Part of my duties as a member of the Counterterrorism Joint Task Force was to gather data on terrorism, its nature, and genesis and to predict its evolution and offer solutions. I wasn’t surprised that terrorism and global unrest fed upon each other and upon the blood of victims. Terrorism did not occur in a vacuum; it increased according to the general condition of the world.
During the period our countrymen were held hostage in Iran, Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan to support a pro-Soviet coup, and Iraq invaded Iran. Both wars continued throughout the months of the Iran Hostage Crisis and bore every indication of continuing for years longer. I was certain in my own mind that they in turn would metastasize into even more conflicts and wars.
“We in government,” I commented to CNO Admiral Hayward, “have a tendency to look at acts of terror as unrelated incidents. We can, in fact, make predictions upon trends.”
“And your predictions, Commander Hamilton?”
“You’re not going to like this.”
I showed him a chart I made of terrorist acts within the last two decades or so and how they fed upon the instability of the world and themselves created new instability. Since 1962, I pointed out, there had been fifty-seven airliner hijackings or attempted hijackings, fifteen of which originated in the United States. There were also hundreds of other terrorist incidents directed against the United States, Israel, or the West, among then 8,200 bombings and bomb threats inside the United States between January 1969 and April 1970 attributed to campus disturbances and student unrest.
Incident Location Date and details
“Sunday bomber” New York City 1960. Series of detonations in New York subways and ferries resulting in one dead and 51 injured.
American Airliner hijacking Marathon, Florida May 1, 1962. Hijacked to Cuba.
Political assassination Los Angeles 1968. Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy shot and killed by Palestinian-Jordanian-Muslim.
Massacre Munich, W. Germany August–September 1972. Black September Palestinian terrorists at Olympic Village. Eleven Israelis and one German police officer killed. Five terrorists died.
Bombings New York City 1973. Puerto Rican terrorists FALN. 40 bombings.
Assassination Chevy Chase, Maryland 1973. Israeli Air Force attaché shot outside home.
Airport bombing LaGuardia Airport 1976. 11 killed, 75 injured.
Car bombing Washington D.C. 1976. Former member of Chilean government and assistant killed.
Kidnapping Kabul, Afghanistan 1976. Kidnapped U.S. ambassador killed during gunfight.
My chart went on for page after page. The CNO threw up his hands. “Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed.
“Yeah,” I said. “Look at history and we see how they grow out of events. Radical Islam will be our next terrorist challenge.”
The United States’ first official war after the Revolutionary War was because of terrorism.
During and after the seventeenth century, Barbary pirates operating primarily in the Mediterranean from ports in the North Africa Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers seized ships for ransom and made raids along the seacoast as far north as the British Isles, the Netherlands, and even Ireland. Other than for loot and ransoms, the pirates’ main purpose was to capture Christians for the Ottoman slave trade and the Arabian market. An estimated one million Europeans were taken for slavery from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. England and Spain lost thousands of ships. Out of fear, civilians in Spain and Italy abandoned long stretches of their coast.
Pirates seized the first American merchant ship in 1784, then two more the next year. They had their own ambassador in Tripoli, who represented them before the North African Ottoman states of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis. These rulers offered the pirates safe haven and encouraged them to enslave, kidnap, and pillage on the high seas, for which the princes received a cut of the spoils.
Diplomats John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson went to London to negotiate with Tripoli. They demanded an explanation from Tripoli’s envoy, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, who explained that the piracy was “founded on the laws of Prophet Mohammed. It is written in the Koran that all nations who should not have acknowledged our authority are sinners. It is our right and our duty to make war upon them wherever they can be found and to make slaves of all that can be taken as prisoner. Every Musselman who should be slain in such endeavors is sure to go to Paradise.”
The United States at the time did not have a navy. President George Washington had no choice but to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in “tribute” and for “protection.” In effect, for ransom.
