Feature
Why the Rescue Failed
There was more to Operation Eagle Claw’s failure in the desert of Iran than Jimmy told us.
When ignorance has gotten ten men killed where it should have cost but two, is it not responsible for the blood of the other eight? —Napoleon
Some time during the second week of April, President Carter, after nearly six months of “diplomatic appeals,” reversed his position opposing the use of force to achieve the release of the American hostages in Iran. On April 23 he launched Operation Eagle Claw, a mission to rescue the American captives by a coup de main at the American Embassy in Teheran.
Awakening Friday morning, most Americans were horrified to discover that a secret rescue attempt had been aborted in the Iranian desert, that mechanical failures had caused the cancellation, and that eight American servicemen were dead in an aircraft collision. Official White House and Department of Defense statements claimed that the mission was successful up to the point where it was cancelled, that a series of unfortunate events beyond human control were responsible for the failure. And most Americans came to believe that bad luck foiled a gallant attempt to save our fellow countrymen from a barbaric captivity.
But is this the truth? Or is the failure of Eagle Claw attributable to conscious actions taken on the part of American political and military leaders? Is Eagle Claw merely an isolated incident, or is it indicative of greater flaws and potentially catastrophic failures in the American military? To understand the true significance of the mission, one must view it as a military operation and judge it on strictly military terms. This in turn requires an understanding of the mission plan, the actual events, and the general principles governing this sort of commando operation.
HAD MARS FAVORED American arms that week in April, we would have awakened on the twenty-sixth cheering the release of our compatriots and the heroes who saved them. No doubt the Pentagon would have been quick to release the details of this miraculous feat, revealing the following operational plan:
American agents, probably from the Southwest Asia Special Forces Group (Green Berets), would infiltrate Iran several days prior to the rescue attempt and assume positions to support the main force when it arrived. The rescue mission itself would be undertaken by volunteers from the Department of Defense’s special anti-terrorist unit, a multi-service force established in 1977 under Project Blue Light. The unit assembled for the raid would be code-named Delta Force. On Wednesday evening, April 23, they would fly from Egyptian airfields near Luxor aboard C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to an abandoned airstrip near Tabas, in the Iranian desert, with a short layover in Oman to rest the aircrew. Along with Delta Force the planes would bring additional aviation fuel and refueling gear, and electronic equipment to jam Iranian radar and radio communications. At this airstrip, code-named Desert One, these planes would be joined by eight RH-53 minesweeping helicopters from the carrier Nimitz, in the Gulf of Oman. (The helicopters’ minesweeping apparatus would have been replaced with equipment more appropriate for Eagle Claw, such as armament and night vision devices.) The helicopters would remain at Desert One all day Thursday, resting the men and refueling the helicopters.
On Thursday evening, Delta Force would board the helicopters and fly to a second landing zone in the remote mountains near Darmavand, about 50 miles northeast of Teheran. There they would meet some of the Green Beret infiltrators, who would have acquired trucks from friendly Iranian sources in order to take Delta Force and its guides to a warehouse on the outskirts of Teheran. Here, final intelligence reports would be digested and assault plans confirmed. Then Delta Force would divide, a small contingent moving to the Foreign Ministry building, where three senior American diplomats are “guests” of the Iranian government, and the bulk of Delta Force proceeding to the American Embassy compound, where they would storm the Embassy proper by means of nonlethal chemical agents which would incapacitate the terrorists before they could harm their captives.
Having freed the captives, Delta Force would signal the helicopters, already en route from Darmavand, to land in the Embassy parking lot and soccer field. The small contingent having rejoined the bulk of Delta Force, all the American troops and the ex-prisoners would embark and fly to a third landing zone northwest of Teheran, where they would rendezvous with the C-130s from Desert One, destroy the helicopters, and leave Iran. All movements prior to the helicopter landings at the Embassy would take place in darkness, men and equipment hiding camouflaged by day, so that, there having been another layover at Darmavand on Friday, the raiders would not actually leave Iran until Saturday morning.
Throughout the raid, an E-3 AWACS aircraft would maintain command and control, monitoring Iranian airspace and maintaining direct communications between the carrier task force, Washington, and the mission commander. Presumably, the AWACS would coordinate air support over Teheran from the time Delta Force assaulted the Embassy until it left Iranian airspace.
OF COURSE, WHAT HAPPENED was something much different from this. On the way to Desert One, one RH-53 suffered a possible rotor failure, landed, and was abandoned in the desert. Another helicopter suffered an electrical failure, which disabled its gyrocompass and navigation equipment and fored it to return to the Nimitz. The remaining six helicopters and six C-130s arrived at Desert One.
