TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/80/80capts.3

Text File | 1990-12-01 | 19KB | 342 lines

                ïÄëâçáå                                              è««Nation

Raging Debate over the Desert Raid

Critics ask the Pentagon:  Was it too little--or too much?

May 12, 1980

Three C-130 Hercules transport planes roared low across the Florida
panhandle last week, two flying tightly as a pair, one trailing
without its partner.  This is the traditional "missing buddy"
formation of the U.S. Air Force, a symbol of mourning for lost
fliers.  On the ground, in a green park just inside the gates of
Hurlburt Field, some of the toughest men in the armed services could
not suppress their tears.

The ceremony honored five of the eight servicemen who died two weeks
ago in Iran's Dasht-e-Kavir desert during the aborted raid to rescue
the Americans held hostage in Tehran.  Some 5,000 people gathered at
Hurlburt in memory of the five air commandos who had been stationed
there.  One by one, the lost men were eulogized.  Said Lieut. COlonel
Calvin Chasteen about his comrade, Captain Richard L. Bakke, a 33-
year-old navigator:  "He looked forward with enthusiasm and
anticipation to this last opportunity to serve, not for the glory it
offered but for the deep satisfaction of defending that which is good
and decent."

While the American dead were being honored in Florida, more than
7,000 miles away in Tehran something most indecent was happening to
their corpses.  Iranian authorities tore open the plastic bags that
contained the charred remains, poked at them with knives and held up
pieces for government television crews.  "This is proof of Carter's
crime," ranted the Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, formerly the Tehran's
chief Islamic judge.  Then, switching hypocritically to mournful
tones, he added:  "My heart aches for the families of these victims."

At first Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr promised that the
bodies would quickly be returned to the U.S.  As middleman he
designated Ilarion Capucci, a Greek Melchite Catholic archbishop and
longtime ally of the Palestine Liberation Organization.  Then the
Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, president of the National Supreme
Court and a leading political rival of Banisadr's, stepped in and
insisted that only the Revolutionary Council or the Ayatullah
Ruhollah Khomeini could release the bodies.  Beheshti ordered them
transferred to the Tehran morgue, which falls under his jurisdiction.
The militants who were guarding the U.S. embassy announced that an
undisclosed number of the American hostages had already been
dispersed among eight other cities in Iran, which, if true, would
make a second rescue attempt virtually impossible.

Reflecting the country's deep outrage at the display and desecration
of the American dead, President Carter at a televised press
conference assailed the Iranians' "ghoulish action," which he called
"a horrible exhibition of inhumanity."  He added:  "This indicates
quite clearly the kinds of people with whom we have been dealing.
They did not bring shame and dishonor on those fallen Americans.
They brought shame and dishonor on themselves."

Meanwhile, investigations were begun by Congress and the Pentagon
into what happened during the rescue and why it failed.  Carter
firmly defended his decision to make the attempt.  He reaffirmed his
confidence in the Pentagon's plan for the raid as "a fine operation
that everyone believed had a good chance for success."  And, he
argued, using one of the year's more improbable euphemisms, "there is
a deeper failure than that of incomplete success, and that is the
failure to attempt a worthy effort, a failure to try."

Nonetheless, a worldwide debate was raging over the raid.  A Pentagon
whose planes had not even been detected while flying into Iran, much
less shot at, now was barraged by bombs of criticism.  some were
hurled wildly by armchair strategists, others by more knowledgeable
experts.

The main target was the rescue plan.  Some critics charge that it was
too lean and spare, with far too few men and aircraft to overwhelm
the militants holding the embassy in crowded Tehran, pick up the
hostages and escape safely.  On the other hand, other critics argue
that the plan was to sophisticated and complex, with too many staging
points and too many chances for detection before the assault on the
embassy.

Under Phase 1 of the raid, three C-130s carrying some 90 air
commandos and three others transporting fuel, for helicopters took
off from an airfield in Egypt.  Eight Sikorsky RH-53 helicopters,
flying in pairs, left the nuclear carrier Nimitz in the Arabian Sea.
All were to meet at "Desert One," an unimproved landing strip in the
Great Salt Desert southeast of Tehran.

