Feature
Why the Rescue Failed
There was more to Operation Eagle Claw’s failure in the desert of Iran than Jimmy told us.
(Page 2 of 2)
A less hypothetical error was in the selection of the men and equipment to be used in the raid. The choice of helicopters, for instance, was crucial to the failure of the mission. The RH-53 Sea Stallion was never meant to undertake long, nape-of-the-earth flights over land. It is not a combat assault helicopter: It lacks power, armor, and armament. And given these generic inadequacies, of course, it did not help that the RH-53s used in the event itself had been poorly maintained: Of the 110 flight hours needed to keep the RH-53s fully operational between January and April, only 25 had been flown.
The proper helicopter for the mission would have been the CH-53Es used by the Marine Corps. These are the combat assault cousins of the RH-53. Unlike the RH-53, they have armor, heavy armament, aerial refueling capability, and fully redundant systems. Having three engines instead of two, they are more powerful than the RH-53, which fact would have obviated the need to remove the sand filters from the RH-53s in order to achieve more power. More important, because they may be refueled in the air, the CH-53Es would need not have landed in the desert, which in turn suggests the possibility of a direct flight to Teheran from the Nimitz.
Unfortunately, the men picked for the mission were as ill-suited as the equipment. The forces established under Project Blue Light were not intended, or trained, for commando operations. Rather, they were to be a unique anti-terrorist squad to be used in hostage situations in the United States, or abroad when the local government was at least tacitly supporting the American position. All of their training presupposed that they would have some control of the area surrounding a terrorist redoubt. Before the preparation for Eagle Claw, they had never trained for the sort of long-range clandestine activities they were called upon to perform.
In addition, the training laid out by the planners was inadequate and unrealistic, considering the mission’s requirements. Helicopter training flights were made only in clear weather. Their pilots were not made familiar with low-level blind flying. Moreover, Delta Force never trained on a full-scale mock-up of the Embassy compound (practice assaults were made at the Fort Bragg brig). Had Delta Force arrived at the compound in the dead of night, they might well have gotten lost inside it. Certainly they would not have been able to negotiate the interior of the Embassy itself. If nowhere else, the poor training of the men manifested itself in the fact that personal effects were found on the bodies of the dead. Taking wallets, credit cards, and personal letters into a mission suggests a lack of serious intent and a thorough ignorance of the rules of warfare.
Aside from the simplicity, equipment, and men appropriate to a commando raid, Eagle Claw lacked flexibility or contingency planning. Apparently, no one considered the effects of bad weather, or the possibility of running into the kind of sandstorm which contributed to the first two helicopter failures. And the lack of a contingency plan for a rapid evacuation of the landing zone in the event of detection only increased the chances of something like a collision happening, a condition which the lack of proper air traffic control did nothing to mitigate. Certainly no contingency plans were made to continue the mission if a portion of the force failed to arrive at its objective, and contingency plans of this sort are essential to commando operations.
Perhaps most important, the leadership of Col. Beckwith during the mission was something less than inspiring. Beckwith failed to maintain proper security at Desert One, which allowed the smugglers’ jeep to escape. He obviously did not maintain adequate control over the evacuation. And he did not exhibit the independence and resolution which a commando leader must have. When the sixth helicopter was discovered non-operational, he consulted his superiors rather than making the final decision himself. Apparently he also allowed himself to be overruled by his superiors after the jeep incident; as field commander, the decision to scrub or go forward with the mission was his and his alone. After the collision he gave way to panic and immediately evacuated the landing zone, in effect allowing himself to be stampeded out of Iran by fear of a handful of untrained-militiamen in Tabas. He could have, and should have, extinguished the fires, collected the dead, and destroyed the helicopters and secret documents before staging a deliberate withdrawal.
In retrospect, it was perhaps for the best that Eagle Claw failed when it did. At some later point, the mission’s inevitable cumulative errors might well have resulted in the death or capture of the entire force.
WERE THE BUNGLING and ineptness of Eagle Claw an anomaly, the raid would have no more significance than any other isolated incident of military stupidity. Instead, it is indicative of a decline in American military competence first noticed by some observers during the Vietnam war. This trend towards ineffectuality is marked by a decline in the standards of training for the enlisted men, and by the absolute corruption of the officer corps, not in pecuniary terms but in the more insidious abrogation of its military function.
The American officer corps today values careers more than operations. It values efficiency more than effectiveness. It is over-controlled and over-centralized. It lacks initiative. American officers today are no longer students of war. Rather, they are students of managerial techniques. They abhor combat because it is messy and screws up organizational charts. They have lost contact with and refuse to acknowledge the nature of war, which is killing the enemy.
All of which was illustrated by Eagle Claw. A militarily unsound plan was approved by high-ranking officers who wished to please the President and the Secretary of Defense rather than see American arms succeed. The mission was not conceived with the primary aim of freeing the captives. It was planned to conform with President Carter’s desires that there be no combat. For this reason it was incredibly convoluted and impossible.
The mission was also planned to serve the ideals of “managerial competence” at the expense of military effectiveness. In the interests of efficiency, for instance, all the helicopter repair kits were prepacked and palletized, so that all the spare parts taken on the mission were on one helicopter—which, as we pointed out earlier, had to turn back. (The effective method would have been to split up the parts among all the helicopters, with lots of redundancy.) And the chain of command was a bureaucrat’s dream. Thanks to the miracle of modern telecommunications, which allows generals and even presidents to lead a battalion in combat without getting within 10,000 miles of the front, the operation’s field commander, on whose daring and on-the-scene judgments the operation’s success depends, apparently felt compelled to check back constantly with “higher authorities” before departing from the operation’s plan.
Most important of all, the tendencies so well typified by the failures of Eagle Claw affect American military operations in pervasive and dangerous ways. The American officer corps, for example, recognizes its deficiencies, at least at the subconscious level, and lacks any operational self-confidence. Compare the cautious and tentative fumbling surrounding this raid with the energy and daring of the Russian coup de main in Kabul. A plan made by confident men would have been bold, risky, and successful. Using the proper machines, they would have flown to Teheran directly and swooped out of the night, gone before they were noticed. Much of the timidity of American foreign policy can be traced to a lack of confidence in our military forces to carry out the missions assigned to them, while much of Soviet boldness is a result of their new operational confidence.
This is an alarming development. Very often a nation’s military reputation will outlive its prowess. The illusion of competence survives until the first severe test. Thus the Prussians were destroyed at Jena-Auersdidt in 1806, and the French in 1940. Like a tree rotten from within, an army can appear strong until the first winter storm blows it over. Sometimes, though, a nation is fortunate enough to have the truth revealed in less catastrophic fashion. In the early 1950s the Israeli Army cleaned out its deadwood after a series of small but humiliating failures. By 1956 it was the most effective force in the region. Eagle Claw has given us a unique opportunity.
If the United States is to survive the military challenges of the next decade, it will require more than just a larger military budget; it will need a complete overhaul of our military system, a massive reform. Officers must become soldiers again, and men must be trained to fight effectively. America requires an armed force of formidable competence if it is to stand up to the dynamic, aggressive, and self-confident Red Army.
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.
Stuart L. Koehl and Stephen P. Glick are practicing research analysts for a Washington-based defense consulting firm and long-time observers of military affairs.
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