Acum vreau sa continui discutia deschisa cu Boribum referitoare la 'capitularea' rapida a americanilor din Navy SEALs in programul columbian Lancero. Subiectul este delicat si de aceea il voi aborda cu maximum de prudenta. Prin urmare, concluziile mele, daca se vor dovedi eronate, vor fi rezultatul limitelor cunoasterii mele in ceea ce priveste tema respectiva. Limita este determinata, bineinteles, de sursele pe care le-am gasit. Nu este pentru prima data cand aud aprecieri nu prea magulitoare la adresa Navy SEALs. Nu voi generaliza pe baza celor cunoscute de mine, dar aproape sigur, ceva este adevarat, de vreme ce chiar surse americane vad lucrurile astfel. Nu mai tin minte pe unde am citit (pe atunci nu eram suficient de constiincios incat sa salvez fisierele cu adresele articolelor pe care le citeam) ca de multe ori, SEALs sunt tineri, lipsiti de experienta si maturitate, iar modul lor de operare este dezavuat de cei din comunitatea operatiunilor speciale ale US Army. Aici, bineinteles, ca polemica porneste de la un meci mai vechi US Army way versus US Navy way. Disputa USArmy vs US Navy ajunge chiar pana la nivelul celor mai bune unitati, si anume 1st SFOD-D, respctiv DEVGRU (green vs blue ). Cred ca lucrurile, macar in parte, au o explicatie. Navy SEALs sunt, de multe ori, tineri de 18-19 ani, iar ofiterii care ii comanda, proaspeti absolventi ai US Naval Academy de la Annapolis, Maryland. Ei trec prin sita cursului de selectie si pregatire pentru trupele SEALs, care dureaza cam 42 de saptamani, dar aceasta se pare ca, de multe ori, nu este suficient. Cu totul altfel se prezinta lucrurile, spre exemplu, in US Special Forces. Ofiteri si subofiteri cu vechime de minimum 3 ani parcurg un ciclu de pregatire de 2 ani aproape. Si varsta medie este mai ridicata la nivel de 'recruti' 27-30 de ani. Armata americana a demarat de cativa ani si programul 18X enlistment option pentru Special Forces, care, insa, a avut un randament scazut. E vorba de posibilitatea inrolarii unui tanar direct in Special Forces. El parcurge initial OSUT (One Station Unit Training) care combina, in 17 saptamani, antrenamentul de baza pentru infanterie si cel avansat. Urmeaza, pe durata 4 saptamani, Special Operations Preparation Course (SOPC), la McKenna MOUT Site, Fort Benning, Georgia. Apoi ei urmeaza filiera obisnuita: SFAS (Special Forces Assessment and Selection) dupa a carui absolvire vine Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). Asadar, nevoia US Special Forces de mai multi militari a dus la aparitia acestor 'bibani' de 20 de ani. Asa cum am mai zis, in pofida unor declaratii oficiale nitel rafistolate, in realitate, aceste 'tinere Berete Verzi' au dezamagit, in cea mai mare parte. Nu se compara cu colegii lor mai maturi. E posibil ca lipsa de maturitate a unor luptatori Navy SEALs sa fie una dintre cauzele pentru care nu fac fata mereu unor situatii care cer anduranta.
Am sa citez aici un fragment dintr-o carte cu privire la rivalitatea dintre 1st SFOD-D si DEVGRU:
"Established in 1977 at Fort Bragg as the United States' premier counterterrorist unit, Delta had grown from a few dozen soldiers to a force of almost 1,000. Only about 250 were "operators", super-fit commandos who executed direct action missions. They were divides into three squadrons -A,B and C- of about seventy-five to eighty-five soldiers each. Within each squadron were three troops (not three soldiers, but three company-equivalent formations). Two were assault troops specializing in diect action. After completing Delta's six months operator training course, newcomers were assigned to an assault troop. A few handpicked veterans would graduate to the squadron's reconaissance and surveillance, or "recce" troop. Smaller than the other troops, the recce's troop's mission included penetrating enemy lines unseen, watching enemy positions and sniping. (The use of the British abbreviation 'recce' rather than the more American 'recon', reflected Delta's roots as an organization modeled along the lines of the British Special Air Service, or SAS, by its founder, Colonel Charlie Beckwith, who had served with the SAS as an exchange officer.)For reasons of operational security and and practicality, Delta, now known also by its cover name of Combat Applications Group, was a very self-contained organization. The rest of the unit consisted of superbly trained and equipped mechanics, communications specialists, intelligence analysts, and other support troops, plus a headquarters staff. In addition, Delta had an aviation squadron based elsewhere on the East Coast, which also flew missions for the CIA. The first Delta Squadron to deploy as TF Green for the war in Afghanistan was B Squadron. It came home in December (2001, nota mea). A Squadron took its place, but only for a few weeks. By January 1 A Squadron had been replaced by another commando element. But these operators were from SEAL Team 6 and went by the name Task Force Blue. Formed in 1980, SEAL Team 6 recruited its personnel from the rest of the Navy's SEAL teams. The unit's job was to conduct the same sort of antiterrorist direct action missions in which Delta specialized, but in a maritime environment. In other words, if terrorists threatened a cruise ship or an oil rig, Team 6 would likely get the call to take care of the situation. But the unit got off to a rocky start. Richard Marcinko, the unit's charismatic and hard-drinking founder and first commanding officer, was a legendary SEAL. But his flamboyant-some would say cowboylike-personality proved divisive within the team and the wider SEAl community. He changed command in 1983, but the damage to the team's reputation did not pass so easily. Marcinko's abrasive personality and freewheeling, devil-may-care attitude he imprinted on the new organization ensured that for the rest of the decade many Delta soldiers viewed their Navy counterparts with suspicion verging on scorn. In 1990, Marcinko was sentenced to twenty-one months in jail after being convicted of several charges in connection with a scheme to use his former Team 6 colleagues to bilk the U.S. Treasury of over $ 100,000. His conviction further tarnished the reputation of the organization he had built from the ground up. It took a few years, but after Marcinko's departure, Team 6 slowly gained a measure of professionalism and respect. It also expanded, but, lacking Delta's extensive support structure, it never grew to more than about a third of the size of its Army counterpart. Like Delta, the team acquired a cover name-Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DevGru-and matured so that by the early 1990a even some Army Special operators felt its professionalism matched Delta's. But as Team 6 became more proficient, the scorn Delta felt toward it evolved to antagonism as the Navy operators began to encroach on Delta's turf, takin g on land-based direct action missions that had been Delta's exclusive preserve. Some of the bitterness-which was mutual-could be attributed to the fierce rivalry that had always existed between the respective special operations communities of the Army and Navy, from whioch both units recruited most of their men. One Navy officer who worked closely with both Army and Navy special ops forces described their relationship as "at best analogous to a sibling rivalry, and at worst, to a marriage coming apart." Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the higher headquarters for both units, instituted a joint training regimen in the early 1990's that required both organizations to train each other every three months. After a few years of this routine, the leaders in each organization had grown up beside each other. A mutual respect ensued. My the mid-1990s the friction had become a healthy rivalry raher than a outright animosity. Strong friendships developed between operators in each organization. Nevertheless, JSOC commander Major General Dell Dailey's insertion of TF Blue into Afghanistan irked Army special operators, and Delta men in particular, who worried that their Navy counterparts' limited land warfare training did not adequately prepare them for the extraordinarily demanding missions presented by operations in Afghanistan. They noted, disapprovingly, that while Delta would never seek to conduct a direct action mission at sea, Team 6 had no inhibitions about taking on missions that required a deep understanding of land warfare. "A lot of the SEALs are just boat guys, and you can't shake and bake an infantry guy", an Army operator in Afghanistan said. In the eyes of Delta operators, much of the blame lay with Joint Special Operations Command, which seemed determined to treat Delta and Team 6 as interchageable, despite their vastly different area of expertise. The decision to withdraw Delta's A Squadron early and to put Team 6's squadrons into the TF11 (Task Force -nota mea) rotation before all three Delta squadrons had seen action semed nonsensical to Army types. The operators in Delta's C Squadron "were borderline suicidal thatthey weren't in the fight yet," according to an Army Special ops source. But Dailey, an Army special operations helicopter pilot who had also served in the Rangers, had little simpathy for the Delta operators. His decision to use the SEALs reflected his view that the "war on terror" had to be viewed in the same context as Cold War: a long, drawn-out marathon, not a short sprint to victory. He expected the new war to last forty years and was determined to ensure JSOC could prosecute the fight with intensity over the long haul. Therefore he decided to give Delta a rest. Committing the unit to Afghanistan indefinitely, he believed, would burn Delta out within nine months. He knew Delta was superior to Team 6 in land operations, but he thought each unit easily surpassed the standard required for succes."
