by Tom Clancy
The same day, the Shiite militia began raking the family home of the Shiite but loyal Brigadier General Abbas Hamdan with machine-gun fire. Hamdan, who had been staying at the Ministry of Defense, sent his family back to safety in his wife's native France, but he remained in Beirut until Tannous persuaded him to join his family, his chances of survival in Lebanon being effectively zero.
In a matter of days, Lebanese army units, which had fought so well and so cohesively for months, lost trust in one another and began to fission; the pieces flew off to the various factional militias. Beirut's old "Green Line" — a street that served as a demarcation line between Christians and Muslims — once again became a battle line. Daily killings returned.
Early in February, the Embassy began evacuating nonessential Americans.
Meanwhile, a big question remained: What to do about the Marines in Beirut? After the bombing, they'd brought in replacements and continued to perform their mission.
A week after the Embassy started its own evacuation, the National Security Planning Group, presided over by Vice President George Bush, concluded that it was time to withdraw the Marines. President Reagan reluctantly accepted the recommendation.
The task of informing Amin Gemayel about this decision fell to Ambassador Rumsfeld, who just a week earlier had assured him that the United States would continue to stand behind the Lebanese government.
Rumsfeld later told me it was probably the toughest thing he ever had to do.
Ambassadors Rumsfeld and Bartholomew broke the news to Gemayel in his operations center in the basement of the Presidential Palace — the upstairs having been long since destroyed by artillery fire.
The news shattered Gemayel. Though he was assured that the assistance program to the Lebanese army would continue for the foreseeable future, he understandably felt seduced, abandoned, and powerless to do anything about it.
Later, an equally crushed General Tannous told me, putting on a brave front, "1 will gather together what remains of the Lebanese army and continue to fight for what 1 believe is right for Lebanon. We may have to make some concessions with Syria, but as long as I am in this job I will continue to do everything in my power to bring peace to Lebanon."
The next day, as the New Jersey blasted away with its 16-inch guns at Syrian artillery positions in the Chouf Mountains, the Marines began withdrawing to their ships. In a nine-hour period, the battleship fired 288 2,000-pound, 16-inch rounds.
The last element of the Marines left the beach at noon on February 26. At a brief ceremony to turn the airport over to the Lebanese army, as the Marines struck the American flag, the presiding Lebanese officer grabbed his country's flag and presented it to the Marines: "Well, you might as well take our flag, too," he said. He then asked the Marines to drop him off by helicopter back at the Ministry of Defense; he was a Christian and could not pass through the Muslim checkpoints. After they dropped him off, the last Marine sortie proceeded on to the ships.
Within minutes, the Shiite Amal Militia began occupying their vacant positions and taking control of the airport.
The fighting between the factions continued, making the situation for the Americans who still remained even more dangerous. The only halfway-safe place for Americans was now on the Christian side of the "Green Line" in East Beirut. Because they could no longer cross the Line, the airport had become off-limits, which meant that an Army helicopter detachment had to be brought in to Cyprus to shuttle Ambassador Bartholomew and the remaining military to Cyprus for connections elsewhere.
The remaining Muslim officers on Tannous's staff soon found themselves targets of their own factions. Though most soon paid for their loyalty with their lives, a few, like Hakim, managed to escape to other countries.
As word of the throat-cutting spread, mistrust among the remaining soldiers grew even more, and within days the army that had fought so well began to split along factional lines.
They did not fight each other during the breakup. They just slipped away with their weapons and returned to their own ethnic enclaves. The Shiites went to West Beirut and the Bekaa Valley, the Druze back to the mountains, and the Christians to East Beirut.
The 8th Brigade's losses were quickly filled by Christians, and it continued to hold the ridgeline at Souk Al Gharb. Tannous, having no other choice, quickly reorganized the army to compensate for the losses, but it was now a "Christian force," with far less capability, operating mainly from East Beirut and defending the Christian enclaves, the ridgeline at Souk Al Gharb, Yarze, and the seat of government.
