MSNBC.com has a great article that sheds considerable new light on both the Special Ops Soldier's Letter From Iraq we published Monday, and our stories yesterday about the op that killed Saddam's sons. Both involve a recent shift in tactics by U.S. forces, and that shift made a big difference. The MSNBC / Washington Post piece is called "Little targets led to the top", and is proof that there are still some real journalists in theater. The template it offers is worth remembering next time someone talks about combatting terrorism, organized crime with global reach, or other kinds of "4th generation warfare" threats: bq.. "We shifted our focus from very high-level personalities to the people that are causing us damage," Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new commander of the U.S. military in the Middle East, said in an interview last weekend. Later, he told reporters in Baghdad: "In the past two weeks, we have been getting the mid-level leadership in a way that is effective.".... The captured Baathists provided much new detail about their organization and contacts, officials here said. Some gave information about their financing and their means of communication, they added. Others identified members of their networks. Some described the routes and contacts that fugitive leaders were using. Threats to ship the recalcitrant captives to the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay on the eastern end of Cuba were especially helpful in encouraging them to talk, officials said. "You get a tip, you pull a couple of guys in, they start to talk," a Central Command official said. Then, based on that information, he continued, “you do a raid, you confiscate some documents, you start building the tree” of contacts and “you start doing signals intercepts. And then you’re into the network.” " p. Similar approaches have been used successfully against organizations like the Mafia. Good on the military for wising up. UPDATE: Blaster of Overpressure.com makes a very good point about adopting the same approach in official public communications.