U.S. RAID ON REBELS CONSIDERED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201470008-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: July 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201470008-3
RRTICLEAPPEARm `
WI PAGE i+ M45. e-
U., S. raid
on rebels
considered
By George do Lama
Chicago Tribune
WASHINGTON-The Reagan
administration seriously con-
sidered ordering an air strike
against a rebel base in El Salva-
dor, and "we don't foreclose" the
Possibility of bombing guerrilla
training bases in Nicaragua, a
senior administration official dis-
closed Thursday.
lines from Nicaragua to leftist
rebels h1 E
r to "find an
annnnor a a metfor W .S mil-
itarv strikes. the nffirial e
that we will-be able to do that,,"
said the official, who spoke on
condition that he not be identi-
fied.
On another front, it was dis-
closed that the administration
favors raising the reward for
information on terrorists tenfold,
to $5 million, in an effort to
entice Lebanese informants into
turning in the two hijackers of a
TWA airliner who murdered a
Navy diver last month.
President Reagan ordered his
advisers to draw up plans for a
surgical air strike against a Sal-
vadoran rebel base in retaliation
for the machine-gun murders
June 19 of six Americans, in-
cluding four marine guards as-
signed to the U.S. Embassy, at
an outdoor cafe in San Salvador,
the senior official said.
Reagan also instructed White
House and Pentagon officials to
look into the possibility of
launching another type of mili-
tary attack, including a commando
raid, on the base if an air strike
were not feasible, the official said.
But after pMgew' rote licence
MM,ioi_-an ecause t e -rebels
t ve moo .
---You have to have confi-
4iace in identity, location,
timeliness of the target--that who
is there is guing to be there when
yiiu hit it, and nobody else is
there," said the official, who was
involved in planning for the attack.
CHICAGO
26 July
The attack was to have been
carried out against a suspected
base of the Central American Rev-
Workers Party [PRTC],
d""7eftist guerrilla faction that
cisimed responsibility for the slay-
iads of the Americans as they sat
sf0ping beers at a fashionable cafe
in-the Salvadoran capital.
Despite Reagan's strong desire
t%' retaliate for the slayings, par-
tiwlarly those of the unarmed
slatines, there was too much am-
biguity in the intelligence reports
to allow action on them, the Offi-
cial said.
"It was a combination of fac-
tors," be said, explaining why the
attack never was made. "On the
one hand, collateral risk (of killing
civilians]. And on the other, some
ambiguity in the evidence , both
geography and the identity of those
present."
The official disputed a New York
Times report, published Wednes-
day, that said the administration
considered an air strike against a
tainin Nbase for Salvadorap re-
caragua, but he would
Pot Wile out such an attack in the
"That article two days ago was a
little off the mark, because it was
suggesting we were preoccupied
with a target in Nicaragua," the
Official said. "We weren't. To the
contrary, we were more seized
with whether a center of opera-
tions for the PRTC in El Salvador
could be identified with such confi-
dence and without such collateral
damage as to make feasible ac-
tion.
"So it wasn't at the time a re-
view of Nicaraguan targets. That
said, we don't foreclose that. We
just weren't doing that."
The State Department warned
Nicaragua last week that the Uni-
ted States would hold its Sandinis-
ta government responsible for any
terrorist attack against Americans
anywhere in Central America, and
that the United States should be
expected to "respond appropriate-
ly."
Citing intelligence reports that
vadoran slavings and that the
lutist Sandinista regime is in-
voived in terrorist attacks be'nc
planned a airier American erson-
ne
administration warned of "serious
consequences."
Nicaragua has strongly denied
that it supports or practices ter-
rorism in the region, and it has
accused the United States of con-
ducting state-sponsored terrorism
TRIBLNE
1985
witlf'its support for anti-Sandinista White House officials want to
rebels. The administration has raise the top amount Payable to
consistently denied the charges, as any one individual to S5 million,
well as allegations by the Sandinis- though one senior official said that
tag that the United States plans to much would not be given often.
invade Nicaragua. "We're looking at what really
In a speech two weeks ago, gives you the latitude to meet the
Reagan singled out Nicaragua as scale of the threat right now, and
one of five "outlaw nations" that $S million [per individual] is not
"are now engaged in acts of war out of the question," the official
against the people and government said. "But to say that you would
of the United States." support that is not to say that you
Linking Nicaragua with Libya, would expect that to be your stand-
Iran, Cuba and North Korea, and operating procedure. Seldom is
Reagan said those states are run one individual's information deci-
"by the strangest collection of mis- sive. And therefore it wouldn't
fits, looney tunes and squalid merit anything like that scale."
criminals since the advent of the If Congress rebuffs the proposal,
Third Reich." the administration probably would
The senior administration offs- request an increase in the total
cial said the rhetorical offensive reward fund, the official said.
came because the White House
wanted to keep the pressure on
Nicaragua in spite of the United
States having been distracted by
the Beirut hostage crisis, particu-
ta
larl after slayings in El Salva-
dor.
It was just to remove any am-
biguity from their minds that
might have derived from our ap.
parent focus being the Middle East
in connection with the hijacking,"
the official said. "Our statements
might have been taken as mostly
oriented towards the Middle East.
(But] if they had been under the
illusion that there were a different
criterion applied to Nicaragua or
El Salvador or anywhere else in
Latin America as distinct from the
Middle East, we wanted to remove
that."
Vice President George Bush pre-
sided over the first meeting Thurs-
day of an interagency task force
on terrorism created by Reagan in
response to the TWA hijacking and
the Salvadoran killings.
In an interview this week, Bush
said one of the chief goals of the
task force would be to "define
terrorism," reach "agreement and
consensus on retaliation" and
"sort out what is acceptable and
what is unacceptable on pre-emp-
tion."
While Bush and the task force
also ocus on ways to improve
favor asking Congress to increase
the reward money offered-
ere for in-
formation lea g to a capture of
terrorists. .
Under current law, the President
can instruct the secretary of state
to offer up to a $500,000 reward for
such information out of a S5 mil-
lion fund at his disposal. Last week
the State Department offered
$100,000 for information leading to
the prosecution of the Salvadoran
killers.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201470008-3