found this on drudge



XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SAT NOV 03, 2001 09:51:24 ET XXXXX

MAG: 12 U.S. DELTA MEMBERS WOUNDED ON RAID OF OMAR'S COMPLEX, THREE SERIOUSLY; PENTAGON RETHINKS 'SPECIAL FORCES OPERATIONS'

Seymour Hersh has filed yet another controversial report for coming editons of the NEW YORKER, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

In ESCAPE AND EVASION, Hersh claims: In the wake of a near-disaster during the assault on Mullah Omar's complex during the early morning of October 20th, the Pentagon has been rethinking future Special Forces operations inside Afghanistan.

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Delta Force, which prides itself on stealth, had been counterattacked by the Taliban, and some of the Americans had had to fight their way to safety. Hersh has filed his report for the November 12, 2001 issue of the NEW YORKER, on sale Monday.

Twelve Delta members were wounded, three of them seriously.

The intensity and ferocity of the Taliban response "scared the crap out of everyone," a senior military officer tells Hersh.

The Delta team stormed Mullah Omar's complex, but found little of value, Hersh reports, and then, "as they came out of the house, the shit hit the fan," one senior officer says. "It was like an ambush. The Taliban were fighting with light arms and either [rocket-propelled grenades] or mortars." The team immediately began taking casualties and evacuated.

"The Delta team was forced to abandon one of its objectives: the insertion of an undercover team into the area and the stay-behind soldiers fled to a previously determined rendezvous point, using a contingency plan known as an E. & E., for escape and evasion," Hersh writes.

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One Delta Force soldier told a colleague that military planners "think we can perform fucking magic. We can't. Don't put us in an environment we weren't prepared for. Next time, we're going to lose a company."

One military man reports that Delta Force officers were "still outraged" last week as after-action arguments over how best to wage a ground war continued.

The Pentagon could not give details of what really happened near Kandahar "because it doesn't want to appear that it doesn't know what it's doing." Another senior officer says, "I don't know where the adult supervision for these operations is. Franks -- the general in charge of the U.S. Central Command -- is clueless."

Speaking of Delta Force the officer adds, "These guys have had a case of the ass since Mogadishu. They want to do it right and they train hard. Don't put them on something stupid. We'll get there, but it's going to get ugly."

Officers also criticized the Army Rangers' sameday parachute jump into a Taliban-controlled airbase because "it was a television show. The Rangers were not the first in -- an Army Pathfinder team had already confirmed that the area was clear of Taliban forces."

One senior official Hersh spoke to acknowledged that there were serious problems in the war effort thus far, but said, "It's like reading a six-hundred-page murder mystery. It's solved on the last few pages, but you have to read five hundred and ninety-eight pages to get there."

Developing...

The time frame is near the same when the Pravda reported some Americans killed, which was weeks ago.  I seriuosly believe the media is being sanitzed for American consumption.

[url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=63022[/url]

come on? do you read the tabliods also

I should have clarified, I believe the Taliban exaggerated the claims of lives lost and POWs, but it was Clear that SOMETHING happened that we are just finding out about in Major News Media outlets.  Foxnews also reported the above Drudge article.

[url]http://drudgereport.com/flash.htm[/url]

PENTAGON: NEW YORKER STORY FALSE, NO SERIOUS INJURIES DURING DELTA RAID
Sun Nov 04 2001 15:13:35 ET

Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers strongly debunked a story filed by the NEW YORKER's Seymour Hersh [set for publication on Monday] which claims U.S. Delta members were seriously injured during a raid Mullah Omar's complex in Afghanistan.

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Myers made him comments on NBC's MEET THE PRESS to host Tim Russert:

RUSSERT: On October 20 there was a commando raid by U.S. forces into Afghanistan. You showed pictures of people being parachuted in and some infrared pictures and things like that.

A New Yorker magazine today reports that during that exercise, that operation, 12 U.S. soldiers were wounded, three seriously.

RUSSERT: Is that accurate?

MYERS: Let me just tell you exactly what happened and then--I don't think that report is accurate in the context that it was written.

As you know, we lost two individuals to an helicopter accident before they even went into Afghanistan. They were the reserve force, sitting back, waiting to respond in case...

RUSSERT: In Pakistan?

MYERS: In Pakistan, waiting in case they were needed. They were not needed, but this helicopter landing in a dust storm, rolled over on landing and, tragically, two service members were killed. Two were injured in that one, as well.

The force that went in on the ground, there were a couple of parachute injuries that we expected, and those happened, and there were some other wounds from some of the action and some of the activity that they were undergoing, but none of it was inflicted by the enemy.

We took, essentially--I think, the article--I have not read the article, but I've heard that it portrays that we ran into some stiff resistance. That's simply not true. There was no resistance. The Taliban were in complete disarray.

RUSSERT: The article said that there was a firefight and that the Taliban not only had rifle fire but also mortars and grenades in response to the U.S., and 12 U.S. soldiers were injured, three seriously.

MYERS: And that's not true. That's not true. My guess is and my belief is that every soldier that came back from that particular raid is back on duty today. None of them seriously injured. Certainly, none of them injured by the Taliban.

The Taliban probably did return fire. They had that--all those capabilities. We know from other reporting, that they were trying to muster greater capability. They were unable to do so. Our soldiers just simply overwhelmed them.

RUSSERT: It also says there was grave concern within the special operations community about being sent into an operation like that, suggesting they were not fully prepared or properly planned.

MYERS: Nothing could be further from the truth. This operation was planned for some time. The leader of the special operation community, General Charlie Holland, down in Tampa, Florida, was fully aware of what was going on and was participating in the planing. And when it came down to it, we were all very satisfied that we were ready to go in.

And in fact, we executed that exactly as we thought we would do. The fact that we damaged a helicopter inside the compound we went into, that's just one of the things in war that's going to happen. We know when we're setting down helicopters with lots of troops in a dusty environment that there are going to be some incidents like that, and there were in this case.

But it went, from my view, it went flawlessly.

END

????

Miss use of Sec.-ops is nothing new!

This will not be the last time we read something like this.
I would like to see it some place else befor I get to mad about it,but they will need to put troops in and the sooner the better.

Now I don't know everthing the Bush team knows so I'm not going to talk crap about what they do,I just hope the time comes sooner than later.

Even if it was true. WTF people this is war, and people get hurt on both sides. Do you really expect our guys come come out every time without a scratch? These guys know the risks and have excepted them, SO SHOULD YOU!!

Perhaps at this point we dont [b]NEED[/b] to know the facts. I think everyone should sit back and relax. Let the warfighting be done by the pros, and stop second guessing them, nit-picking, and believing every scrap of BS you read or hear. When you see the Taliban dragging bodies through the street (and that most likely WILL happen) then you can belive them that they got some of our guys. Until then I'd relax.

Aviator  [img]www.milpubs.com/aviator.gif[/img]