Schoomaker--wanted the mission of "putting boots on the ground" to get at
Bin Ladin and al Qaeda. At the time, Special Operations was designated as a
"supporting command," not a "supported command": that is, it supported a
theater commander and did not prepare its own plans for dealing with al
Qaeda. Schoomaker proposed to Shelton and Cohen that Special Operations
become a supported command, but the proposal was not adopted. Had it been
accepted, he says, he would have taken on the al Qaeda mission instead of defer-
ring to Zinni. Lieutenant General William Boykin, the current deputy under
secretary of defense for intelligence and a founding member of Delta Force,
told us that "opportunities were missed because of an unwillingness to take risks
and a lack of vision and understanding."
chance of failure was high. Shelton told President Clinton he would go for-
ward with "boots on the ground" if the President ordered him to do so; how-
ever, he had to ensure that the President was completely aware of the large
logistical problems inherent in a military operation.
actionable intelligence. President Clinton told the Commission that "if we had
had really good intelligence about . . . where [Usama Bin Ladin] was, I would
have done it." Zinni and Schoomaker did make preparations for possible very
high risk in-and-out operations to capture or kill terrorists. Cohen told the
Commission that the notion of putting military personnel on the ground with-
out some reasonable certitude that Bin Ladin was in a particular location would
have resulted in the mission's failure and the loss of life in a fruitless effort.
lier by lower-level Defense officials.
which they thought complicated and risky. Such efforts would have required
bases in the region, but all the options were unappealing. Pro-Taliban elements
of Pakistan's military might warn Bin Ladin or his associates of pending oper-
ations.With nearby basing options limited, an alternative was to fly from ships
in the Arabian Sea or from land bases in the Persian Gulf, as was done after
9/11. Such operations would then have to be supported from long distances,
overflying the airspace of nations that might not have been supportive or aware
of U.S. efforts.