Miss Barnhardt doesn't forget.
SEAL Team 6 - UPDATE: Dossier Removed
Posted by Ann Barnhardt - October 13, AD 2011 9:29 PM MST
U.S. Central Command has released its official report on the SEAL Team 6 shoot-down, which resulted in 38 dead, including an entire 15-man DEVGRU Gold Squadron, which is the best of the best of the best in the SEAL community. In addition, another 8 SEALS were also killed. 23 SEALS on one National Guard helo.
Here is the URL for the full document directory.
http://tinyurl.com/6zdtelzIt is probably in excess of 10,000 pages. But, I have already found something very interesting and disturbing.
On page 118 of the first interview transcript, an interviewee identified as JSOTF J3 says:
JSOTF J3: I believe it was two IEDs that they found and no detonations. So the ground force commander -- let me back up. The ground force commander made a call at 0328 Zulu that he assessed no survivors from the crash. So the battle space owner arrived at 0721 Zulu; they linked up with (redacted) , and they recovered -- the ground force commander, (redacted) , he called back and said they had identified, and removed 38 remains, is what he called back. So they were able to pull them out. And, you know, later on after he came out, we, kind of, got the back brief of how they were able to do that. But there was -- I will let you talk to him about that piece. But he was essentially able to identify 38 remains there.
IO-DEP: Was there a manifest for that aircraft back at the --
JSOTF J3: Yes, sir. And I'm sure you know by now the manifest was accurate with the exception of the (redacted) personnel that were on. So the (redacted) personnel, they were the incorrect -- all seven names were incorrect. And I cannot talk to the back story of why, but --
View it in context here on page 118. [PDF doc.]
The "seven" that is referenced and redacted is, almost certainly, the Afghani contingent. There were 7 Afghanis on the helo. And this soldier testifies that ALL SEVEN NAMES of the presumed Afghanis on the flight manifest were incorrect. Wow. That is ominous, and certainly warrants further investigation. (Hello? Journalists?) I have worried all along that there could have been a suicide bomber, but an erroneous flight manifest of Afghanis also points to the possibility of some compromise of OPSEC.Naturally there is a lot more to read. Given the sheer volume of data, the more eyes on this stuff, the better.
Also be sure to read page 111-112 where the soldier theorizes on why so many men were packed on the one helo. He says the planners felt that one helo in and out was "lower risk", and that the advance warning given to the enemy in a multi-helo insertion put the second helo at increased risk. Given what happened to "EXTORTION 17", I think that the argument in favor of the long-standing combat tactical concept of "dispersion protocol", namely not putting all of your precious eggs in one basket, is now very much back on the table. Even so, I still can not fathom why they were in a National Guard transport helo and not an up-armored, up-teched MH-47G. If it is a risky insertion, and two helos are deemed an inferior tactic, why not use the combat helo that has increased night vision and infrared imaging, and perhaps more importantly, MORE HORSEPOWER for a more rapid approach and departure?
Read up. If you find anything else that you think merits a look, note the file and page number and then notify someone. It could be me, although I'm certainly not the best person for this sort of thing. Again, I would probably send it to someone over at BigPeace.com which is Breitbart's military blog, or another military blog that you think does a good job.
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UPDATE: The entire dossier has been removed by CentCom. The links are now dead. I'm kicking myself for not downloading the PDF files themselves last night. So they pulled the dossier, that make me feel more secure.
Nothing to see here, move along.
