America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (66 page)

 17.
An investigation by
New York Times
correspondent Seymour Hersh concluded that assassinating Gaddafi was, in fact, “the primary goal of the Libyan bombing.” Seymour Hersh, “Target Qaddafi,”
The New York Times
(February 22, 1987).

 18.
Twenty-four bombers actually took off, but the plan called for only eighteen to proceed to the target area. The others returned to home base shortly after launch.

 19.
For a detailed account of the raid, see Stanik,
El Dorado Canyon,
184–93.

 20.
Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on the United States Air Strike Against Libya” (April 14, 1986).

 21.
“U.S. Planes Destroyed 13 Libya Aircraft,”
Los Angeles Times
(April 17, 1986).

 22.
“Joint News Conference by Secretary Shultz and Secretary Weinberger” (April 14, 1984),
Department of State Bulletin
(June 1986).

 23.
Shultz,
Turmoil and Triumph,
687.

 24.
Anthony H. Cordesman, “USCENTCOM Mission and History” (April 1998), 8.

 25.
David Ottaway, “U.S. Still Certain that Libya Was Behind Nightclub Attack,”
The Washington Post
(January 12, 1988).

 26.
Three months earlier, a similar Libyan plot had killed all 171 people aboard a French airliner over Niger.

6. Rescuing Evil

 1.
Efraim Karsh,
The Iran-Iraq War, 1980
–
1988
(Oxford, 2002), 12–29.

 2.
Jimmy Carter, “Situation in Iraq and Iran: Remarks Concerning the Conflict” (September 24, 1980).

 3.
Bernard Gwertzman, “Muskie Recommends Two Key ‘Principles’ to End Mideast War,”
The New York Times
(October 21, 1980). The article quotes Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie: “We believe the cohesion and stability of Iran is in the interest of the stability of the region as a whole.”

 4.
Karsh,
Iran-Iraq War,
33–36.

 5.
The State Department published its first list of state sponsors of terrorism in 1979. Members included Iraq, Libya, South Yemen, and Syria.

 6.
George P. Shultz to the United States Interests Section in Iraq, “Message from the Secretary for FON MIN Tariq Aziz: Iraqi Support for Terrorism” (May 23, 1983), National Security Archive.

 7.
United States Embassy in United Kingdom to the Department of State, “Rumsfeld Mission: December 20 Meeting with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein” (December 21, 1983). The cable details Rumsfeld’s exchange with the Iraqi leader.

 8.
Seymour Hersh, “U.S. Secretly Gave Aid to Iraq Early in Its War Against Iran,”
The New York Times
(January 26, 1992).

 9.
The U.S. position was that chemical weapons were bad, but if Iraq used them, Iran was largely to blame. For an example of this logic, see Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, “Memorandum from James A. Placke to James M. Ealum [et al.]. [U.S. Condemnation of Iraqi Chemical Weapons Use]” (March 4, 1984), National Security Archive.

 10.
For a sampling of U.S. involvement, see Douglas Jehl, “Who Armed Iraq? Answers the West Didn’t Want to Hear,”
The New York Times
(July 18, 1993). See also Douglas Borer, “Inverse Engagement: Lessons from U.S.-Iraq Relations, 1982–1990,”
Parameters
(Summer 2003).

 11.
Precise casualties are not available and estimates vary widely. Yet in toto the Iran-Iraq War probably claimed between four hundred thousand and one million lives. For a range of estimates, see “Secondary Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century” (February 2012),
necrometrics.com/20c300k.htm#Iran-Iraq
, accessed December 4, 2014.

 12.
The most comprehensive scholarly account of this episode to date is Malcolm Byrne,
Iran-Contra: Reagan’s Scandal and the Unchecked Abuse of Presidential Power
(Lawrence, 2014).

 13.
The Contras were a guerrilla force, operating primarily out of Honduras, who were attempting with CIA support to overthrow the Sandinista revolutionaries who in 1979 had gained power in Nicaragua. The Contra piece of Iran-Contra worked this way: U.S. officials surreptitiously diverted to these anti-Sandinistas the “profits,” amounting to millions of dollars, gained by selling arms to Iran. This too was illegal—a blatant violation of a congressional prohibition on providing such aid to the Contras.

 14.
Ronald O’Rourke, “The Tanker War,”
Proceedings
(May 1988).

 15.
Harold Lee Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987–1988
(Annapolis, 2007), 7–8.

 16.
“Historical Crude Oil Prices, 1946–Present” (March 6, 2014),
inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/Historical_Oil_Prices_Table.asp
, accessed December 10, 2014.

