STATE DEPT. ACTED TO BLOCK U.S.- EGYPT ATTACK ON LIBYA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550021-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: February 20, 1987
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550021-7
Al.
WASFINGTON POST
20 February 1987
could help free the remaining U.S.
State Dept. Acted to Bloc hostages held by pro-Iranian
k
groups. The thinking about Libya
U.S.-Egypt Attack on LibyaTenut
there was no direct connec-
in the other direction: tion between between Libya and the TWA
White House Envisioned Aiding a 1985 Invasion hijacking, top officials at the NSC
and CIA became determined to get
tough with Libya, the most vulner-
able of the terrorism-generating
states to U.S. action.
The drive by senior NSC staff
officials at this critical juncture "was
to embrace the Ayatollah 1Ruhollah
Khomeini] and demolish Gadhafi,"
said an administration official who
was involved in the policy-making.
"It was not particularly rational, but
[TWA] 847 had exposed the ab-
sence of both a real antiterrorist ca-
pability and policy toward the states
supporting terrorism."
A mid-July 1985, paper written
by Robert M. Gates. then head of
intelligence analysis for the agency
and now Reagan's nominee to be
CIA director, reported that a U.S.-
Egyptian operation against Libya
would present an opportunity "to
redraw the map of North Africa,"
according to sources who have read
the document. Then-CIA director
William L.agy, according to re-
1ibl -Sources, ordered a detailed
study of military targets in Libya
that would be subject to U.S. at-
tack.
A plan drawn up by the National
Security Council staff at this point
called for Egypt to attack Libya,
capture half its territory with U.S.
air support and then use this posi-
tion to force Gadhafi from power,
several sources said. It had been
devised by then-national security
adviser Robert C. McFarlane, his
deputy, Vice Adm. John M. Poin-
dexter, and the third-ranking NSC
aide, Donald Fortier.
In the White House and NSC, the
top-secret plan to oust Gadhafi was
given the code word FLOWER; a
CIA component to undermine Gad-
hafi covertly was called TULIP, and
the plan for a U.S.-Egyptian mili-
tary action was ROSE.
The State Department was not
opposed in principle to cooperating
with Egypt against its radical neigh-
bor, Libya; the United States had
been doing so for years. However, a
joint invasion of Libya was consid-
ered by State?and by its allies
By Bob aand Don Oberdorfer
Washington Past Stargriters
The State Department took extraordinary
steps in the summer of 1985, including sum-
moning the U.S. ambassador to Egypt home
on a secret weekend mission, to head off a
White House-sponsored plan for a joint U.S.-
Egyptian military attack on Libya, according
to informed sources.
As in the case of its Iran policy, the U.S.
government was bitterly divided, with leaders
of the State and Defense departments trying
to block what they believed were risky and
unrealistic White House and CIA initiatives
aimed at winning a quick victory over Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The confidential efforts of U.S. Ambassa-
dor Nicholas A. Veliotes were aimed at re-
butting the dramatic proposals of "these mad-
men in the White House," as the free-wheel-
ing National Security Council staff was known
at that time in the upper echelons of the State
Department. Veliotes, who was told to let no
one know of his presence in Washington, was
informed that Secretary of State George P.
Shultz was unalterably opposed to the plan,
which called for an Egyptian invasion of Lib-
ya, and considered it "crazy."
Libya under the radical leadership of Gad-
hafi has been an urgent concern, some say an
obsession, in the White House throughout the
years of this administration. President Rea-
gan's initial meeting with his National Secu-
rity Council on his first full day in office, Jan.
21, 1981, focused on Libya and Iran. In mid-
1985, emboldened by Reagan's overwhelm-
ing reelection and frustrated by four years of
indecisive struggle against Gadhafi through
covert actions and unconventional means,
senior figures in the White House and Central
Intelligence Agency called for a direct mili-
tary confrontation, according to sources who
provided information for this article.
The 17-day televised ordeal of hijacked
TWA Flight 847 in June 1985 precipitated a
shift in U.S. policies toward both Libya and
Iran. The hijacking dramatized U.S. vul-
nerablility to terrorism in the Middle East
and fed White House determination to take
strong action.
Iran's influence in the freeing of the TWA
passengers and crew from terrorists in Leb-
anon suggested that an opening to Tehran
STAT
among the civilian and uniformed
leadership of the Pentagon?to be
ill-considered and highly risky in the
unlikely event that Egypt's cautious
President H6sni Mubarak should
agree to pursue it.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a stu-
dy apparently intended to dampen
White House enthusiasm for an in-
vasion plan, estimated that an op-
eration in Libya on the scale being
envisioned could eventually require
six U.S. combat divisions, about
90,000 troops. Such a force, which
is about 15 times greater than that
employed in the 1983 U.S. invasion
of Grenada, would have required a
major diversion of U.S. forces from
NATO.
The secret trip home by Veliotes
on orders from Shultz was consid-
ered a means of adding caution, and
professional assessment, to the
high-level discussions in Washing-
ton. The ambassador, who was fa-
miliar with bureaucratic infighting
from his service as assistant secre-
tary of state for near-eastern affairs
early in the administration, was giv-
en access to the planning docu-
ments under study at the White
House. He was asked to rewrite
them into something that could be
acceptable to the Egyptians and
useful to the United States.
