In the Dead of the Night

By William R. Doerner

It was a sudden strike that leaped live right out of the nightly news. At the precise moment that the three networks began airing their evening newscasts last Monday, U.S. attack planes were roaring toward their five Libyan targets. Out of the black Mediterranean night they came, racing through orange cones of frantic antiaircraft fire to punish the man Ronald Reagan calls the "mad dog of the Middle East." As Americans, transfixed at their television sets, listened to the muffled rattle and thump of the assault filtering over the phone lines of network correspondents holed up in a Tripoli hotel, the U.S. attackers delivered their lethal cargo of laser-directed bombs. As quickly as they had come, the warplanes wheeled out to sea, vanishing back into the gloom, all safe but one.

Even for an Administration accustomed to making its moves with television coverage firmly in mind, the timing of the 7 o'clock strike was extraordinary. Ronald Reagan could hardly have written a more gripping script to dramatize his determination to strike out militarily at terrorist regimes. By the time Reagan took to the airwaves to explain and justify the raids, they had already been discussed--and generally applauded--at dinner tables across the land.

Actually, the schedule of Operation El Dorado Canyon, as the strikes were code-named by Pentagon planners, was dictated by the military necessity of hitting Libya in the middle of the night. It was just one factor in an enormously complex operation that involved 150 aircraft and resulted in the launching of more than 60 tons of bombs. The outcome was far from perfect: the U.S. lost one F-111 fighter-bomber along with its two-man crew and unintentionally caused some civilian casualties and damage. But El Dorado also produced more than a few nuggets of military gold, including severe damage to at least eight Soviet-built Libyan planes and Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi's personal headquarters. "We didn't do everything right," says Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But on balance, he maintains, the operation "was very successful."

Plans for a strike of some sort against Libya began late in March when U.S. intelligence learned of Libyan intentions to conduct future terrorist acts like the West Berlin disco bombing on April 4. At a National Security Council meeting on April 7, the President clearly decided that the time for action had arrived. His command: "Try to make the world smaller for the terrorists."

Though Reagan did not order up an air strike then and there, it was clear to military planners that such an action was inevitable. The Pentagon brass was concerned, however, that it lacked the firepower to hit Gaddafi with sufficient force. Since the Sixth Fleet's skirmish only three weeks earlier with Libyan forces in the Gulf of Sidra, the fleet's strength had considerably diminished with the departure of the aircraft carrier Saratoga for its home base in Mayport, Fla. There was not sufficient time to order the flattop back to the central Mediterranean to join the carriers Coral Sea and America.

Political and moral considerations further complicated the military planning. The President's guidelines for retaliation against terrorists have always been to hit precisely defined targets and to minimize the chance of injuring civilians. Both concerns dictated a low-level attack with precision bombing. Furthermore, it would have to be carried out at night, when few people were on the streets. A night raid was also likely to risk fewer fliers than a daylight attack. Taking all these factors into account, Crowe and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that additional aircraft would be necessary. The ones most ideally suited to the mission were the Air Force's F-111s at Britain's Royal Air Force Base at Lakenheath. Reason: like the Navy A-6 craft, the F-111s are equipped with infrared bombing sights capable of highly accurate nighttime targeting.

After the Security Council met in the Oval Office on Wednesday, April 9, a joint security-intelligence team prepared a list of five targets. First on the list was the Bab al Azizia army compound, which serves as Gaddafi's command center and residence. "We hit Gaddafi's barracks because it's the nerve center for his command structure and headquarters of his loyalist guard," says a top national security aide. There is little doubt that Azizia was also targeted in the hope that the Colonel would be very much at home and killed or injured in the attack. Using the military euphemism for civilian casualties, one Administration official deadpanned, "If Gaddafi had been killed, I don't think it would have been considered 'collateral damage.' " Indeed, an additional reason for staging a night raid was to catch Gaddafi asleep, though U.S. intelligence officials warned the Administration that the Colonel is believed to rotate his sleeping quarters for security reasons. No fewer than five F-111s were assigned to hit Gaddafi's compound. The hope, says a senior Administration official, was to "turn the barracks into dust."