Extras din: Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die. The untold Story of Operation Anaconda, Berkley Books, New York, 2005, p. 30-32. Cel putin dupa cum o demonstreaza cartea in mai multe episoade, in operatiunea Anaconda, unii operatori Seal Team 6 au dezamagit (nu toti, au fost unii care au avut un comportament mai mult decat onoroabil) ramanand in urma colegilor din Delta.
Iata un text care ilustreaza mai ales cele bune referitoare la operatorii SEAL Team 6:
Surprise attack: SEALs helped clear the way for Anaconda assault Book excerpt from ‘Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda’
By Sean Naylor Times staff writer
By late February 2002, U.S. commanders in Afghanistan had focused their search for remaining Al Qaida forces on the Shahikot Valley. They were to attack from the west March 2, using a hammer consisting of Afghan allies stiffened with a spine of U.S. Special Forces troops. The plan was to drive enemy troops into an “anvil” formed by Task Force Rakkasan, commanded by Col. Frank Wiercinski and comprised of infantry from the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain Divisions, who were to make an air assault into the valley at dawn on CH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Command of Operation Anaconda rested with 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) commander Maj. Gen. Franklin “Buster” Hagenbeck, whose headquarters was at Bagram, an airbase about 30 miles north of Kabul and 100 miles north of the Shahikot. But neither Hagenbeck nor any other U.S. commander in Bagram had a firm idea of how many enemy fighters were in the valley, or how they were positioned. Delta Force Lt. Col. Pete Blaber headed up a small organization called Advance Force Operations (AFO), tasked with conducting high-risk reconnaissance missions in the search for senior Al Qaida and Taliban leaders. Blaber’s small force was made up of commandos from some of the U.S. military’s most highly classified “special mission units,” including Delta Force and the Navy’s SEAL Team 6. Based in a compound in Gardez, about 18 miles north of the Shahikot, the Delta lieutenant colonel (0-5) was convinced that a strong Al Qaida force was gathering in the valley. Ignoring the misgivings of some at his higher headquarters on Masirah Island off the coast of Oman, he sent three small teams — totaling 13 men — to reconnoiter the valley in advance of the attacking forces.
Two of the teams — code-named India and Juliet — were drawn from Delta Force’s B Squadron. The third — code-named Mako 31 — was made up of five men (including an Air Force combat controller) from a SEAL Team 6 reconnaissance unit. Mako 31’s leader was a lanky, gregarious senior enlisted SEAL called Mike, better known to all as “Goody.” The mission of the three teams was to penetrate Al Qaida’s lines of defense undetected by moving overland across jagged mountain ridges, and then to establish observation posts (OPs) on the mountainsides from which they would be able to monitor the entire valley. India and Juliet were assigned positions on the valley’s eastern ridge. Mako 31 picked a spot on “The Finger,” a ridgeline that poked into the valley from the south.
As the teams prepared to depart the safe house, Blaber held a last face-to-face, heart-to-heart talk with Goody, whom he regarded as “a true warrior and a great guy.”
“Goody, the success or failure of your mission will predicate the success or failure of the entire operation,” the AFO commander said. “You have to make it to that OP before H-Hour.” Neither man could have known how true Blaber’s words were to prove, but Goody was determined not to let his new boss down. “Sir, I’ll make it to my OP come hell or high water,” Goody replied. “If we’re hurting on time, I’ll drop our rucks. If we’re still having problems, I’ll keep dropping gear until five naked guys with guns are standing on the OP at H-Hour.”
With less than 36 hours to go before the TF Rakkasan helicopters flew into the valley, both Delta teams had made it to their OPs, but Mako 31 was still about 1,000 meters short …
Shortly after dawn on an overcast March 1, Goody sent two Mako 31 snipers up the Finger to scout the location the team had selected for their observation post. The two SEALs inched forward for 500 meters along the rocky ridgeline until they could put eyes on the exact spot Goody and Blaber had agreed on. As they poked their heads above the rocks to get a good look, they got the shock of their lives. Someone had beaten them to it. There, in the lee of a large, jagged outcrop, on the very patch of ground on which they intended to establish their observation post, sat a gray-green tent big enough to sleep several people. As the commandos digested this unexpected turn of events, their eyes fastened on an even more unsettling sight. About 15 meters up the rock-strewn slope, they discerned the outline of a tripod-mounted DShK (pronounced “Dishka”) 12.7mm heavy machine gun wrapped tightly in blue plastic. The discovery was momentous. The position dominated the southern end of the valley — that, after all, was why the AFO operators wanted to occupy it — and overlooked the 700-meter gap through which TF Rakkasan’s helicopters were to fly between the Finger and the eastern ridge. With an antiaircraft range of 1,000 meters, the DShK was ideally located to shoot down the infantry-packed Chinooks due to fly into the valley in less than 24 hours. It would be Frank Wiercinski’s worst nightmare come to horrifying life.
The loss of even one Chinook full of Rakkasans would be a disaster from which Operation Anaconda might not recover. Troops would have to be dispatched from their previously assigned missions to secure the downed helicopter, all while enemy fire poured down on them from the mountainsides.
Any reserves flown in would have to brave the same gauntlet of fire that had precipitated their arrival in the first place. But the DShK was positioned to deal an even more devastating blow to the operation. Wiercinski planned to bring his forward command post, containing himself, his command sergeant major, his aviation commander, his reserve battalion commander and his air liaison officer, into the valley on two Black Hawks and land just a few hundred meters farther north along and a little farther down the Finger from the DShK. At such close range it would be hard for the Al Qaida gunner to miss. As he emptied his weapon into the two American helicopters, even he would not have dreamed that the Black Hawks cartwheeling to the ground were carrying to their deaths not only the commander of the entire air assault force but also the commanders of his aviation task force and his only reserve, as well as his senior NCO and the officer responsible for coordinating close air support for the troops who survived the initial air assault. In the opening minutes of Anaconda a single heavy machine gunner would have dealt the operation a shattering blow.
At 10:02 a.m., India Team relayed a message from Mako 31 to the safe house stating the bare facts of their discovery: an unmanned DShK and a tent sitting on the observation post. This was a lesson for anyone who thought the U.S. military’s billions of dollars’ worth of spy satellites and surveillance aircraft obviated the need for ground reconnaissance. Despite the boasts at Bagram that “every national asset” was being focused on the valley, none of the satellites or spy planes — not even the Mi-17 helicopter the CIA had flown over the Shahikot the previous day with an operative filming the valley floor — had revealed either the tent or the weapon that could have spelled defeat for the Americans in the battle’s opening moments. Maj. Lou Bello, a 10th Mountain fires planner, compared searching for a single DShK on a mountainside from the air to “looking for a needle in a haystack.” In the giant haystack that was the Shahikot Valley, Mako 31 had found a needle and it was pointing straight at the heart of Operation Anaconda.
The SEAL snipers used a Nikon Coolpix digital camera equipped with an eight-power telephoto lens to snap a few photos of the DShK and the tent. They marked the position’s coordinates with a Global Positioning System receiver, then slipped away as low clouds and a sudden snowstorm appeared to cover their withdrawal. Once the weather cleared, they returned for a second look and were rewarded with an extended sighting of two fighters manning the position.
One was a short, dark-haired, and bearded man with Mongol features — possibly an Uighur Chinese. The other, clearly in charge of the DShK, was a tall, clean-shaven Caucasian with reddish-brown hair — most likely an Uzbek fighter from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Al Qaida’s loyal allies in Central Asia. They were well equipped for the elements. A blue five-gallon gas can just outside and a pipe protruding from the roof indicated that their tent was heated. The shorter fighter wore a pale tunic, a sleeveless jacket, and what appeared to be a wool hat. The taller man wore a thick red Gore-Tex jacket, a Polartec fleece jacket tied around his waist, Russian-style camouflage pants, and Adidas sneakers. Each fighter appeared fit and healthy.
The SEALs clicked off a few more photos and crept back to the mission support site, about 200 meters northwest of the DShK. From there, Goody sent several photos and a report back to Blaber using a Toshiba Libretto mini-laptop hooked via a USB port to the satellite radio. The SEALs had only seen two enemy fighters, but they reckoned as many as five might be occupying the position. Mako 31’s leader also had an urgent question for Blaber, prompted by the machine gunner’s European features: “Are there Brits up here?” He wanted to make sure he wasn’t about to get in a firefight with the British army’s vaunted Special Air Service. “It was so fantastical seeing this guy with no beard and red hair and Gore-Tex [and] BDU pants, they had a hard time believing that’s what the enemy was,” recalled an operator. Blaber assured Goody there were no Brits in the area, then he forwarded the photos to Jimmy, a Delta Force major in Bagram who was Blaber’s deputy. Jimmy in turn sent the photos to Hagenbeck and to Masirah. Blaber followed up with a call to Hagenbeck. The AFO commander underlined his view that the fighters seen by Mako 31 and Juliet were proof the enemy was in the mountains, not the valley floor where the Rakkasans expected to find them. But despite the enemy presence, Blaber told the Mountain commander that with the three AFO teams occupying dominant terrain, “we are in a position to control the valley.”
