Elite Military Forces Are Denied in Bid for Expansion

In late April, the military’s Special Operations Command presented the State Department and Congress with an urgent request for new authority to train and equip security forces in places like Yemen and Kenya.

The request, which included seeking approval to train foreign internal security forces that had been off-limits to the American military, was the latest effort by the command’s top officer, Adm. William H. McRaven, to make it easier for his elite forces to respond faster to emerging threats and better enable allies to counter the same dangers.

Given the command’s influence in shaping American strategy toward extremism, the proposal seemed to have momentum. President Obama and his Pentagon’s leadership are tapping Special Operations troops more to hunt militants and train foreign security forces in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. And Admiral McRaven is a White House favorite, especially after he oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

But in a rare rebuke to the admiral and his command, powerful House and Senate officials as well as the State Department, and ultimately the deputy cabinet-level aides who met at the White House on the issue on May 7, rejected the changes. They sent the admiral and his lawyers back to the drawing board with orders to use security assistance programs already in place, particularly one created last year by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the defense secretary at the time, Robert M. Gates, for just these types of issues.

“Right now, anything Socom wants they pretty much get — they’re hot,” said one senior Congressional aide involved in the deliberations, using the command’s nickname. “But this was a nonstarter. They were overly zealous.”