Pentagon to start inquiry into US special ops troops

WASHINGTON • For decades, the US Defence Department has relied on covert and classified special operations troops to kick in doors and raid high-value targets around the world. The department's Inspector General's Office now may be taking its first broad look at whether those shadowy strike forces committed war crimes along the way.

The office sent a memo on Monday to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to Special Operations Command, advising them that it was beginning an inquiry into whether the forces overseen by the command, which include the Navy Seal teams, the US Army's Delta Force, Marine Raiders and other elite commandos, have programmes in place to ensure they are following the law during combat, and whether they are reporting troops when those laws are broken.

The memo could have seismic repercussions in the special operations community, current and former commandos and military legal experts say.

The Pentagon has come to rely heavily on special operations troops, who often conduct missions with little oversight, backed by a military and nation that often idolise the elite fighters. Accountability has at times been scant.

For example, in 20 years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite repeated reports of Navy Seals needlessly beating and killing civilians in war zones, only a handful of Seal team members have ever been charged with such abuses and none has been convicted.

The announcement of the inquiry comes less than a week after President Joe Biden took office, suggesting that his administration wants to take a very different approach to war crimes from his predecessor.

Among other things, former president Donald Trump intervened in military prosecutions and discipline of special operators, granted clemency to eight service members and military contractors who were accused or convicted of killing civilians, and told crowds at his rallies that acts of torture like waterboarding were fine, but "not nearly tough enough".

"It looks like Biden wants to show the world and our troops that he is breaking with Trump's obstructionist approach to war criminals and the rule of law," said Professor Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a retired US Air Force lieutenant-colonel who was a senior adviser to the top commanders of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush and Obama administrations.

After several highly publicised cases of killings and reports of widespread drug use in the ranks, the overall commander of the Seals wrote to his subordinates in 2019, "We have a problem." That problem became more pressing in recent years after the International Criminal Court began an inquiry into possible war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan. The Trump administration retaliated last autumn by imposing economic penalties and travel restrictions on the court's investigators.

By opening a Defence Department inquiry, the Biden administration may be trying to signal that the US is willing to look into the allegations independently and hold criminals accountable, Prof VanLandingham said.

The Defence Department gave no indication of the size and scope of the new inquiry. But a recent independent investigation into Australia's elite commando force, the Special Air Service, shows that such an effort could reach back decades and scrutinise hundreds of missions. The four-year investigation in Australia interviewed 510 potential witnesses and reviewed 20,000 documents. Nineteen soldiers have since been referred for criminal investigation.

In the US Navy, a high-ranking Seal officer said, a small but similarly twisted subculture has formed since 2001. Three active-duty enlisted Seals said in interviews that a small subculture of rogue operators had festered in the Seal teams, protected by a fierce code of loyalty and their fellow Seals' reluctance to speak out.

After a number of questionable killings came to light, Special Operations leaders ordered a sweeping assessment in 2019 of the culture and ethics among the commandos. A report on the findings found "no systematic ethical problems" but said that repeated deployments to war zones had created a culture that favoured "force employment and mission accomplishment over the routine activities that ensure leadership, accountability and discipline".

NYTIMES