“Good job,” Hagenbeck replied.
Using point-to-point digital messages similar to e-mail sent via satellite, Blaber and Goody discussed what to do about the DShK position. It clearly had to be eliminated before H-Hour. Goody asked Blaber what he thought Goody should do. Blaber typed a response that turned the question around, asking Goody what he thought he should do. “I think we ought to wait until H minus two [hours],” Goody wrote. “At H minus two I start moving; I engage at H minus one, and then follow up with AC-130. I understand that you have to make the decision on this and I’ll support any decision you make.”
Blaber sent him a two-word reply: “Good hunting.”
Just after midnight, Goody and the other four men of Mako 31 left the hollow they had used as a hide site and crept toward the enemy observation post. Goody moved ahead of the others, scouting a site where they could drop their rucks about 500 meters from the enemy position. The explosive ordnance disposal expert assigned to Mako 31 and Andy, the team’s Air Force combat controller, remained with the rucks to minimize the chances of the enemy overhearing them as they arranged AC-130 and P-3 coverage of their assault of the tent position. Trying hard to keep to the long shadows cast by a full moon, the three SEAL Team 6 snipers advanced toward a small ridgeline on the other side of which sat the tent. They could hear the low drone of the AC-130 overhead.
Once they reached the ridgeline, their plan was to wait until H minus one (i.e., 5:30 a.m., an hour before H-Hour) and then assault the tent, coordinating their attack with the AC-130. Not long after they had found cover behind some rocks on the reverse slope of the ridge from the tent, an enemy fighter appeared on the ridgeline like a ghostly apparition in the moonlight. He looked around, then turned and retraced his steps without noticing the nearby SEALs. Goody and his men settled down to wait. But at 4 a.m. the same fighter appeared, again walking up from the tent (which the SEALs could not see from their vantage point) and gazing west. Perhaps he was looking for the approaching TF Hammer convoy, word of which was undoubtedly circulating on the enemy’s radios and cell phones by now, or perhaps he was merely seeking some privacy to relieve himself. Either way, it was a fateful decision. Glancing up, the enemy fighter caught sight of the SEALs before they had time to duck behind the rocks. Yelling a warning, he sprinted back to the tent, his body’s “fight or flight” mechanism pumping adrenaline into his bloodstream.
For the SEALs, it was now or never. Goody gave the order to attack. The commandos charged over the ridgeline and down toward the tent 20 meters away. From inside the tent an Al Qaida fighter fired off an entire magazine in the general direction of the Americans, who could see the Kalashnikov’s muzzle flash between the tent flaps. The SEALs dropped to their knees to return fire. A SEAL fired a single round into the tent from his M4 before the rifle jammed. Goody fired next, but he, too, only got off a single round before his rifle jammed. The two SEALs worked frantically in the frigid night air to clear their weapons as the third sniper kept the enemy at bay. Five Al Qaida fighters poured from the tent as the SEALs cleared the jams and began picking them off. The first guerrilla sprinted straight at them. In a split second a commando put the red dot of his laser sight in the middle of the fighter’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Several bullets slammed into the fighter’s body and sent him tumbling lifelessly to the frozen earth. The next man out of the tent broke right but got no more than a couple of steps before he was felled by another SEAL fusillade. A third tent occupant tried to escape over the backside of the ridge, only for the SEALs to put their long hours of marksmanship training to good use yet again.
The SEALs leveled their rifles and emptied their magazines into the tent, then pulled back. Goody decided to let the AC-130 take care of any enemies left alive. Andy, the combat controller, had already alerted Grim 31, the AC-130H Spectre orbiting overhead. The aircraft reported seeing two bodies just outside the tent and a third, wounded, enemy fighter trying to crawl to safety. Grim 31 also spotted the two remaining enemy fighters, who had apparently escaped the firefight outside the tent unharmed and were now trying to outflank the SEALs. From a range of 75 meters — almost point blank for a machine gun — one of the Al Qaida survivors fired a long burst of 7.62mm bullets from a PK machine gun at the SEALs, who hadn’t noticed their maneuver. The rounds missed. It was to be the last opportunity the two Islamist fighters would have to kill in the name of Allah.
Grim 31 requested permission from the SEALs to engage the enemy fighters at “danger close” range, a step required of any aircraft crew about to attack a position in such close proximity to friendly forces that they might be hurt by the airstrike. The SEALs gave their okay. Within a couple of seconds the AC-130 poured 105mm rounds down upon the mountainside, killing both enemy fighters instantly. Then the Air Force gunners adjusted their fire and opened up on the tent and the wounded fighter outside. The explosions shredded the tent and sprayed its contents across the mountainside. When the echoes had faded away, five Al Qaida corpses were left cooling on the mountainside.
The sound of the AC-130 firing alerted every Al Qaida position around the valley. As they gazed upward, searching the night sky for the source of the attack, many fighters made a fatal error — they tilted their weapons skyward and fired blindly into the air, sending tracer rounds arcing into the darkness. Doing so revealed their positions to the three AFO teams, who quickly noted the location of each source of gunfire, to be passed to aircraft later that day as targets to be engaged.
The SEALs moved back to the Al Qaida observation post, which they intended to occupy themselves. What they found as they searched the debris confirmed how vital their mission had been. The DShK was in great condition, clean and well oiled with 2,000 rounds of ammunition arranged neatly within arm’s reach. The guerrillas had built a rough-and-ready traverse and elevation mechanism that, in the opinion of a special operations source, would have allowed the gunner to hit targets up to 3,000 meters away and to cover “easily” the routes to be taken by the helicopters that were shortly to enter the valley. It was fortunate that the SEALs had been able to take the guerrillas by surprise, because the Al Qaida fighters had been well armed. In addition to the DShK, the five tent mates were equipped with a Soviet-style SVD Dragunov sniper rifle, AK-series assault rifles, at least one RPG-7 launcher with several rounds, a PK machine gun, and several fragmentation grenades.
Scattered around were several documents handwritten in Cyrillic script and Arabic. The fact that most were in Cyrillic script — suggesting at least one or more of the fighters were Uzbeks or Chechens — with a few in Arabic, when coupled with the different ethnicities of the five fighters who had been killed, was the first indication that enemy commanders had divided at least some of their force in the valley into cross-cultural teams. (Blaber speculated that the enemy did this to prevent one ethnic group — Arabs, Uighurs, Uzbeks, or Chechens — from leaving the others in the lurch.) The documents included what appeared to be a range card for an artillery system, as well as a notebook that included sketches and instructions on how to build homemade bombs and blow up bridges, buildings, buses, and cars. But as one special operations account of the notebook’s contents later put it, “The one chapter it didn’t have was how to defend against Americans who infil over 11,000-foot peaks.”
About the author
“Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda” was scheduled to go on sale March 1. The book offers a deep, inside account of the battle-planning process as well as the combat itself, and reveals joint command-and-control failures that cost lives.
sursa: LINK atasez aici fotografia in care apare colonelul Pete Blaber:
Interesant mi se pare si principiul numeric care a stat la baza organizarii 22 SAS si Delta Force. 22 SAS e configurat dupa o structura cuaternara: 4 escadroane, fiecare cu cate 4 plutoane. SFOD-D are structura ternara: 3 escadroane (au existat 2 de la infiintare, in 1977, pana la sfarsitul anului 1990, cand a fost creat escadronul C iar in ultimii ani a fost anuntata crearea unui al patrulea escadron) divizate, fiecare, in 3 plutoane. Initial, se pare ca fiecare escadron Delta avea doar 2 plutoane: unul de asalt si al doilea pentru recunoastere si lunetisti.
Cartea lui Dalton Fury (de fapt Thomas Greer), Kill Bin Laden, prezinta cateva lucruri legate de organizarea Delta in paginile 198 si 203 (287-288; 294 la sectiunea download). Ce este curios, este deosebirea de conceptie organizatorica dintre SAS si Delta, desi unitatea americana este aproape o 'clona' a celei britanice. Un pluton (troop) SAS are, teoretic, 16 oameni organizati in 4 patrule a 4 soldati. Comandantul plutonului si sergentul loctiitor al comandantului fac parte din aceasta structura. Plutonul de asalt din SFOD-D are un detasament de stat-major de 8 operatori, la care se adauga cele 4 patrule a cate de 5 oameni fiecare, deci cam 28 de oameni. Se pare ca plutonul de recunoastere este mai putin numeros (dupa cum afirma si Sean Naylor) fiind format probabil din 2 patrule de lunetisti/observatori al caror efectiv este, se pare, de 6 oameni (impartiti probabil in 3 binoame lunetist+observator), la care se adauga sectiunea de stat-major de 8 oameni. Asadar, cam 20 de operatori. In total escadronul ar avea circa 75 de oameni. Este normal ca cifrele exacte sa nu fie cunoscute publicului, dar cred ca nici nu este nevoie de asa ceva. Oricum, efectivul acestor unitati se ridica rareori la nivelul nominal, din cauza pierderilor si a ratei reduse de inlocuire a celor care dispar, sunt incapacitati in misiuni de lupta sau se retrag.
