Read Online Black Ops: The Rise of Special Forces in the C.I.A., the S.A.S., and Mossad by Tony Geraghty - Free Book Online
Authors: Tony Geraghty
Tags: History, Military, Political Science, special forces, Political Freedom & Security, Intelligence
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superbly trained Delta force was not conceived as a large-scale raiding force. Events dictated otherwise.
On 4 November 1979, following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the return to Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Paris, and the Shah’s grant of sanctuary in America, a student demonstration directed against the U.S. embassy in Tehran got out of hand. The most venturesome demonstrators, armed with martial arts nunchaku sticks, a croquet mallet, and a broken wooden board, climbed the embassy gate and, to their surprise, encountered little opposition from within other than a token volley of riot gas cartridges fired by Marine guards wearing shiny dress shoes.
The Marines’ Rules of Engagement did not permit shooting into a crowd of civilian demonstrators led by women who claimed they intended nothing more serious than a sit-in. Initially, the Iranian government promised to do what it could do to arrange a peaceful outcome. The deception was complete as the embassy was surrendered without a shot. It was a misplaced, naïvely Quaker defense. While they had the chance, the embassy’s CIA team of four burned classified documents. The siege became a circus of political humiliation that lasted 444 days and fatally undermined the Carter presidency.
America boiled with anger during the siege and expected a military response as well as the safe return of fifty-three embassy staff held hostage. These were barely compatible objectives. In total secrecy, a rescue task force was built around Delta and an ad hoc collection of Air Force and Marine pilots, plus a sprinkling of CIA and Pentagon secret agents at large in Iran. Responsibility was divided between Delta, which would run the ground rescue and evacuation, and the air element, handling movements in, around, and out of Iran. By the time the team was assembled under the codename “Operation Eagle Claw” in April 1980, it had grown to 120 men. It was also, according to some observers, saddled with a top-heavy bureaucracy including four separate commanders on the ground. The rescue scenario was complex. It proposed inserting the Delta rescue team on an apparently isolated hard runway codenamed Desert One by three C-130 aircraft 200 miles from the target; a laying-up position fifty miles from Tehran, to which 118 members of Delta plus six drivers and six translators would move in darkness by eight Navy Sea Stallion helicopters, normally used for minesweeping, flown from the carrier Nimitz and piloted by Marine Chinook pilots who had little experience of night flying under radar and little chance to adapt to the machines they were to fly.
Another trio of C-130s would act as fuel tankers for the helicopters at Desert One. A two-man Pentagon team, covertly inserted ahead of the main mission, would provide trucks for road movement on the second night into Tehran. The Delta assault team would make a coup de main strike on the embassy compound as a Ranger company held the perimeter. The hostages would be carried to a stadium where they would be picked up by helicopter and flown to another airfield seized by Rangers. There, Starlifter transports would be waiting to fly the hostages to safety.
The mission was in trouble from the start. In bleak, terse language the Holloway Report tells us how it started to go wrong: “On the evening of 24 April, after 51/2 months of planning and training under very tight OPSEC [operational security], eight RH-53 helicopters took off from the aircraft carrier Nimitz and began a journey of nearly 600 nautical miles at night and low altitude to a preselected refueling site, Desert One, in the desert. The C-130 element with the ground rescue forces was also in the execution phase on a different track and time schedule to Desert One. Approximately two hours after takeoff, the crew of Helicopter No. 6 received cockpit indications of an impending rotor blade failure; landed; verified the malfunction (an automatic abort situation); and abandoned their
On 4 November 1979, following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the return to Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini from exile in Paris, and the Shah’s grant of sanctuary in America, a student demonstration directed against the U.S. embassy in Tehran got out of hand. The most venturesome demonstrators, armed with martial arts nunchaku sticks, a croquet mallet, and a broken wooden board, climbed the embassy gate and, to their surprise, encountered little opposition from within other than a token volley of riot gas cartridges fired by Marine guards wearing shiny dress shoes.
The Marines’ Rules of Engagement did not permit shooting into a crowd of civilian demonstrators led by women who claimed they intended nothing more serious than a sit-in. Initially, the Iranian government promised to do what it could do to arrange a peaceful outcome. The deception was complete as the embassy was surrendered without a shot. It was a misplaced, naïvely Quaker defense. While they had the chance, the embassy’s CIA team of four burned classified documents. The siege became a circus of political humiliation that lasted 444 days and fatally undermined the Carter presidency.
America boiled with anger during the siege and expected a military response as well as the safe return of fifty-three embassy staff held hostage. These were barely compatible objectives. In total secrecy, a rescue task force was built around Delta and an ad hoc collection of Air Force and Marine pilots, plus a sprinkling of CIA and Pentagon secret agents at large in Iran. Responsibility was divided between Delta, which would run the ground rescue and evacuation, and the air element, handling movements in, around, and out of Iran. By the time the team was assembled under the codename “Operation Eagle Claw” in April 1980, it had grown to 120 men. It was also, according to some observers, saddled with a top-heavy bureaucracy including four separate commanders on the ground. The rescue scenario was complex. It proposed inserting the Delta rescue team on an apparently isolated hard runway codenamed Desert One by three C-130 aircraft 200 miles from the target; a laying-up position fifty miles from Tehran, to which 118 members of Delta plus six drivers and six translators would move in darkness by eight Navy Sea Stallion helicopters, normally used for minesweeping, flown from the carrier Nimitz and piloted by Marine Chinook pilots who had little experience of night flying under radar and little chance to adapt to the machines they were to fly.
Another trio of C-130s would act as fuel tankers for the helicopters at Desert One. A two-man Pentagon team, covertly inserted ahead of the main mission, would provide trucks for road movement on the second night into Tehran. The Delta assault team would make a coup de main strike on the embassy compound as a Ranger company held the perimeter. The hostages would be carried to a stadium where they would be picked up by helicopter and flown to another airfield seized by Rangers. There, Starlifter transports would be waiting to fly the hostages to safety.
The mission was in trouble from the start. In bleak, terse language the Holloway Report tells us how it started to go wrong: “On the evening of 24 April, after 51/2 months of planning and training under very tight OPSEC [operational security], eight RH-53 helicopters took off from the aircraft carrier Nimitz and began a journey of nearly 600 nautical miles at night and low altitude to a preselected refueling site, Desert One, in the desert. The C-130 element with the ground rescue forces was also in the execution phase on a different track and time schedule to Desert One. Approximately two hours after takeoff, the crew of Helicopter No. 6 received cockpit indications of an impending rotor blade failure; landed; verified the malfunction (an automatic abort situation); and abandoned their
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