On Thursday, a busload of Iranian civilians driving down the road running through Desert One were stopped and detained. On Thursday evening it was discovered that one of the remaining helicopters was unserviceable due to a hydraulic system failure. Repairing the helicopter was impossible: All of the spare parts were aboard the helicopter which had returned to the Nimitz. Because the operation’s planners had decided that six RH-53s were the minimum required to ensure the mission’s success, a rambling discussion about the advisability of continuing the mission now began between the mission commander, Colonel Charles Beckwith, and the White House and Pentagon.
At this point a tanker truck towing a jeep blundered into Desert One. Soldiers stopped it at a roadblock, but the driver ran to the jeep and took off across country. Under orders to avoid killing Iranian civilians, the soldiers failed to stop the jeep. Feeling that security was now compromised, somebody—whether Col. Beckwith, higher military authorities, or the President himself—ordered the mission scrubbed. The evacuation of Desert One began at a frenzied pace. The helicopters were to have been topped off and flown out of Iran, but while crossing the landing zone to refuel, a taxiing RH-53 struck a stationary Hercules: Both aircraft exploded, killing eight men and seriously wounding five. Beckwith now dropped everything, got his men on the remaining C-130s, and took off, leaving behind the bodies of eight American servicemen, a small library of secret documents, five intact helicopters, and America’s military reputation. Ironically, the men in the tanker truck were smugglers; they never reported the Americans to the Iranian government.
THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION and the Pentagon have both tried to excuse this fiasco by referring its failures to “equipment failure,” but the conception and execution of the mission were so deficient and amateurish that it was probably doomed to failure from the start, especially when judged by the rules of warfare generally and of commando warfare in particular.
It is axiomatic that in war only the simple succeeds, but the mission plan for Eagle Claw was complex, maximizing the chances for confusion and mishaps. It called for the coordination of two foreign governments (Egypt and Oman), Green Beret advance teams, Iranian collaborators, Delta Force, and the Nimitz Task Force; for the seizure and maintenance of three landing zones, the staging of a major refueling operation, and an approach drive to the Embassy of some 60 miles in borrowed trucks; and it called for a force of six large transport planes, eight helicopters, and more than a hundred men to remain inside a hostile country for more than 72 hours. This last part of the plan obviously violates one of the cardinal rules of commando operations: fast in and fast out.
And other rules were broken as well. For instance, it would have been impossible to retain secrecy or surprise for the duration of the mission, at least as the mission was planned. Of course, in any commando raid, surprise is of the essence. Operating far behind enemy lines, commandos are outnumbered and outgunned and must rely on surprise—open-mouthed, dumbfounded incredulity—to paralyze the enemy, if only temporarily. But given the nature of Eagle Claw, somewhere along the way Delta Force would inevitably have given the game away. The incidents of the bus and the tanker truck at Desert One are example enough, especially considering the President’s injunction to avoid killing Iranians.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (18) | Leave a comment
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OP4| 9.14.12 @ 9:07AM
Eagle Claw was a failed half measure because it was an operation designed for a government run by sissies and wimps. Deputy Secretary of State, Warren Christopher actually asked Beckwith if his team could just shoot Iranians in the legs and shoulders.
Reagan would have sunk the Iranian Navy, landed the First and Third Marine Divisions in Southern Iran, bombed some Iranian targets, then offered the Iranians a chance to reconsider.
spike59| 9.14.12 @ 1:11PM
never forget that the prospect of facing PRESIDENT Reagan was what prompted the Iranians to agre to release the hostages
Vet4Progress| 9.15.12 @ 3:29AM
Never forget that the prospect of a Romney administration is why is falling further and further behind in the polls, the very idea scares a majority of Americans and after his lame handling of his foreign trip and response to the incidents in Libya demonstrate Romney is simply not qualified for the world stage.
Stuart Koehl| 9.15.12 @ 9:04AM
As compared to . . . whom? Friggin troll.
atilla| 9.20.12 @ 11:06AM
I AGREE STEWART....DID YOU UNDERSTAND HIS POOR GRAMMAR?
spike59| 9.20.12 @ 6:31AM
"lame handling?' care to cite an example??? his RESPONSE to the 'incidents'...what the rest of us call a TERRORIST ATTACK...really? can you offer up a SINGLE defense of the ObaMao regime's handling of it....ignoring the warnings given by Libyan officials, outsourcing our consulate's security to an unarmed British firm, failing to warn the Ambassador about his own security, LYING about the whole thing, and trying to pin blame for a coordinated and planned terrorist attack made to avenge the drone strike killing of an al-Queda leader from LIBYA (after, btw, repeated bragging over how many muslims ObaMao has killed with his drone air force, and an orgy in Charlotte of 'we killed bin-laden, we killed bin laden'...)on a stupid little video trailer that no one has seen, and responding by outing the 'filmmaker' to the MSM and siccing the DoJ on him?????? and you're worried about ROMNEY'S qualifications????
spike59| 9.14.12 @ 1:11PM
never forget that the prospect of facing PRESIDENT Reagan was what prompted the Iranians to agree to release the hostages
Stuart Koehl| 9.14.12 @ 10:12PM
While the wobbliness of the Carter Administration was a contributory cause of the failure, the fundamental causes were systemic, deeply rooted in the U.S. military culture of the time which marginalized special operations and did not understand the qualities needed in both personnel, organization and equipment to ensure a reasonable chance of success.