One of President John Adams’s first undertakings after succeeding Washington to the presidency was to build a navy. Thanks to him, the U.S. had its Navy when Thomas Jefferson followed Adams to the presidency in 1801. “I was very unwilling that we should acquiesce in the humiliation of paying a tribute to those lawless pirates,” Jefferson said. “I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace through the medium of war.”
Jefferson dispatched the Navy and Marines overseas. General William Eaton led a successful military campaign against Tripoli, freeing captured seamen and crushing the terrorist force. After four years of fighting, Tripoli signed a peace treaty on America’s terms.
“Point being,” I stated to the CNO, “that the only way to deal with terrorism is by the sword.”
Modern Islamic terrorist tactics could be traced through Adolf Hitler and World War II. At the start of the twentieth century, over one million Jews were living peacefully alongside Arabs in Palestine. As Hitler began his rise, vast numbers of Jews fled Europe for the Middle East, creating anti-Jewish unrest. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a title granted by the British protectorate of Israel to Amin al-Husseini, was virulently anti-Jew. His idolization of Hitler led to the Islamic-Nazi pact. Throughout the war years, al-Husseini instigated violence and terrorist actions against Jews in Palestine. He also supported the Nazi war effort by raising an SS division of twenty-six thousand Muslims in Hungary.
During the last days of the war, Hitler looked to his favorite commando, Otto Skorzeny, to raise a band of soldiers trained to cause chaos and terror and spread fear in the enemy’s rear—a mobile army of Nazi terrorists called Werewolves.
It was Skorzeny who pioneered the theory of guerrilla cells operating independently behind enemy lines with no centralized command, blending in with the people so they wouldn’t be noticed. He wrote what was in effect the first terrorist handbook, a manual on techniques for “dirty fighting” that included everything from how to apply psychological pressure and blow up a fuel dump to planting booby traps and decapitating motorcycle couriers by stretching piano wire across roads.
After Germany lost the war, Skorzeny and a network of former SS officers escaped through “rat lines” to Egypt where they trained Muslim werewolves to operate against Israel and the West. Yasser Arafat, who rose to become head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was among those whom Skorzeny trained. Arafat and Skorzeny spread the disease of Nazi terror throughout the Middle East.
Former Nazis obtained such a foothold in Egypt under Gamal Nasser that Nasser appointed Skorzeny to be his military advisor. Under Nasser, Egypt melded fully into a Nazi-like state. He banned political opposition, assassinated opponents or sent them to prison, and expelled or killed 75,000 Jews.
Skorzeny relocated to Spain in the early 1960s, where he organized the “Paladin Group” that offered his own brand of consultation to put down any opposition to his client regimes and organizations and advise them on consolidating their power. Among his clients were Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, and various terrorists from the PLO, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
“Terrorist groups in the Middle East,” I said, while the CNO nodded his head in understanding, “still pattern their tactics after Skorzeny and his Nazi Werewolves. Terrorism from Islam will soon threaten the future of Western civilization—unless we stop them.”
“How do
we stop them?” Admiral Hayward asked.
I shook my head and grinned. “With brains and balls,” I said.
CHAPTER FIFTY
NAVY COMMANDER DICK MARCINKO was sometimes known as “Dynamite Dick of the Delta” for his daring SEAL team operations behind enemy lines in the Mekong Delta. During one six-month period, his team performed an incredible 107 combat patrols that resulted in more than 150 confirmed enemy KIA and 84 captured. His two tours in Vietnam won him the Silver Star for Valor, four Bronze Stars with Combat “V,” two Navy Commendation Medals, and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry.
I ran into Marcinko in one of the seventeen miles of corridors at the Puzzle Palace, while the Pentagon was in a frantic scramble to offset and respond to the humiliating blow of Desert One. He told me he was assigned to the Special Operations Division in the CNO’s office. I was assigned to a CNO SpecOps Advisory Panel while he was detailed to a TAT—Terrorist Action Team. Both of us were among those planning a second hostage-rescue operation against Iran.
