About time

Ralph Reiland in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (12/21) - Return of the Special Forces:

The real story in Saddam's capture is that the Bush administration has turned loose the Special Forces to fight a covert, no-holds-barred war in Iraq.

"A revitalized Special Forces mission is a policy victory for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who has struggled for two years to get the military leadership to accept the strategy of what he calls 'Manhunts' -- a phrase that he has used both publicly and in internal Pentagon communications," writes Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker's Dec. 15 issue. "According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, N.C., and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq."
...
What that means is no more Mr. Nice Guy. It means our first priority will not be to arm American troops with paint rollers each morning, to get everything looking more spiffy in Baghdad. Instead, we're talking about what some in the Pentagon call "pre-emptive manhunting" -- more intelligence, more captures, and more assassinations of Baathist insurgents. The paint can wait.

Despite the whiners, you finish the job and then worry about the paint job.