As a result of Eagle Claw, a thorough review was conducted of U.S. special operations capabilities and requirements, which led, eventually, to the creation of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) as a unified command with its own chain of command, budget line, and personnel career paths. From being at the margins of the U.S. military, Special Operations have become the leading edge in all three services.
The disaster of Eagle Claw was a necessary wake up call, and the success of U.S. special operations in the two Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, and Latin America can be traced to the reforms implemented in its aftermath.
Vet4Progress| 9.15.12 @ 3:25AM
"Rather than hiding or forgetting our failure in the Iranian desert, we must take steps to root out its causes and correct our deficiencies. Our time is short, and if we do not begin now we might never have the chance. If the failure of the rescue attempt was a blow to our pride, it was a signal of opportunity to our enemies."
lol
This sounds like the concluding paragraph of a 1983 congressional investigation or DOD AAR. When will conservatives tire of this game (wet dream?) and simply move on? I think this incident has been mined for all its worth and then some. The authors underlying assumption can only be that time has stood still for the last 25 years and there is actually something particular to this incident that has been left undone. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the world that the authors refer to no longer exists! Personnel, equipment, training, tactics, doctrine, organization have all been completely transformed into out modern military. The entire exercise of this article is a folly.
Stuart Koehl| 9.15.12 @ 8:59AM
The simplest answer is, absent constant training and vigilance, all military forces tend to fall into decadence, in which the politically and bureaucratically astute or managerially facile rise to positions of command, while those with the the aptitude for combat leadership fall by the wayside.
There is a sharp and severe line between "professionalism" and "careerism". The former is meritorcratically demanding and and requires the mastery of all the skills of one's chosen profession--in this case, the profession of arms. The latter, in comparison, is about attaining personal success within a field not by mastery of the subject, but by punching the right buttons.
The military of 1980 was rank with careerism; by the late eighties, that had been replaced by true professionalism (though not entirely-look at how many battalion and even brigade commanders had to be relieved before Desert Storm).
Today, the military is in danger of sliding back into careerism, with general officers selected not for competence but for political pliance; decisions on manning based not on combat effectiveness but on political correctness; and budgetary decisions based not on strategic requirements but service parochialism. In such an environment, it's worth noting that the magnificent military machine we built up with blood, toil, sweat and tears over the last two decades can just as easily backslide into the hollow force of the late 1970s--and much more quickly.
Stuart Koehl| 9.15.12 @ 9:03AM
"n fact, the world that the authors refer to no longer exists! Personnel, equipment, training, tactics, doctrine, organization have all been completely transformed into out modern military. The entire exercise of this article is a folly."
Vet4 Truth ignores that I wrote this article in 1980--three years before any reforms were either considered or implemented. As a contemporaneous post mortem it holds up very well--especially considering how very little about the raid had been released at the time.
You will note the prescriptive section of the article--almost every single thing that Steve Glick and I said needed to be done was (eventually) done, and as a result, U.S. special operations forces evolved into the most proficient on the planet, while the military as a whole became far more professional.
Sadly, much of that progress is likely to be sacrificed on the altar of political expedience by the Obama administration, which is only interested in the military to the extent that it can either advance its election prospects or fund its domestic programs
Ol' Will| 9.15.12 @ 11:13PM
Way to go, Stuart. Kick his behind!
I think these "Flashback" reprints should contain an extra section commenting on the present status of the subjects covered or the outcome of a certain pending event.
But it is incredible that Vet4Progress could criticize you for not having 20-20 hindsight on events that were yet to happen when you wrote your article.
I'm glad you're still around after all these years.
in_awe| 9.17.12 @ 7:18PM
On September 19, 2011 SPC Chazray Clark lost three limbs to an IED while on a patrol 1.5 miles from his FOB in Afghanistan. He survived the blast at 4:45am and was fully conscious for the next 55 minutes while he lay in a LZ waiting for the MEDEVAC helicopter at the nearby FOB to be dispatched to evacuate him.
