Posted on 11/07/2001 9:14:46 PM PST by RoarNLion
Revealed: how bungled US raid
came close to disaster
· Delta Force caught in ferocious Taliban ambush
· Debacle prompted review of war tactics
Luke Harding in Quetta, Julian Borger in Washington and
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday November 6, 2001
The Guardian
The Pentagon's only publicly announced commando raid on
Taliban positions, hailed as a success and beamed around the
world in video pictures hours later, actually went badly wrong,
seriously injuring American soldiers, sources in Pakistan said
yesterday.
The debacle, which saw US Delta Force soldiers come under
intense fire from the Taliban, prompted a review of special forces
operations in Afghanistan and seems to have led to a delay in
similar behind-the-lines operations.
The ferocity of the Taliban resistance caught US commandos
unawares and showed that 13 days of bombing had failed to
break the Taliban's morale. It sparked a debate in the Pentagon
on the advisability of such missions in the absence of clear
intelligence.
Soon after the October 20 raid, the US switched its military
strategy, throwing its weight behind the opposition Northern
Alliance and relying on it to provide ground troops for the
campaign.
The day after the raid the Pentagon hailed the operation a
success that proved that US forces could strike anywhere at
any time, in the manner of their choosing.
But details provided to the Guardian by sources in Pakistan and
the US, together with American press reports, present a different
picture.
· A raid by Delta Force commandos on a Kandahar compound of
the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, ran into heavy
resistance, causing serious casualties. One soldier's foot was
blown off.
· A simultaneous raid by army rangers on a Kandahar airstrip
was carried out only after forward troops had checked that the
area was clear. It was mainly for the benefit of the cameras and
to boost the rangers' morale.
· The fierce Taliban response to the Delta Force raid led to a
review of similar planned operations, and to questioning of the
leadership of the war's US commander, General Tommy Franks.
According to an authoritative and independent source in
constant touch with Kandahar, Delta Force commandos, the
most elite force in the US army, searched Mullah Omar's
compound but found it had been stripped of anything that might
provide useful intelligence. As they emerged they came under
intense fire, forcing them to retreat. The Taliban later retrieved
"an American foot", still in its boot.
"There was a lot of blood," the source said. "The Taliban had
expected an attack. They were ready and waiting."
During the raid a Chinook helicopter was badly damaged. The
Taliban later said they had shot it down and showed off a portion
of its landing gear.
The account given to the Guardian was consistent with an article
in New Yorker magazine yesterday. The author, Seymour
Hersh, said 12 Delta commandos were wounded, three
seriously. He quoted a US military officer as saying that the
team found itself in "a tactical firefight and the Taliban had the
advantage".
The commandos were forced to retreat to helicopters and
abandon one of the raid's objectives - the insertion of an
undercover team into the area, the New Yorker said.
Delta Force is a primarily anti-terrorist unit based at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. Its existence is never formally discussed, nor are
casualties. Its members are trained to attack with stealth in
small teams, but the Kandahar raid was a noisy production,
involving a back-up force of 200 rangers, AC-130 gunships and
100 Delta Force commandos.
"The mission was laid on like General Motors coming to the
Afghan war, like we did in Vietnam," Mr Hersh said. At the same
time, a company of rangers parachuted on to a Kandahar airfield
in an operation portrayed the next day in dramatic TV footage.
But in his article, Mr Hersh said that before the drop, an army
pathfinder team had checked that the airfield was free of Taliban
forces. The raid was for the benefit of the cameras.
On October 20, the speed and intensity of the Taliban response
at Mullah Omar's compound "scared the crap out of everyone", a
senior officer told the New Yorker, which reported that the
setback had triggered an inquiry into how such commando raids
were planned and executed by central command.
Since military operations began on October 7 there has been
grumbling among the Pentagon's civilian leadership that Gen
Franks, an artillery officer, is too hidebound and too steeped in
US military doctrine and its reliance on overwhelming firepower,
to lead a special forces campaign requiring guile and stealth.
Some senior officials want such operations to be run directly
from the Pentagon.
Mr Hersh said yesterday he had been used by special forces
officers to signal their unhappiness about how the operation was
planned.
"The reason I learned about it is [Delta Force] were upset about
what happened. This isn't the way you run Delta Force, you
can't have this kind of big-scale operation. And so they're
sending a message over the fence to the leadership."
Gen Franks and the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff,
General Richard Myers, both denied that the Taliban had
inflicted casualties on US forces. Gen Franks, who is based in
Tampa, Florida, said there were injuries during the operation, but
"we had no one wounded by enemy fire".
The failure of the October 20 raid prompted senior British officers
to emphasise the importance of good intelli gence. They made it
clear they did not yet have it, and the post-mortem after the raid
has delayed repeat operations.
"We need proper, joined-up, serious operations," a British
defence source said.
But with better intelligence, further raids by small groups of
special forces are on the cards once more, almost certainly
involving British forces.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed yesterday it was looking at
airfields in Tajikistan and other central Asian countries in the
search for land bases close to Afghanistan from which to launch
air support missions for the Northern Alliance.
The alliance is said to be poised for major offensives on the
capital Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif after carpet bombing by US
B-52s of the Taliban lines.
Sorry Bushies, this administration is just as corrupt as the one before it, and its propaganda machine is just as good if not better.
Obviously. Notice the lies, exaggerations and bull***t.
As you sip your Evian and contemplate the superiority of your life compared to the countless thousands who died September 11, realize this: the only thing "phony" here is your sense of self-importance. The rank stench of your smug moral righteousness is far more revolting than the honest, wretching smell of the decomposing bodies of the brave dead of New York, the Pentagon, the Post Office. The rest of us have already realized that your right to speak your opinion was bought by the military you so abhor, and we count it for nothing. We move on to collect the bodies of our dead; though dead, they speak more than eloquently than you, alive, ever could...
The following is a good guide to evaluating British Newpapers:
The London Daily Telegraph is read by people that think the world is run the way is was run a 100 years ago.
The London Times is read by the people that really run the world.
The Financial Times is read by the people that own the world.
The SUN is read by people that do not care whom runs the world, think they run the world or own the world as long as they have big TITS.
Not much of a counter attack if there are not choppers all over the ground?? Hummm?
With people like you IT IS a wonder how this nation has remained free this long.
Most asinine comment I've read in awhile.....Cheese, anyone?
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