[Icelander]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Because Delta is like a Stealth Bomber - great under very specific circumstances, but way too expensive to risk for something routine. If a Delta operator is being used it should be because they do not think someone else can do the job.

But it isn't always the fact. US Special Forces are over-extended and have a very high operational tempo. Not every operation, even for Delta Force, is world-shattering, based on accurate intelligence or even results in a kinetic engagement.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I am assuming that the organization being investigated is deep enough that the operations visible at the first encounter (and at most operational locations)
represents only a small fraction of their resources, and specifically excludes their higher levels of leadership. If that is not the case, then you have Delta investigating petty crime, which is neither sensible nor challenging. If it is the case, then any actions have to take into account what those offsite higher-ups will learn and do as a result.

Task Force 145/88/whatever, composed of Delta/DEVGRU/SAS and support troops, accounted for 3,500 combatant fatalities in little over 2 years over 2006-2008.

It isn't as if there were ever 3,500 high-value terrorist masterminds in the area. Most of them were, indeed, the local equivalent of 'petty crime'.

These operations are not meant to be supremely important or exciting. They are the day-to-day grind that the character was called away from in order to start the adventure.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Large criminal and terrorist organizations have small dust-ups with police and military forces on a regular basis, for a variety of reasons. If they cancelled major operations just because of a small firefight in a city known for small firefights then they would never get anything done. Instead, they are going to analyze the incident and try and figure out whether or not it was "one of those things" or if it indicated the compromise of something important. Commandos of any type give that away, so you need to keep them from finding that out - you can either disguise everyone as ordinary Iraqi police/military or you can control the site so thoroughly that they simply never get the details (good luck with that!).

Think about this as if it were drug dealers. If a low or mid-level dealer gets killed or arrested, they don't shut down the cross-border pipelines or scatter the distribution networks - these things happen. But if they find out that the dealer was targeted by the DEA or that he was taken down in a massive SWAT operation that suggested prior surveillance, then you start taking steps to minimize the damage and preserve the organization and infrastructure. You can replace low-level people (indeed, you frequently have to), but the organization is a little more precious.

During the months that the character was on these operations, they did not kill or capture a single high-value target.

The US presence there in 2011 was a way to show support for local elite commando units and oversee the last phases of a transition which sees all responsibility for planning and mounting such operations passed over to them.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

If they are providing intelligence support in the form of actual collection, then they are not going to risk invalidating all that intelligence by exposing the operation. They will want discretion and will do anything necessary to make sure that is the case - disguise the support team as insurgents, or as regular police/military dealing with an unrelated issue nearby. They certainly won't have identifiable commandos responding without a helluva good and obvious explanation. We've made that mistake enough times to know that it doesn't work out well for us.

None of these operations was more important than the safety of the operators involved. Any hint of someone firing on the security forces would have brought an extreme response, in much the same way as someone shooting at an undercover cop in Detroit brings a lot of cop cars, SWAT and helicopters.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Neither of those necessarily require placing a Delta operator out in front, especially one of those few who can pass as an Arab.

Which is why SOCOM reassigns him when a task comes up that actually requires his special talents and isn't just the special operations equivalent of traffic patrols.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

When they do that, the fact that Delta is involved is classified, and they try to blend in with the rest of the group. They identify as American, they keep the rest under wraps.

Theoretically, but officially, it isn't as if anyone present is fooled.

Fort Bragg internal newsletters mention Delta frequently. News reports mention their participation in ongoing operations.

There are actual secrets about a lot of what they do, but it's not as they are a black hole of secrecy which no one is allowed to penetrate.

There are actual political and security benefits from publicly showing a high level of support for Iraqi-led operations during the last few months of US troop presence in Iraq and the Iraqi security forces leadership is much more impressed by getting support from 1st SFOD-D than from an Army enlisted man with a 25* MOS. That's entirely beside the point that the Signals guy can do the job well enough.