Review: Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit

Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit by Eric L. Haney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a really incredible, revealing look from a many part of Delta Force from its beginning Panama (Noriega), and beyond. Beyond includes a summary of his feelance efforts and commentary on the post-9/11 world. The meat of it is a Delta Force history that is a different view from that of [b:Shadow Warriors|397245|Shadow Warriors|Tom Clancy|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347401333s/397245.jpg|5054756]. Clancy's book now strikes me as an administrative history, told from, the point of view of management, whereas Haney tells it from the NCO level. Case in point: I got the impression from Clancy's book that Special Forces (SF) was an untutored, vestigal appendage of U.S. military units with no counterterrorism (CT) capability and this led to the Desert One disaster. Haney documents a thoroughly prepared and successful CT force that was led down by gutless Navy pilot without the nerve or equipment for the nearly successful mission. Haney points to [b:The Guts to Try: The Untold Story of the Iran Hostage Rescue Mission by the On-Scene Desert Commander|144318|The Guts to Try The Untold Story of the Iran Hostage Rescue Mission by the On-Scene Desert Commander|James H. Kyle|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1172162900s/144318.jpg|139240] as further support for this point of view. Here may have been the seeds of Haney's growing disatisfaction with American military policy extending to the purposeful wrecking of missions to recover POWs in Laos, with the complicit help of Bo Gritz. Later in South American missions, Haney's confidence is further eroded.



View all my reviews