Eric L. Haney

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Eric L. Haney
Eric Haney in 2003
Place of birth	Georgia
Allegiance	United States of America
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1970-1990
Rank	Command Sergeant Major
Unit	75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta
Battles/wars	Operation Eagle Claw, Operation Urgent Fury, Operation Just Cause
Other work	Security consultant, news commentator, author, screenwriter

Command Sergeant Major Eric L. Haney (US Army-Ret.) is former member of the United States Army's counter-terrorist unit, the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1SFOD-D), more commonly known as Delta Force. In recent years he has been writing on terrorism, guerilla warfare, and Special Operations.

Haney is the author of Inside Delta Force, a memoir of his time in the elite unit, including his participation in the aborted 1980 Operation Eagle Claw mission to Iran to free American hostages. He is currently a co-executive producer of the CBS television series The Unit, created by David Mamet and inspired by Haney's special operations experiences. Previously, Haney was a technical consultant on Mamet's 2003 film Spartan, starring Val Kilmer.

Contents 1 Background 2 Military career 2.1 Operation Eagle Claw 2.2 Honduras 2.3 Beirut 2.4 Grenada 3 Book criticism 4 Post-military career 5 Recently 6 See also 7 External links 8 Bibliography 9 References

[edit] Background

Haney was born August 22nd, 1952 and raised in rural Lindale, Georgia, just outside of the town of Rome. He attended Pepperell High School there, graduating in 1970.

[edit] Military career

Haney joined the Army just out of high school in 1970 and became a platoon sergeant by the time he was 22. He served for several years in the 75th Ranger Regiment as an infantryman and was slated to become an instructor. In 1977 he volunteered for and was selected to train with a new elite counter-terrorism unit that the Army was creating. Of the 163 soldiers that tried out, Haney was one of only 12 to succeed. This unit became operational in 1978 as the 1st SFOD-D, or Delta Force, with Haney as one of its founding operators.^[1][2] Haney served in the unit until 1986, participating in a number of special operations in Latin America and the Middle East.

After his promotion to Command Sergeant Major, the rank he held until his retirement in 1990, Haney left Delta and joined the 193rd Infantry Brigade (Panama).

[edit] Operation Eagle Claw

In 1980, when the United States launched Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to end the Iran Hostage Crisis with a commando raid, Haney was one of the Delta operators to take part.^[2] He was inside the parked C-130 tanker/transport aircraft that caught fire and exploded when a Navy RH-53D helicopter piloted by Marine aircrews collided into it after the mission had been aborted and the unit was preparing to exfiltrate. After the debacle he and other Delta operators were told to "take a vacation" in order to avoid any media scrutiny.^[2]

[edit] Honduras

In 1981, Haney and two Delta Force operators were deployed to Honduras to train Honduran Special Forces when they were sent on a mission to intercept and destroy a group of Honduran communist guerrillas that had infiltrated the country from Nicaragua. This group of around 100 rebels was allegedly being led by an advisor in the Nicaraguan Sandinista Army.

Haney states that his team, comprised of the Delta operators and Honduran special forces soldiers, tracked the guerrillas to a mountain sanctuary in the Honduran jungle. During an assault on the hilltop, Haney spotted a guerrilla using a radio set and taking him for the leader, shot and killed him. Haney soon discovered that this commander turned out to be David Arturo Báez, a Nicaraguan-born US citizen and former U.S. Army Special Forces soldier whom Haney had met during his Delta selection.^[3]

In his memoir, Haney questioned whether Báez had actually joined the Sandinistas or whether Báez was still working for the United States as a CIA operative up until his death. (Báez is referred to in Haney's book as "Enrique 'Keekee' Sáenz.")^[3]

[edit] Beirut

During the 1982 US Marines operation in Lebanon, Haney was deployed with other Delta Force members to train local Lebanese as part of the U.S. Embassy security detail. Later, he and his teammates were tasked with locating and eliminating snipers who were targeting Marines deployed there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Grenada

In 1983, the US invaded Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury. Haney and other Delta operators were assigned to raid a prison thought to hold political prisoners. Their helicopters came under heavy enemy fire, and they determined that the prison was empty. The raid was called off.

[edit] Book criticism

Since the publication of Inside Delta Force in 2002 and Haney's subsequent success with The Unit television show, three of his former Delta colleagues accused him of embellishing his accomplishments within the unit and fabricating several of the events depicted. Some of the criticism directed at Haney has focused on him stating he was a "founding member" of Delta Force; it's acknowledged among former operators that there was only one "founder", Colonel Charlie Beckwith, who helped establish the unit and was its first commanding officer.^[4] Haney's use of the term "founding member" is to indicate that he was among the first operators assigned to the 1SFOD-D.

One such colleague, Logan Fitch, who first wrote publicly of the Desert One mission for Penthouse Magazine in 1984 in which he was also highly critical of Beckwith,^[5] called Haney a "crass opportunist" for capitalizing on his past for personal gain.^[4] Despite the falling-out between Haney and these former Delta members, Haney has stood behind the accuracy of his book.

Another member criticized Haney for revealing too much about Delta Force's training, tactics and early missions.^[4]. A U.S. Army historian has questioned whether this was an issue, given that the information contained in Haney's book was current in the late-1970s and early-1980s and that Delta Force would certainly have changed their procedures in that time. Moreover, operational information offered by Delta veterans had been made public before, such as in Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden's book about the Battle of Mogadishu in which Delta operators participated, and most notably, Beckwith's own book of the formation and training of the unit.^[6][5]

[edit] Post-military career

The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.(March 2008)

Upon retiring from the Army in 1990, Haney was employed as a freelance security consultant and trainer. He worked within the United States and abroad as a bodyguard, trainer for military and police forces, and private kidnap rescuer.

Some of Haney's assignments in the private sector include conducting the ransom negotiation and ransom hand-over for a kidnapped oil executive in Colombia, and helping governments in two Middle Eastern countries develop their special forces capabilities. He also worked for several years as personal security detail leader for several high-profile clients, such as Saudi Prince Khalid al Faisal, the CEO of the largest corporation in Mexico^[who?], and Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide upon his return from exile in 1994.^[7][8]

During the 1990s, Haney performed security consulting work in Algeria on a gas pipeline project, and started a contract aviation company in Liberia.^[7] Some time after that, Haney was approached about organizing and leading a coup attempt in another African nation.^[7] He was able to completely thwart the parties who wanted that coup, several of the conspirators were arrested a short while later.^{[dubious – discuss]}

[edit] Recently

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Haney became a regular television commentator on military affairs and terrorism, appearing on CNN, FOX News, CBS News and The O'Reilly Factor. Recently he has expressed opinions strongly critical of the planning and implementation of Operation Iraqi Freedom^[9]

[edit] See also

• Multinational Force in Lebanon
• 1983 Beirut barracks bombing
• United States Special Operations Command

[edit] External links

• Eric Haney's personal website
• Haney biography at CBS.com's The Unit website
• Eric L. Haney's blog at CBS.com's The Unit website
• Eric L. Haney at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] Bibliography

• Inside Delta Force (2002), ISBN 0-385-73251-1
• Beyond Shock and Awe: Warfare in the 21st Century (2006) (ed., with Brian M. Thomsen) ISBN 0-425-20798-6.

[edit] References