This L.A. Times article, The Secret War, scares the pants of me:
Frustrated by intelligence failures, the Defense Department is dramatically expanding its ‘black world’ of covert operations
By William M. Arkin, William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: warkin@igc.org
SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. — In what may well be the largest expansion of covert action by the armed forces since the Vietnam era, the Bush administration has turned to what the Pentagon calls the “black world” to press the war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
The Defense Department is building up an elite secret army with resources stretching across the full spectrum of covert capabilities. New organizations are being created. The missions of existing units are being revised. Spy planes and ships are being assigned new missions in anti-terror and monitoring the “axis of evil.”