Operation EAGLE CLAW: 30 years on.
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Friday, April 23, 2010
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I'm going to be spending some quality time with the list of Southern cocktails from Garden & Gun through the new year.
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Task Elements
27 comments:
Hmmm fullbore or failure? I imagine a mess that could happen if they manged to get into Teheran and start a firefight. Mogadishu was similar scenario - a spec ops task force vs the city.
Read Charlie Beckwith's book (Delta Force) and Mark Bowden's book (Guests of the Ayatollah)for the details of the hostage crises and OPERATION EAGLE CLAW.
I was slightly involved with the operation. I was aboard the USS Okinawa (LPH-3) with the Amphibious Ready Group doing donuts in the Northern Arabian Sea. The Admiral on the Nimitz robbed one of our CH-53s and a crew to use as spares (without telling us what was in the wind.) Our Marine pilot ended up flying in lieu of a Navy pilot who got sick. He was the one who had to turn around when his instruments went South in the sandstorm. The really sad thing was that WE only heard about it from monitoring the TASS news feed. Not a good thing when you have to get your news from the other side!
I was a student in the NSA course at Monterey when this happened. I still remember how depressed I felt when I heard about the mission's failure. Later I worked with a couple of the folks who were in on the JCS planning of the operation who confirmed that the popular reports about every service getting a "piece of the action" were true.
Ewok, Sometimes failure is more beneficial in the long term than success. This operation pointed out how far military readiness had fallen since the end of the Vietnam War, several serious flaws in the JCS decision-making process (some of which still remain), and the lack of resolute leadership on the part of the Carter Administration. It set the stage for Reagan's election that November and revitalization of the American military that followed.
Yes, the readiness has gone up in the Reagan era, but as late as 1983 at Greanda there was a quite a spectacle of mishaps - I can only imagine what would happen if Cuban veterans of African battlefields armed to the teeth were really there.
C-14's point is well-taken.
More food for thought: had the rescue succeeded, Jimmy Carter might well have been re-elected although as the economic situation was still bad, maybe not. How the rest of the Cold War would have played out at that critical time with the Carter administration calling the shots remains yet another might-have-been. Of course, balanced against that would have been the stunning humiliation of the Islamic regime in Iran.
Ewok, "...as late as..."? Years of neglect take time to fix. Grenada occurred roughly 2 1/2 years into the Reagan Administration when many of the shortcomings of the previous decade had not yet been addressed. There had certainly been a major cash influx into the military in the FY 81 supplemental budget and in FY 82/83 but the results of this were just beginning and weren't really seen until the mid/late 80s. Moreover, the planning system that led to Desert One and Grenada wasn't really corrected until after '86.
More importantly, at the operator level the results of low recruiting standards, poor morale, and limited training opportunities were just beginning to be repaired in '83. I was XO of a frigate from 83-84 and spent a good deal of my time processing substandard performers for administrative discharge. The officers of that ship, with a couple of exceptions, were perhaps the worst I served with in seven tours of sea duty.
AM, Agree. Desert One was the nail in Carter's "coffin" as it was a failure that the average voter could understand. Taken in context with SALT II and Afghanistan his administration was marking time from that point on.
If the Iranians knew what change would bring Reagan they would handed over the hostages to Carter with big "WE'RE SORRY" sign...
It took US 2 and half years to go from Pearl Harbor to Phillipine Sea and D-Day. Change CAN happen quickly.
Nice man, hammer-in-hand and all, but a crappy impotent President now reincarnated as our junior senator from Il. I was in the Med, and it wasn't a good day. Thanks for posting.
As I recall, they turned over the hostages almost simultaneously with Reagan's swearing in. I'm not sure if it was a last insult to Carter, or an indication they knew RR wouldn't put up with their games.
I've always felt slightly bad that Carter was blamed for the failure of Eagle Claw. No. The services failed all on their own.
And the actual plan was a freakin' nightmare. It was WAY too complex to have a very good chance of success.
AFAIK they wanted to humiliate Carter, but if they would knew what is coming they would do everything possible to keep Carter in the office.
Carter was rightly blamed. He should have enough sense to ask about too complex plan and give it a red light. As a result lives were lost and many more could have been including the hostages if the plan has got any further.
Mark Bowden chronicles the mission very well in his "Guests of the Ayatollah".
Pres Carter did as much as he could -- and as our forces were capable of, at the time.
It is nonsense to blather that the Iranians turned over the hostages because they were "afraid of" Pres Reagan.
Gulf of Sidra was a small sideshow. Pres Reagan blew it when he put the Marines into Lebanon, and then pulled them out. Major loss of face.
