NATION, Page 18Chemical ReactionAs the U.S. presses Libya over a nerve-gas plant, a shootouterupts. Did Gaddafi sacrifice two planes so Washington wouldtake the heat?
The unlikely combination of Ronald Reagan and Muammar Gaddafi
resembles nitroglycerin: it can produce an explosion at the
slightest jolt. Last week, for the fourth time since 1981, just
such a blowup took place in the Mediterranean skies off Tobruk,
where a shootout that could have been taken right from the movie
Top Gun ended in the downing of two Libyan jets by American pilots.
This time, however, there was a major difference. While the
first three incidents occurred when Washington decided to swat the
desert dictator, the latest confrontation was wholly unexpected.
When the Libyan MiGs were destroyed after they persistently pursued
two Navy F-14 fighters protecting the carrier U.S.S. John F.
Kennedy, the U.S. found itself on the defensive not only militarily
but also in its international relations.
The eruption came as the Reagan Administration was applying
calculated pressure on Gaddafi, and on U.S. allies, to prevent the
production in Libya of poisonous gases that could be used in
chemical warfare. The U.S. insists that a huge chemical plant at
Rabta, 50 miles southwest of Tripoli and ringed with antiaircraft
batteries, is primarily intended to produce mustard gas and
chemical nerve agents. In a pre-Christmas TV interview, Reagan
refused to rule out the possibility of a military strike against
the plant. On background, Pentagon experts even suggested that
Tomahawk cruise missiles, which can be launched by surface ships
or submarines from as far as 800 miles away, might be used to level
the suspect facility.
The clash that followed -- perhaps intended by Gaddafi -- threw
the focus back on Washington's seeming eagerness to swing a big
stick at easy targets. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze
noted that the dogfight had "poisoned the atmosphere" as 142
nations opened a five-day conference in Paris over the weekend on
ways to stop the increasing spread of chemical weapons. "Gaddafi
must be pleased over the incident," said an Italian official last
week. "It gives him a chance to play the victim."
It did little good for a presidential spokesman to protest that
"we didn't try to pick a fight" or for senior U.S. officials to
minimize the possibility that the U.S. would take out the weapons
plant by force. Arab states lined up in the United Nations to
denounce America's "brutal aggression." In the harshest language
the Soviet Union has used toward the U.S. in two years, the Kremlin
labeled the American action "state terrorism."
In Western Europe jittery American allies wondered whether
Reagan was once again indulging himself by kicking his favorite
terrorist -- and what the cost would be. Military bases went on
alert in Italy, where Lampedusa Island was the target of an
amateurish Libyan missile attack after the U.S. bombing of Tripoli
in 1986. Britain supported the U.S. assertion that Rabta is
intended for weapons production, but the Thatcher government urged
Washington not to attack it. The French, who are host to the
chemical-weapons conference at UNESCO headquarters, were irritated.
The sharpest criticism came from the leftist Paris daily
Liberation: "Gaddafi has lost two planes, but Reagan hasn't
necessarily won out. These two were made to detest each other . .
. One can understand that their farewells would be agonizing."
In its defense, the Pentagon released a dramatic videotape and
voice recording of the aerial encounter taken from one of the F-14
Tomcats. The seven-minute audiotape chronicles the five evasive
turns made by the Navy flyers in an effort to shake the MiG-23
"Floggers" that headed at them some 70 miles off the Libyan coast,
well into international waters.
Moreover, the State Department disclosed that it has been
quietly exchanging messages with Gaddafi for several weeks and that
it sent the Libyan government a detailed explanation of last week's
shooting incident. Still, Libya's U.N. Deputy Ambassador, Ali Sunni
Muntasser, charged that the Navy had attacked two unarmed
reconnaissance planes. U.S. Ambassador Vernon Walters responded by
presenting the Security Council with blowups of two photos showing
air-to-air missiles under the wings and fuselage of one of the
Libyan MiGs. Charged Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard: "The Libyan
Ambassador to the U.N. is a liar." At week's end Gaddafi proposed
direct talks with the U.S. to resolve the dispute.
