User:Rob1bureau/Delta force

Disclaimer
This page is a rough draft only. Although it is done with the ultimate goal to make a high-quality, reliable and referenced page about Delta, this is not, and shouldn't be considered as such. [Even though the numerous references.]

Also : all information here is already available in public domain. None is newly breaking classified topics. So please don't shout "OPSEC !" as if sensitive information regarding current US national security was unveiled.

1979

 * Delta allegedly took part to the security of Pan American Games in July 1979 in Puerto Rico . But the unit was not operational then, and when it was activeted in November 1979 it had only 40 operationnal members..

1980s
Delta was activated after passing a validation test on November 3, 1979. The next day, the US embassy of Tehran was invaded by a crowd of militants (see Iran hostage crisis). Delta Force took part to operation Eagle Claw on April 24-25, 1980. This is probably the most widely-known operation involving Delta.

Delta was also poised for another rescue attempt codenamed operation Snowbird, but it never took place, mainly because of lack of intelligence

1981

 * Delta allegedly involved in the assault of the hijacked Garuda Indonesian Airlines flight GA 206 at Bangkok, but most references about it credit the operation to Indonesian Komando Pasukan Khusus (Kompassus).
 * Delta poised to free US POWs still held since Vietnam war from after intelligence believed to have identified a POW camp in Laos, but a recon performed by CIA-hired Thai mercenaries later reported that no Westerners were held in the prison. All planning was terminated after the operations leaked in the press.
 * In his book Inside Delta Force, Eric L. Haney, claims that while he and other Delta operators were training Honduran soldiers, they were tasked to intercept and destroy a group of communist guerrillas that had infiltrated the country from Nicaragua. Haney states that his team tracked and then assaulted the guerrillas to a mountain sanctuary in the Honduran jungle. Haney claims to have himself killed the group's leader, which ultimately turned to be a former Special Forces soldier Haney had met during Delta selection. That account is supported by what is known about the disappearance of former SF soldier David Arturo Báez (Haney confirmed that the man he killed was Báez, called Enrique "Keekee" Sáenz in his book), although it is reported to have happened in 1983, not in 1981. Former Delta deputy commander Lt. Col. Lewis "Bucky" Burruss and former Delta operator Mel Wick both said these claims are false.
 * On December 17, US Army BG James L. Dozier was kidnapped by the Red Brigades in Italy. JSOC sent a six-man advisory team leaded by deputy commander of Delta, Col. Jess Johnson, to provide any technical assistance needed by Italian authorities. They arrived in Italy on December 20. Although Dozier was eventually freed by Italian NOCS police unit, there are several indications that the U.S. momentarily planned to rescue themselves Dozier. The French counterterrorist unit GIGN had instructed two Delta officers and four NCOs before Delta was activated; the Americans had been very interested by the unit's equipment, especially CS gas diffusers. The day before the rescue took place, the GIGN was requested by the US to lend some equipment to the American unit. To remain low-profile, the equipment was loaded by night on a military airport in a C-130 Hercules plane, aboard which was Major "Jim B.", one of the Delta officers previously trained by the GIGN. Also, some time later, the businessman Ross Perot, then traveling from Washington to Dallas, received a phone call at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport from a US official, who asked him to organize a private rescue team to free Dozier. Perot answered that he would do his best, but then he arrived in Dallas, he learnt that Dozier had been rescued in the meantime.

1982

 * Delta operators also provided security during a covert SIGINT operation in Honduras codenamed Queens Hunter which lasted from February 82 to early 1983.
 * Since the early 1980s, Delta operators provided security detail to US Ambassadors and CIA chiefs of station in countries at risks sucha as Lebanon and El Salvador. In Beirut, Delta operators trained Lebaneses guards for the Embassy at least as soon as 1982. One Delta operator, Sergeant First Class Terry Gilden, was killed during the April 18, 1983 bombing of the embassy, and was the first Delta opertor killed in action. Former CIA agent Robert Baer also reports that two Delta operators provided security during one of its coverts missions he done while he was in Beirut between June 1986 and June 1988
 * Former Delta operator Haney also said in his controversial book that he and one teammate were tasked for a much more aggressive mission in Beirut: locate and kill snipers who were targeting Marines deployed there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission. Haney claims that in the mission, he and a teammate killed two ennemy snipers.
 * In December 1982, Delta and ISA operators began to train a special purpose group of the Saudi Arabia national guard in counterterrorism and VIP protection

1983

 * "affaire" suite Yellow Fruit. Inter Garrison selon BHD
 * missionnaires au Soudan ?
 * During the planning of the invasion of Grenada, Delta Force targets were constantly changed, from rescuing Grenadan hostages held in a prison at Richmond Hill to rescue U.S. students at True Blue Campus to assault the Cuban military HQ at Fort Frederick, a telephone exchange and a radio station. Finally, Delta was assigned back an assault on the Richmond Hill prison (after a State Department three and a half weeks-old plan which didn't consider that Bishop and his ministers had been executed). The plan called to B Squadron, under command of Major David Grange, to assault the prison in six UH-60 Black Hawks from Task Force 160, then these helicopters were supposed to pick up Lieutenant Colonel Dick Malvesti's A Squadron at Pointe Salines to assault Fort Rupert. The assault took place the first day of the invasion, October 25, 1983, and turned immediatly bad due to unexpected anti-aircraft fire which hit all helicopters and shoot down one, killing one crew. At all, sixteen Delta operators were wounded. The helicopters were too badly damaged to carry A Squadron assault.

