DIPLOMACY GETS SHORTCHANGED IN TERROR FIGHT

President Bush, members of Congress and virtually all counter-terrorism experts have acknowledged that defeating terrorists cannot be accomplished solely by dropping bombs on them. Ultimately, they say, ending terrorism will come only by addressing its underlying causes.

“Our long-term strategy to keep the peace is to help change the conditions that give rise to extremism and terror by spreading the universal principle of human liberty,” Bush said in March 2005.

But a close look at the United States’ counter-terrorism priorities shows a strategy going in a different direction.

In recent years, the Pentagon has received a larger share of the counter-terrorism budget, whereas “indirect action” programs to win the campaign through diplomacy and other nonmilitary means have struggled for funding and attention, according to a review of budget documents and interviews with dozens of current and former U.S. officials.

Nonmilitary counter-terrorism programs have budgets that are measured in millions instead of billions, and in many cases are seeing their funding remain flat or drop.

Even within the Pentagon, many “soft power” programs, which don’t include direct military action, appear to be getting squeezed out as more money goes to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and special forces missions elsewhere.

Some top counter-terrorism officials, seeing their noncombat programs languishing, are leaving the government, including a top Pentagon official.

Three at the State Department who ran the highly regarded Regional Strategic Initiative are also leaving.

And increasingly, even civilian anti-terrorism operations are being run by current or former military members.

The shift has troubled many terrorism experts.

The U.S. approach to counter-terrorism is that “enemies simply need to be killed or imprisoned so that global terrorism or the Iraqi insurgency will end,” Bruce Hoffman, a senior fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy, told a House Armed Services subcommittee last month.

“This is a monumental failing,” Hoffman said, “not only because decapitation strategies have rarely worked in countering mass mobilization, terrorist or insurgent campaigns, but also because Al Qaeda’s ability to continue this struggle is ... predicated on its capacity to attract new recruits” by publicizing U.S. military actions.

For their part, senior Pentagon officials say their campaign to kill or capture terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and smaller hot spots such as Somalia is a necessary step in stabilizing those countries before nonmilitary efforts can even be attempted.

The Pentagon is also moving to transform the military into one focused not only on fighting wars but on combating terrorism by eliminating the conditions that cause it, said Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for policy, in an interview.

As evidence of their noncombat efforts, Pentagon officials cite the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Central Command’s Combined Joint Task Force in the Horn of Africa, which is not only trying to kill or capture terrorists, but also is working to promote regional stability and offer humanitarian assistance, including building schools and medical clinics.

The overall cost of the U.S. war on terrorism has ballooned to at least $502 billion since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, with the administration now requesting that Congress fund another $93 billion this year for the Pentagon’s counter-terrorism programs alone, and $142 billion for 2008.

Conditions are much different at the State Department, which is charged with coordinating the U.S. government’s international role in the war on terrorism. Its task includes overseeing aid to foreign governments and making sure the overall campaign balances military power, diplomacy, economic development, law enforcement and intelligence gathering.

The State Department requested $157.5 million for its major counter-terrorism programs this year but received $20 million less than that from Congress. That meant cuts in training and equipping allied counter-terrorism forces and in improving international terrorism interdiction efforts, according to budget documents and a State Department official. The department asked for $150 million for next year, said the official, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss classified counter-terrorism efforts.

The funding squeeze has meant that the State Department’s Regional Strategic Initiative, a key counter-terrorism program, nearly ceased operations last year for lack of funding just as it was getting off the ground.

Its annual budget is about $1 million -- roughly what the Pentagon spends on counterterrorism in Iraq every five minutes.

“The fact that they can only get $1 million is criminal. It is unconscionable,” said Robert Richer, who retired as associate deputy CIA director for operations in 2005.

“Most of the war on terrorism should have nothing to do with guys with guns. But we have walked away from the hearts-and-minds campaign.”

The increasing militarization of the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign is not just a matter of funding; it also involves personnel decisions.

Over the last several years, the Bush administration has appointed a current or former military commander to virtually every senior post in the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign.

Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden now heads the CIA; retired Navy Vice Adm. John Scott Redd is in charge of the National Counterterrorism Center; and the White House just appointed retired Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell as director of national intelligence. Last month, the administration tapped Dell L. Dailey, an Army lieutenant general and director of the Center for Special Operations at MacDill Air Force Base, as the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for counter-terrorism.

“When everyone out there representing us is a general or a retired general, we have a problem,” said Richer, now the chief executive of a company called Total Intelligence Solutions. “The United States used to be an iron fist with a velvet glove over it. Now it is viewed by many abroad as just an iron fist.”

Mario Mancuso, the outgoing deputy assistant Defense secretary for special operations and combating terrorism, told reporters late last year that the military was still transforming. But he said the Pentagon was getting large infusions of funding to do so, in part because the State Department and other civilian agencies didn’t have the resources or staff to meet the task, especially in conflict zones.

“We’re not purposely trying to put a military face on it,” Mancuso said, according to a transcript of the briefing. “The balance would be otherwise if there were more deployable capability in other departments and agencies.”

Last fall, the Pentagon announced it would create a special Global War on Terrorism Task Force of experts to come up with alternatives to military solutions in the coming years and decades. But according to Henry, the deputy Defense undersecretary, that task force is on hold and the Pentagon is reassessing whether it needs it.

Several Pentagon officials involved in “soft power” approaches have left or are soon departing out of frustration, including Thomas W. O’Connell, assistant Defense secretary for special operations/low-intensity conflict.

Mancuso, who did not return calls seeking comment, is also leaving the Pentagon. His position has been redefined and no longer involves combating terrorism.

josh.meyer@latimes.com