Seattle Times March 29, 2003
Washington soldiers secretly entered Iraq early
By Hal Bernton and Ray Rivera
In peacetime they are police officers, computer programmers, teachers, students, even tax preparers. But now the more than 80 members of the Washington National Guard are full-time Green Berets, inside Iraq, joining the largest special-forces operation in the nation's history.
The mission of these citizen soldiers is secret, and there's been no public disclosure of where they are or what they are doing to aid the U.S. war effort.
Department of Defense officials have yet to acknowledge that most members of the Washington Army National Guard unit have been put on active duty.
A spokesman for the Washington Guard would confirm only that the unit - Alpha Company 1-19th - was sent on a training mission late last year and is now under the U.S. Central Command.
But military sources told The Seattle Times that the Washington Guardsmen have been in the Persian Gulf region since late fall and were inside Iraq even before the war began. The Guardsmen are operating in six small teams that - like all Army Special Forces units - include specialists in weapons, explosives, communications, medicine and operation logistics.
All of the special forces are part of a military elite who undergo rigorous training to enable them to undertake extended operations in remote and often hostile territory. They had a major role in the Vietnam War and during the past decade have been increasingly in demand for overseas missions in Somalia, Haiti and Kosovo.
More recently, about 6,000 special-operations personnel from the Army, Navy and Air Force played a huge role in toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
"They worked out so well in Afghanistan," said Philip Coyle, a former assistant secretary of defense and senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. "That's really the justification for using them to the extent they're being used now."
More than 10,000 special-operations soldiers are now reported to be scattered about Iraq. Some are in the north, networking with Kurdish allies of the U.S. coalition or fighting guerrilla groups linked to al-Qaida. Others are in the west, where they have hunted for Iraqi missiles, searched for chemical and biological weapons and secured oil fields and bridges before they could be blown up. Still others have been in the south, helping to organize resistance among the region's Shiite Muslim population.
"A lot of the work involves contact with opposition groups, building trust and helping to organize them," said Patrick Garrett, an analyst with Washington-based Global Security.org.
The most important task - capturing or killing Iraqi political and military leaders, including Saddam Hussein - has likely been given to the super-secret Delta Force, analysts say.
Most of the special forces are full-time soldiers, who in peacetime are stationed at military bases such as Fort Bragg, N.C., and Fort Lewis, Pierce County. But a small network of reservists, numbering about 2,800, also serve as special forces, including the Washington company that draws recruits from across the Pacific Northwest.
The unit strength totals more than 80 men, according to 1st Sgt. Tom Bigley, an Army National Guardsmen who served in the unit for about three years.
About half of those in the Washington unit previously served in the military, many as members of Fort Lewis Special Forces teams.
But the other half is drawn from civilians whose first taste of military life came as they joined the Army National Guard unit. They commit to extensive training, including at least a year at a Special Forces school at Fort Bragg, Bigley said. And like other reservists and Guard members, they also attend weekend and summer training sessions, he said.
Alpha Company is part of the 19th Special Forces Group out of Utah, which has subunits scattered among seven states.
The Washington unit is headquartered at the National Guard Armory in Buckley, 24 miles east of Tacoma. The armory sits in the middle of town, but the Special Forces unit doesn't have a big presence in Buckley.
"What goes on at the armory is kind of confidential - they don't let a lot of people in," said Kim Westerberg, who works at the Buckley Chamber of Commerce.
Members also train out of Vancouver, Wash., and Spokane.
In year's past, members of the Washington unit also have trained in other Western states and traveled to Asia, where they taught sniper, lifesaving and other skills to local military and police units.
Overall, more than 3,000 Washington Army National Guard members and reservists are now on active duty, and more than 3,300 are on alert for possible call-up. Many are on duty in the United States, helping with security or other tasks. But some units are headed for - or already in - the Persian Gulf as part of the war effort.
Copyright © 2003, The Seattle Times Company