Operatori Delta la Tora Bora in decembrie 2001
In timp ce plutoanele escadroanelor SAS sunt denumite in functie de mediul in care opereaza (aerian, terestru,amfibiu si montan/arctic) ceea ce tine de caracterul initial de unitate specializata mai ales in recunoastere si razboi neconventional, escadroanele Delta sunt divizate in plutoane de asalt si recunoastere/observare, care reflecta conceptul care a stat la baza crearii ei: necesitatea de a avea o unitate aniterorista.
Si cate putin despre istoria USSOCOM si (printre altele) 'incurcaturile' financiare in care numele lor a fost implicat/
The Special Forces' Buildup
The organizational response to the administration's demands for special operations forces and doctrine was in practice rather similar to that made in 1961 to President Kennedy's demands for a coordinated military response to the threat of insurgency. The manpower of elite special warfare units was rapidly built up to surpass mid-1960s levels. Special Forces personnel had peaked at some 13,000 men in seven SF Groups in 1969 dropping to three active groups in 1974. The 1980 force level of some 3,000 was less than the peak strength of just one Special Forces Group in 1968, the Vietnam-based Fifth, with 3,542 men.1 Active-duty special operations forces in the three services rose from 11,600 in 1981 to 14,900 in 1985, with force levels, including reserves, reaching some 32,000 in 1988.2 Active duty forces were scheduled to reach 20,900 by 1990, with total available forces numbering 38,400.3
Much of the buildup took place in the army's Special Forces, which the new administration tried to bring up to wartime strength. The army added 1,200 places to Special Forces in 1982, bringing its force level up to 4,000 in four active groups by 1984.4 Each group had a nominal strength of 776 men, divided into three battalions. Although all four groups are stationed within the United States, three battalions and two other Special Forces detachments are permanently based overseas. A fifth group (the Third) was scheduled to be established in 1990-1991 with special responsibilities for Sub-Saharan Africa.5 Army special operations forces in July 1986 were reported to include 4,800 Special Forces, 1,500 Rangers, 800 men in a Psychological Warfare Group, 250 in a civil affairs battalion, and about 800 in the aviation section.6 By 1987, the manpower of the army's special operations forces was estimated at 9,100 on active service, with 12,400 in the reserves.7 The Reagan administration also rapidly moved to rebuild the CIA's paramilitary capability, rehiring many of those laid off by Admiral Turner in 1977.
The special warfare revival was spurred on by a coordinated media offensive comparable to that of the first year of the Kennedy administration—the Green Berets were once again basking in the limelight.
Not surprisingly, they benefited from a dramatic rise in the funds earmarked for special operations forces in the defense budget. From an estimated $500 million for special operations forces in 1981, funding rose to some $1.2 billion in 1987 and $1.5 billion in 1990.8 Construction projects alone for special operations facilities at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Fort Bragg, and Hunter Army Airfield in the mid-1980s were budgeted at $236 million.9 The funding of the army's Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which was $250 million in 1982, its first year of operations, was projected to go to $700 million by 1990.10
Although civil affairs units were a part of the new special operations formula, they remained, as always, a minor part of special warfare. The army's 172-man 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, assigned to SOCOM in l 982, was and still is, in fact, the only active civil affairs unit in the army, and continues to provide support for the entire army. The 96th's four companies each specialize in a geographical region but work both with conventional and special operations forces. The Army's small standing force for civil affairs in the 1980s reflects the limited role for such specialists beyond the context of conventional warfare; some 97 percent of the total army civil affairs manpower is to be found in the reserves, available for call up in time of need.'' In the meantime, the full-timers were subordinated to the more arcane requirements of special warfare.
A strong civil affairs component could reasonably have been encouraged as a means to temper the army's new involvement in unconventional warfare and low-intensity conflict; the civil affairs experience in postwar Europe might have offered a more promising route to counterinsurgency, for one, than the guerrilla approach associated with special operations forces. But the uneasy accommodation of a policy of galloping interventionism with the political requirement of appearing to work only at the invitation of overseas partners precluded any occupation-style approach. In practice, the chosen arrangement subordinated civil affairs more fully to the merely cosmetic needs of unconventional warfare. In Vietnam, the military's need for a strong civil a affairs role was resisted by political fiat. In the spring of 1965 the Joins Chiefs of Staff proposed, in return for the commitment of American troops to Vietnam, that the military command deploy U.S. military civil affairs teams, "as in World War II," to take charge of provincial administrations. The suggestion was shrilly opposed by American civilian agencies and firmly slapped down.12
The air force also took part in the special operations buildup, bringing most of its special operations and search and rescue units together under the 23d Air Force; in 1983, the 23d's First Special Operations Air Wing was established, and based at Eglin Air Base in Florida.13 By 1987, there were some 4,100 air force special operations forces on active duty and 2,500 reservists. Five other SOF squadrons (and three in the reserve) were based at Eglin, Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines, and Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany. A helicopter detachment was based at Howard Air Force Base in Panama.14
By 1986 the navy's SEALs—Sea, Air, Land forces—had reached some 1,700 troops, organized into two special warfare groups based at Little Creek, Virginia, and Coronado, California, respectively. Arguably the best-trained of the elite units, SEALs continue the traditions of the underwater demolition teams (UDTs) created by the navy in 1942 to clear the way for amphibious landings; their role expanded in Korea to include reconnaissance and covert landings for deep-penetration raids.15 The SEALs, which draw recruits from underwater demolition personnel, date to 1962 and first saw action in Vietnam. The characteristic SEAL force of sixteen-man units; navy plans in 1987 reportedly aimed at increasing the number of units from forty-one to seventy over five years.16 Larger units included six SEAL Teams.17 SEAL Team 6, with from 175 to 200 men, is believed to specialize in counterterrorism.18 Secret navy units like Task Force 98 reportedly work out of eight bases, including the British Royal Air Force base at Machrihanish, Scotland.19 The Multipurpose Training Mission
Defense Secretary Weinberger observed in 1983 that the military skills required to meet the challenge of low-intensity conflict were found "chiefly . . . in our special operations forces." Army Special Forces took "a very large share of the burden . . . to instruct others in providing for their own defense" and to help give the people "a stake in the future" (through "civic action").20 In another statement, Weinberger explained that the special operations forces' advisory role had both a training objective—to organize counterparts and impart skills—and an operational role: "to reduce the probability that United States armed forces could be committed in foreign battles, and to demonstrate the resolve of the United States to fulfill its commitments."21
The special operations concept of the 1980s retained the full range of functions assigned to the Special Forces in Vietnam, the so-called triplex Special Forces Mission of special unit, clandestine, and paramilitary operations.22 In the 1980s,, the three functions would remain fused in the repertoire of special operations forces. The Special Forces had also acquired a major role in the training of foreign conventional forces in the 1960s—a role that would be sustained and increased. By the end of the Reagan years, Special Forces personnel had assumed most of the responsibilities for training and advising the regular forces of Third World countries, instilling conventional infantry with the skills and attitudes of the unconventional warrior.
The rapid expansion of special operations forces, their increased role in foreign military training and assistance, and the vigorous promotion of overseas military assistance in potential conflict areas were similar to the ferment of activity at the height of the 1960s counterinsurgency era. Four to twelve-man Military Mobile Training Teams (MTTs), which had provided a principal vehicle of training and assistance in the 1960s, also served as the workhorses of low-intensity conflict. According to former Joint Chiefs special operations chief Colonel Roger Pezzelle, training and advisory MTTs worked with "host country regular units, militia, reserve forces, and security units" (for militia and security units one might read paramilitary forces and intelligence groups). At the same time, Colonel Pezzelle noted, "a major part of all MTT activity" was carried out by special operations units, whose training "encompasses a wide range of activity from ordinary military combat and counterguerrilla operations to building bridges and counterterrorist operations."23
The number of MTTs abroad proliferated after 1980 just as it had in 1961. Army Special Forces provided most of the trainers. Some 130 Special Forces MTTs were scheduled for deployment in 1982, up from 53 four years before.24 In 1986, 260 Special Forces MTTs provided assistance to 35 countries.25 The expansion of training activities, measured in "man-weeks, " was estimated to have been fivefold between 1 1980 and 1984, from 1,161 to 5,787.26 By comparison, in duly 1962, just eighteen months into the counterinsurgency era, the Joint Chiefs had announced that counterinsurgency MTTs comprising 1,512 men were operating in nineteen different countries.27
Special Forces' role as trainers to foreign armies and paramilitary police, whether at home or abroad, was often undertaken in the glare of publicity. The Special Forces were expected to play both the "Rambo" role and that of the consummate professional, the winner of hearts and minds. The public, fed a diet of Green Beret feature films and staged interviews with Fort Bragg's commanders, were confronted by seemingly contradictory visions of the elite force and its multiple missions: as the merciless purveyors of counterterror and as the wholesome trainers sent to "civilize" their brutal foreign counterparts.
