The Silent Warriors
Special forces are having an outsize impact in Iraq
After a week of work, the engine meter on one of the fast boats reads 150 hours of "running time"--out of the 168 hours spent on the whole mission. Tim James, the officer in charge, kneeled and sat on his heels to stretch his thighs, burning with exhaustion from riding the wind-whipped waves at high speed. Nearby, crewmen slept in broad daylight atop their gear in the boat as their commander brushed and flossed his teeth. Their 32-foot SOC-R, another fast boat that virtually skims the water, ran for 36 hours at the uppermost reaches of the channel, buffeted by winds gusting up to hurricane strength. "Tankers broke their moorings and sailed past us," said its hollow-eyed boat captain.
The fast-boat crews aren't the only little-known special forces. The Air Force's special operations units, based in Hurlburt Field, Fla., are tasked with getting the special operators to the fight and keeping them alive. One moonless night, Paul, an Air Force major, piloted his MC-130 to a pitch-black runway in Talil in central Iraq. In the plane's belly sat two humvees with SEALs atop. Garbed in desert camouflage, one listened to music on an MP-3 player. The others slept, prayed, or put on grease paint. Upon landing, the plane's rear door flopped open and they rolled out into the night.
The MC-130 Combat Talon flies as low as helicopters, thanks to terrain-following radar that is even more sophisticated than the special ops Pave Low and Little Bird choppers. It has three basic missions: dropping off and picking up special forces, refueling other SOF aircraft, and resupplying commandos in hostile territory. Paul, the lanky pilot, says the MC-130 "is the most capable penetrating transport aircraft ever built." A screen flickers ghostly green on a top-secret control center, which can spew out an array of electronic countermeasures, chaff, and jamming to thwart detection. An Air Force forward ground air controller aboard, like Paul, says he works so much with other special forces that he feels closer to their services than to his own.
Winning hearts. While the SEALs can lay claim to executing their largest operation ever, the Army special forces are carrying out the widest range of missions. As U.S. troops squeeze Baghdad, special forces are on the scene, setting up positions from which they can spot targets, spy on Iraqi troops, and locate Iraqi leaders. Meanwhile, since the war plan did not call for seizing southern cities, it has fallen to the special forces to organize opponents, win hearts and minds, and conduct their own raids there.
Basra, in southern Iraq, is one such place. Outside Basra, a U.S. News reporter watched the special forces A-teams and civic affairs units work to distinguish friend from foe. Not far from their secret compound are the enemy lines, and a berm does not stop the Fedayeen irregulars from lobbing mortars into their base. While the Iraqi Army has melted into the civilian population, some hard targets present themselves. One night last week, Green Berets and their attached combat controllers called in fire on a tank and three armored personnel carriers. Their night-vision capability, and a special forces AC-130 Spectre gunship, turned the hardware to rubble.
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