The Libyan Floggers had approached the American planes with
apparent deliberation and determination. Flying at 20,000 ft., the
F-14s picked up the Libyans on their radar screens at 11:57 a.m.
on Wednesday. The "bogeys," as U.S. airmen call any potentially
hostile planes, were 72 nautical miles away at 10,000 ft., heading
directly toward the U.S. planes and the Kennedy.
The F-14s turned away from the approaching aircraft, a clear
signal that the American pilots were not looking for a fight. To
the surprise of the U.S. crews, the Libyan planes shifted abruptly
("jinked," in pilot jargon) to get back on a nose-to-nose lineup
with the Americans. The distance between the two pairs of jets was
closing at roughly 1,000 m.p.h.
In another evasive maneuver, the F-14s dove to 3,000 ft. This
gave the Navy flyers a tactical advantage: their radar could now
look up for a clear view of the approaching targets. The less
sophisticated Soviet-made radars on the Libyan craft had to contend
with the clutter of the sea.
At 11:59 the radar-intercept officer (RIO), seated behind the
lead Tomcat pilot, armed his plane's short-range Sidewinder
missiles and its longer-range Sparrow rockets. Outmanned and
outgunned in their less maneuverable Floggers, the lone Libyan
pilots had to fly their planes, watch their radars and handle their
weapons without airborne help.
The U.S. pilots made three more efforts to shake their
pursuers. Each time, observers in a Navy E-2C radar plane flying
nearby heard the Libyan ground controller order the MiG pilots to
jink into potential collision courses with the Tomcats. The MiGs
normally carry radar-guided Apex as well as heat-seeking Aphid
missiles. While the Aphid homes in on a jet's fiery exhaust, the
Apex is effective when launched at a target's nose.
At 12 noon the trailing Tomcat flying in the wing position
locked its radar on one of the Floggers. In numerous past
skirmishes, Libyan pilots had reported any such radar targeting to
their ground controller, who had always told them to break off and
head home. This time, U.S. authorities insisted, the pilot did not
send any such alarm.
It was almost a minute after noon when the lead Tomcat pilot
informed his flying mates, "Bogeys have jinked back at me again for
the fifth time. They're on my nose now, inside of 20 miles." He
could wait no longer. "Master arm on," he announced, taking the
final step before delivering a Sparrow. At 14 miles separation, he
barked, "Fox 1. Fox 1." He had triggered a Sparrow, called Fox 1
(a Sidewinder is Fox 2). The lead Tomcat launched another Sparrow
at ten miles. Both missiles missed.
Instead of fleeing, the Floggers accelerated and continued
their pursuit. They were now within six miles of the two F-14s. The
Tomcat pilots then split their formation in a classic maneuver. As
the two Floggers followed the U.S. wing plane, the lead Tomcat
circled to get on the Libyan jets' tails.
The F-14 on the wing delivered a Sparrow, which hit one of the
Libyan planes. "Good kill! Good kill!" shouted one of the
Americans. The lead Tomcat closed on the remaining Flogger. At a
mere 1.5 miles from the MiG -- a deadly distance in modern combat
-- its RIO squeezed his Sidewinder trigger. The heat-seeking
missile smashed into the Flogger. "Good kill!" cried a crewman.
"Let's get out of here." The two Libyan pilots parachuted into the
sea.
Why would Gaddafi provoke such a one-sided fight? "We're still
scratching our heads," said the Pentagon's Howard. "It doesn't make
sense." Yet Western standards of what does or does not make sense
may bear little relation to the actions and motivations of Gaddafi,
a man prone to mood swings and outlandish gestures. Gaddafi has
become just about everybody's most despised dictator, but he holds
a special place in Ronald Reagan's demonology. The President has
repeatedly called Gaddafi a terrorist and a barbarian, and he
proudly sports a T shirt that ridicules his No. 1 enemy with the
legend KHADDAFY DUCK -- MAD DUCK OF THE MIDEAST.
