[Icelander]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

If that is his cover, then sure. There are some places where not being visibly armed would be suspicious.

In that case, he can draw on the full arsenals of United States Forces - Iraq and the Iraqi Army and Ministry of Interior.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

The fact that you are in physical danger does not mean that it is acceptable to betray who you are. In many cases, a special recon mission can be successful even if the operators are discovered and have to extract under fire... provided no one knows who they are or (better still) thinks they are some other deliberately specified party.

So let's say they identify your Delta and start shooting at him, but he gets away. Afterwards, what do they do? If they think that US/Iraqi intel knows what they are doing, they are likely to change their plans, rendering the intelligence useless. Conversely, if they think that the individual is a Baathist or part of a criminal organization, they may decide that their operations can still go forward as planned (since the targets are still in the dark and the investment has been made).

If the operator is discovered and shots are fired, a joint force of (mostly) Iraqi and (a few) US commandos would deploy to extract him and strike at any targets under surveillance.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

The core concept of black ops is that no matter what the targets never have any proof who did it, and ideally suspect someone else entirely. There are real advantages to this, and it happens to be one of those things that is a Delta specialty. Concealing your allegiance is, to these guys, a basic part of operational security.

Why do you assume that these operations are black ops?

They are legitimate Federal Police and Iraqi Counter-Terrorist Command operations that enjoy intelligence and technical support from United States Forces - Iraq.

Any successes are loudly proclaimed by the Iraqi government. The fact that US forces are still providing technical and intelligence support to Iraqi security forces in 2011 is not a secret in any effective sense.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I would recommend a Browning Hi-Power and an AKS-74U - both are reasonably common to the assorted local forces, effective, familiar to Delta operators, and help to minimize the chance that the operator will be identified as American in the event of engagement or capture.

If captured, the operator would probably be acknowledged as American, in the hope that this would make it less likely that he was summarily executed, as might happen if the opposition thought he was an Iraqi commando.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Like this: You're planning an attack on Coalition forces, you begin to think that the guy across the street is a spy. You and your goons go over to question him, he pulls out a small AK and opens up on you. You return fire, but he escapes. You know that he looked Arabic, dressed Arabic, and his weapons were the kind of thing that you could find anywhere in the country. Was your mission compromised, or was that unrelated?

Conversely, if he pulls out some weird gun you've never seen before, or (worse) something that you have only seen in the hands of Coalition forces, do you still hold out ANY chance that it was unrelated? How do you not change your plans?

I'm unconvinced that a firefight with Iraqi Federal Police commandos or Iraqi Counter-Terrorist Command commandos would leave militants so blasé as to continue their plans uninterrupted.

In the operations being discussed, Delta is providing intelligence support, advice and technical expertise to operations primarily run by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior and the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

That could be literally anything. Delta has enormous resources, and considering the range of operations they undertake and the frequency they replace gear it is likely that there is no real standard gear set. For any given type of equipment, there is likely a range they might use, from "outdated but nondescript" to "cutting edge, but distinctive" kinda gear.

In this kind of operation, they would likely not carry ANYTHING that the enemy would not also have access to. Just too distinctive. They would save the top-of-the-line stuff for wet ops, not SR.

There are several other Delta operators with the Iraqi commandos who are primarily there to operate fancy high-tech devices that add capability to the local operations.

Winning goodwill with the local bigwigs by providing them with technical support for their operations is one of the goals of these operations. Another is to keep US forces informed about the operations of Iraqi counter-terror teams.

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Which is strange, since it appears to be SOP for Delta. They seem to identify as Americans only when necessary, and identify as Deltas only on a need-to-know basis. If the character was a Delta he spent a lot of time learning how to appear to be anything but.

Delta also operates as part of Task Force formations with 75th Ranger support. It isn't an exclusively black ops outfit.

Granted, the credit for these operations is meant to go to the locals who provide 99% of the manpower and firepower, but it's not as if the fact that US advisors and instructors go out on counter-terrorist operations with Iraqi forces is a secret in 2011. When the character was detailed for this duty, it was still a full six months until United States Forces - Iraq was scheduled to leave the country.