, said Gates’ spokesman Geoff Morrell.