The U.S. has a solid record of willingness to sock Libya. In
1981 the Navy shot down two Libyan jets whose pilots rashly fired
at American planes over the Gulf of Sidra, which Gaddafi claims to
be Libyan territory. Then, in March 1986, U.S. naval units
deliberately steamed across what Gaddafi had called the "line of
death," which marked the northern boundary of the gulf. When Libyan
gunboats sailed out to challenge the Sixth Fleet, two were sunk,
and a shore radar installation was destroyed. The following month,
after a Libyan-backed terrorist bombed a disco in West Berlin,
killing one American and injuring 60 others, U.S. F-111 and A-6
bombers attacked Tripoli and Benghazi and even struck at Gaddafi's
headquarters in an apparent attempt to kill him.
Small wonder that Gaddafi -- and the rest of the world -- took
the U.S. threats seriously. The Administration's hints of force
were partly intended to bully other countries into withholding
technical materials and personnel from the Rabta plant. "If we can
scare the foreigners out, Gaddafi can't run the plant," said a U.S.
intelligence source. Last September American diplomats warned their
counterparts in West Germany, Italy, France, Britain and Japan that
the U.S. had persuasive intelligence that the facility was intended
to produce toxic chemicals on a massive scale. Nearby is a
steelworks that can turn out the shells and casings needed to
complete the poisonous weapons.
Although unwilling to divulge secret sources, U.S. officials
confirmed that former workers in the plant had provided sensitive
details. At first only the British Foreign Office seemed to be
convinced of the danger. It conducted its own investigation of the
complex and agreed with the U.S. findings. Later the French,
Canadians and Egyptians advised the U.S. that they too were
persuaded. But the Soviets and some U.S. allies claimed that the
evidence was inconclusive.
Through newspaper leaks, the U.S. accused a West German firm,
Imhausen-Chemie, of secretly supplying expertise and materials for
building the plant. German officials insist that their
investigation has turned up no proof to support these claims,
though they agreed to examine more of the U.S. evidence this week.
Privately the Reagan Administration warns that it may name five
West German companies, two in Switzerland and some in unidentified
other European nations that are involved in the Rabta project if
their governments do not cut off such help to Gaddafi.
The announcement two weeks ago that the carrier Theodore
Roosevelt had left Norfolk, Va., to join the Kennedy in the
Mediterranean inspired fresh rumors of an impending U.S. attack on
the Rabta plant. In that heated atmosphere, the Libyans could well
have succumbed to nervousness and overreacted to the presence of
the Kennedy off their coast.
Yet the Kennedy was sailing to the east last Wednesday. The
carrier was near Crete, more than 600 miles away from the Rabta
plant and 120 miles off recognized Libyan territorial waters, when
the unexpected combat situation arose. Even the Libyans had to know
that the F-14s were fighters on routine patrol, not bombers
carrying out an attack.
Those facts lead to another, more complicated, theory about
what happened: that Gaddafi deliberately sought the confrontation,
sending his fighters on what amounted to a suicide mission in the
hope of winning sympathy and provoking international criticism of
the U.S. "Colonel Gaddafi knows that he is irrelevant within the
Arab world and can win support only when he is perceived as the
victim of superpower oppression," said Congressman Les Aspin,
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Two planes is a
cheap price to pay so he can hear outpourings of fervent backing."
Was this reckless attack, then, really intended to fail? "We
suspect -- mostly on the basis of the two Libyan pilots parachuting
from their MiGs -- that they intentionally provoked the incident,"
said an Italian government official. Besides being concerned about
the chemical plant, added a West German diplomat, Gaddafi "has been
outraged by the P.L.O.'s concessions to the U.S. for direct
contacts, and he could have seen a chance here to try to sabotage
it."
The unpredictable nature of the Libyan attack and the trouble
it has caused for the U.S. indicate that even after eight years of
American pressure, Muammar Gaddafi retains his power to bedevil
Washington. As Ronald Reagan departs from the White House, he
leaves behind his Libyan nemesis as one more problem for George
