Haney is the author of Inside Delta Force, a memoir of his time in the elite unit, in which he also writes about his participation in the aborted 1980 Operation Eagle Claw mission to Iran to free American hostages.

He was a co-executive producer of the CBS television series The Unit, created by David Mamet and inspired by Haney's special operations experiences.

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 in Panama.

In 1980, the United States launched Operation Eagle Claw, an attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis with a commando raid.

He was inside a parked C-130 tanker/transport aircraft that caught fire and exploded when a Navy RH-53D helicopter piloted by a Marine aircrew collided with it after the mission had been aborted and the unit was preparing to extricate.

Haney wrote that his team, composed of Delta operators and Honduran special forces soldiers, tracked the guerrillas to a mountain sanctuary in the jungle.

During the 1982 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 U.S. Marines deployed as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

[1] One such colleague, Logan Fitch, who first wrote publicly of the Desert One mission for Penthouse Magazine in 1984, called Haney a "crass opportunist" for capitalizing on his past for personal gain.

[1] A U.S. Army historian has questioned whether this was an issue, given that the information contained in Haney's book was current during the late-1970s and early-1980s and that Delta Force would certainly have changed their procedures since then.

He also worked for several years as personal security detail leader for several high-profile clients, such as Saudi Prince Khalid al Faisal and Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide upon his return from exile in 1994.

[4] During the 1990s, Haney undertook security consulting work in Algeria on a gas pipeline project, and started a contract aviation company in Liberia.

[5] Haney was involved as a writer, producer, and technical advisor for the CBS television series The Unit, loosely based on his book.