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Over the years, the SOG has taken on some of the CIA's most dangerous work. Paramilitary officers account for almost half the 79 stars chiseled into the wall in the main foyer of the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters commemorating all the spies who have died since the CIA was founded in 1947. The newest star is dedicated to Spann. But the CIA suffered additional casualties in Afghanistan and some injuries that the agency has not yet publicly acknowledged. A CIA officer was wounded by a bullet in the chest during a fire fight in southern Afghanistan, and one of the U.S. soldiers confirmed killed was working with a CIA team when he was hit in a separate skirmish.
IN, OUT AND IN AGAIN
The SOG traces its roots to the days of William (Wild Bill) Donovan, the general in charge of espionage and clandestine operations during World War II, whose Office of Strategic Services sent paramilitary commandos behind enemy lines. The CIA, since its founding after the war, has always had a paramilitary unit, which has carried various names. At the height of the cold war, the agency had hundreds of paramilitary operatives fomenting coups around the world. It was involved in assassination plots against the leaders of Congo, Cuba and Iraq and was linked by a 1976 Senate inquiry to ousters that resulted in the deaths of the leaders of the Dominican Republic, Vietnam and Chile. When Ronald Reagan wanted to roll back communism in the 1980s, the agency organized paramilitary operations in Central America. These adventures had checkered results. The governments that the CIA destabilized in Iran, Guatemala and Chile were replaced by repressive regimes that ended up doing more damage in the long run to U.S. foreign policy.
By 1990 the SOG had practically been disbanded, the victim of domestic and international outrage over the agency's lethal meddling in other countries. Congressional and CIA budget cutters slashed money for the clandestine force, believing that billion-dollar spy satellites collected intelligence more efficiently and without embarrassing the U.S. The pendulum soon began to swing back, however, as intelligence officials realized that technology has its limitations. Satellites, for instance, can't see inside buildings; phone taps can't capture an enemy's every move. When Tenet was installed as CIA director in 1997, he began fielding more human spies and rebuilding the SOG.
During the Balkan conflicts in the mid- and late 1990s, agency paramilitary officers slipped into Bosnia and Kosovo to collect intelligence and hunt for accused war criminals like Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic. But the newly formed teams did not have enough manpower for snatches even when they were able to pinpoint Serbian targets. "The CIA," complains a former senior Clinton aide, "didn't have the capability to take down a three- or four-car motorcade with bodyguards."