Instead of a joint military action
against Libya, the State-drafted pa-
per proposed U.S.-Egyptian mili-
tary "contingency planning' on an
accelerated basis in case of a clash
with Libya, closer U.S.-Egyptian
cooperation against Libyan activ-
ities in the Sudan and Chad and oth,
er "reactive and defensive scenar-
ios," according to a source familiar
with it.
Veliotes also recommended that
a way be found to block a proposed
mission to Cairo by Poindexter to
discuss war plans with Mubarak, on
grounds that such a high-level mes-
senger would give unwarranted and
unwise emphasis to the message.
Despite the opposition from
State, Reagan approved a mission
to Cairo by Poindexter and Fortier.
which took place over Labor Day
weekend 1985. But State believed
it was successful in watering down
what Poindexter was authorized to
tell Mubarak and his defense min-
ister, Field. Marshal Abdul-Halim
Abu Ghazala, so that the admiral's
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550021-7
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550021-7
"talking points" were much closer
to the State Department paper than
to the original plan for joint military
action.
Poindexter began the meeting
with Mubarak by emphasizing that
he had been sent by Reagan and
was speaking for him. He then
launched into a discussion of the
military situation, adording to a re-
port on the meeting; including re-
iteration of a pledgefrom Reagan of
U.S. backing in case Egypt attacked.
Libya. Such a pledge had been ex-
tracted by Egyptian President
Anwar Sadat from President Gerald
R. Ford in the early 1970s, with-
drawn by President Jimmy Carter
in 1977 due to concern about such:
an open-ended U.S. commitment
and reinstated by Reagan in late
1981.
There is contcoversy within the
government aboct whether, or to:
what extent, Poindexter hoped to-
persuade Mubarak to consider U.S.-
Egyptian military . action against
Libya, despite the-wiitering down of
Poindexter's formal instructions.
Before Poindextet tould complete
his talking points, according to a
U.S. report on the meeting, the im-
patient Egyptian" president inter-
rupted him.
"Look, admiral," .the Egyptian
president said, "when we decide to
attack Libya it will be our decision
and on our timetable."
Despite Mubarait's caution, mil-
itary "contingency planning" be-
tween Cairo and Washington con-
tinued. State Department officials
believed this planning, which includ-
ed a trip to Cairo in February 1986,
by Lt. Gen. Dale A. Vesser, chief of
plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, was within the existing
guidelines of U.S.-Egyptian "defen-
sive" activity. Other sources re-
ported, however, that the planning
continued to include elements of a
joint U.S.-Egyptian attack.
The U.S. military actions taken
against Libya in the months that
followed?including a major bomb-
ing attack last April?were limited
in scope and duration, and were
unilateral U.S. moves.
Military strikes against Libya
were considered at the White
House following the Dec. 27, 1985,
bombings at the _Rome and Vienna
airports. The .proposals were
shelved after ognnsition from the
Defense Department, and a CIA re-
port that the terrorist attacks ap-
peared to be the work of the Abu
Nidal terrorist group and could not
be traced to Libya.
Planning continued, however, on
a major U.S. naval and air exercise
in the gulf of Sidra, off Libya, which
Gadhafi insists ia,Libyan territorial
waters despite the fact that most
other nations consider the gulf to be
international waters. It was well
known in the administration, ac-
cording to several sources, that
Gadhafi was likely to react militari-
ly.
The rules of engagement for the
exercise, named Prairie Fire, indi-
cated that Reagal yin likely to ap-
prove attacks on five Libyan mili-
tary targets on the coast if there
were a single U.S. casualty. There
were no casualties,- but when Lib-
yan forces fired Missiles at U.S.
warplanes last March 24, the swift
response was a U.S. attack on an
on-shore Libyan missile site and
destruction of at least two Libyan
patrol boats.
The following day Gadhafi an-
nounced publicly that. "It is a time
for confrontatioti-=for war" with
the United States. The same day,
coded messages were intercepted
by U.S. agencies. from Tripoli to
Libyan People's Bureaus or embas-
sies, in eight coupgries including
East Germany directing them to
undertake operations against Amer-
ican targets and facilities.
The bombing sd.?b West Berlin
discotheque loaded:.with U.S. mil-
itary personnel on April 5, appar-
ently in compliancelvith the March
25 instructions from Tripoli, trig-
gered the U.S. bombing raid April
14 against Gadhefits headquarters
and other targets in Libya.
Although Gadhifl seemed hum-
bled by the raid, it 'did not achieve
the major Reagan goal of removing
him from power. In mid-August last
year, the president signed a Nation-
al Security Decision Directive stat-
ing that he still sought a "regime
change" in Libya, and directed the
CIA to conduct a campaign of "dis-
information" to make Gadhafi think
that he was about? to be attacked
again by the United States or
ousted by his closest aides.
U.S. intelligence has reported
recently that as. Iranian influence
has declined in Lebanon, Libyan
agents have expanded their con-
tacts with the radical Hezbollah fac-
tion that is thought to be holding
five of the eight U.S. hostages.
According to these reports, Libya
has offered Hezbollah money and
the use of its terrorist support
structure in Europe. An official fa-
miliar with the reports said Libya
has probably concluded from the
U.S. arms sales to It'an that, "If you
have influence With Hezbollah, the
United States sells weapons to you
instead of dropping bombs."
Staff researcher Barbara Feinnsan
contributed to this report.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807550021-7