The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

Harp describes how “untold billions” (120) flow into special operations while Fort Bragg and Fayetteville show visible signs of neglect. Delta Force’s headquarters, known as the Building, sits behind double checkpoints on a manicured 500-acre compound of hangars, kennels, classrooms, and a corridor lined with trophies like the handcuffs used to restrain Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega; wreckage from the Black Hawk Down incident in which US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia; and the clothing Saddam Hussein had been wearing at the time of his capture. Visitors to the facility must surrender phones and pass concealed surveillance as they enter offices renovated after an Obama-era cash infusion that soothed operators who felt slighted when the president did not visit. The colonel commanding Delta Force rotates every few years; Harp lists Mark J. O’Neil, James B. Jarrard, Christopher T. Donahue, and Joshua M. Rudd, noting their earlier JSOC roles and later promotions. Officers pass through quickly. Donahue, for example, eventually takes over the XVIII Airborne Corps. The dining facility serves white-tablecloth Friday meals; downstairs, squadrons A through D occupy team bays that resemble locker rooms with bars where drinking begins midafternoon. Smoking persists in a ventilated room despite the federal ban.