The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (116 page)

The entire issue of fuel for the carrier aircraft became a headache for Admiral Less during Praying Mantis. When the JP-5 stocks ran low, JP-4 from the air force was made available for the KC-10s as well as the slightly safer commercial Jet A-1 from the Saudi government. But JP-4 had a lower flash point, and the navy had always been reluctant in peacetime to refuel aircraft with it due to the potential safety hazard on board the carrier. In the middle of the day, Less received a phone call from a fellow admiral on the navy staff. He immediately laid into Less, complaining that he had better not let the air force tankers refuel the aircraft with JP-4. “We can’t have those fighters going back to the carrier with that; it’s a safety hazard.” In the middle of a fight, Less had little patience for this interruption. “You got to be shitting me that you’re even making this call! Goddamnit, there are some people out there who stand a chance of getting blown out of the water or losing their life. This is war and all you can talk about is not putting JP-4 into those airplanes? We’ll use JP-4 all day long if we have to, to keep airplanes up there! So you pump it over the side when you get back to the carrier and fill it up with JP-5 and get on with life.” Less interview; General George Crist letter to Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, May 20, 1988, p. 3;
JULLS Report, p. 9. Over the two days of April 18–19, the air force passed over one million pounds of fuel to navy aircraft, much of it from Saudi stocks.

55.
Dyer interview.

56.
Captian Brian Davis, USMC, March 17, 1994; Crist interview.

57.
Carley interview.

58.
Message from CT801.1 to CINCCENT, “Praying Mantis OPREP-3 Feeder 002.”

59.
Engler interview; Zeller interview.

60.
Crowe,
Line of Fire
, p. 202; Carlucci interview.

61.
CINCCENT, “Update” (190900Z), April 1988, p. 4.

62.
Oakley interview.

C
HAPTER 19
T
HE
T
ERRIBLE
C
LIMAX

1.
Lang interview; Lang, “The Land Between the Rivers.”

2.
To avoid getting entangled with the Kurdish conundrum or Turkey, Lang excluded any Iranian targets near the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq and Iran and focused entirely on those facilitating Iranian attacks on the southern front between Basra and the Zagros Mountains. The Iraqis preferred working for the DIA, suspecting that the CIA had provided the intelligence that Oliver North had passed during the arms-for-hostages deal during 1986. See President’s Special Review Board Interview of Robert Gates,
Hearings on the Nomination of Robert Gates to Be Director of Central Intelligence
, pp. 319–20.

3.
Iraq also received satellite imagery from the French. While not as detailed as that provided by DIA and CIA, it allowed senior leadership of the Iraqi military to essentially confirm the information on Iranian forces provided by Washington. Author’s interview with a former brigadier general in the Iraq military.

4.
The gun was a 1,070-mm self-propelled gun mounted on a tank chassis, designed by North Korea to shell Seoul. Lang interview; Gnehm interviews.

5.
Gnehm interviews; Armitage interview.

6.
Taken from a message provided by a naval officer. The author has reviewed numerous messages that demonstrated Captain Rogers’s aggressiveness.

7.
Commander David Carlson, comments on article “The
Vincennes
Incident,”
U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings
, September 1989, p. 88.

8.
John Cushman, “U.S. Expands Protection in Gulf to Any Neutral Vessel Attacked,”
New York Times
, April 30, 1988, p. A3.

9.
Rear Admiral William Fogarty,
Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988
, Department of Defense, 1988 [hereafter Fogarty Report], p. 11.

10.
William Crowe, “Second Endorsement of Rear Admiral Fogarty’s ltr of 28 July 1988,” Fogarty Report, p. 2.

11.
Fogarty Report, pp. 14–15.

12.
Ibid., p. 2.

13.
Ibid., p. 12.

14.
The Rules of Engagement issued by CENTCOM and approved by the Joint Chiefs allowed for U.S. warships to enter Iranian waters during an engagement or as part of a deception operation. The Iranian waters would not serve as a safehaven from which they could launch attacks at U.S. forces with impunity. However, short of protecting his ship, captains were prohibited from entering Iranian waters for both international law and to avoid being mistaken for an Iranian ship by the freewheeling Iraqi air force. The
Vincennes
helicopter clearly violated this prohibition, and Rogers the intent of the instructions by moving into Iranian waters to protect its helicopter from a fight he instigated.

15.
There is no doubt that when the
Vincennes
fired on the Iranian airliner, it was in Iranian territorial waters. Admiral Crowe confirmed this on ABC’s
Nightline
in 1992. General Crist supported this during the author’s interview.

16.
. Kristen Ann Dotterway, “System Analysis of Complex Dynamics Systems: The Case of the USS
Vincennes
,” Naval Postgraduate School, June 1992, p. 13.

17.
In CENTCOM’s endorsement of the formal investigation, it stated that this initial IFF of an F-14 might have originated from an Iranian aircraft on the ground at Bandar Abbas.

18.
The investigation speculated that the pilot of the Airbus may have been busy talking between the Bandar Abbas and Dubai airport controllers, and simply wasn’t monitoring the proper frequency.

19.
Crowe interview.

20.
Fogarty Report, p. 41.

21.
News briefing at the Pentagon by Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Crowe, August 19, 1988.

22.
Carlson, comments on “The
Vincennes
Incident,” p. 92.

23.
Vice President George Bush, “The Persian Gulf Conflict and Iran Air 655,”
Current Policy No. 1093
, U.S. Department of State, 1988, p. 1.

24.
Stephen C. Pelletiere,
The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum
(New York: Praeger, 1992), pp. 144–45.

