DONALD RUMSFELD, the US Defence Secretary, has created his own secret global spy force that has been opera-ting in Iraq and Afghanistan for more than two years without the knowledge of the US Congress, according to classified documents published yesterday.

The previously undisclosed unit, named the Strategic Support Branch, was reportedly set up by Mr Rumsfeld after the September 11 terror attacks to bypass the CIA’s traditional role of intelligence gathering and give him wide, secret and unilateral authority over his own spy operations abroad.

The spying operation, made up of Pentagon special forces units working alongside military interrogators and linguists, is charged with conducting secret missions in friendly and unfriendly countries where conventional war is a distant prospect. It is a role usually undertaken by the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.

Mr Rumsfeld’s disdain for the CIA’s intelligence gathering capabilities, and what he views as its risk-averse approach, is well known, but the existence of his own worldwide spy network, detailed by The Washington Post, reinforces suspicions that he is trying to circumvent the massive post-September 11 intelligence overhall signed into law by President Bush in December.

That reform legislation places an array of intelligence agencies under a new national security director and was originally opposed by Mr Rumsfeld, whose defence department controls 80 per cent of the US’s intelligence budget.

According to the Post, the secret spying organisation arose from a memorandum by Mr Rumsfeld in October 2001 in which he expressed his determination to end his “near total dependence on CIA” for human intelligence, which involves interrogating prisoners and recruiting foreign spies.

According to an early planning memo to Mr Rumsfeld from General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the focus of the new units would be on “emerging countries” such as Somalia, Yemen, Indonesia, Philippines and Georgia. Mr Myers recommended in a March 2002 response to Mr Rumsfeld, entitled “Reduction of (Department of Defence) Reliance on Other Government Agencies” — a euphemism for the CIA — that he give new intelligence gathering authority to special operations forces.

Recruited agents may in- clude “notorious figures” as spies whose association with the US Government would be embarrassing if revealed, the Post added, citing another Pentagon memo. Pentagon officials said anonymously that it has been funded by “reprogrammed” funds, without explicit congressional authority.

Lieutenant General William Boykin, Deputy UnderSecretary of Intelligence, acknowledged that Mr Rumsfeld intends to direct some missions previously undertaken by the CIA, but he said it was wrong to assume that Mr Rumsfeld was trying to “get the CIA out of business”.

Assistant Defence Secretary Thomas O’Connell, who oversees special operations policy, said that Mr Rumsfeld had discarded the “hide-bound way of thinking” and “risk-averse mentalities” of previous Pentagon officials. “In my view, many of the authorities inherent to the (defence) department were winnowed away over the years,” he said.

Lawrence DiRita, a Pentagon spokesman, said: “There is no unit that is directly reportable to the Secretary of Defence for clandestine operations as is described in the Washington Post article.”

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