THE IRAN OPERATION: 'HARD QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERS NOW'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81B00401R000500140009-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 16, 2001
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: May 1, 1980
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2002/01/03 : CIA-RDP81 800401 R000500140009-6
ARTICLE X PP
OIVF PAGE5
NEW YORK TIMES
1 MAY 1980
h~Jran Operation:. U; ard U~estiorls
That Ne- ed An swe~r8 Now',
WASHINGTON -Ii had the appeal
of any good Hollywood thri Iler. Our su-
perbly trained commandos sweep into
.the United States Embassy in Tehe?
ran;' snatch the hostages and flee to
safety - rescuing America's honor
and extricating Jimmy Carter from
the Rose Garden.
i Was it possible? O- was it doomed
fromthestart?
The overall Carter Administration
rescue plan apparently won't be made
known for weeks or months - it then
- pending reviews by Congressional
investigating committees and the
Joint Chiefs of-Statt. Until then, the
President has put himself in the posi-
tion of saying, in effect, to the Ameri-
can people and the world : "Trust me. I
had a secret plan to end the war." We
,
last heard that during the Nixon
Ad- gers to be a serious hindrance to the
ministration. operation, since the desert area was
Some details of the raid are being brown to be heavily trafficked by
leaked daily and, of cour.;e, Washing- smugglers and thieves, and, as one of-
ton is abuzz with rumors. At this point, ficial said, .."People just would have
less than one week after the aborted thought the bus was hijacked."
mission, there are hard questions that Other intelligence officialswhowere
need answers now. not directly consulted on the mission,
ligence Agency brougi'.t fully Into the
planning of the rescue operation?
Some of my intelligence sources whose
information has. been highly reliable in
the past complain that planning for the
rescue was tightly controlled by the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top level of
the Defense Intelligence Agency - to
the exclusion of the C.I.A.'s full exper
tise. A senior Administration official,
told 'of the complaint, responded
sharply: "I don't think more than two
or three people in the entire Agency
knew enough to have an informed
opinion. A lot of people are. mouthing
off because they're angry about being
cut out."
A specific focus of complaint is the
Pentagon's selection of its landing site i
for the first step of the mission. That
site, in the midst of a vast salt desert
more than 200 miles southeast of Tehe-
ran, wag-as we now know-also ad-
jacent to a highway. As the Pentagon
explains it, the intelligence planners
for the rescue had known In advance
that the highway was in regular use
but had analyzed the "rhythm" of
traffic, as one official put it, and con-
eluded' that the six C-130 aircraft and
six helicopters necessary for the mis-i
sion could rendevous and refuel with-
out being observed It was sheer bad
By Seymour M. Hersh -
Iuck, a "complete aberration," a sen-I derstood the revolution. It's a year
for official said, that an Iranian tour after it happened and they are still in a
bus happened along just as the first.; daze:"
C-130 landed. The 44 passengers on the The Iranian added, with obvious bit-
bus were- rounded up and would have. tern ess, thai. testimony given' early
been flown out of Iran if the mission -last year at- people's tribunals after
had gone ahead. . the overthrow of Shah, Mohammed
It should be said that, so far, there is Riza Pahlevi. had shown why. some
no evidence that the mission was Savak agents would have been farsil-
aborted for any reason other than that far with the desert area selected as the
given by the White House-the break- initial American landing one: Sarah
down of three helicopters. But how considered the area a sale place for
quickly would the disappearance of tossing anti-Shah political prisoners
those 44 Iranians have been noticed? ? out of helicopters.. fill
Wouldn't anxious family members ' - o
have begun asking questions? United Most of those I interviewed do not
States Government officials indicated believe it was possible for American i
question served as one of the roads be-
tween Yezd, a city of 100,000 people,
and Meshed, with a population of
300,000, some 400 miles apart,-and that
there was regular bus service between
them. In addition, Meshed, along with
Qum, is one of the major religious
shrines in Iran - a holy city. There is
a constant flow of worshippers to
Meshed, where one of Islam's most
important religious leaders,: the
Eighth Imam, is buried. Most of those
pilgrims travel at night across the salt
desert in an obvious attempt to escape
daytime heat.
The selection of that desert site at
that time raises questions about some
of the assumptions made by the rescue
planners about the culture and people:,
of Iran.
One Iranian now living in the United
States who still maintains close ties to.
the Government..in Teheran specu-
lated that the desert landing site had.
been reconnoitered and. selected by a.
former member of Savak, the ousted'.