Somehow, Pentagon media managers reconcile these image shifts A Time feature, on "A Warrior Elite for the Dirty Jobs," stressed that low-intensity conflicts were more commonly known as "dirty little wars."28 The Special Forces, who are presented as ideal for the job, are characterized as ruthless commandos with no time for winning hearts and minds: "These unorthodox struggles require a special type of soldier: bold and resourceful, often trained in the black arts of stealth and sabotage, suitable for an elite unit that can vanish into alien territory or strike anywhere with speed and surprise."29 Write-ups on the role of special operations forces in countering terrorism went considerably further in stressing their bloodthirsty nature, as well as that of other elite units. A 1985 NBC television report on the 2,000-strong antiterrorist elite stated that the unit's core consisted of 160 people (presumably Delta Force) "psychiatrically screened for their willingness to kill."30" A Newsweek feature on special operations forces reported an exchange at the Los Angeles Olympics: A National Guardsmen on duty asked a Task Force 160 pilot about his mission; " 'If I tell you, I'll have to kill you,' [the pilot] replied."31 The ferocious image was by and large consciously cultivated, and matched by a set of skills and mission orders that indeed required a measure of ferocity. When that image was inconvenient however, Special Forces could be presented in a radically different light.
When presented to the press in their role as trainers of regular armies (or paramilitary police), Special Forces were characterized as cosmopolitan professionals handpicked for their human rights sensitivity. A Newsweek feature on Special Forces trainers in El Salvador presented a picture of a conventional boot camp aiming to produce "tough, flexible counterinsurgency units . . . able to hit and pursue guerrillas into the hills," while also "offering lessons in humanity: how to treat civilians fairly and how to take prisoners as well as tally body counts." (The villain of the piece was "history," the Salvadoran army's traditional brutishness, which Special Forces were steadfastly fighting.32) The same themes were systematically harped upon in much of the mainstream media's reporting on American training of Salvadorans.
A New York Times feature on Green Beret training for Salvadorans, "Salvador Gets Rights Lesson From the U.S.," described the training of cadets in "the rudiments of military operations, with a heavy emphasis on human rights and antiguerrilla techniques. "33 Major Roger Slaughter, a Spanish- speaking officer from the Special Forces detachment in Panama, "tapped his pointer against the chart listing the do's and don'ts of gaining the support of the people in a fight against guerrillas," and told his visitors that "an army cannot violate the individual rights of the people they are sworn to protect." And so,
[w]ith that admonition, drawn from the doctrine of the United States Army, Major Slaughter summed up the message that he and other American instructors have been trying to impress on the army of El Salvador through officer candidates.... Major Slaughter said that winning the allegiance of peasants ... means respecting them.... He said that it meant avoiding what he called "indiscriminate acts of violence."34
The problem of reconciling real special warfare skills and attitudes, notably those involving illegal tactics, to the planners' multipurpose expectations is less easily managed than are public relations. Can Special Forces really be expected to switch from selective assassination one day to civic action the next while standing by to serve as light infantry in a conventional rapid deployment scenario? Should they be expected to? The special operations advocates appear to see no contradiction between the Special Forces' extralegal and unmilitary covert action role, in which military ethics and the rules of war are jettisoned, and their main role in the training of foreign military and paramilitary forces.
Special Forces' heavy responsibility for advisory and training assistance to foreign forces has had some influence on the manner in which this role is seen by the institutional armed forces. A comment by General Paul F. Gorman at a 1986 symposium suggests that the traditional lack of enthusiasm of the mainstream military for unconventional warfare now also extends to advisory assistance. On the one hand, there was a "significant, largely overlooked congruence between our key cadres for Security Assistance and those for Special Operations Forces." On the other, special operations personnel and "those on Security Assistance duty abroad [largely the same people] are up against two or three times as hard a problem in obtaining recognition for their contributions."35
The implication was that this role, too, fell to Special Forces by a process of elimination—and by the trend through which advisory assistance since the 1960s had centered increasingly on counterinsurgency. Once Special Forces came to field the bulk of overseas trainers, the curriculum, perhaps naturally, became increasingly skewed toward the unconventional skills and attitudes for which Special Forces are unique. The Elite Genre
The turn to the more glamorous elite special forces for counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare in the 1970s and 1980s responded in large part to the need for the appearance of tough action being taken against an increasingly ubiquitous enemy. Defense analyst Eliot Cohen identifies three motivations for the creation, support, and deployment of elite units: "The first is military utility—rational, non-political reasons for having elite units. The second. . . the irrational and romantic sources of support for elite units. The final type . . . stems from the increased politicization of war and military actions in the past half-century."36 However complex the blend of motives for their creation (or revival), elite units are powerful symbols—a means through which signals of resolution and intent can be sent both at home and abroad. In particular, governments have traditionally "sought to cultivate the heroic image of elite units to build up domestic morale."37 But, as the military is aware, this can backfire. Cohen adds two riders on the symbolic role of elite units:
First, a democratic government cannot easily control the publicity that surrounds elite units; a government can initiate such publicity, but finds it hard to limit it.... Secondly, elite units may be misleadillg or ambiguous symbols, distorting serious public and governmental discussion of complex issues, encouraging instead a preoccupation with martial theatre.38
The latter concern is perhaps more important; the psychological impact of elite organizations and operations on policymakers and public alike can radically skew perceptions of a particular conflict, substituting the romance of the image-makers for the reality. Cohen cites the French paratroops ("Paras") in Algeria as a case in point; from a solution they promptly became the crux of the problem. And the public's view of the war, too, focused increasingly on whether one was for or against the Paras: "[T]he paratroops were a simpler topic to deal with than the philosophical, political, and strategic complexities of the Algerian problem. The average Frenchman's feelings toward the whole Algerian problem could be reduced to his feelings toward the paratroops."39" The American equivalent was, if ultimately to less effect, to make the Green Berets (via John Wayne) a symbol of American patriotism in Vietnam; the romanticized Green Beret made disengagement just that much harder and contributed to America's feeling of betrayal by its own leaders.
As a small force with a highly specialized, highly dangerous mission, the army's special warfare experts naturally developed with the characteristics of an elite, like the commandos or rangers of wartime— though with the added elements of shadow and secrecy of the intelligence operative. The characteristics of the army Special Forces were later shared by other American special warfare units, and an affinity with the elite forces of other nations developed. Modern elite military units can be distinguished by their assignment to unusual, extremely hazardous missions, their requirements for forces small in number but highly trained and physically exceptional; and their all-important image—as Cohen notes, "an elite unit becomes elite only when it achieves a reputation, justified or not—for bravura and success."40
Another traditional feature of elite units which the Special Forces embraced was the cultivation of a "hard-boiled" self-image, both through training and through public relations. Image serves an important psychological warfare function. As well as intimidating adversaries, an elite force's tough self-image, its familiarity with death and destruction, can build unit morale and remove combat inhibitions. The French Foreign Legion—"the brides of death"—and the Paras each developed a cult of death as part of their esprit de corps. The Paras' prayer illustrates their professedly abnormal mindset:
Give me, my God, what you have left Give me what no one else would ever ask I don't want riches Not success, nor even health . . . I want insecurity and unquiet I want torment and chaos.41
American psy-war chief General Robert McClure, an advocate of tactical terror,42 was also aware that a ruthless reputation could backfire on a unit, perhaps inducing an adversary to fight to the death rather than to surrender to a foe not known for taking prisoners. McClure acknowledges the role of self-image as a motivator, but questions the usefulness of its public dissemination:
I fully recognize that our troops must adopt a tough, hard-boiled killer attitude If they arc going to not only survive, but to win these battles I wonder, however, If that indoctrination, which, I repeat, is very necessary, needs to be widely publicized in the press and broadcast to our enemies?43
McClure's concern was prompted by the small number of prisoners taken in the Korean conflict and widespread publicity on Operation KILLER and the Hunter-killer Teams there. It might well apply to the more common scenarios in which elite units are deployed in counterinsurgency, In close contact with the civilian population.
