TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/80/80capts.4

Text File | 1992-09-25 | 3.8 KB | 79 lines

                ╫                                                              September 1, 1980

NATION

Why the Iran Rescue Failed


Report finds flaws, such as too few choppers, but no neglect


Ever since Americans awoke last April 25 to the shock of a
rescue mission turned to ashes in the Iranian desert, they have
demanded to know more about that failed attempt:  Had the
Soviets found out, forcing the President to call it off?  Why
were there not more helicopters?  Was the whole operation too
risky?

Pentagon officials had questions too, and so they commissioned
two studies, one a classified internal report by the men who had
planned and participated in the mission, the other a
no-holds-barred assessment by an interservice team of five
generals, some retired, some active, headed by former Chief of
Naval Operations Admiral James L. Holloway III. The Holloway
group's 64-page report, released at week's end, dismisses all
thought that the mission was aborted for any reason but the lack
of six helicopters, the acceptable minimum, in which to go on
from Desert One, the refueling rendezvous.

Presenting his report in the Pentagon's briefing studio,
Holloway said that the plan adopted had "the best chance of
success under the circumstances, and the decision to execute it
was justified."  He added:  "We encountered not a shred of
evidence of culpable neglect or incompetence."

The Holloway group did, however, find several faults. The
number of helicopters was kept to eight to reduce the risk of
discovery. But the brass concluded that it would have been
prudent to have used at least ten choppers. They also
criticized the selection of Navy and marine Corps crewmen who
were familiar with the RH-53 aircraft but not with the kind of
tough, assault flying they had to do.

The dust clouds that broke up the pilots' formation and forced
one of them to turn back came as a surprise. The crews might
have been able to handle the dust had they known about it, but
security had kept the pilots from meeting their weather
forecasters. Strict radio silence had kept them from learning
that, despite the dust en route, the air was clear at Desert
One. Later, the pilot who had aborted said he would have gone
on had he known that.

The report also describes the scene at Desert One, even before
the crash of an RH-53 into a C-130 transport plane, as one of
confusion. The reason:  lack of precise operating procedures,
because there never had been a full dress rehearsal. THe main
reason for that, again, was the planners' understandable but
overdrawn concern for security.

Secrecy also precluded any review of the mission by outside
specialists. Moreover, the final plan was never committed to
paper so that the Joint Chiefs could study it. Either or both
of these steps says the report, "would probably have contributed
to a more thoroughly tested and carefully evaluated final plan."

TIME's Pentagon correspondent Don Sider has also learned of an
additional oversight, not mentioned in the Holloway report.
SIder reports that two C-141 Medevac planes were standing by at
Saudi Arabia's Dhahran Air Base with twelve doctors on board to
treat casualties from the team that was to have assaulted the
embassy and the foreign ministry in Tehran. But no one had
reckoned on the crash at Desert One that took eight lives and
left four others badly burned.  Incredibly, the Medevac planes
were equipped for every emergency but burns.

"No one action or lace of action caused the operation to fail,"
concluded Admiral Holloway. But fail it did, at the cost of
those eight lives, seven RH-53 helicopters, one C-130 transport
and $25 million in expenses. Even Holloway--like most of those
who first learned of the rescue effort after it had already
failed--was heartened that, as his report said, "America had the
courage to try."