Mission Impossible

By Ed Magnuson

A Pentagon report raises questions about keeping the Marines in Lebanon

The report, prepared by a five-man commission appointed by Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, had been ready for nearly a week.

But the date set for its public release kept slipping. Press briefings were promised, then canceled. Finally, with no advance notice, President Reagan stepped into a largely empty White House briefing room and stole some of the report's expected thunder. With his flak for drama, Reagan announced, "If there is to be blame, it properly rests here in this office and with this President. I accept responsibility for the bad as well as the good."

Reagan's declaration was meant to absolve officers in the operational chain of command who had been criticized for failing to take adequate precautions before a truck bomb killed 241 U.S. servicemen last Oct. 23. The President also used his constitutional power as Commander in Chief of the armed forces to head off courts-martial for the officers. Said he:

"The local commanders on the ground... have already suffered quite enough."

On one level, Reagan's motives were plainly compassionate. "He felt that the process of trying to lay blame on individuals was demeaning to those who died and unnecessarily painful for the families," explained a White House aide. "He did not wish to see the process dragged out." Beyond that, Reagan has high regard for the military and apparently acted, in his view, to protect it.

At the same time, however, the White House knew that there were political advantages in diverting attention from the substance of the highly critical report.

"We were afraid that the Pentagon would get out front and dump on the mission," said another presidential adviser, referring to anticipated criticism by the military of the Marines' role in Lebanon. Nor did the political strategists relish the prospect of a series of attention-getting disciplinary hearings in an election year.

Yet the political gains may have been only temporary. Despite Reagan's mea culpa, the findings of the commission, which was chaired by retired Navy Admiral Robert L. J. Long,-- will not be easily shrugged off. In effect, the report concluded that the Marines are engaged in a Mission Impossible. On one hand, they are unable to pose as neutral peace-keepers because the U.S. has sided militarily with the rickety central government of Amin Gemayel. On the other, they are too few in number (1,800) and too restricted in their operations (never firing unless fired upon) to be much of a military threat to the antigovernment factions.

Ranging somewhat fearlessly into political rather than strictly military matters, the report implicitly challenged the Administration's decision to gamble so heavily on the Gemayel government. Noting that both President Gemayel and General Ibrahim Tannous, commander of the Lebanese armed forces, are Maronite Christians hated by other religious factions, the commission declared, "Whatever their true intentions may be concerning the future of Lebanon, they are caught in the same tangled web of distrust, misunderstanding, malevolence, conspiracy and betrayal that has brought Lebanon to political bankruptcy and ruin."

In this atmosphere of mutual hostility, the commission contended, the relatively new phenomenon of state-supported terrorism poses "an alarming" danger to the Marines. "For a growing number of states," the report concluded, "terrorism has become an alternative means of conducting state business, and the terrorists themselves are agents whose association the state can easily deny."

Specifically, the report named Syria and Iran as employing terror tactics. "Iranian operatives in Lebanon are in the business of killing Americans," the commission charged. Reinforcing that finding, CBS News reported last week that Iranian pilots are being trained to fly kamikaze missions against the U.S. fleet off the Lebanese coast; CBS also reported that U.S. military vehicles had been stolen in West Germany by Iranian terrorists to use in bomb attacks on American bases in Europe. The Long panel described terrorism as "warfare on the cheap," and noted that "it permits small countries to attack U.S. interests in a manner which, if done openly, would constitute acts of war and justify a direct U.S. military response."

The commission stopped short of advocating military sweeps in Lebanon to root out terrorists, since that would require a vastly increased U.S. force. But it warned that "combating terrorism requires an active policy... It makes little sense to learn that a state or its surrogate is conducting a terrorist campaign or planning a terrorist attack and not confront that government with political or military consequences." The commission recommended that anti-terrorist planning be sharply accelerated by the Defense Department and that the Pentagon and the CIA jointly explore ways of improving intelligence gathering on terrorist activities. Weinberger initiated such a study even before the commission's report was made public.

As to the bombing at the airport, the

Long report charged that the entire chain of command had failed to react to the fact that "in the eyes of the factional militias, [the Marines] had become pro-Israel, pro-Phalange and anti-Muslim--and therefore prime targets for terrorist attack." Incredibly, according to the report, Marine Colonel Timothy Geraghty, commander of U.S. forces ashore in Lebanon, did not believe that his troops had authority to shoot at a civilian vehicle, even if it seemed bent on crashing into the Marine compound. This passivity is all the more astonishing given the fact that a truck bomb had destroyed much of the U.S. embassy in Beirut only six months earlier.

The commission discovered that the Marines assigned to guard embassy personnel after that bombing operated under less restrictive rules of engagement than did the Marines at the airport headquarters. This led the airport sentries to believe that "the terrorist threat confronting them was somehow less dangerous than that which prevailed at the embassy."

Citing an overall failure to share basic intelligence, the commission noted that FBI experts who analyzed the embassy bombing learned that the terrorists had used "gas enhancement" techniques to multiply the blast force vastly. This was done by wrapping explosives around ordinary gas cylinders. But no one passed this information along to Marine officers at the airport, where a similar device was later used.