The issue of terror and elite elan is particularly relevant to counterinsurgency/counterterrorism forces, forces that are in constant contact with the public. Both the training methods of special forces (including public exercises in towns and cities) and their public image (from threatening billboards and gory regimental insignia, to the standard-issue uniforms) may serve to cultivate an aggressively antisocial orientation, such as that of the colonialist Foreign Legion. They may also prepare the ground for atrocity. Psychological Screening—and "Modeling"—for Elite
Since 1961, U.S. military procedures for the selection of personnel for specialized counterinsurgency and covert action tasks have been the objects of intensive research in army, air force, and navy programs.44 In 361, an air force project was initiated to develop "psychological selection methods for dangerous counterinsurgency missions"; a similar program followed that was conducted by the U. S. Army Personnel Research Office (USAPRO) at Fort Bragg's Center for Special Warfare. The first testing of active-duty Special Forces personnel who were considered successful candidates was already under way in early 1961 and provided the basis for a profile that would be used to develop tests to determine the probable performance of Special Forces candidates. By 1962, three series of tests were in use: the "special forces suitability inventory" was designed to assess personality characteristics considered appropriate for the discipline; the "critical decisions test" measured risk-taking; and the "locations test" assessed spatial perception.45 By the 1970s, the military could count on sophisticated means to establish personality and skill profiles for the ideal counterinsurgent or covert operator.
Another branch of military psychology applicable to the elite counterterrorist units was "atrocity research," studies of why atrocities occur and the personality traits associated with killers. A navy research project led by psychologist Sigmund Streufert was the subject of awkward questions in 1971 by Congressman Cornelius Gallagher, who found the research to be "designed to measure how different individuals value human life; in other words to screen for those who, attaching little value to life, might make good killers."46' More disturbing is evidence of research into means of conditioning military personnel into more efficient killers. Peter Watson, in his study of the military use of psychology, refers to a 1975 NATO-sponsored conference on stress and anxiety in which U.S. Navy doctor Thomas Narut lectured on "symbolic modeling," by which people could be taught to cope with certain stresses, techniques that he said were "being used with 'combat readiness units' to train people to cope with the stress of killing."47 The methods were reportedly used for commando teams and special navy operatives, and they involved the screening of "films specially designed to show people being killed in violent ways. By being acclimatized through these films, the men were supposed eventually to become able to disassociate their emotions from such situations. "48 Other aspects of the program included training aimed at "stress reduction" and "dehumanization of the enemy." Dr. Narut reportedly also described the screening procedure for men with "passive aggressive personalities" suitable for "commando tasks":
They are people with a lot of drive, though they are well-disciplined and do not appear nervous, who periodically experience bursts of explosive energy when they can literally kill without remorse. Dr. Narut said that he and colleagues had therefore been looking for men who had shown themselves capable of killing in this premeditated way.49
The Trouble with Elites
The regular military was still not prepared to open the Pandora's box of special warfare tactics to conventional American forces, and it remained largely dependent on the disciplines and elite forces of special warfare. The implication was that the regular services remained unhappy about degrading the services as a whole when the dirty work could just as well be left to the "elite" personnel of Special Forces.
The alienation of the political warriors of the postwar period from the mainstream military had been a consequence of both their elite status and the professional "impropriety" of their role in special, political, or "dirty" warfare. An officer at the Army War College, writing in 1983 recounts the case of a Fifth Special Forces Group commander relieved of his command "largely because of the collision of two competing impulses: that of the Army officer who doesn't lie, cheat, or steal, and that of the intelligence operative who always has a cover story to disguise his true function or intent. Some problems refuse to go away. " In short he concludes, the U.S. Army "has demonstrated institutional antipathy to elites and continues to do so."50
The disquiet over special warfare can be traced back to the confusion of unconventional warfare with psychological warfare in postwar doctrine, and at the inception of Special Forces. Colonel Russell Volckmann in a 1969 letter concerning the Special Forces' subordination to the Psychological Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, recalled the concern of officers promoting the Special Forces concept: "Behind-the-line operations and the 'dirty-tricks game' had enough opposition amongst conventional military minds that had to be overcome without adding the additional problems inherent in Psychological Warfare. However, we lost that
European experience has shown that elites need not be specialists in the clandestine aspects of warfare to engender institutional unease and to assume characteristics deemed threatening to military order and discipline. Institutional resentment and preoccupation can be stimulated by separate formations of a distinctly higher status (and potentially decisive power, on the lines of the French Paras). A second cause for institutional distrust IS quite different, and involves those special units that have been
assigned roles at the bounds—or beyond the bounds—of the permissible in the laws and usages of war; the snipers, raiders, and irregulars that since the nineteenth century have pushed back the limits in modern warfare. Forces with unique, elite skills may be set apart because they are elite in status or isolated from the regular services on the grounds of military decorum and discipline. The Elite within the Elite
The Fort Bragg-based Delta Force was the primary antiterrorist force for the high-profile actions of hostage rescue and terrorist interdiction. An agreement with West Germany was reported in late 1986 permitting Delta to use facilities there as a forward reconnaissance and intelligence gathering base for a twelve-man unit, and to carry out joint operations with the German GSG9 and British SAS forces.52 Delta was an elite within an elite. The existence of other secret antiterrorist units drawn from the military's elite forces would gradually be revealed over the years.
The army's secret counterterror detachments were most often exposed in the 1980s when things went wrong through an excess of zeal, by military disasters that could not be hushed up, or when corruption— encouraged by the use of untraceable, unaccountable funds—became too serious to be overlooked. Delta's secret role in the Grenada invasion became known largely because of scathing critiques by military insiders of its poor planning. Intended to secure the main airstrip before the arrival of the army Rangers, Delta arrived precisely two hours late, supposedly because planners misread Grenada's time zone.
Delta Force received further unwanted exposure in October 1985, in the wake of the Achille Lauro hijack. The diversion by U.S. Navy jets of an Egypt Air airliner to an airfield in Sicily had already incensed the Italian government. Delta threw relations even more out of joint by precipitating an angry, armed face-off with Italian troops on the ground after the diversion. Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi told the press a week later of the tense moment in which Italian troops were ready to fire on Delta Force troops who had rushed out of a C-141 transport that landed right behind the Egyptian aircraft.53 Delta's involvement had hitherto been a secret.
Delta's problems were not limited to its military operations. In 1985, an army inquiry found evidence that Delta personnel had embezzled up to $500,000, with one Special Forces colonel and three associates accounting for at least $60,000.54 An internal army inquiry into the matte was put off in the fall of 1985 on the grounds that it could cripple the unit's planned operations in the Mediterranean.55 The army ultimate!, announced that eighty Delta men received "nonjudicial punishments; and seven were facing courts-martial.56 Lt. Col. Dale Duncan, who headed an army special operations proprietary, Business Security International (BSI), was charged with submitting a series of false invoices. including one bill for $56,230 in electronic equipment that had been paid for by another army intelligence unit.57 These were the first of what Newsweek called "a growing number of investigations, prosecutions and courts- martial focusing on alleged financial impropriety by members of Delta and other super-secret units spawned by the Reagan administration. "58
The prosecutions that ensued brought to light some of the contradictions between covert action accounting, where the rule of thumb was to eliminate the paper trail, and democratic accountability. Colonel James E. Noble, an army judge on the court martial which acquitted Special Forces Master Sergeant Ramon Barron of charges pertaining to his work with BSI, concluded: "The Army chose this extraordinary means to circumvent accountability for money.... By so doing they also chose to risk losing the money."59 John Prados, in commenting on the Delta Force's disdain for standard accounting procedures, observes wryly that "items procured for supposedly clandestine missions included a Rolls-Royce and a hot-air balloon."60
Two years after the Delta corruption inquiry, fresh investigations revealed more information on Business Security International, which suggested that it had operated quite apart from Delta Force. BSI was described as a front for army covert actions, set up in 1983 and code-named " Yellow Fruit, " to provide security for joint army-CIA operations in the Middle East and Central America. An April 1987 CBS News report linked " Yellow Fruit" to the covert operations of the National Security Council that were coordinated by Lt. Col. North and retired General Richard Secord.61 In its reporting on the Iran-contra affair, CBS tied BSI (" Yellow Fruit") to a Swiss bank account used by North and Secord to lease a cargo ship for arms movements. The army halfheartedly disputed the bank account charge, but CBS stood by its story (the account number had been provided to CBS by a former member of the unit). "2 BSI / "Yellow Fruit" was most likely an operation run by the newest of the Pentagon's covert intelligence agencies, Intelligence Support Activity (ISA).
The top-secret ISA was created as the army's Foreign Operations Group (FOG), in response to the crisis in Iran after the fall of the Shah. It operated over a year unbeknownst to the Secretary of Defense, the CIA, or Congress. The unit, renamed Intelligence Support Activity, was formally established in October 1980 by then-army chief of staff General Edward C. Meyer. Initially established for covert intelligence collection to support operations during the Iran crisis, ISA was subsequently employed for covert operations considered too sensitive for the army's special operations and intelligence establishment.63 Although ISA was allegedly unknown to congressional intelligence oversight committees until 1982, it had already engaged in major covert operations.