Phase 2, never carried out, called for the C-130s to fly to Oman and
the helicopters to ferry the commandos to a mountain hideout some 100
miles from Tehran.  The raiding party would stay in hiding there
throughout the next day.  As darkness fell, the men would climb
aboard trucks and buses, which would have been supplied by an
undisclosed number of CIA agents and U.S. Special Forces men who had
entered Iran earlier, some disguised as European businessmen.

The vehicles would slip one by one into Tehran and rendezvous at a
warehouse that had been acquired by an American agent.  During the
night the commandos would divide into two assault teams.  A small
party would head for the Foreign Ministry building, where U.S. Charge
d'Affaires Bruce Laingen and two other U.S. diplomats were held
captive.  The other commandos would drive to the embassy compound,
where 50 Americans were imprisoned.

Surprise and speed were essential.  The attackers, confident that
they knew where the hostages were within the compound, planned to
scale the embassy walls and shoot or capture the guards.  The assault
team was armed with automatic weapons but, contrary to some published
reports, did not carry disabling gas, which would have knocked out
the captives and required them to be carried to safety.

As the assault began, four of the choppers were to fly to the
embassy's soccer field.  In the last stage of the assault, the
hostages (by now joined by the three from the Foreign Ministry) and
the 90 commandos would all leave in the four choppers.  They would
join the C-130s, which would have flown from Oman, at yet another
airstrip, "Desert Two."  There the choppers would be abandoned, and
everyone would fly to safety in the transport planes.

All during the rescue, Navy fighter aircraft from the carriers Nimitz
and Coral Sea would fly along the Iranian border, ready to dart
toward Tehran if the assault party got into trouble.  The U.S.
planners did not fear Iran's once potent air force.  Of the country's
76 advanced F-14 fighters, no more than seven can fly, and none can
fire its Phoenix missiles, owing to the lack of maintenance.  Iran
has 187 operational F-4 fighters, 50 of them near Tehran, but none is
equipped for night combat.  Moreover, insists a Pentagon official,
"we knew where all their planes were," meaning that they could have
been destroyed on the ground if that had been deemed necessary.

American military experts not involved in the mission's planning say
that whether the scheme was sound depended on what kind of help the
rescuers expected once they reached Tehran.  The mission commanders,
as well as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman David Jones and Defense
Secretary Harold Brown, have refused to comment on speculation that
units in the Iranian military or even defectors among the militants
were guarding the embassy were ready to support the operation.

One former U.S. official familiar with Iran finds the mountain
hideout scheme more practical than it might sound, noting that there
are several well-concealed plateaus in the remote mountains.  But few
experts can understand the contention of both Carter and Brown that
the Tehran phase of the plan would have been easier than getting the
assault team into position in the desert in the first place; both of
them have refused to explain why they think so.  Even some of the
military planners concede that the complex mission violated an old
Army rule called KISS, meaning "Keep it simple, stupid."

Other questions about the raid and the answers insofar as they were
known last week:

Did the plan risk too many lives?

Pentagon officials have adamantly denied reports in Washington of a
CIA estimate that 60% of the 53 hostages would probably have been
killed in the rescue attempt.  But TIME has learned that initial
casualty estimates once ran as high as 200 fatalities, including both
hostages and rescuers.  The final plan did, indeed, envision the
possibility of losing from 15 to 20 hostages.

Did the military planners want a bigger force?

Outsiders claiming firsthand information from the Special Forces
officers involved in the mission insist that earlier plans called for
at least 600 men and 30 helicopters in the assault force.  Some of
these critics contend that the plan was scaled down by President
Carter and is National Security council in the belief that a smaller
strike would prove less bloody, less provocative to Iran's Arab
neighbors and more politically acceptable at home.

