against Hezbollah headquarters in Lebanon at the Sheikh Abdullah barracks in Baalbeck. Both nations attempted to coordinate the strikes to occur on the sixteenth of November, but it did not happen that way.
The French launched from their battle group flotilla on the afternoon of November 16, as planned, but to no effect. Reconnaissance photos revealed they had missed the barracks complex completely. The U.S. attack did not take place until December 4.
Jerry Tuttle, the commander of the U.S. naval forces, preferred the time of the attack to be at midday so the sun would be directly overhead and his pilots would be better able to see more clearly the Syrian radar sites and artillery gun positions, which he had targeted (and the Joint Chiefs had approved). But for political reasons, the Joint Chiefs preferred an early-morning attack time, around 7:30 A.M. on December 4. Either there was a screwup in the conversion between Washington time and Lebanese time, and/or the order was garbled as it passed over the convoluted chain of command between Washington and Tuttle, but General Lawson, now the new deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, received a call at 5:33 A.M. on December 4, ordering the strike to occur at 7:30 A.M.
When Tuttle was wakened, he was already five hours behind the curve. Planes had not been loaded with bombs, and the pilots would be flying directly into the rising early-morning sun.
Twenty-three planes — Navy A-6s and A-7s — were launched. As soon as they entered the Chouf Mountain area headed for Baalbeck, they began to draw surface-to-air missile fire. Two planes were lost, with one pilot killed and his bombardier captured by the Syrians. As with the French strike, the raid had little effect: Two Syrian gun emplacements were knocked out and a radar site was damaged. All were back in operation within a week.
EFFORTS TO FIND A SOLUTION
Meanwhile, efforts continued on two fronts to find a solution to the disaster in Lebanon:
Inside Lebanon, General Tannous continued his heroic efforts to rebuild the army and provide stability to government-controlled areas — at that time only parts of Beirut and the ridgeline to the south that dominated the capital were considered stable. Concurrently, Ambassador Bartholomew was working with the factional leaders to reach a power-sharing agreement that would be acceptable to President Gemayel and everyone else concerned.
Outside Lebanon, President Reagan's new special envoy, Ambassador Donald Rumsfeld, was visiting the leaders of the modern Arab nations in southwest Asia, looking both for support and for suggestions that might lead to peace in Lebanon. He visited, at least monthly: Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and even Iraq (the United States was supporting Iraq in its then- ongoing war with Iran). These efforts forged a consensus for peace among all but one of these nations. Tragically, the one exception, Syria, could exercise an effective veto. It was obvious that Assad wanted the multinational forces out of Beirut in order to secure his own political objectives in Lebanon.
'Lebanon has always been a part of Syria,' he once commented. 'Read your Bible.'
I have never seen a man more dedicated to his mission than Ambassador Rumsfeld, but success was just not in the cards. There were too many factors he could not influence — especially Syria, the two of three major factions that Syria controlled, and the Iran-influenced Hezbollah and its new form of terrorist warfare.
The time I spent with Ambassador Rumsfeld, like my time with Bud MacFarlane, proved very beneficial to me. It gave me a chance to get to know the key leadership of the modern Arab nations, and I was able to put this experience to effective use in my next assignment as the Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.
Meanwhile, support in the United States for the administration's policy in Lebanon was eroding rapidly, both in Congress and at the Pentagon.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff had never favored the Marines' reentry into Lebanon in 1982. To them it was a 'no- win' situation, though they did not want to give the appearance of abandoning an ally by 'cutting and running.' During the decision-making process, they gave this advice to the civilian leadership. As always, once the decision was made, they saluted and complied.
Even before the Marines were bombed in October, Congress had only very reluctantly authorized a continued Marine presence in Beirut for another eighteen months, but
AT the same time — January 1984—the Shiite mullahs and Nabih Berri, no doubt prompted by Assad, devised a plan to bring about the disintegration of the Lebanese army, now sixty percent Muslim. In the eyes of Berri and the mullahs, the army had been used by Gemayel to keep the Christian minority in power. They now called on the Shiites in the army to stop acting as pawns of the Christians and lay down their arms and return to their barracks.
The commander of the predominantly Shiite Lebanese 6th Brigade, which had been keeping the peace in West Beirut, immediately complied by pulling his forces out of the city and back to their barracks. The Muslim militia quickly took over the streets. At the same time, the mullahs began broadcasting from the mosques that the Shiite soldiers should return to their barracks and no longer fight for a government that did not represent their interests.
Soon afterward, the Druze deputy commander, Major General Hakim, defected to the Druze PSP in the Chouf Mountains.
The evening after his defection, a Lebanese army battalion commander operating south of Beirut took three of his Christian lieutenants out on a reconnaissance. They didn't return. The next morning, a patrol sent out to locate the battalion commander found the three lieutenants with their throats cut — and no battalion commander; he had defected. Two other Christian soldiers were later found in their foxholes, also with their throats cut.
The same day, the Shiite militia began raking the family home of the Shiite but loyal Brigadier General Abbas Hamdan with machine-gun fire. Hamdan, who had been staying at the Ministry of Defense, sent his family back to safety in his wife's native France, but he remained in Beirut until Tannous persuaded him to join his family, his chances of survival in Lebanon being effectively zero.
In a matter of days, Lebanese army units, which had fought so well and so cohesively for months, lost trust in one another and began to fission; the pieces flew off to the various factional militias. Beirut's old 'Green Line' — a street that served as a demarcation line between Christians and Muslims — once again became a battle line. Daily killings returned.
Early in February, the Embassy began evacuating nonessential Americans.
Meanwhile, a big question remained: What to do about the Marines in Beirut? After the bombing, they'd brought in replacements and continued to perform their mission.
A week after the Embassy started its own evacuation, the National Security Planning Group, presided over by Vice President George Bush, concluded that it was time to withdraw the Marines. President Reagan reluctantly accepted the recommendation.
The task of informing Amin Gemayel about this decision fell to Ambassador Rumsfeld, who just a week earlier had assured him that the United States would continue to stand behind the Lebanese government.
Rumsfeld later told me it was probably the toughest thing he ever had to do.
Ambassadors Rumsfeld and Bartholomew broke the news to Gemayel in his operations center in the basement of the Presidential Palace — the upstairs having been long since destroyed by artillery fire.
The news shattered Gemayel. Though he was assured that the assistance program to the Lebanese army would continue for the foreseeable future, he understandably felt seduced, abandoned, and powerless to do anything about it.
Later, an equally crushed General Tannous told me, putting on a brave front, '1 will gather together what remains of the Lebanese army and continue to fight for what 1 believe is right for Lebanon. We may have to make some concessions with Syria, but as long as I am in this job I will continue to do everything in my power to bring
