Members of the German special operations unit GSG-9 function as part of the federal police
FORCE FACTS Delta Force often cross-trains with similar units from other countries such as Britain’s SAS Germany’s GSG-9 and France’s GIGN
E C R O F A T L E D 8
D E L T A F O R C E 9 INTRODUCTION Six weeks after the invasion of Iraq on March 19 2003 United States president George W Bush announced that the mission to overthrow Saddam Hussein had been ac complished The next step was to locate the deposed dictator who had disappeared as his armies crumbled around him In July that year his two sons were killed But their father’s whereabouts remained a mystery It seemed likely that Hussein was hiding near his birthplace of Tikrit A task force consisting of Delta Force operators and other special forces made at least a dozen raids on suspected locations in the next six months without success On December 13 they captured a man with close ties to Hussein and learned enough to believe that they were close to his location That evening they raided a farmhouse capturing two men One was Hussein’s personal cook The operators combed the area around the farmhouse though there was no sign of the tunnels in which Hussein was reportedly hiding They were about to move away and search a larger area when one man saw something suspicious through his night-vision goggles The bricks and dirt at his feet were arrayed too neatly A piece of thread pro truded from the ground Quickly two dozen fellow operators joined him They scraped away the dirt and saw a plug Weapons at the ready they pulled up the plug Beneath it was a man with a long scraggly beard I am Saddam Hussein the man said I am the president of Iraq and I am willing to negotiate ZzZ After the terrorist attacks in 2001 George W Bush committed the military to discovering the source