The first hills of ISA's existence emerged in March 1983, when Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz testified to a congressional subcommittee about his abortive raid into Laos early that year. Gritz said that in 1981 he had been approached by "a special intelligence (group) referred to as 'The Activity' " concerning a covert mission into Indochina aimed at freeing any American MIA's still held there.64 Although neither Congress nor the Pentagon would confirm the account—or the existence of the ISA— by May 1983, press inquiries established that Gritz had received some support in the intelligence area from a new army agency, the ISA. The New York Times concluded that the ISA had participated in the January 1982 rescue of General James Dozier from Italian Red Brigade kidnapers and was "operating missions against leftist forces in El Salvador and supporting anti-government forces in Nicaragua."65 Other sources credited ISA with unspecified operations concerning hostages in Lebanon.66
The current status of the ISA—which may now exist under another name—is unclear. Like Delta Force, some of its personnel exploited its clandestine operations for personal gain. In 1985, the ISA was reportedly disbanded after FBI investigators "discovered lavish trips being taken by some officers and their wives."67 But the Washington Post reported that in 1986 the ISA had carried out a number of classified actions in coordination with the intergovernmental "Operations Sub- Group" (OSG) set up to coordinate counterterrorist operations.68 John Prados has suggested that the Counterterrorist Joint Task Force at Fort Bragg, a unit of less than twenty men, may be "an operational component of ISA.""' Another source has suggested that ISA, rather than just a tight group of operatives, is probably "a computer data base of operatives with special skills who can be assigned for covert operations."70 In the past, special operations personnel were kept on call after their formal discharge from active duty.
The army's top-secret special operations air arm, Task Force 160— or the "Night Stalkers"—was exposed to the public gradually, mainly In consequence of casualties that could not wholly be concealed. A battalion-strength unit, TF160 supported covert Special Forces and Delta operations on detail from the 101st Air Assault Division. Based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Task Force 160 crews worked in civvies and flew a range of high-tech helicopters for "black operations. " Its involvement in the Grenada invasion—as the helicopter airlift component of Delta Force—was revealed after one of the helicopters was shot down. Photographs taken of the downed chopper and of others dropping off commandos showed they were Hughes 500 models, which were not officially in use by the army.71' Authorities eventually acknowledged the death of one Task Force 160 helicopter pilot in Grenada; subsequent Defense Department budget requests for the replacement of equipment lost in the operation suggested that up to ten other helicopters, some of them Task Force 160, may have been lost.72 Investigators of the web of CIA and Defense proprietaries involved in the "Contra-gate" affair subsequently attributed the covert transport of the helicopters to Barbados—in anticipation of the invasion—to a proprietary headed by retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard Gadd, who would also preside over the airlift of assistance to the contras in partnership with retired Gen. Richard Secord.73
Task Force 160 next appeared in the news in December 1985 after the Detroit Free Press interviewed the friends and families of sixteen army men reportedly killed in helicopter accidents in the unit.74 Although the inquiry did not tie specific deaths to covert operations, it concluded that the unit had "flown missions into Nicaragua and other hostile Central American zones, despite U. S. laws forbidding such military activity. "75 The father of Warrant Officer Donald Alvey, age 26, who was reported killed in a chopper crash off the Virginia coast on 20 March 1983, recounted his son's stories of his clandestine exploits: "Don flew a bunch of missions into Nicaragua.... He'd go somewhere and pick up a group of people in a clearing in the jungle . . . armed troops, speaking Spanish—and take them to another clearing in the jungle."76 Relatives said the unit members wore civilian clothes, flew by night, and were instructed to destroy their aircraft it they were forced down; they were also told "that the U.S. government would disavow them if captured or killed."77 A Fort Campbell spokesman responded, stating that "no Fort Campbell units have been involved in any military operations."78 The stories were consistent with the accounts from relatives of earlier U.S. covert action casualties in Nicaragua during the last years of Anastasio Somoza Debayle's regime. The secret units involved in the United States' war on Nicaragua found more comprehensive exposure in the course of the Iran-contra hearings.
1.
John M. Collins, U.S. and Soviet Special Operations, Draft Committee Print for Special Operations Panel, House Armed Services Committee (Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress: Washington, D.C., 23 December 1986), p. 24; Shelby Stanton, The Green Berets at War: V. S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia, 1956-1975 (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1986), p. 174. 2.
Stephen Goose, "Low-intensity Warfare: The Warriors and Their Weapons," in Peter Kornbloh and Michael Klare, Low Intensity Warfare: Counterinsurgency, Proinsurgency, and Antiterrorism in the Eighties (New York: Pantheon, 1988), p. 82. 3.
Ibid. These projections were nearly met: see Epilogue, p. 449, in this volume. 4.
Secretary of the Army John Marsh, in Frank R. Barnett, B. Hugh Tovar, and Richard H. Shultz, eds., Special Operations in U.S. Strategy (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, in cooperation with National Defense Information Center, 1984), p. 19; John Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars: CIA and Pentagon Covert Operations from World War 11 through Iranscam (NCW York: Quill/William Morrow, 1986), p. 386. The fourth was created around a nucleus comprised of one "A" Detachment hived off from each company in the three active groups (Collins. U.S. and Soviet Special Operations, p. 24). Four more reserve Special Forces groups with about the same force level provided a manpower pool for covert operations.
5 Collins, U. S. and Soviet Special Operations, p. 24. The Seventh, with a Latin American regional focus, is based at Fort Bragg. Delta, First Special Operations Operational Detachment "1)," is directed from the closed installation adjoining Fort Bragg, Pope Air Base. The Fifth (with the Middle East and Africa its regional specialties), was based at Fort Bragg until 1986, when its transfer to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was initiated. A battalion of the Seventh operated out of Panama and provided most of the detachments detailed for training duties to Honduras. The Tenth, with an orientation toward European and Mediterranean theaters, was based at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, with a battalion stationed at Bad Tolz, West Germany. The First SF Group, oriented toward Southeast Asia and the Pacific, was based at Fort Lewis, Washington, with a battalion based on Okinawa. 5.
H. Jason Brady, "US Special Forces Revamp, "Jane's Defence Weekly (26 July 1986), p. 126. 6.
Lilia Bermúdez, Guerra de baja intensidad (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno, 1987), p. 95, citing Center of Defense Information statistics. 7.
James Adams, "US Plans To Add Punch," (12 October 1986). 8.
Brady, "US Special Forces Revamp," p. 126: $139 million was earmarked for a five-year construction program at Fort Bragg, to include $23.5 million for facilities for the new Third Special Forces group in 1989. 9.
Ibid. 10.
Ibid., p. 127. That the subordination of the 96th to special operations might result in a reorientation of army civil affairs (rather than representing a change in the nature of special operations) is suggested by the requirement in 1986 that Civil Affairs personnel undergo parachute training; "Now 164 positions within the battalion are jump slots," according to Lt. Col. Rance Farrell, commander of the 96th in mid-1986. 11.
Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy at War: U.S. Performance in the Vietnam Conflict (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1986), p. 117, citing the 1971 official edition of The Pentagon Papers, vol. 6.C.5, p. 20. President Johnson had himself apparently suggested that civil affairs teams "be integrated into provincial governments on an experimental basis," but he did not press the point. 12.
Bermúdez, Guerra de baja intensidad, pp. 100, 102. 13.
Ibid., p. 100. 14.
Ian V. Hogg, "Special Forces Update," Jane's Defence Weekly (17 November 1984) 15.
Bermúdez, Guerra de baja intensidad, p. 99, citing "US Special Operations Revisited, " Defense and Foreign Affairs (October 1985), p. 32. Prospective SEALs are put through a one- year course. 16.
Ibid. 17.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 392. 18.
James Adams, "US Plans to Add Punch" (12 October 1986); Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 392, reports the planned deployment of SEAL teams of less than 200 men to forward bases in Puerto Rico, Scotland, and Hawaii. 19.
Caspar Weinberger, "The Phenomenon of Low-Intensity Warfare, " in Department of Defense, Proceedings of the Low-Intensity Warfare Conference 14-15 January 1986, p. 16. 20.
Bermúdez, Guerra de baja intensidad, p. 94, citing a statement in Col. John M. Oseth, "Intelligence and Low-Intensity Conflict," Naval War College Review (November-December 1984), p. 21. Training was also devised to permit "foreign armies to confront instability and aggression land] to increase the capability of our friends to confront Soviet expansionism" (translation from the Spanish by the author). 22. Stanton, The Green Berets at War, p. 37. Exhaustive reviews of the Special Forces role can also be found in Colonel Francis J. Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces 1961-1971 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, Vietnam Studies Series, 1973).). On the prisoner rescue mission, the latter (p. 148) notes that "while several camps were overrun, they were found to be deserted. Operations to recover prisoners of war were a constant objective, even though they were unsuccessful." 21.
Roger M. Pezzele, "Military Capabilities and Special Operations in the 1980s," in Barnett,, Tovar, and Shultz, Special Operations in U.S. Strategy, pp. 142-43. 22.
Richard Halloran, "Army's Special Forces Try To Rebuild Image," New York Times (21 August 1982).). 23.
James Adams, "US Plans to Add Punch" (12 October 1986). 24.
