WASHINGTON — Top Pentagon officials are considering putting elite special operations troops under CIA control in Afghanistan after 2014, just as they were during last year’s raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, sources told The Associated Press.

The plan is one of several possible scenarios being debated by Pentagon staffers. It has not yet been presented to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the White House or Congress, the sources said.

If the plan were adopted, the U.S. and Afghanistan could say there are no more U.S. troops on the ground in the war-torn country because once the SEALs, Rangers and other elite units are assigned to CIA control, even temporarily, they become spies.

No matter who’s in charge, the special operations units still would target militants on joint raids with Afghans and keep training Afghan forces to do the job on their own.

The idea floated by a senior defense intelligence official comes as U.S. defense chiefs try to figure out how to draw down troops fast enough to meet the White House’s 2014 deadline. Pentagon staffers already have put forward a plan to hand over much of the war-fighting to special operations troops. This idea would take that plan one step further, shrinking the U.S. presence to less than 20,000 troops after 2014, according to four current and two former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon spokesman George Little denied the idea is being discussed. “Any suggestion that such a plan exists is simply wrong,” Little said. “United States special operations forces continue to work closely with the intelligence community to confront a range of national security challenges across the world.”

A CIA-run war would mean that the U.S. public would not be informed about funding or operations, as they are in a traditional war. Oversight would fall to the White House, top intelligence officials, and a few congressional committees. Embedding journalists would be out of the question.

Two senior defense officials said that neither the CIA nor Special Operations Command has put this plan forward officially to Panetta.

The other officials who said they have been part of discussions about the plan say it would require the assent of the White House and congressional oversight committees, and would be contingent upon the approval of the Afghan government.

The idea has not yet been presented at any of those levels, the sources said. The CIA’s intelligence and paramilitary elements work alongside special operations units. On a case-by-case basis, elite special operations units are assigned to the CIA for missions when the U.S. wants total deniability, usually in areas where the U.S. is operating without the local government’s permission, as in the bin Laden raid.

The notion of longer-term assignments to the CIA does not sit well with some senior commanders, who want their units to remain autonomous in order to keep their troops under Defense Department legal parameters. If CIA-assigned troops are captured, for example, they are treated like spies, not protected by the Geneva Conventions.