Assad took advantage of the opportunity by moving Syrian regular units to take control of the northeastern sector of Lebanon and all major roads leading to the north and east. Now, with the Israelis controlling the buffer zone in the south, all that remained under Lebanese government control was the enclave of Beirut, but even that was mostly controlled by the Amal, which danced to Assad's tune.
Once his generals were in charge of all the trade routes — and lining their pockets — Assad began to stipulate conditions for reorganizing the government.
Of course, Tannous had to be replaced. When that time came, he relinquished command of the armed forces with respect, dignity, and pride, and quietly returned to his cement factory in East Beirut. However, his loyalty remained to Lebanon and its armed forces. The last I heard, he was still conducting advanced officer's classes on tactics in a training area/classroom that he'd established in the garden behind his house — an initiative he'd begun during the early phases of rebuilding the army in order to improve the tactical proficiency of midlevel combat arms officers.
A NEW FORM OF TERRORISM
Flushed with their bombing successes, the Islamic Jihad raised the stakes even more by introducing a new form of terrorism—"hostage-taking."
The first American was taken hostage on February 10, 1984. By the time TWA 847 was hijacked, some fourteen months later, seven Americans had been kidnapped.
Kidnapping is not a new idea, of course, and had long been commonplace in Lebanon: In the early '80s, more than 5,000 people from all sides had been kidnapped for ransom. Islamic Jihad's new tactics, however, were aimed solely at achieving political leverage — a big difference.
Their initial motivation was to capture a stable of Americans who could be used as bargaining material with the Kuwaiti government after the Kuwaitis had rounded up the seventeen Iranian-backed terrorists responsible for a December 1983 suicide bombing spree against six targets in Kuwait, in which five people had been killed and eighty-six wounded. One of those held in Kuwait was the brother-in-law of Lebanon's most feared Shiite terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, known as the "enforcer." Mugniyah was the thug responsible for the Islamic Jihad hostage-taking spree.
On February 10, 1984, the day before the trial for the seventeen terrorists was to begin in Kuwait, the first American was kidnapped, Frank Regier, a professor at the American University of Beirut. The second was Jeremy Levin, a reporter for the Cable News Network, kidnapped on March 7. The third was William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, kidnapped on March 16.
I should add a personal note here: The message claiming that Buckley and I had also been killed with the Marines should have been a warning to Buckley. I had talked to him about his vulnerability as soon as we learned of it. Though I had been in the survival mode since day one in Lebanon, and advised him to do the same, he played down the danger. "I have a pretty good intelligence network," he told me. "I think I'm secure." He remained in his apartment, and traveled the same route to work every day. As for me, I checked my car for bombs before I drove, varied my routes when possible, and when 1 wasn't in the MOD with Tannous, 1 was moving every second or third night to a different location.
Sometimes bad guys commit good acts. Thus the Shiite militia, who were not especially friendly to us, but even less friendly to Islamic Jihad, found and rescued Frank Regier on April 15, 1984. The whereabouts of the remaining hostages remained unknown, however, and it was ten months later, February 14,
1985, before another emerged from captivity, when Jeremy Levin escaped from the Sheikh Abdullah Barracks at Baalbeck and made his way to a Syrian checkpoint about a mile away. He was taken to Damascus and released to the American Ambassador.
During these months of captivity, Mugniyah would from time to time force the hostages to read statements aimed at the release of the seventeen terrorists imprisoned in Kuwait. The statements were videotaped and then shown over television.
When this failed to produce results, Mugniyah and his Hezbollah terrorist friends hijacked a Kuwaiti airliner flying to Iran. This also failed to budge the Kuwaitis.
Meanwhile, Buckley's kidnapping had become a major CIA concern. Not long after his capture, his agents either vanished or were killed. It was clear that his captors had tortured him into revealing the network of agents he had established — the source for most of our intelligence on the various factions in Beirut. It's thought that the Jihad eventually killed him. The United States had once again lost its primary intelligence sources in Beirut, making it even more dangerous for the Americans remaining behind.