Bermúdez, Guerra de baja intensidad, p. 93, citing "America's Secret Soldiers: The Buildup of U.S. Special Operations Forces," The Defense Monitor 14, no. 2 (1985; Washington, Center for Defense Information), p. 2. See also Stephen 1). Goose, "Low-Intensity Warfare," in Kornbluh and Klare, Low Intensity Warfare, pp. 8384, who adds that special operations forces operated MTTs during the same period "in over three dozen nations, including Grenada, Honduras, El Salvador,, Costa Rica, Colombia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tunisia, Morocco, Liberia, Zaire, the Philippines, and Thailand." Special operations forces made up "25 to 35 percent of all MTT's, including virtually all of those employed in counterinsurgency training." 25.
General L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 17 July 1962, "Memo for the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs," enclosing "A Summary of US Military Counterinsurgency Accomplishments Since 1 January 1961," Carrollton Press Declassified Documents Reference System ((R)242C). All but nine of the teams had been working in Latin America and Southeast Asia. 26.
"A Warrior Elite for the Dirty Jobs," Time (13 January 1986), pp. 16-19. 27.
Ibid., p. 17. The Special Forces' training role was fairly accurately described in this account as training friendly forces "in the art of guerrilla warfare," offensive and defensive. 28.
Cited in "US Said To Field Counter-Terrorist Force," Reuters (2 January 1985). 29.
"America's Secret Military Forces," Newsweek (22 April 1985), p. 22. 30.
"Teaching the ABC's of War," Newsweek (28 March 1983), pp. 30-31. 31.
Richard Halloran, "Salvador Gets Rights Lesson from the U.S.," New York Times (18 April 1982). 32.
Ibid. 33.
Gen.. Paul Gorman, "Low-intensity Warfare: American Dilemma," in DOD, Pro ceedings of the Low-Intensity Warfare Conference 14-15 January 1986, p. 26. 34.
Eliot A. Cohen, Commandos and Politicians: Elite Military Units in Modem Democracies, Harvard Studies in International Affairs (Cambridge, Mass.: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1978), p. 29. 35.
See, in particular, ibid., pp. 60-65, "Elite units as symbols." 36.
Ibid., pp. 64-65. Cohen also refers to the failures at Dieppe, Dien Bien Phu, and Amem as a consequence of generals who "thought that a quick victory could be achieved by relying on elite troops alone." The Dieppe raid, a "reconaissance in force" of some 5,000, was commemorated by awarding the commandos their first green berets. A modern equivalent is the 1980s hype over special operations forces— and the rejuvenation and perpetuation of the idea that a quick fix can be made in low-intensity conflict through the short sharp shock of elite forces. 37.
Ibid., p. 63. 38.
Ibid., p. 17. 39.
Ibid., p. 69. 40.
Alfred H. Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origin (Washington, D.C./Fort McNair: National Defense University, 1982), p. 96. 41.
Ibid., p. 98. 42.
This is discussed at length in British psychologist Peter Watson's study War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin 1978; rev. ed. 1980). 43.
Ibid., pp. 279-80. 44.
The exact purpose of the study (and of the 135-part questionnaire produced to assess "value- of-life") was not clarified, however, and Strenfert was himself "not convinced that these questions did adequately separate the 'efficient' killers from the nonkillers" (ibid., p. 36 end pp. 179-81, citing "Gallagher proposes study of ending Navy Department's project: Group Technology," correspondence inserted in the record by Cornelius Gallagher, Congressional Record, 2 March 1971, pp. E1295— E 1202). 45.
Ibid., pp. 181-82, citing statements made by Dr. Narut in the conference, in a conversation with Watson and a colleague (Dr. Alfred Zitani) and in a subsequent interview. 46.
Ibid. 47.
Ibid. Tests reportedly used by Dr. Narut included the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, "especially its subscales measuring hostility, depression and psychopathy, and the Rorschach...." 48.
Lt. Col. Henry G. Gole, US Army War College, reviewing Paddock's U.S. Army Special Warfare: Its Origins, in Parameters (September 1983), pp. 93-94. Gole also notes the career element as an indicator: "To invest time and energy in special operations was—and continues to be—a career gamble.... Psychological operations are for the poet or career deviant; Special Forces are for hopeless romantics; long-range reconnaissance is a sideshow." 49.
Volckmann, and others, were opposed to having the Special Forces brief include psychological warfare, because the behind-the-lines specialty was already a sufficient problem: "We felt that there was in general a stigma connected with Psychological Warfare, especially among combat men, that we didn't care to have 'rub off on Special Forces" (cited in Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, p. 151). 50.
James Adams, "Delta Force Gets Base in Europe," Sunday Times (London, 28 September 1986). Delta reportedly took part in yearly maneuvers (code-named "Flintlock") with German and Italian special forces previously; SAS reportedly demurred, despite NATO sponsorship (in keeping with its low-profile attitude). James Adams, "Delta Force: The High-tech Way To Get Behind Enemy Lines— and Back," Sunday Times (London; 14 April 1985). 51.
Charles R. Babcock and Caryle Murphy, "Army Reportedly Put off Probe of Elite U. S. Unit, " Washington Post Service, International Herald Tribune (22 November 1985). 52.
" 'Black' Funds; Elite Army Troops Face Charges," Time (2 December 1985). 53.
Ibid. 54.
Ibid. 55.
Ibid.; David M. Alpern, "Delta Force under fire," Newsweek, 16 December 1985. 56.
Alpern, "Delta Force," Newsweek (16 Decmber 1985), p. 31. 57.
Ibid. 58.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 391. 59.
Charles R. Babcock, "Army Probe Finds No Link between Secret Unit, Swiss Account, " Washington Post (3 July 1987). A former member of the unit, William T. Golden, served as a prosecution witness in the criminal trial of leaders of the unit on corruption charges. Lt. Col. Dale C. Duncan was indicted by a federal grand jury for fiddling expense account advances; at the time of indictment he had already been court-martialed by the army. 60.
Ibid. The army argued that the number had two digits too many for a Swiss account. 61.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, pp. 391-92, gives ISA's origins as FOG and casts General Richard Stilwell (retired), then the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, as the éminence grise of army intelligence who stimulated ISA growth. Jeff Gerth and Philip Taubman, "New Covert U.S Commando Units Said To Raise Concern in Congress,"," New York Times Service, International Herald Tribune (12 June 1984), dates Meyer's creation of ISA proper to October 1980. 62.
Christopher Hanson, "Pentagon Forms New Spy Agency, " Reuters (11 May 1983). Gritz said ISA had been convinced in 1981 that there was sufficient evidence U.S. troops were still held captive in Indochina "to warrant a rescue mission, to be code-named 'Grand Eagle.' " He said planning went on for months and involved sending agents into the region to search for secret detention camps but that the official project collapsed because of a turf battle between ISA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. 63.
Cited in ibid. 64.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 392. 65.
Alpern, "Delta Force," Newsweek (16 December 1985). The FBI investigation was first reported in Newsweek, 22 April 1985. 66.
"Despite bad publicity in 1982 over leek of oversight and mishandling of some of its $10 million budget, the ISA continues to function throughout 1986." National Security Archive, The Chronology: The Documented Day-by-Day Account of the Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Contras (New York: Warner, 1987), p. 234, citing Washington Post (17 and 20 February 1987). 67.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 392. 68.
National Security Archive, The Chronology, p. 16, citing interviews and New York Times (11 May 1983). 69.
Prados, Presidents' Secret Wars, p. 389. 70.
Ibid. 71.
National Security Archive, The Chronology, pp. 233-34. 72.
The article, by Frank Greve and Ellen Warren, appeared on 16 December 1984 in the Detroit Free Press; it is cited in Christopher Dickey, With the Contras: A Reporter in the Wilds of Nicaragua (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 263, and "Missions by U.S. Unit in Nicaragua Reported," International Herald Tribune (17 December 1984). 73.
Ibid., citing the Detroit Free Press and AP and UPI cables. "Death Waits in the Dark, " Newsweek (22 April 1985) focused on the hazardous training drills of the unit; the cooperation of unit commander Colonel Terence Henry with Newsweek appears to have been an exercise in damage control after the Free Press allegations. Although Henry provided details on reported training accidents said to have led to the deaths of sixteen "Night Stalkers" in 1983 (60 percent of all army helicopter fatalities in the year, although the unit fielded only 2 percent of the helicopters), the account did not wholly dispel what Newsweek described as "speculation that some of the 1983 training accidents were staged to cover up fatalities the unit incurred in Central America. " 74.
"Missions by U.S. Unit," International Herald Tribune (17 December 1984). 75.
Ibid. 76.
Harold Jackson, "Reagan Battles for 'Contra' Funds," Guardian (London; 18 December 1984).
Iata un film in care sunt demonstrate avantajele carabinei de asalt HK 416, devenita principala arma a operatorilor Delta Force in 2004, in raport cu M4.
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