1984

 * JO LA
 * DC-9 détourné ?
 * Seychelles
 * déc - affaire liner Koweitien.

1985

 * TWA 847
 * Achille Lauro Attempt to arrest the terrorists
 * détournement Egyptair sur Malte

1986

 * un opérateur en protection de Grazing Lawn
 * Project Round Bottle pour les otages du Liban.
 * Centennial de la statue de la liberté

1987

 * affaire de l'émeute de la prison d'Atlanta

1989

 * In May 1989, the US deployed troops in Panama in operation Nimrod Dancer to exercise their rights allowed by the Panama Canal Treaty of 1980 to move their units in the country. A detachment of Delta and SEAL Team Six operators was secretly deployed at Howard Air Force Base as a contigency response unit in case that US servicemen were taken hostages. No such incident took place, and except some recons in Panama City on targets for the future operation Just Cause, Delta didn't have to act.


 * In August, an informant reported to the FBI that the Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar had secretly gone to Panama. He was apparently trying to relocate parts of his organization there, possibly meeting Noriega in a island hacienda off the Panamanian coast. Delta and SEAL Team Six planned an operation codenamed Pokeweed to snatch Escobar and, if he was there, Noriega, and deliver him to DEA agents who would take him in custody. Army special operation aviation helicopters were deployed in Panama, and USAF MH-53J Pave Low helicopters were placed aboard the USS Forrestal to ferry the commandos on the island. Finally, a Delta recon team was sent in the island and found only an abandonned cinder-block shack with a pig farm in the back. It later truned out that Escobar had not left Colombia.


 * On November 21, twelve Special Forces soldiers were pinned down in the Sheraton Hotel of San Salvador by a guerilla attack. A Delta team was sent at San Salvador to rescue them, but the Green Berets escaped unharmed after 28 hours of siege, before the Delta team went into action.


 * In late November too, a Colombian reported to the US embassy in Panama that the Medellin Cartel was planning to attack US military facilities there with ten car bombs, in retaliation to the counter-drugs operations the SOUTHCOM commander General Maxwell Thurman was organizing. One of the car bombs would aim Thurman itself. Delta troopers were again deployed at Howard AFB with the mission to protect General Thurman, and, if attacks indeed took place, possibly snatch Noriega. But the informants' claims turned to be false and no attack occured.


 * In early December, during an Filipino army coup, Delta was asked to be ready to rescue US citizens in Manila, but the coup chickened out shortly and the Americans returned unhurt without Delta had to act.


 * On December 15, the Colombian police assaulted the place near the border of Colombia and Panama where the Medellin Cartel leader José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha was hiding, trying to evade arrest. A detachment of Delta and SEAL operators was kept ready aboard a US Navy ship sailing off the coast, but they were not used in the assault that resulted in Gacha's death.


 * Just Cause :
 * Kurt Muse
 * std by en cas d'otages ?
 * hunt Noriega

1990
support for a potential larger deployment of Delta force
 * Delta and ST6 operators reportedly sent in Saudi Arabia immediatly after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990 to protect the Saudi royal family and key facilities
 * In October and November, JSOC planned a daring operation codenamed Pacific Wind to rescue the US diplomats of the embassy of Kuwait City. The plan was dropped when Iraq left the diplomats leave in December.
 * about thirty D-Boys deployed in Saudi Arabia to provide close protection to General Schwarzkopf, and logistics and communication

1991

 * Delta and SEAL team Six planned various "H-hour" strikes, including on the Sea Island oil complex (which would release a massive amount of oil in the Gulf some days later), Silkworm AShM batteries, and cross-beach raids ahead of potential landings on the Kuwaiti coast.
 * plan to kill Saddam Hussein by shooting down his helicopter with Stinger missiles
 * missions anti-scuds
 * initial refusal, order
 * package

1992
1993 :
 * Colombie contre Escobar jusqu'à fin 93, relais SEALs
 * Waco
 * TF RANGER
 * GdC en Haiti Uphold Democracy avec le GROM polonais ?

milieu des années 90 : PR en ex-Yougoslavie Walter B. Slocombe Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

1996 : 1997 : 1998 : 1999 : participation à la protection du sommet de l'OMC à Seattle
 * JO Atlanta
 * Raid libyen envisagé
 * rumeurs autour de Lima.
 * Amber Star
 * reconnaissance officielle des SMU et CT / CP
 * Allied Force ?

2000s
2001 : Raid Gecko. PR ? TF Sword / TF 11 Mir Wais ? 2002 : AFO/TF Bowie, RT India et Juliett 2003 : rumeurs infiltrés, coop avec unités blindées, etc. 2004 2005 : "Power Geyser" 2006 : TF145 flingue Al-Zarkaoui 2007 : déterrage de cadavres en Somalie
 * Haditha Speicher
 * déploiment COIN dixit Hersh ?
 * TF 20 Oudaï-Qoussaï ; TF121 Saddam / TF 145
 * TF 6-26 ? affaire du gars tué à Falloujah
 * libération de Jerzy Kos 8 juin 2004