From an interview with Dan Snyder, former Sergeant with the United States Marine Corps and the United States Army.
In this mission you know exactly where the target it is because GPS has it pinned down. The function of the Special Ops unit on the ground is to make sure that the enemy is in there, that there nd isn't a school bus full of kids driving through at the last minute. The pre-planned fire, the bombing mission, has two contingencies: The target is actually in the building and that all the friendly forces are clear and evacuated from the danger-close area.
Now you've got a choice to make. It's either a special ops raid or it's a reconnaissance and bombing. The size of ordinance that they use produces a pretty big blast radius so you don't want your people real close. You radio to the division that the bombing raid is a go. The reply from the air boss will be the ETA-how long until delivery of the ordinance, then it requests the special ops unit to report "clear," which is your final confirmation. You radio back your call sign, report clear, and confirmation to stand by will come back to you.
See, the whole picture's already painted in a ready-room somewhere. As a Delta Force operator on the ground, you're watching the same scene other people are watching maybe 5,000 miles away. If there's strategic attention placed on a certain part of the globe, you can bet there's some guys in a room somewhere looking at that same target in real time. All you need to do is ensure the guy actually walks onto the target mapped out and call the mission.
Response time isn't really dependant on logistics. Usually there are air assets loitering that can be called upon by the air boss. (He's kind of a broker who sits there and keeps track of all the air assets, what they're doing and what they're carrying.) A target like Zarqawi would have had a standard order of rules of engagement that would allow you to prosecute that attack immediately.
If there's a defensive formation that needed to be engaged, the bombing is just a preparatory step and you'll capitalize on the effects of the initial blast as quickly as possible. Normally you might approach a target with some caution but in this case, as soon as the blast hits and the initial shockwave goes out, you're going to get out of cover and run for the target, hell for leather, with your formation. The hope is that the enemy is unconscious, but at the least they'll be totally deaf.
Move forward in the assault, weapons at the ready. Get as close as you can to the target, make yourself part of that wall and take some darting looks around the corners to find out who's around there and if there's anybody standing. Then you'll get depth, which takes away from the enemy countering lines of fire. Take away the approaches quickly and their tactical options within the building diminish.
If they're incapacitated, you separate the enemy from his weapons and implement the standard prisoner procedures: search, segregate, speed, silence secure. Bind them with plastic cuffs, separate them from each other so they can't talk. Get them to the rear where someone else will sort them out. As a Delta Force operator, you get out of there before a crowd can gather. You don't want your identity to be known, to be "made." You've still got a job to do which probably entails blending back into this population. Your job is to get in and get out.
A firefight always gives a professional martyr like Zarqawi to engage your forces in a Jesse James type-last stand, a big gun battle to feed into the legend. An organization like al Qaeda thrives on that. So psychologically, it's better to exterminate the target in an overwhelming way. One that leaves no doubt.