25.
John Bulloch and Harvey Morris,
Saddam’s War: The Origins of the Kuwait Conflict and the International Response
(New York: Fabar and Faber, 1991), p. 248.

26.
CENTCOM,
Command History, 1988
, pp. ii–102.

27.
Robert Pear, “Radio Broadcast Shows Iran Leader Endorsed Decision for Truce,”
New York Times
, July 21, 1988.

28.
“Text of Iranian Letter to UN,”
New York Times
, July 19, 1988.

29.
CENTCOM,
Command History, 1988
, pp. ii–104.

30.
CINCCENT message to Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Public Affairs—Earnest Will Support Forces” (151200Z), July 1989.

31.
CINCCENT message to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Earnest Will Review” (121225Z), December 1989, p. 2.

32.
Weiner, Legacy of Ashes, p. 426; Weiner interview; Giraldi interview. Two other retired and one former CIA officers recalled the same events.

33.
Interview with one former and two retired CIA officers in 2008; Giraldi interview; Greg Miller, “CIA Operation in Iran Failed When Spies Were Exposed,”
Los Angeles Times
, February 12, 2005, p. A1.

34.
For a description of nonofficial cover, see Ed Finn, “How Deep Is CIA Cover?”
Slate
, September 30, 2003,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/09/how_deep_is_cia_cover.html
.

35.
Interview with former CIA officer in 2008.

36.
Giraldi interview.

37.
For an example of typical punishments and of the arrest of another U.S. spy held at Evin, see Roger Cooper,
Death Plus Ten Years: My Life as the Ayatollah’s Prisoner
(New York: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 98, 224.

38.
“Majlis Speaker Says U.S. Spy Networks Uncovered,” Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Tehran, April 21, 1989, FBIS, April 21, 1989, pp. 44–45.

39.
“Information Minister Names CIA Spies,” IRNA, April 26, 1989, FBIS, April 27, 1989, pp. 43–44; “Daily on Need to Eliminate Motives for Treason,” IRNA, April 27, 1989, FBIS, April 27, 1989, p. 51.

40.
Released in 1991, Cooper later wrote that his confession had been coerced through beatings and months of solitary confinement.

41.
“Tehran TV Details Cover Operations of Spies,” Tehran Television Service, May 4, 1989, FBIS, May 8, 1989, p. 57.

42.
“Mohtashemi Speaks at Rally,” IRNA, November 4, 1989, FBIS, NES-89-213, November 6, 1989.

43.
In March the Iranian Flag of Freedom radio station reported his execution, along with fifty-nine other military officers. To his wife’s relief, the report turned out to be false, and the family was allowed another visit a month later. See “60 Navy, Air Force Officers Said Executed,” Flag of Freedom Radio, March 24, 1989, FBIS, March 27, 1989, p. 50.

44.
Rear Admiral Frank Collins letter to James Woolsey, Director, Central Intelligence Agency, April 28, 1994.

45.
“Information Ministry on CIA Agents Execution,” Tehran Television Service, November 5, 1989, FBIS, NES-89-213, November 6, 1989.

46.
“The CIA’s Darkest Secrets,”
US News & World Report
, July 4, 1994, pp. 34–44.

47.
Weiner interview.

C
HAPTER 20
G
OODWILL
B
EGETS
G
OODWILL

1.
Gordon and Trainor,
The General’s War
, p. 10.

2.
Hossein Mousavian, interview with author, October 7, 2011.

3.
George H. W. Bush, Presidential Daily Diary, entries for February 4 and February 5, 1990, Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library, College Station, Texas, White House Office of Appointments and Scheduling, Box 29; George Lardner, “Bush Took Bogus Call on Hostages,”
Washington Post
, March 9, 1990.

4.
Baer,
See No Evil
, p. 115.

5.
John Greenwald, Sam Allis, and David S. Jackson, “Terrorism Nightmare on Flight 422,”
Time
, April 25, 1988.

6.
John Kelly, interviewed by Thomas Stern, Foreign Affairs Oral History Program, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, December 12, 1994.

7.
Mousavian interview.

8.
Giandomenico Picco,
Man Without a Gun: One Diplomat’s Secret Struggle to Free the Hostages, Fight Terrorism, and End a War
(New York: Times Books, 1999), p. 112.

9.
The CIA also believed that Iran could not unilaterally order the release of the hostages but had to haggle with Hezbollah. CIA memorandum for Robert Oakley, “Iran and the U.S. Hostages in Lebanon,” August 1, 1988.

10.
Twetten interview; Allen interview; Benjamin Gilman et al. letter to the President, November 15, 1989; Assistant Secretary of State Janet Mullins letter to Congressman Benjamin Gilman, January 22, 1990, Bush Presidential Records, Bush Library, White House Office of Records Management. The former CENTCOM commander General George Crist also suspected Iran’s involvement with the Pan Am bombing.

11.
Statement by Representative Henry Gonzalez, Congressional Record, U.S. House, March 9, 1991, pp. 4699–703; J. Stapleton Roy memorandum for Brent Scowcroft, U.S. Department of State, “Iraqi Options Paper,” May 16, 1990, in Congressional Record, U.S. House, March 9, 1991, p. 4703.

12.
CINCCENT message to Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Termination of Operation Earnest Will” (172200Z), August 1990.

13.
D.C. Discussion Paper, “Options for Iran,” Bush Presidential Records, Bush Library, NSC, Robert Gates Files, Folder Notes, August 1990.

14.
Diplomatic note from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Competent U.S. Authority, translated by U.S. Interests Section, Swiss Embassy Tehran, February 23, 1991; Michael Carns memorandum for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security Affairs), “Démarche to Iran,” March 4, 1991.