Out of the ashes

Wreckage of Operation Eagle Claw

There is a saying among experts in dealing with setbacks of all kinds, that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It should be a learning opportunity.

If the resounding success of today's news regarding the mission to take out Osama Bin Laden isn't an indication of the validity of this notion, then nothing could be.

The simple truth is that the three crucial elements of the mission -- special forces, organizational capability and intelligence gathering --  were born of total disaster.

They were:

The Bay of Pigs invasion.  Little more than a month after this flawed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro, President Kennedy asked Congress to significantly increase funding for special forces, saying: "In addition our special forces and unconventional warfare units will be increased and reoriented. Throughout the services new emphasis must be placed on the special skills and languages which are required to work with local populations." In the very same speech, The President famously launched the mission to the moon by the end of that decade.

Operation Eagle Claw. This mission to rescue the Iran hostages in 1980 ended in a debacle in the desert with eight servicemen losing their lives.  The ensuing investigation, however, pointed to a lack of inter-service coordination in the planning of the mission and led to the creation of the Special Operations Command. That entity now oversees all special operations, service wide, and was instrumental in the successful mission in Pakistan yesterday.

The 9/11 Attacks. The widely-praised investigation into the root causes of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland revealed numerous holes in our ability to collect and act upon good intelligence in a part of the world where we had few assets on the ground.  It appears that at least some of those holes have been plugged, to say the least.

There is little glamor in leading the post-mortem of a crisis. Critics say that they can lead to useless finger-pointing and degenerate into witch hunts. Nevertheless, some of the best, game-changing, ideas come from just such exercises.