Chapter 6: Forging Bonds in the Balkans

1 Together … “force.” A 160th SOAR source.

2 A JSOC task force … their missions. Two Delta sources; a Team 6 officer; a 160th SOAR source.

3 Although Team 6 … and retiring. Two senior Team 6 officers; a Team 6 operator.

4 … two very different missions … Speech by retired Army Lieutenant General Frank Kearney at the DSI Special Operations Forces symposium, Alexandria, Virginia, November 27, 2012. (Kearney was JSOC’s director of operations in September 2001.) Kearney’s exact quote: “The two core tasks of JSOC eleven years ago were hunting PIFWCs and countering WMD.”

5 The December … up seven. Clinton’s Secret Wars: The Evolution of a Commander in Chief, by Richard Sale (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009), pp. 332–43; Never Surrender, pp. 297–98, 302–6; a Team 6 source; a senior task force officer; Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World, by William M. Arkin (Hanover, N.H.: Steerforth, 2005), p. 255.… reportedly resisted arrest … The following Serbian website presents a detailed argument in English that task force operators deliberately killed Drljaca without provocation: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/guest/LPC/Simo_Drljaca.html.… Red Cross … Junior operators made the decision to impersonate Red Cross personnel. After the mission, the task force decided to never do it again.

6 The task force … at Srebrenica. A Delta source; a Team 6 source; a senior task force officer.

7 Many operations … grab-ass. A JSOC staff officer; a Team 6 source.

8 Amber Star was … Security Agency. Crumpton; a retired special operations officer; a senior special mission unit officer; a Delta source; a senior special operations officer.

9 … the Counterrorist Center … The center’s name changed to the Counterterrorism Center in 2005. The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, by Mark Mazzetti (New York: Penguin, 2013), p. ix.

10 … U.S. news media barely registered … An honorable exception is Richard J. Newman’s lavishly detailed article in U.S. News & World Report, July 6, 1998, titled “Hunting War Criminals—The First Account of Secret U.S. Missions in Bosnia,” accessed at: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/980706/archive_004280.html.

11 The president … its success. “U.S. Troops Arrest Serb War Suspect,” by Jeffrey Fleishman, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 23, 1998, accessed at: http://articles.philly.com/1998-01-23/news/25748765_1_goran-jelisic-nato-forces-serb-adolf.

12 Delta’s Operational … targets. Delta sources.

13 The women occupied … male operators. A senior special mission unit officer; The Commandos, p. 216; Delta sources. One experienced Delta operator interviewed for this book referred to his female colleagues as “props.” … almost unique … By the end of the 1980s the Army of Northern Virginia had at least two female operatives, including an officer who participated in several operations during the early 1990s, according to a senior member of the unit. The assimilation of female operatives was not smooth. “It was very embryonic,” the source said. “We were uncomfortable with it.”

14 Delta’s Echo … in the Balkans. Five Delta sources; two 160th SOAR sources; a senior special mission unit officer; a special operations officer; a retired special operations officer.

15 Most JSOC operations … been considered. A 160th SOAR source; a senior Team 6 source; two Delta sources; a retired special operations officer; a JSOC staff officer; a Team 6 operator; Clinton’s Secret Wars, p. 400; USS Saipan (LHA-2) Command History—Calendar Year 2000, accessed at: http://www.history.navy.mil/shiphist/s/lha-2/2000.pdf.

16 There was … years ahead. Two senior Team 6 sources.