Senior officer banned from elite unit’s HQ over tell-all book, while its commander takes aim at US general for breaking code of silence on operations
Kim Sengupta
The Independent [UK]
5 May 2010
Britain’s elite fighting force, the SAS, has become enmeshed in controversy and recriminations, with one of its most successful former senior officers being banned from headquarters and its current chief engaged in a dispute with the US commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Independent has learned that General Stanley McChrystal, leading Western troops in the war against the Taliban, has received a complaint from the UK’s Director of Special Forces (DSF) after he broke the SAS’s code of silence and spoke about the missions mounted by the SAS and their Royal Marines equivalent, the SBS, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At the same time, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Williams, who led the SAS during the Iraq war in undercover operations run by General McChrystal, has been told to stay away from the regiment’s headquarters in Hereford.
The controversy comes at a time when General Sir David Richards, the head of the British Army, has asked the DSF, a Major-General who cannot be named for security reasons, to consider whether there should be greater transparency about the actions of his troops now carrying out vital missions in Afghanistan.
This article continues at The Independent.
H/T Michael Yon, who writes on 5/15/2010, 9:43 PM EDT:
General McChrystal accused of OPSEC violation? As a writer, I don’t even talk/write about British SAS or American Special Operations forces though I see them frequently and have much insight into what they are doing. If McChrystal truly has violated OPSEC for the British Special Forces, this would be stunning.
