Free Republic

Three Iraqis who aided the CIA in the March 20 attempt by the United States to kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein were executed this week by Iraqi counterintelligence, former and serving U.S. officials told United Press International. A super-secret U.S. intelligence operation, working in Baghdad for weeks before the war, provided the crucial targeting data for the attack on Saddam and his sons, launched in an effort to pre-empt a full-scale war, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The war had been scheduled to start Friday, March 21, U.S. officials told UPI. But -- after getting intelligence that...

THE people of Iraq awoke to a newly named international airport yesterday after an audacious night assault by coalition forces wrested control of the civilian and military complex from Republican Guard units. After British SAS and US Delta Force special operations teams spent Thursday morning making covert reconnaissance patrols of the airport’s outer perimeter they pulled back in preparation for a fearsome dusk assault that could be clearly heard ten miles away in central Baghdad. The attack on Saddam International Airport began when tanks of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division punched through its outer wall, rumbling past a towering portrait...

It is dark and Mike Smith's clothing is wet. Mike Smith is an athlete, an elite athlete in fact. He is a triathlete, has done Ironman several times, a couple adventure races and even run the Marathon Des Sables in Morocco- a 152 mile running race through the Sahara done in stages. Mike has some college, is gifted in foreign languages, reads a lot and has an amazing memory for details. He enjoys travel. He is a quiet guy but a very good athlete. Mike's friends say he has a natural toughness. He can't spend as much time training for...

<p>March 31, 2003 -- HAVE faith in the American soldier. Have particular faith in our special operations forces, the shadow warriors who are the most effective fighting men in history.</p> <p>Over the weekend, special ops troops leading Kurdish freedom fighters overran a vast terrorist base near Iraq's border with Iran.</p>

WASHINGTON -- In the largest operation in their storied history, elite special operations forces are waging a shadow war in Iraq whose success could determine whether coalition forces can topple the regime of Saddam Hussein quickly or whether the conflict will drag on for months, say military officials and specialists. The military's ''silent warriors,'' as President Bush called them yesterday, were involved in the first operations of the war and are likely to conduct some of the last, including helping spearhead the birth of new civil institutions in a post-Hussein Iraq. Details of their activities in recent weeks -- from...

TWO hundred SAS, Delta Force and CIA paramilitaries were last night behind enemy lines in Baghdad — and about to slit the throat of Saddam’s regime. Battle commanders have ruled out a full advance into the capital to avoid bloody street-fighting and heavy civilian casualties. Instead the Special Forces teams — also including SAS squads from Australia — will become the enemy within. More: http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003140559,00.html

New York - A senior Iraqi official tipped off the CIA, telling Washington where Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would be sleeping on the eve of the war, Newsweek magazine reports. After months of US intelligence groundwork, the magazine quoted an unnamed "knowledgeable intelligence source" as saying Delta Force, the secret commando group, "managed to tap Saddam's underground phone lines in Baghdad. "The real break came when the CIA managed to recruit an asset, a senior Iraqi official in a position to know Saddam's greatest vulnerability: where he sleeps each night," the news weekly added in its report due on news...

Iraq's inhospitable western desert is the scene of a campaign without the presence of cameras or media pools. The battle here is astride the crucial road from Jordan to Baghdad The western desert is a flat land of compacted sand, sharp flints and pavements of limestone and basalt. Its occupants are a few Bedouin encampments and the occasional dirty towns that grew up around the pump stations on the now abandoned Baghdad-Haifa oil pipeline. Now a road follows that pipeline, the main strategic route connecting Baghdad with Jordan to the west. And along this road a very different kind of...

Secret op targeted Saddam By Richard Sale, UPI Intelligence Correspondent From the International Desk Published 3/21/2003 5:34 PM View printer-friendly version A top-secret U.S. intelligence operation, working in Baghdad weeks before the war, provided the crucial targeting information for the attack on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which may have killed Saddam's son Qusay, administration officials said. The highly clandestine targeting effort, directed at top Iraq leaders, involved specialized CIA and military teams under command of the CIA, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A senior, former covert operative of the CIA told United Press International Friday that the...

ELITE teams of US Delta Force commandos have been inside Iraq for weeks and are preparing to descend on Baghdad with the objective of capturing or killing President Saddam Hussein, US defence officials said yesterday. Small, highly mobile units picked from the US Army’s most revered and secretive fighting force have been assigned a key mission of the war: to hunt down Saddam, his two sons and at least a “dirty dozen” of Iraq’s top military and civilian leaders. The Delta Force, the US equivalent of the British SAS, has 306 men. It has been training for several years with...

ELITE teams of US Delta Force commandos have been inside Iraq for weeks and are preparing to descend on Baghdad with the objective of capturing or killing President Saddam Hussein, US defence officials said yesterday. Small, highly mobile units picked from the US Army’s most revered and secretive fighting force have been assigned a key mission of the war: to hunt down Saddam, his two sons and at least a “dirty dozen” of Iraq’s top military and civilian leaders. The Delta Force, the US equivalent of the British SAS, has 306 men. It has been training for several years with...

The U.S. military dominates the globe, but increasingly faces an enemy it cannot see. In the third in a series on U.S. power, Peter Goodspeed chronicles efforts to build a secret army for the covert war on terrorism. - - - The United States is building an elite, secret army to carry the war against terrorism into the world's darkest corners with a new wave of covert pre-emptive operations. For the first time since the Vietnam War, U.S. defence officials are undertaking a massive mobilization of their elite special operations command, pouring billions of dollars in new funding into high-tech...

<p>Army Sgt. William Wright is charged with first degree murder in the death of his wife, Jennifer Gail Wright, one of four Fort Bragg military wives allegedly killed by their husbands in the past six weeks.</p> <p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The killings of four military wives in the past six weeks -- allegedly by their husbands who are based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina -- have led commanders to take a new look at whether combat deployments may be causing undue stress.</p>