Leaders Shift From Rumsfeld Strategy

Leaders Shift From Rumsfeld Strategy
May 10, 2008
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The military command overseeing the nation's most elite forces has moved away from a contentious plan that gave it broad control over anti-terrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots around the globe.

The expanded authority for U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., was hammered through by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld well before he resigned in November 2006. The shift caused friction among leaders at other warfighting organizations who saw it an intrusion into their geographic domains.

Navy Adm. Eric Olson, the command's senior officer since July 2007, has steered clear of micromanaging specific missions against al-Qaida or other terrorist groups. The command's primary focus is to ensure these plans are fused into a broader strategy for defeating extremist ideologies. That reflects Olson's position that the troops closest to the action know best how to handle it.

"It's a much different place," Army Lt. Gen. David Fridovich, a Green Beret who runs the command's Center for Special Operations, said in an Associated Press interview.

The command, which has an annual budget of more than $7 billion and nearly 50,000 military and civilian personnel, is also responsible for training and equipping the Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, and Air Force combat controllers.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/leaders-shift-from-rumsfeld-strategy.html

well, the first thing I would say is that trying to "defeat" an ideology is an exercise in futility. However, if they do want to worry about extremist ideologies, they should start with the neocons, whose ideals are some of the most extreme on the planet.