Rather, we were the hands behind the scenes. Action officers for each branch of the armed services worked for their respective chiefs of staff. If the JCS had a question, they dropped it down the line, where we hustled to do research and draft an answer. Superiors then either “chopped” our work or approved it to pass on up the chain.
Over cups of coffee with Marcinko in the cafeteria, talk turned to counterterrorism and the changes in naval special warfare each of us hoped to see in response to Iran and the growing terrorist threat. Marcinko leaned across the table toward me with an intensity some men found unsettling. He was a big man of about forty with a dark olive complexion and eyes nearly as dark as his hair. “Rough at the edges” expressed itself in a vocabulary liberally sprinkled with “fucks” and “assholes.” He reminded me of Roy Boehm. Both were the kind you wanted with you in a barroom brawl.
“Delta Force screwed the pooch on Eagle Claw,” he said, “but that wasn’t Chargin’ Charlie’s fault, although the pencil dicks will have to find someone to blame it on. Bone, listen. We need to be preaching for the Navy to form a real counterterrorist team of our own. Let the pussy Army have Delta; they can play in the dirt. We’ll target maritime objectives—tankers, cruise ships, military assets like navy yards, aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines.”
“I’ve been preaching it since before Vietnam,” I replied.
Marcinko growled in his throat. “The goat fuck at Desert One is the catalyst to get her done.”
He was right.
In fact, SEAL Team One on the West Coast and SEAL Team Two in the east had already established some counterterrorism training. At Little Creek, Team Two dedicated two of its ten platoons specifically to CT activities and gave it the name MOB-6, or Mobility-6. MOB-6 conducted joint training exercises with Britain’s SAS and its Special Boat Section, with West Germany’s GSG-9, and with CT units from France and Italy in boarding ships and oil rigs to rescue hostages and take out bad guys.
Marcinko had written a memo outlining his ideas, a copy of which I had in my possession. The original went to CNO Hayward.
“Commander Hamilton, you’re our UW authority,” CNO James Hayward said. “What do you think?”
He was a tall, gaunt naval pilot who projected formality and always looked as though he should be wearing oversized aviator-frame sunglasses.
“I’m considering Marcinko to command a new CT unit,” the CNO went on before I had a chance to respond.
I nodded noncommittally. “He’s abrasive, sir, he’s an asshole. Hide him when the women and kids are around, but otherwise he’s definitely the best man for the job.”
“Done. He builds and trains the unit. You oversee it and make sure he does it right.”
Marcinko promised the Joint Chiefs and CNO that he could have the unit operational within six months. We called it SEAL Team Six to confuse Soviet intelligence as to the number of actual teams. He started with seventy-five shooters and fifteen officers, most of whom were handpicked original members from UDT/SEALs. MOB-6 disbanded, and many of its members transferred to him.
SEAL Team Six came on line officially in October 1980 and set up shop at Little Creek in two “chicken coops” located fifteen yards behind SEAL Team Two’s headquarters. Both buildings were World War II wooden structures forty feet wide and eighty feet long, built on concrete slabs. They had been previously used as a Navy Wives Club meeting house and a Cub Scout den.
There was nothing at all military looking about the members of Six, nothing to identify them on-base or off. Marcinko wanted lean and mean. He got that and more. They were scruffy looking and wore civilian clothing with no base stickers on their vehicles. But what they did have was the best equipment available: high-tech Gore-Tex parkas and boots, parachutes, climbing gear, helmets and goggles, backpacks and ballistic nylon soft luggage, skis, SCUBA, camouflage for every environment … S&W .357 revolvers in stainless steel, Beretta 9mm autos, H&K submachine guns with and without silencers, stainless steel Ruger Mini-14s, silenced .22 caliber automatics, sniper rifles, stun grenades, C-4 explosives, claymore mines, radio-controlled remote detonators, and an annual ammunition training allowance larger than that of the entire U.S. Marines.
CNO Hayward’s orders to Marcinko had been curt: “Dick, you will not fail.”