If I recall -- other than the "Tanker War" -- Pres Reagan didn't do too much re: Iran until mid-1988 -- Preying Mantis -- and that was more to take pressure off of the Iraqis, back when we were buddies with Saddam Hussein. I wonder if it also was designed to remove some pressure from the then still unfolding Iran-Contra scandal.
Simply amazing how you could gloss over 8 years of the best president we've had in many a year. I will make this point: Ronald Reagan, during his campaign speeches, made it very clear that he would do whatever it took to getting our people home, and all this speechifying and pussyfooting was over and done. Just weeks before Reagan took office the IRG decided they didn't need the hostages anymore. Guess they didnt want to get their new country bombed and blasted to shit, and their own sorry asses shot to pieces.
Hard to imagine how a Navy officer could end up such an apologist for the Democratic party...
Ewok, Yes, you can make change happen quickly but you're comparing apples and oranges here especially in terms of domestic public opinion here in the U.S. I remember the Left cranking up the fear of nuclear war between us and the USSR because of Reagan's nuclear weapons policies. Full mobilization is what enabled us to go from Pearl Harbor to Philippine Sea. That was not the case in the early '80s and, although the administration did increase military spending markedly it was nowhere along the lines of WW II.
Jay, Carter deserves a great deal of the blame for Desert One. Part of the reason the forces were in the condition they were was a direct result of decisions made by his administration which had done little to stop the decline of the American military that had started in the Nixon/Ford administration. Likewise, several of the Joint Chiefs (and, of course, SECDEF) who planned and approved this mission were Carter appointees.
Our actions in the Gulf in the mid-80s had more to do with our relations with Kuwait (read Saudis) than it did with Iraq, although both nations were supporting Iraq in its war with Iran. I'd also be careful about that term "buddies with Saddam Hussein" as it demonstrates a poor understanding of what was really going on.
I will agree that the timing of the hostages' release had more to do with embarrassing Carter than it did with concern about Ronald Reagan.
Regardless if you blame Carter, someone else or post-Vietnam hangover for the state of US forces AD 1980 it was Carter's decision to green light the operation, hence responsibility is his.CINC has his perks but has also the ultimate responsibility.
Gee, Jay, did it ever occur to you that the primary preoccupation of the Reagan administration was the Cold War? Maybe you've heard of it?
True, the Beirut operation was a major pooch-screw, but I've never decided if that was due to State, DoD, bad intel, or all of the above.
For all of his intelligence -and stupid people didn't go far under Rickover- Carter was a classic example of a strictly-limited mind micro-managing a rescue attempt.
Jimmeh was an obnoxious little jerk, but I'll give him this: he worked his way though Annapolis and satisfied Rickover. I doubt President Barry could claim a similar achievement.
Still, -and alas for Carter- he will always be Chamberlain to Reagan's Churchill.
Oh Byron...
I neither gloss over Pres Reagan's terms, nor apolgize for any party.
I do put Pres Reagan's terms in perspective.
C-dore,
Not sure I can conur with that. While I am pretty certain -- having seen some Spec Ops -- that the force was well trained -- as Bowden points out -- the plan was fragile, some last minute personnel changes happened, and the forces involved hadn't trained together (I am talking the reqular forces supporting the special forces).
It wasn't as if there was some great airborne force with helos with great legs/refueling in air capability, etc. that declined since Nixon/Ford -- just the other way around -- Delta was new & still growing/training, etc.
As some folks have pointed out -- everyone wanted a piece of the action, and that didn't work.
Pres Carter worked his butt off trying to get the hostages released, but to his credit, wasn't going to do it in a way that (furhter) embarrased the US. I doubt any other Pres in that time & situation could have/would have been able to accomplish more.
Well, all that is laughable, but enjoy your special universe...
This isn't the article I am hunting for, but intersesting nonetheless...
Jay, Can't comment on Bowden's book as I haven't read it but I did serve on the OPNAV staff shortly after the hostages returned and got to work alongside some of the folks who were involved in the Eagle Claw planning process and my second boss had commanded the NIMITZ BG during the operation. It was everything it's detractors said it was...lack of proper preparation, security to the point of paranoia, making sure that each service got a piece of the action (something that was pushed during discussion of the plan by the Services and the Joint Staff), etc. Again, SECDEF Harold Brown, the CJCS, and a couple of the Joint Chiefs who approved this plan were Carter appointees thus, as Commander-in-Chief, he bore the ultimate responsibility.
Regarding your comments on the training and readiness of U.S. Special Forces used in the operation, my reaction is "so what". We don't know how those forces would have performed because they never got into action. The mission was aborted due to the failure of several elements of our conventional forces due to a lack of readiness, which was the point I was trying to make. Moreover, as Ewok points out in a comment below, there were problems with the Grenada operation 3 1/2 years later. As I recall, some of those involved Special Forces.
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