WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- While the U.S. military special operations forces have expanded over the last five years, there are still significant shortfalls in personnel.
A newly released report from the Government Accountability Office says that well over half the special operations forces specialties have been underfilled each year since 2001. Vacancies have ranged from just 5 percent shortfalls to as much as 86 percent, according to the report.
"The schools have been unable to graduate a sufficient number of new special operations personnel for several reasons, including recruiting an inadequate number of servicemembers who attended the schools each year," states the report.
The training is also notoriously hard, with a washout rate of as much as 70 percent.
Part of the shortfall has to do with the greatly expanded need for special forces: in the last five years, U.S. Special Operations Command has been authorized to grow by 12 percent, or about 5,000. According to the GAO's July 31 report, however, it is unclear whether SOCOM will have enough personnel to meet the nation's needs.
"GAO's review of the service components' annual reports required by the Special Operations Command shows that the reports have not provided the information needed to determine whether they have enough personnel to meet current and future requirements," the report states.
SOCOM has the lead role in the war on terrorism, and its operations tempo shows that. From 2000 to 2005, the average weekly number of special operations personnel who deployed to the geographic combatant commands increased by 64 percent, or about 3,100 people. For a force of just under 50,000, that is a significant increase.
Most of the deployments -- 85 percent in 2005 -- occurred in U.S. Central Command's area of operations, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan.
The high pace of deployments combined with a lag in filling hundreds of slots means special forces deploy far less frequently to train with foreign forces. That training is necessary for keeping up language proficiency, establishing relationships, learning the culture and the terrain -- essential homework for unanticipated future missions.
