several missing, and its commander was hacked to pieces with axes. The attackers, who did not speak Arabic, were probably Iranian Revolutionary Guards from Baalbeck. Aoun was frantic.
Though the heavy fighting on the ridgeline slacked off over the next week, the Druze, with Syrian support, began targeting the officers with long-barreled sniper rifles. For obvious reasons, leadership suffered greatly, and the troops, losing confidence, hunkered down in their holes. This in turn greatly increased their vulnerability to Druze infiltration of their lines at night, which could eventually open an approach to the Presidential Palace and Ambassador Bartholomew's residence in the Yarze neighborhood of Beirut, only about four kilometers from the front. If the Druze forces could actually take the Presidential Palace and Yarze, that would likely mean the end of the Lebanese government — as well as the U.S. assistance program.
As the days passed, the Druze began to increase the pressure. Their main attacks came at night on the forward, southern slope, where the attackers were mostly protected from Lebanese artillery fire supporting the defending brigade. With each attack, Aoun became more panicky.
During this period, I was with Tannous day and night, making recommendations about tactical options and encouraging more aggressive operations.
We visited the brigade at least twice weekly — and once, as we checked frontline defensive positions, narrowly missed getting hit by sniper fire ourselves.
Meanwhile, pressure from the Lebanese government was daily growing more intense to get the Marines and the naval task force offshore to fire in support of the Lebanese army. Gemayel was becoming panicky himself. Any night now, he saw imagined hordes of Iranian Revolutionary Guards attacking the Palace and hacking everyone to pieces.
One night — I don't recall the date — Ambassador Bartholomew asked me to accompany him to a meeting with Gemayel. When we arrived at the Palace, Tannous was already there. Gemayel was in quite a state.
'How much longer do you think we can hold out?' he asked me, visibly alarmed.
'As long as your troops are willing to fight,' I told him. 'Except for the Syrian artillery, you've got the advantage. But you have to be more aggressive — you' ve got to have your units do more patrolling, and doing to them what they're doing to you. Even if you don't have a lot of artillery, you've got an Air Force and you've got bombs — but you haven't used them.'
'Our pilots don't have experience dropping bombs,' he answered. 'And besides, we don't have the equipment that hooks the bombs to the planes.'
'We just might be able to help with that problem,' I told him.
By the time the meeting was over, he had calmed down.
Afterward, Tannous thanked me. 'Gemayel just wanted to hear the truth from someone other than me, he told me.
I got together with Jerry Tuttle, and with the assistance of a couple of Navy machinists, bomb mounts were made and bombing sights were fabricated (for daylight use only).
Within the next couple of days, the Lebanese Air Force bombed suspected assembly areas and buildings used by the Druze for fighting locations. Although the bombings were not greatly effective, they gave a great psychological boost to the army.
Meanwhile, Robert MacFarlane requested a change in the Marines' rules of engagement, to allow fire support for the Lebanese army on the ridgeline at Souk al Gharb. Washington okayed the change but reemphasized that the Marines' mission remained the same. The order left the actual authority to fire on Souk al Gharb to Tim Geraghty, who proved very reluctant to exercisc it. Once this was done, he knew, the Marines would be drawn deeper into the conflict. Because they were supporting the Lebanese army (though by this time it was nearly sixty percent Muslim), they would seem to be supporting the Christian government, and would therefore no longer be 'impartial.'
On September 19, the usual daily assault on the 8th Brigade at Souk al Gharb began at two in the morning with an artillery barrage. An hour and a half later, Simon Quassis, Lebanon's chief of military intelligence, amakened U.S. Colonel Gatanas, a member of MacFarlane's staff, in a panic: 'Without American help,' he told him, 'Souk al Gharb will fill in half an hour.' Gatanas called me with this report, and indicated that he was going to the 8th Brigade command post to check with Anoun personally.
This was a good idea, I told him, because I wouldn't put it past Quassis and Aoun to cook up something like this in order to get U.S. fire support.
Catanas reached Aoun five hours later. By then, Anoun was totally confused and distraught, and all but out of artillery shells. 'Where is the main threat coming from?' Gatanas asked him.
'Everywhere.'
Gatanas was later able to sort through Aoun's confusion enough to determine that hand-to-hand fighting was occurring on the brigade's southern flank, but the main threat was probably coming from the north. The Lebanese soldiers seemed to be holding, but the same could not be said for leadership at the brigade level, which was likely to come apart. It was clear they were ultimately going to require fire support. Without it, the leadership would surely break down, at which point the brigade would no longer be a capable force and could not defend the ridge.
At the MOD, where I'd been staying ever since the heavy fighting had started, Tannous confirmed all this: In his view, Aoun was unstable. Without fire support, the 8th Brigade risked being routed.
I relayed this information to Geraghty, and at 9:45 A.M., Gatanas, who was still on the ridge, received permission to call in naval gunfire. Shortly thereafter, the cruiser
In retaliation for the American intervention, shells started falling on the Ambassador's residence at Yarze later that day, forcing its evacuation. Only the Marine guard force and the radio operators remained.
On September 23, Robert MacFarlane went to Damascus for another meeting with Assad. He was once again about to come away empty-handed when he dropped news on Assad that caught the Syrian president's attention: 'President Reagan wants you to know,' MacFarlane told Assad, 'that the battleship
This escalation of resolve
The next day, all sides agreed to a cease-fire.
Soon the airport and the Port of Beirut were reopened. Although much of the city had been reduced to rubble, it began to come alive again. Crews were out cleaning up the streets and restoring power and water. The banks began to reopen, and people began to go about their business. The city remained divided along factional lines, however. It wasn't safe for people to leave their own areas.
Still, the resiliency of the Lebanese people was amazing.
MacFarlane returned to Washington in early October, hoping the cease-fire would hold.
It lasted only a couple of weeks.
During this lull, I left Beirut and traveled first to Stuttgart to brief General Lawson, the Deputy CINC for Europe, and then on to Washington to brief the Joint Chiefs.
In the meantime, the training of the Lebanese army continued. A supply ship carrying military equipment, supplies, and ammunition, bought and paid for by the Lebanese government as part of the military assistance program, finally showed up after a two-week delay (it had crashed into a pier in Italy). It was very welcome.
Later in October, the shelling of the 8th Brigade resumed from Druze militia batteries located ten to fifteen kilometers west of the ridgeline. The firing this time was much less intense than in September, and now had a discernible pattern: There was firing in the morning, and then again later in the afternoon. This turned out to be a convenient
The 8th Brigade continued to hold the ridgeline. But ominously, almost every night they could see headlights of convoys resupplying Syrian artillery positions in the Chouf.
The shelling of the Ambassador's residence at Yarze and the Ministry of Defense also resumed, but also at a
