THE HUNT FOR THEr ACE A I In 2003 the United States led an invasion of Iraq One of the mission s goals was to find and capture Saddam Hussein Hussein was a ruthless dictator Those who did not agree with him were imprisoned tortured and killed He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iraqi citizens With Hussein in power the Iraqi people could not be free Hussein had followers who supported his ideas and carried out his plans To help US soldiers identify these enemies military leaders created a special deck of cards Hussein was pictured on the ace of spades That meant he was the number one enemy Each of the other cards showed one of Hussein's Saddam Hussein
followers The mission to capture or kill Hussein was called Operation Red Dawn Delta Force soldiers played an important role in Operation Red Dawn They worked with other special operations professionals to gather information They arrested suspects and interviewed them Finally one of Hussein's trusted friends gave away his hiding place The hunt was nearly over On December 13 2003 Saddam Hussein was found hiding in ad Dawr Iraq He was arrested The Ace of Spades was no longer a threat Operation Red Dawn was a success thanks in great part to Delta Force Hussein was found hiding in a hole near a farmhouse where he had been
BEFORE S Army Colonel Charles Beckwith was a Green Beret and a military advisor In the early 1960s he was an exchange officer with the British Special Air Service SAS Beckwith was impressed with the SAS's training skills and capabilities At the time US Army Special Forces were trained for unconventional warfare They were not trained for direct action Colonel Charles Beckwith
or counterterrorism Beckwith realized that the US military needed a unit like the SAS His vision was to create a small group of highly trained men It would be an elite force that could operate undercover The men could work independently or as a team This was a completely new idea for the army Men were typically trained to act as a team They looked to their superiors for direction Beckwith wanted men who liked working alone and could operate on their own They had to be strong minded and totally dedicated to success So When Beckwith first proposed his ideas his superiors were not convinced After all the army already had the Green Berets and the Army Rangers They didn't believe it was necessary to create another special operations force Then things changed The British SAS was created in 1941 to fight in World War