 17.
Ronald Reagan, “National Security Decision Directive 139: Measures to Improve U.S. Posture and Readiness to Respond to Developments in the Iran-Iraq War” (April 5, 1984).

 18.
Caspar W. Weinberger, “A Report to Congress on Security Arrangements in the Persian Gulf” (June 15, 1987), iii.

 19.
Crist,
Twilight War,
213; Byrne,
Iran-Contra,
335.

 20.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
28. The quotation is from a member of the
Stark
’s crew.

 21.
For a detailed account, see Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
27–41.

 22.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
49.

 23.
Ronald Reagan, “Question-and-Answer Session with Area Reporters, Chattanooga, Tennessee” (May 19, 1987). The president also stated that “we have been doing everything we can and working with the other nations to try to bring about a peace in that war,” with Iraq cooperating and Iran obdurately refusing to do so.

 24.
George P. Shultz, “Secretary’s Letters to the Congress, May 20, 1987,”
Department of State Bulletin
(July 1987), 61.

 25.
“Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Attack on the USS Stark (FFG 31) on 17 May 1987” (June 12, 1987),
jag.navy.mil/library/investigations/uss%20stark%20basic.pdf
, accessed December 8, 2014.

 26.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
42–45.

 27.
Patrick Tyler,
A World of Trouble
(New York, 2009), 335.

 28.
To prevent any recurrence of the
Stark
attack, CENTCOM officers secretly visited Baghdad to negotiate an agreement providing for “a series of electronic winks and nods” permitting Iraqi aircraft to continue their attacks on Iranian vessels while minimizing the likelihood of encountering the U.S. Navy. Crist,
Twilight War,
231–32.

 29.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
77.

 30.
Stephens Broening, “U.S. Admonishes Libya Not to Send Mines to Iran,” Baltimore
Sun
(September 10, 1987); Elaine Sciolino, “U.S. Sends 2,000 Gas Masks to the Chadians,”
The New York Times
(September 25, 1987). According to the second dispatch, U.S. officials had “conclusive evidence that the deliveries took place.”

 31.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 75–76, 160.

 32.
John Kifner, “United States Blows Up Captured Iranian Vessel,”
The New York Times
(September 26, 1987).

 33.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 98–103, 113.

 34.
“Seized Iranian Ship Scuttled by U.S. Forces,”
Los Angeles Times
(September 26, 1987).

 35.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 127–30.

 36.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 137–38.

 37.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 142.

 38.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone
, 143–52.

 39.
In June 1987, Admiral William J. Crowe described the conditions in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “U.S. Military Forces to Protect ‘Re-Flagged’ Kuwaiti Oil Tankers” (June 5, 1987), 17.

 40.
For a full account of the ordeal, see Bradley Peniston,
No Higher Honor
(Annapolis, 2006).

 41.
Karsh,
Iran-Iraq War
, 57.

 42.
Crist,
Twilight War
, 339–41.

 43.
Wise,
Inside the Danger Zone,
193–214, quotation 210.

 44.
Crist,
Twilight War
, 337.

 45.
Harold Lee Wise, “One Day of War,”
Naval History
(April 2013).

 46.
Crist,
Twilight War
, 356.

 47.
Michael A. Palmer,
Guardians of the Gulf
(New York, 1992), 138.

 48.
Crist,
Twilight War,
216.

 49.
Richard Halloran, “Navy Won’t Alter Engagement Rules,”
The New York Times
(July 7, 1988).

 50.
Ronald Reagan, “Letter to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate on the Destruction of an Iranian Airliner by the United States Navy over the Persian Gulf” (July 4, 1988).

 51.
“I will never apologize,”
Daily Kos
(July 18, 2014),
www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/18/1314985/--I-Will-Never-Apologize-Iran-Flight-665-Shot-Down-290-Dead
, accessed December 11, 2014.

 52.
“Why the U.S. Navy Is in the Gulf,”
The New York Times
(July 6, 1988).

 53.
“In Captain Rogers’s Shoes,”
The New York Times
(July 5, 1988).

 54.
Lou Cannon, “Poll Finds Support for Ship’s Action, U.S. Policy in Gulf,”
The Washington Post
(July 7, 1988).

 55.
William J. Crowe Jr., “Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3, 1988” (August 18, 1988). The document cited is a letter from Admiral Crowe endorsing the findings of the actual investigation.