ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how General Stanley McChrystal’s Special Operations Task Force nearly decimated al-Qaida in Iraq. It describes how the advent and implementation of the find, fix, finish, exploit, and analyze cycle was instrumental in dismantling the terrorist group. McChrystal created a special operations and intelligence network to overlay the terrorist network by flattening his organization; expanding his liaison network; forming two joint interagency task forces; improving his interrogation capability; expanding his intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability; and expanding his document and media exploitation capability. The chapter includes a short vignette on how this new approach resulted in the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.