SEAL Team Six’s training program emphasized realism in various scenarios: ship boarding, oil-rig takedowns, plane hijacking recoveries, air ops, structural entry. … Naturally, training entailed a great deal of combat shooting and specialized techniques. Shooting had to be both accurate and instinctive. Shooters must be able to bring down their targets with one or two shots under any conditions. Six Team operators each shot a minimum of 2,500 rounds every week, more than most SEALs shot in a year.
In the Kill House, they practiced entering and clearing rooms and determining friend from foe on pop-up man silhouettes. Entries began with a single man coming through a doorway. Then in pairs, groups of four, finally in sixes, weaving a lethal, complicated choreography until every man mastered the art of dancing through a doorway and entering a room without getting killed or killing the man in front. After a while, maneuvers were all conducted with live fire.
Marcinko then added a twist. He attached a three-by-five index card somewhere on each silhouette target—head, torso, shoulder, groin… A shooter had to hit the card in order to score. Miss it and he started all over.
The scenario came with certain hazards. Concrete walls and floors created ricochets which occasionally dinged a guy. It was a dangerous game, but a necessary one in order to have men face the worst monsters terrorism produced. Better that men be injured or even die in training than that more of them be killed because they were not ready for the major leagues.
“We will not fail” became Marcinko’s mantra.
Having conducted initial training at Little Creek, SEAL Six moved to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to continue even more demanding CT training in a secluded corner of the base. Marcinko stood before them.
“Gentlemen, this will be a no-shitter,” he began. “You know what we are here to do—counterterrorism. And what does counterterrorism mean? It means that we will fucking do it to them before they fucking do it to us. First, you do not have to like everything you do. Fact is, I don’t give a shit whether you like everything you do or not. All you have to do is do it.
“Second, you are the system, gentlemen. The buck stops with each one of you. You assholes have the very best toys money can buy. If your equipment fails, it’s because you fucking failed—not it. So I will not accept any goddamn excuses—‘the gear didn’t work, sir’ or ‘I got the wrong lung, sir,’ or ‘I didn’t bring the right weapon, sir.’
“You are the fucking system. Failure is on your shoulders. I will accept no excuses. None. CNO Hayward sent me down here. You know what he fucking said, gentlemen? He said, ‘Dick, you will not fail.’
“So, I will not fucking fail, gentlemen. Nor will you fucking fail.”
He walk
ed to a covered easel and threw back the black drape, revealing a map of Iran. “We have been assigned a mission. We aren’t even a unit yet, but we have a mission. You see the map. You know where that is. You know who’s still being held there. We are on call. Our number has been posted.
“It comes down to this: I’m giving you the tools. I’m giving you the opportunity. I’m giving you the support. If there is shit, I will take it for you. If there is flak, I’ll absorb it for you. All you have to worry about is getting so fucking good at your jobs that you can fucking do anything.”
I nodded with approval. Marcinko was an abrasive sonofabitch, but he knew how to motivate men. SEAL Team Six was up and running.
“Dick, you’ve got the best unit in the world,” I complimented him. “Don’t abuse it.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
RESCUE OF THE AMERICAN embassy hostages would not, as it turned out, be SEAL Team Six’s first CT mission. Ronald Reagan ousted Jimmy Carter for the presidency in the 1980 elections. The evening before Reagan’s inauguration, Walter Cronkite reported, “Americans in Teheran have been in captivity 443 days.” The next morning, January 20, 1981, the newly sworn-in fortieth president of the United States announced that Iran had freed the fifty-two hostages and that the plane carrying them had crossed the border and was no longer in Iranian airspace.
Apparently, the new president knew how to deal with terrorists. During his presidential campaign he referred to the Iranians as barbarians and implied that the sun wouldn’t set once he became president before Americans with big guns were in Teheran looking for the ayatollah. As he stated later, his was a very simple philosophy regarding what the nation should do whenever an American was held captive abroad: go in and get him, “wherever it took us, anywhere in the world the person was.”
Night Fighter Page 25