Posted on 11/18/2001 7:55:39 AM PST by grahm_crackers
U.S. , SAS's unreported casualties
Sunday, 18 November 2001 11:30 (ET)
U.S. , SAS's unreported casualties
By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Analyst
NEW YORK, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- The Pentagon is not reporting battle casualties suffered by U.S. Special Forces fighting near the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and some other one-time Taliban strong points, administration sources speculated.
"Some fatalities could be involved," an administration source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said there are estimates reported that between 25 to 40 Americans had been killed so far in clashes, but acknowledged that these were figures contained in "hard copy reports," and had not been confirmed.
A U.S. government official said: "The Pentagon takes casualties from one operation and extrapolates."
While some casualties have been due to friendly fire, most have been the result of intense battle clashes with the Taliban, with fighting rising to its most savage levels to date in some areas, these officials said.
These sources added that the British Special Air Services (SAS) troops in action in Afghanistan have also suffered casualties that were not being reported.
The British Embassy did not return phone calls.
"The administration is managing the war differently," one U.S. intelligence official said when asked about casualties. "We've begun to do what the British used to do so well -- lie. It's an `all of our aircraft returned safely' approach."
This source said that he had seen reports of 25 to 40 U.S. fatalities, but said the figures were in "cables and reports" and not confirmed.
But as to casualties, he emphasized they had occurred: "Look, you cannot wage a hard war in earnest without taking casualties. We are waging war in earnest."
John Pike, president of Washington-based GlobalSecurity. Org, told United Press International: "The press can't say it wasn't warned," and he referred to a press conference last month where Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was quizzed about the Taliban displaying a wheel of a helicopter, torn off in an accident, but which the Taliban claimed was shot down.
At the end of his explanation, Rumsfeld looked at the reporters and according to Pike, Rumsfled stated the equivalent of: "This is the last time I'm telling you the truth."
Pike added: 'I think he meant it."
One U.S. intelligence official told UPI that during the war in Bosnia: "There were U.S. casualties in that campaign that simply were never declared. I think the Pentagon thought, hell, we got away with it then, why not now?"
Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday, during a trip to Illinois, that U.S. commando teams in the south are working to foment anti-Taliban rebellion by Pashtun tribal leaders. He added: "They're looking for information, they're interdicting roads, they're killing Taliban that won't surrender and al Qaeda that are trying to move from one place to another."
Rumsfeld said the teams were also scouting potential landing fields for U.S. and coalition aircraft.
Asked if the troops were engaged in ground combat, Rumsfeld said: "The answer is yes. In the south, they've gone into places and met resistance and dealt with it."
But Rumsfeld said that no Americans had been killed in such operations, a remark one State Dept. official called: "Crazy."
"The rationale in denying the losses is that you don't want to give aid and comfort to the enemy," this source said.
The question of casualties first arose in the wake of an Oct. 20 raid involving Delta commandos who arrived in five helicopters to ransack the fortified home of reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar in the village of Baba Sahib in the Arghandab district, five miles northwest of Kandahar.
A large body of 200 Rangers, plus helicopters and AC-130 gunships were sent in to back up the Delta force.
The raid, whose execution was described by a senior Pentagon official, as "flawless in execution" was to be the start of new, fast-paced hit-and-run ground strategy that would alter the course of the war, said Pentagon officials at the time.
But instead of being deft and fast paced, the mission proved to be cumbersome, noisy, and maladroit, and not only because of the back-up forces, according to one administration official.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said: "We were unfamiliar with the area, and we had poor intelligence. We didn't expect the Taliban to be there."
The Taliban opened fire as the Delta emerged from the house, he said.
Another U.S. government official said that Taliban resistance around Mullah Omar's fortified house, built for him by bin Laden, was "surprisingly stiff," in spite of 13 days of pervious aerial bombardment.
Initial reports of casualties were as high as 22 wounded, but this figure was later "downgraded," he said.
When a DIA official was queried about reports of casualties, he said: "I have absolutely nothing to give you on that," and recommended that United Press International talk to public affairs.