Rear echelon types 25 miles away at Kandahar Air Field overrode the assessment of the landing zone hazard by a 4 tour LT COL. Their policy manual told them that any LZ in that area was “Hot” regardless of what the on-scene commander said. So, the armed Blackhawk escort helicopter (sitting next to the MEDEVAC helicopter at the nearby FOB) would be inadequate to provide cover for the rescue. The manual required an Apache attack helicopter despite no evidence of enemy activity in the LZ area. They also wouldn’t launch two heavily armed USAF Pedro helicopters with MEDEVAC capabilities sitting on the tarmac at KAF. Each Pedro carries 2 paramedics and are known for their ability to fight their way into a LZ and out again. The Apache takes 2-3 times as long to prepare for launch than the Pedro aircraft - at a time when minutes matter.
This represented an on-going pissing match between the US Army and the US Air Force over who owns the tactical skies in combat and who has titular responsibility for MEDEVAC flights, as well as the beat down the Combat Aviation forces have been applying to the formerly independently operated MEDEVAC forces now under CAB control since 2006
in_awe| 9.17.12 @ 7:33PM
(cont'd)
Finally the Apache met up with the MEDEVAC helicopter and the rescue happened. The trooper was flown the 10 minutes to the trauma facility at KAF where he died shortly after arriving 65 minutes after the rescue was requested.
After spending a year delving into US Army policies on medic training and MEDEVAC policies and practices I can assure you that by the Army's own internal reports well over 1000 (the 2009 estimate) Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan would be alive today if changes recommended by its own internal officer corps over the last TWO DECADES had been implemented - even in part. (See www.MEDEVACMatters.org for details.)
The Surgeon General of the Army proudly proclaims she is running the world's 5th largest HMO, while the top purpose of the Army Medical Corps seems to be about everything except caring for the wounded on the battlefield. Her highest priority for 2012 is putting a pedometer on the waistband of every soldier in the Army. There are specialists in dermatology, immunology, internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, sociology, artillery(?!), and veterinary medicine on her command staff - but nobody to advocate for MEDEVAC.
The idea that the US military focuses on war fighting and supporting the soldier in harm's way is idealistic and false. Beside the MEDEVAC situation, one only has to look at the Rules of Engagement being enforced on our troops to know that winning a war comes second to political considerations and politicians.
atilla| 9.20.12 @ 11:12AM
THE ARMY MED CORPS RESISTS ARMING THEIR CHOPPERS BECAUSE THEY ALSO UTILIZE THEM AS EXECUTIVE TRANSPORT, KINDA LIKE PERSONAL AIR TAXIS, AT THE DETRIMENT OF OUR WOUNDED. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!!
Politically Incorrect | 9.15.12 @ 12:33PM
Hmm...I dont know why my comment failed to be added, but the trolls seemed to make it?
gazinya | 9.15.12 @ 2:41PM
There would have been one point I think also needs to be added to this 1980 article. "Peace Dividend". That the Dems were so anxious to start, from a lie by LBJ, the Viet Nam war, then so rapidly excited to 'exit' from when Nixon became President is quite telling. The Dems, who were still 18 years away from losing control of both houses of government, decried 'the cost in dollars' of Viet Nam. It kept them from 'spending' on social giveaway programs. When the Viet Nam 'conflict' did end the Dems went whole hog on dismantleing the military and using the 'savings' on the so called, 'peace dividends'. There was no more routine maintenance of equipment and 'live fire' training got so bad our soldiers had to 'imagine' they hit targets with a shout of 'bang'.
Now the Dems want to take away the shout of 'bang'. They can't seem to understand that it is not just budgets that they have ignored, though Constitutionally commanded to accomplish but now they don't want to give combat soldiers 'live rounds' so as not to upset the mobs.
atilla| 9.20.12 @ 11:03AM
I AGREE ENTIRELY WITH THE ASSESSMENT OF OUR MILITARY OFFICER CORPS.
I SPENT 20 YEARS IN THE NAVY , (57-77) AND WE HAD A VERY DIFFERENT TYPE OF OFFICER BACK THEN.
MY OPINION AS TO WHAT BEGAN THE CASTRATION OF OUR OFFICERS WAS THE TAILHOOK DISGRACE COMMITTED BY SEN PATSY SCHROEDER ON THE ARMED SERVICES COMM.
SHE PUT THE FEAR OF GOD IN ANY ONE SEEKING A MILITARY CAREER.
MY SUGGESTION TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM IS FOR PRESIDENT ROMNEY TO FIRE ALL GENERALS AND ADMIRALS AND PROMOTE FROM MAJOR ON UP TO FLAG RANK ONLY THOSE OFFICERS THAT HAVE DEMONSTRATED THE CHARACTER OF SOLDIERS FIRST. (GUYS LIKE LTCOL. ALAN WEST, WHO BY THE WAY WAS RELIEVED OF HIS COMMAND FOR DOING JUST THAT....DUH. HIS BOSS SHOULD HAVE BEEN RELIEVED!)
I'M JUST SAY'EN