Indeed, in the months of planning that began within days of the
seizure of the embassy last November, a wide range of rescue options
was considered.  "in the initial stages," General Jones said last
week, "we did not see an option that had a reasonable chance of
success.  We tried and we trained and we exercised, and nothing was
denied to us by anybody."  Some of the earlier plans did envision a
larger force but were discarded as impractical.  One reason:  the
bigger the operation, the more difficult it would be to keep secret.
SO far, there is no evidence that the more restrictive plan was
forced on the military by civilian officials.

What changed to make any plan at all seem feasible?

The planners are secretive about this.  Yet it seems clear that they
had been more successful than expected in getting covert agents into
Iran, gaining support from people already in the country and picking
up precise intelligence on where the hostages were and how they were
guarded.  Over the months, the militants had decreased their numbers
and vigilance.  Also, the U.S. had launched two secret military
satellites in late November, completing the Air Force's positioning
of six command and communications satellites around the world,
including one over the Indian Ocean.  The system could send almost
instantaneous messages between the Pentagon and rescue commanders in
the field.  It might even have helped covert agents get information
out of Tehran.

What went wrong with the helicopters?

The mission was canceled when three of the eight helicopters heading
toward Desert One broke down while flying through a blinding
sandstorm.  An electrical power supply on one craft overheated and
failed, knocking out the gyrocompass, the horizon indicator and the
cockpit lights.  The crew flew back to the Nimitz, making a dangerous
landing, with fuel tanks nearly empty.

On the second helicopter, the crew set down in the desert because a
warning light signaled that the chopper's 34-ft.-long rotor blade was
in danger of failing.  They discovered that it was cracked.  The crew
and all classified material were picked up by another helicopter.

The crew of the third damaged chopper pushed on to Desert One,
despite the failure of a pump that propels the craft's back-up
hydraulic system.  It is essential, supplementing the primary
hydraulic system, which operates the helicopter's control.  Because
the pump could not be repaired, the helicopter had to be taken out of
service, and the rescue mission had to be scrubbed.  Planners figured
that the rescue required at least six helicopters.  There were no
back-up helicopters on the Nimitz; even if there had been, they could
not have been flown to Desert One before daylight.

Did the unusually severe storms cause the malfunctions?

Although the sandstorms were common to all three helicopter failures,
the mission leaders do not blame their problems on the weather.
Pentagon officials disclosed that the choppers' 150-lb sand screens
had been removed to increase the engines' thrust by 3%, a possibly
critical safety margin.  But the screens are designed only to protect
the engines from long-term wear from dirt, which apparently was not a
factor in any of the breakdowns.

Investigators suspect that the overheating in the first craft
resulted from a cooling vent having been blocked by a crewman's flak
jacket and bag.  If so, that obviously was human error.  The swirling
sand, investigators say, could not have cracked the rotor blade in
the second craft.  The cause may never be known.  THe failure of the
third chopper's pump also is a mystery and presumably could not have
been caused by sand because the helicopters' hydraulic systems are
well sealed.

Was maintenance of the helicopters faulty?

From President Carter down to mission officers, this suggestion has
been vehemently denied.  To the contrary, they say, the helicopters
got unusually meticulous care, even though their crews did not know
of the impending mission.  Fifteen maintenance men were assigned to
each of the eight helicopters aboard the Nimitz.  In addition, two
civilian helicopter technical experts, including one from Sikorsky,
were sent to the carrier.  Almost daily, maintenance pilots flew the
choppers to make sure that they were in top condition.  In fact, the
crews tending the RH-53s recently won Navy awards for their
exceptional maintenance record.  The U.S. military may have a general
problem in retaining skilled maintenance men, the mission planners
concede, but the best were available on board the Nimitz.

Just eleven hours before the start of the mission, a sailor
accidentally hit a fire control switch, dousing five of the RH-53s
with sea water and foam.  The aircraft were rinsed with fresh water
and inspected.  No visible damage was found.

Why were the helicopters not destroyed at Desert One?