I left Beirut in late May 1984 and returned to an assignment in the Pentagon. Saying goodbye to General Tannous, Ambassador Bartholomew, and Ambassador Rumsfeld[21] was one of the toughest challenges I have faced. 1 respected them for their tireless work to bring peace to Beirut — but it was just not to be. For my part, I hated to leave. Though it had been a professionally rewarding experience, and I had learned much that would stay with me, it was the first challenge in my military career that I had failed to complete to my satisfaction.
As I stood on top of the hill at the helipad waiting for the Blackhawk from Cyprus, my thoughts and prayers were for those I was leaving behind.
By October 1985, when the hostages from the hijacking of TWA 847 were released in Damascus, nine Americans had been kidnapped and held hostage by Mugniyah. But of these, only six remained: Bill Buckley was dead; Regier had been set free by the Shiite militia; and Jeremy Levin had escaped to the Syrians. The six remaining hostages had been in captivity for better than a year and a hall — a very long time.
We wanted them back, very badly.
When I left Beirut, never did I imagine that I would return again. But in September 1985, I found myself with a Special Operations Task Force at a location in the eastern Mediterranean, prepared for a hostage rescue attempt. We had intelligence information indicating there might be a release of all the hostages. My orders were to set up a mechanism for their pickup and covert return to the United States. We were also prepared for a rescue operation, in case something went wrong.
We did not know the actual release point, except that it would be somewhere in the vicinity of the American University in West Beirut.
At midnight on September 14, 1985, the streets were vacant near the American University. A car pulled up, the back door opened, and a man got out dressed in a running suit. The car sped away. The man was picked up by one of our operators, brought to a predesignated point on the beach, the proper code signal was sent by the operator, and a helicopter picked the two of them up and brought them back to an aircraft carrier over the horizon. When the helicopter landed, the Special Forces operator announced, "This is the Reverend Weir."
Reverend Benjamin Weir, an American missionary, had been held captive for sixteen months by the Shiite Muslims. Weir was fed a hot meal in the Admirals' Mess, then taken to the hospital bay in the belly of the ship, where he was given a complete physical examination (he was in remarkably good shape considering what he had been through) and held for the next three days while we waited for the release of more hostages.
When he was picked up, he had with him notes from other hostages for their families and a message from his captors for personal delivery to President Reagan. We did not look at any of these messages.
Three days later, the deal for the release of the other hostages had failed to materialize, and we were told to return Reverend Weir to the United States. Reverend Weir, dressed in a flight suit, was flown to a location elsewhere, where a C-141 was waiting to return him to Andrews Air Force Base.
Some months after that, the intelligence community located the building in West Beirut where the hostages were being held, and described it in sufficient detail to allow us to locate a similar building in the western United States. We modified this building to mirror the Beirut buildings interior, a rescue force rehearsed the mission, and an infrastructure was established in West Beirut to support the operation.
Then disaster hit.
Two weeks before the planned launch of the rescue attempt, the Hezbollah uncovered one of the agents with access to the building; he was tortured and killed. Before he died, he revealed the names of the other agents involved, who were also killed. It was assumed then that the hostages would be split up in various locations, and so the rescue attempt was scratched. There was never again sufficient credible intelligence to support a rescue attempt, but eventually the hostages were released.
Because such anarchic violence is blessedly beyond most Americans' experience, my countrymen seem to have had a hard time grasping the complexities that led to the factional fighting and ultimately to the destruction of Beirut. Maybe this story will bring additional insight:
In December 1983, as Colonel Tom Fintel was nearing the end of his tour as chief of office of military cooperation, General Tannous arranged a going-away ceremony, complete to the presentation of a Lebanese medal on behalf of President Gemayel.