According to other U.S. government officials, in the Oct. 20 raid, some hostile fire initially was mistakenly identified as coming from Taliban dug-in tanks or large mortars, U.S. government officials said. Actually, most of the fire proved to be coming from shoulder-fired Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), which caused serious shrapnel, wounds among the attackers and slowed them to a stall, U.S. government sources said.
The counterattack by the Taliban was "amazingly swift and tough," one U.S. intelligence official said.
The Oct. 20 raid was mounted from the remote Pakistan airstrip at Dalbandin, Pakistan, only 37 miles from the Afghan border, U.S. officials said. The raid was similar in character to the joint 1998 FBI/Kenyan security forces raid of the Kenya house of Wadhi El-Hage, sentenced last month in Manhattan Federal District Court to life in prison without parole for his part in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa in which 224 were killed and 4,600 wounded.
In the raid on El-Hage's house, the FBI seized hard drives containing details of bin Laden cells in East Africa and inflicted "significant damage" on his al Qaeda organization, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
But in this raid, the Delta force came away "with little of intelligence value," according to one administration official. "We wanted their Rolodexes, their plans, their chit-chat, the names of Taliban commanders. We didn't get them," he said.
Top-ranked investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker Magazine first made the allegation of casualties and the mishandling of the mission.
Hersh told United Press International, "The standard for being wounded was very flexible. If you had a shrapnel wound which could be stitched up and you could still walk, then you weren't classified as a casualty."
A U.S. government source confirmed this. "Hersh right is on the money," he said. "The Pentagon doctored the figures of casualties. We are back in the Gulf War syndrome where we won a great victory with hardly any casualties. I think it's a mis-reading of the U.S. public mood."
"Some fatalities could be involved," an administration source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Speculation wrapped around innuendo and topped with rumors. What makes any of this news?
Am I the only one who thinks that this raid was just a diversion to get the Taliban to spread out their military and pull units back from the Northern Alliance? And now UPI's trying to promote it as evidence of military incompetence? God I hope people remember UPI did this!
Officially, that is.
This is treasonous..
Speculated!"Speculated" is a guess with a Masters Degree in mis-direction, a Doctorate in deception, and a Bachelors in BS.
As an old Newsie, I can tell you how this story came about. A politically appointed GS-12 from the Department of Agriculture or some other war-critical agency (NOT) were sitting around, drinking Manhattans at L&N Seafood, the Palms, Tarra Thai or some other DC hotspot, when one remarked to another that a friend told a friend who told a friend that some GI got a hangnail and it wasn't reported..... and all the rest came from that.
No confirmation, no on the record reporting, no editor fact-checking!!!
As an old newsie.....I am ashamed of this story!!!!
You noticed that too? Good, I'm glad I wasn't alone in that. Juszt think of the news articles you could write if you never had to quote, but could write general equivelancies.
I have known media reporters. In my experience, they are a ragged, un-American, ill-informed, unpricipled, and unscrupulous lot.
It is not what he said. I remember that press conference, and while I don't recall his exact words well enough to quote them here, they were definitely not anything at all like "this is the last time I'm telling you the truth", in either form or content.
Definitely needs to ferreted out and eliminated.
Now it's obvious that the government has to account for troops that don't come home - to their units, their families, etc. etc. or there's a media upheaval about the situation. So while there's a possibiblity that the reporting will be done in some way later, I'm not buying the story at this time.
I see that we were on the same base at roughly the same time. I joined for 4 years in August 81 and was based out of Pendleton. I took part in two exercises out at 29 Palms. One was with a mobile COC that General Cheatem was experimenting with. It was to test out using two flatbed tractor-trailers that were backed up end to end. Canvass was then strung over the flatbeds and about a dozen trucks representing G1 - G4 were backed up to it. We could then walk around them like offices. It had never been done before and was pretty slick for a Division HQ. It could be disassembled, moved and reassembled in a day.
On my second trip I was part of the TECG that helped plan and manage a large live fire operation. We had a dozen very high level observers form both Israel and several Arab nations on the final day. That was also a first, and we couldn’t report it for obvious reasons.
I don’t remember more than one or two deaths being commonplace for such an exercise, but a half dozen wouldn't surprise me on occasion. I think the problem with this particular story though is that it's spreading rumors of domestic deceit by the Bush administration without evidence, not that the casualty figures are unrealistic.
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