The Pentagon held a background briefing this week to describe the military intelligence units known as Strategic Support Teams that have been providing intelligence collection support and other intelligence services to the military.
The briefing was prompted by, and substantially confirmed, a January 23 Washington Post story by Barton Gellman that first reported the existence of the Strategic Support Branch, a component of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Meanwhile, more official documents on defense and intelligence
continue to migrate from author William M. Arkin's capacious filing
cabinet on to the web in support of his new book Code Names.
The latest revelation is a PowerPoint slide that elliptically
describes a 2005 U.S. military exercise known as VITAL ARCHER,
involving special operations and homeland defense. See "Vital
Archer 05" linked from this page:
http://www.codenames.org/documents.html