Sporadic artillery fire made an outside ceremony unsafe, so Tannous decided to hold the ceremony in an officers' club on the top floor of the Ministry of Defense, overlooking the city. Only principal staff officers and brigade commanders were invited, along with wives, but wives were not expected to show up, because of the risk.
To my surprise, two wives — Christians — actually braved the shelling to attend.
I'd never met them before, but as soon as they entered the room, they came straight to me. Without even introducing themselves, one brought her face close to mine: "Why don't you do something about this shelling that's killing our children?" she practically cried. "You've got all those ships sitting out there, with aircraft carriers. Bomb the heathens that are destroying us."
"We can't do that," I said. "The people who are shooting and shelling arc also Lebanese citizens. This is a Lebanese problem, and it has to be worked out by Lebanese."
They came back at me with fire in their eyes. "They arc not Lebanese citizens!" one said. "They are nothing! They don't even have a soul."
"We teach our children that they are born with a little black tail," the other said. "And it is their duty to kill them, pull their pants down and hack it off!"
Lebanon's wounds are cut deep. Healing that agony may require as many generations as it took to create it.
Two days after this ceremony, the Ministry of Defense was hit by an artillery barrage that destroyed the officers' club.
AND less than two years later, I was on my way to Sicily to deal with another hostage-taking, this time aboard the Achille Lauro….
IX
THE ACHILLE LAURO STRIKE
Carl Stiner resumes the account begun in the first chapter. It is Tuesday, October 8th, at the Sigonella NATO Base, Sicily:
As soon as we arrived in Sigonella early Tuesday morning, we began refucling the planes, but we would not take off until later that day, since we had to time our departure to arrive at about dusk at Cyprus (Cyprus would provide us with coverage of the eastern Mediterranean, and a base for the takedown of the ship, if that proved feasible). Meanwhile, we off-loaded the small contingent of SEALs and the two Little Bird gunships that would remain at Sigonella.
This ground delay proved useful, since it gave me my first opportunity during the mission to talk to my commanders face to face. We had lifted off from three bases in three states, assembled en route, and landed sequentially. Now, on the ground at Sigonella, I held a commanders' conference to talk about conducting the operation.
There were blessedly only three possible scenarios:
• First scenario: The ship remains on the high seas and in the vicinity of Cyprus. In that case, we could reach it from there and wouldn't need Navy platforms (ships) for staging and recovering our helicopters. Of the three scenarios, this would be the least complex for us, and would offer us the best conditions for success, since the terrorists wouldn't have a sanctuary, such as, for example, Iran, Libya, or Algeria.
• Second scenario: The ship finds a port somewhere. In this case our operation would be easy or hard depending on the cooperation of the host country. Yet, even if the host country consented to our operation, surprise would be difficult to achieve; we would have to be concerned about the territorial waters issue, and perhaps we'd have local police or military forces to deal with.
• Third scenario: The ship sails beyond the recovery range of our helicopters. In that case, we would need Navy platforms for recovery of our helicopters after our initial assault.
After the conference, I communicated these options to the Pentagon and USEUCOM. Then I talked with the U.S. commander at Sigonella, Bill Spearman, to find out if he had learned anything useful from his Italian counterparts, such as the Italian base commander. We also talked about support I might need when we returned. I knew this was prudent but, at the time, I was convinced it was unnecessary. We were focused on a takedown at sea and never imagined that the action would end up (as it did) back at Sigonella. In any event, I asked Bill to take care of my troops who'd remain at Sigonella and promised to keep in touch through my liaison team there.
By afternoon we had reached our window for reaching Cyprus at dusk. Before boarding the plane, I decided to check with Vice Admiral Moreau (whom Admiral Crowe had designated to work the details and to keep him informed) about what was going on in Washington, to find out if we were cleared into the military base on Cyprus, and to update him on our planning options for the takedown. I did this on the SATCOM, which my radio operator carried (he was always by my side).