So far, the mission leaders have not provided a satisfactory
explanation.  Failure to destroy the choppers enabled Iranian
officials to obtain mission maps and other secret papers.  WHether
the documents revealed the identity of some U.S. agents or
collaborators in Tehran is not known but seems improbable.  The
mission leaders suggested that after one helicopter collided with a
parked C-130 at the landing strip and both erupted into flames, the
resulting shrapnel and flying debris from exploding ammunition
threatened to damage four other C-130s and strand the entire party.
When asked about this last week, Colonel Charlie Beckwith, who was in
charge of the 90-man assault force, said tersely:  "That wasn't my
job.  I can't talk to that.  I got all my stuff out of there."
Perhaps protectively, the navy has not revealed the name of the
Marine colonel who commanded the helicopter crews once they left the
Nimitz.

Did the commandoes want to continue the mission?

Friends of Beckwith, 51, a true, if little-publicized, hero of
Special Forces missions in Viet Nam, insist that he returned
crestfallen from the failure in the desert, angry at being ordered to
end the effort and on the verge of resigning his commission.  But
last week he appeared at a select Pentagon press conference at which
photos were banned to protect his potential future usefulness in
covert operations.  He brusquely denied all allegations that he had
opposed the decision to abort.

From the start, Beckwith said, everyone had agreed that if the
rescue team could not fly out of Desert One with at least six
helicopters, the mission could not go forward.  After two of the
eight helicopters had failed to reach the landing strip, Beckwith had
been relieved at the arrival, although late, of the sixty.  But then
the pilot of third damaged chopper told Beckwith that it could not
fly.  THe colonel's one-word reply:  "Bullshit."

Beckwith went to the overall on-site commander, Air Force Colonel
James Kyle, and asked him to take a look at the ailing chopper.
"Let's confirm this," Beckwith said.  "I want to make sure."  When
Kyle climbed down from the critical craft to report that it was
indeed useless, Beckwith said last week, his own reaction was
immediate:  "Sir, my recommendation is that we abort."  The commander
gave Beckwith a chance to change his mind, asking "Would you consider
taking five and going ahead?  Think about it before you answer me.
You're the guy that's got to shoulder this."  After only a few
seconds of reconsideration, Beckwith said sadly, "There's just no
way."

When a reporter persisted, asking again if Beckwith had not argued in
favor of continuing the mission, the rugged six-footer bristled and
replied in a soft Southern accent:  "With all due respect, sir, you
don't know where you're coming from.  I've been there before, and I'm
not about to be a party of half-assed loading on a bunch of aircraft
and going up and murdering a bunch of the finest soldiers in the
world.  I ain't gonna do that.  It was a no-win situation."

After the order to abort had been confirmed from both the White House
and the Pentagon, Beckwith recalled, his first thought was "My God,
I'm gonna fail."  He ordered his men into the C-130s to take off,
then rushed to gather up all classified papers and gear.  He was
aboard a C-130 when he looked out a window.  He recalled:  "A 130 all
of a sudden exploded.  It was one hell of a fire.  On that 130 were
39 of my people."  Beckwith said there was no way to get the bodies
out of the fire "unless you wanted to burn up everybody who's going
in there."  Said the much decorated and fearless officer:  "I sat
there and cried."

Vienna Waltz

In another part of the world, U.S. Marines were almost too successful
at raiding an embassy last week.  It was 8:50 p.m., and the lone
Austrian policeman at the gate of the American embassy in Vienna was
yawning with boredom.  Suddenly three cars squealed to a stop near
by.  Fifteen tough-looking men in civilian clothes leaped out and
clambered over the embassy's garden wall.  Instead of drawing his
pistol and shooting at the intruders, the outnumbered policeman
flashed headquarters for help.  Lots of it.  Within minutes, police
surrounded the embassy.  The squad leader then made contact with the
American duty officer to see if he could get a situation report from
inside.  "Oh, sorry," the startled American replied.  "We called our
Marines out for a special security exercise.  We forgot to notify
you."