Shah's secret police, who is now work-
ing. undercover in . Iran for United
States intelligence. "The Americans
still go back and talk to the same pec-.
ple'who have been telling them what.
they want to hear," the Iranian said..
"The old Savak officers have never un-
the relentlessly vigilant student mili-N
cant group that had direct control of
the 50 hostages ? inside the- United ;
States Embassy. Nonetheless there is
little doubt that a combination of satel-
lite reconnaissance, electronic inter-
and careful on-the-scene obser-
cepts
vation by agents could, generate
enough specific information to provide'
analysts with a fix on which building in :
the large embassy area was housing
which hostages.
The American effort to establish
firmly the location of each hostage
was a major one for the intelligence
community, and, it should be noted;
one of the obvious reasons why the stu-
dentmilitants limited any'contact be-
tween the hostages and other Western-
ers. Similarly, there is no reason to
doubt that the commando team knew
how to defuse the mines and explosive
devices that are said to ring the inside
walls of the embassy.
Even some of the staunchest critics
of the-rescue effort have suggested in
interviews in recent days that the com-
mandos, save for the loss of helicop-
ters, could have. penetrated the. em-
CONTIrI u w
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bassy grounds by quickly overpower-
ing the few revolutionary guards who
would have been posted outside in the
early-morning hours of the planned at-
tack.
But howto escape? Whatever the
plan - whether by helicopter extrac-
tion, by truck to a secondary location;
or perhaps:.through a tunnel system.
that 'may exist under the embassy
grounds- the commandos inevitably
would have. found i themselves- in- a,
fierce battle..
A number of Americans have com-
ptained that the CarterAdministration:.
does not fully understand the extent of:.:
popular support . throughout'Iran for'.
the militants' act.'.on in seizing the hos-
tages
"T2le strategy did not take into ac-.
count the. passion of'the people and
their willingness to act their spun
taneity,"said one Americanwith wide
.experience in post-Shah-Iran. "It's a
foolish. and unreal strategy." He told
of having been in Teheran late last
year when the national television sta-
tion presented documents indicating
that mit-of the hostages had served as
a spy.. "Within 30 -seconds.. I' heard a
roar from across the city," the Ameri-
can said. He went to his hotel window,
he said, and watched as--thousands of .
Iranians climbed'. to their' rooftops,
shouting; "Allah, Ahkbar" (''God is
great.'). He went on: "And now you
have a mass population that's armed
-= automatic weapons are as common
as M & M's at-_a:, movie. theater."
,Speaking of last week.'s aborted mis
sion, he said, "As soon as the gunfire -
at- the embassy started,.. the people
would come running." ;
All of this raises a final series of
questions about anticipated casual-
ties.
What were the odds of rescuing all of
the hostages without serious injury or,
death? What were the odds, as calcu-
lated by the mission planners, on re-
turning with, say, 25 of the hostages?
Is there any evidence that has not been
made public indicating that President`;
Carter acted out of fear that some-or
all - of the hostages were nearing a
life-or-death situation?
And- why, did. not the Government
warn . the American reporters - and
businessmen in Iran - said to number
more than 300 to evacuate before
authorizing the rescue mission?
It seems clear that if the operation
had been successful, all Americans in -I
the country could have faced serious
and perhaps extreme reprisals. Some,
perhaps: would have been taken hoe..i
nomic sanctions and other steps hav-d
ing been consistently threatened in re-
cent months, Mr. Carter could have or-
dered all newsmen and businessmen.
to leave Iran weeks ago without neces- {
sarily jeopardizing the cover of the 4
operation.
-
Perhaps the failure of the operation.,
will be as instructive for Jimmy Car-,
ter as was the Bay of Pigs for John F.
Kennedy In April 1961. ,
Theodore Q. Sorensen, in his .1965
book on the- Kennedy Presidency,
"Kennedy," revealed that the same
advisers who had urged the President
,to authorize the Bay of Pigs invasion
also were' urging him In May 1961 to
expand the war in Laos. ' "But now,"
writes Mr. Sorensen,.,"the President
was far more skeptical of the experts,
their reputations, their recommends-
tlons; their' promises, premises and
facts." Mr. Sorensen recorded Mr.
Kennedy as exclaiming months later:
"Thank God the Bay of Pigs happened -:
when it did. Otherwise, we'd be in Laos -1
by now - and that would be a hundred
times worse.".
"Seymour M. Hersh, a former reporter
'for The New. York Times, is writing a
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