The commission criticized the low state of alert among the Marines. "Every Marine interviewed expressed concern over the restrictions against inserting magazines in weapons" while inside the compound, the report says. It pins responsibility on Geraghty, who said that he "made a conscious decision" to ban the loaded M-16 rifles "to preclude accidental discharge and possible injury to innocent civilians." Shortly after the bombing, Geraghty was reassigned to the U.S. with other survivors of the bomb blast.

The report approved the choice of the four-story steel and reinforced concrete building as a headquarters for the Marines because it afforded good protection from sniper fire, provided a rooftop view of the nearby mountains and served as a platform for radio antennas to communicate with the offshore fleet. But the panel criticized Lieut. Colonel Howard Gerlach, the battalion commander, for permitting as many as 350 Marines to be concentrated in the building. Gerlach, who was critically injured in the explosion and is recuperating in Bethesda Naval Hospital, "failed to observe the basic security precaution of dispersion," the report found.

The commission chastised superior officers in the chain of command who had visited the Beirut airport facilities but then made no suggestion that security there be improved, even though the battalion headquarters provided "a lucrative target for attack." Higher officers, the report said, felt "it would somehow be improper to tell him [the on-site commander] how best to protect his force." Cited by title, but not by name, for failing to supervise security adequately or to clarify the rules of engagement, were Vice Admiral Edward Martin, commander of the Sixth Fleet; Admiral William Small, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe; and General Bernard Rogers, Commander in Chief of U.S. forces in Europe. The report noted, however, that just before the bombing Rogers had warned the Joint Chiefs about the increasing threat to the Marines and asked that their withdrawal be considered.

After the bombing, the FBI explosives specialists found that the Marine building had been hit by "the largest nonnuclear blast that they have ever examined." Even if the truck had been stopped in the airport road, some 330 ft. from the building, damage would probably still have been severe. The report praised the military for providing medical care to trapped comrades with a speed that was "nothing short of heroic." It also had a consoling comment for Geraghty, saying that he had made a "virtually superhuman effort" to meet "monumental demands" after the blast even though "his situation was not enhanced by the large number of important visitors who arrived at his command in the days that followed." The visitors included Congressmen, White House representatives and military brass.

It is standard procedure for the military to conduct thorough investigations of tragedies like the one in Beirut. Pentagon officials insist that such inquiries do not make officers less inclined to act boldly in the field. Rather, they are seen as making officers more aware of their supervisory responsibilities.

What was unusual was the intervention of the President. "Hooray, the heat's off us," said one Pentagon official when Reagan assumed responsibility. But another top military man expressed a more prevalent view. "The entire military is built on the basis of evaluation of performance," he said. "A lot of people will come to believe that if you get into trouble, there will always be some political escape mechanism." While the officers criticized will not face a court-martial, they have probably lost hope of important assignments or attaining significant promotions. Any officer who feels that the commission criticized him unfairly has the right to ask for a hearing to clear his record.

The Long report, following a similarly critical assessment of the Lebanon involvement by a House subcommittee, undoubtedly increases the pressure on the Administration to redeploy or withdraw the Marines. If it does not do so, the Democratic presidential candidates are likely to use the report to assail Reagan's policy on Lebanon. If there are further casualties, the report will serve as a detailed reminder that the military has serious qualms about the role it has been asked to play in Lebanon.

At week's end, Democratic Front Runner Walter Mondale, who had previously urged that the Marines be redeployed in Lebanon, called for their withdrawal within 45 days. Mondale said the U.S. fleet, "which has proven its effectiveness," should remain off the Lebanese coast. Colorado Senator Gary Hart charged that Reagan "gave the phony impression of assuming responsibility, but it wasn't his job to put up fences and sandbags in Leba non. The hook he is on is how to get the Ma rines out of Lebanon."

Pressure to do just that is growing. House Speaker Tip O'Neill announced that he will meet with 14 Democratic Congressmen this week to reassess the House majority's attitude toward Rea gan's Lebanon policy. In September, the Democrats gave Reagan enough votes to extend the Marines' stay in Lebanon until April 1985. An aide to Republican Sena tor Howard Baker said that the Majority Leader also expects a bipartisan push for an early Marine pullout when the Congress reconvenes on Jan. 23. While Rea gan's own rhetoric about not yielding to terrorism may have narrowed his options, it was evident that the Administration, too, is now trying to find ways to make life safer for the Marines -- or to bring them back home.

-- ByEd Magnuson.

Reported by Laurence I. Barrett with the President and Bruce van Voorst/Washington

"The other commission members: Robert J. Murray, a former Under Secretary of the Navy; Army Lieut. General Joseph T. Palastra Jr.; Marine Corps Lieut. General Lawrence F. Snowden (ret.); Air Force Lieut. General Eugene F. Tighe Jr. (ret.).

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett, BRUCE VAN VOORST