Next on the hit list was the military section of the Tripoli International Airport, base of Libya's fleet of nine Il-76s, which have been used in terrorist operations for supply and transport. A third target was the Benghazi army barracks, which Gaddafi uses as an alternative command post. Then came barracks at the naval port of Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, a commando training facility. Finally, security officials recommended a strike at the Benina airfield, where Libya's MiG-23 interceptors are based, as a precaution against counterattack.

A large wrench was thrown into the operation when the French and Spanish refused to permit F-111s to fly over their territory. A mission by U.N. Ambassador Vernon Walters to line up support from the allies failed to change their minds. So instead of flying 1,600 nautical miles due southeast from Britain to their targets, the squadron would be forced to keep to international skies and detour 2,800 nautical miles around the Iberian peninsula.

Reagan gave final approval to the plan on Sunday, April 13, following his return to the White House from Camp David. In doing so, the President asked Admiral Crowe how late he could still order a cancellation of the mission if conditions should warrant a change of plans. The Joint Chiefs Chairman assured his boss that he could command a turnaround as late as ten minutes before strike time.

The first aircraft off the ground Monday, at 12:13 p.m. EST, were 28 tankers from Royal Air Force bases in Fairford and Mildenhall. Minutes later a squadron of 24 two-seater khaki-and-brown F-111 attack bombers began streaking off runways at Lakenheath and were joined by five EF-111 electronic jamming planes whose mission was to disable Libyan radar capabilities. Flying at 30,000 ft., the force rendezvoused over southern England and refueled four times during its seven-hour flight through darkened skies. After the first refueling, seven planes, brought along as a reserve in case of airborne malfunctions in the others, broke out of formation and returned to base.

Meanwhile, the carriers Coral Sea and America, stationed in the midMediterranean, were steaming toward the coast of Libya. Between 5:20 and 6:20 p.m., close to 100 aircraft catapulted off their decks--18 A-6 and A-7 strike and strike-support craft, six F/A-18 fighters, 14 EA-6B electronic jamming planes and a variety of support craft. As the Air Force's F-111 squadron rounded the tip of Tunisia, it was skillfully integrated into the Navy's airborne armada by a single Air Force officer providing coordination from an airborne tanker.

With one squadron heading for Tripoli and the other for Benghazi, pilots dropped to altitudes under 500 ft. to avoid radar detection. This strict insistence on low-level approaches is a fairly recent development for the U.S. military. "Every pilot loves to do yanks and banks and dive and drive, but this is dangerous until you have attrited the threat," Navy Secretary John Lehman said last week in an interview with TIME. "You have to hit with antiradar devices. This results in an emphasis on night, low-level attack, which can beat any defense if you do it right."

Aircraft carrying such radar-jamming devices, as well as HARM missiles to take out radar sites, were the first to reach the target cities, approaching at 6:54 p.m. Precisely at 7 p.m., the squadron of A-6 fighters roared over Benghazi from the Gulf of Sidra and began bombing the airfield. In Tripoli, part of the F-111 squadron had circled around inland and approached from the south. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. "We were able to see the hits," recalled one Navy airman, who had spent many hours studying photos of his target. "They looked just where they should have been."

The U.S. was able to achieve total surprise in part by giving the Soviets the slip. The carrier task force managed to lose the Soviet warships that usually shadow the fleet. If the Soviets did spot the planes, at any rate, they evidently did not tip off their friends in Libya.

In Tripoli, the thunderous whine of the jet engines was followed by sudden concussive crescendos, as 500-lb. gravity bombs and 2,000-lb. Paveway II laser-guided bombs started to explode. The massive blasts shook windows throughout the city, jolting sleeping residents awake--and sometimes more than that. "When the firing woke me up, I immediately thought of throwing myself on the floor," recalled an Italian resident. "Then a big explosion did it for me."

Several minutes into the attack, two things went tragically wrong, possibly in connection with each other. One of the F-111s dropped its bombs in a residential area a mile south of the harbor, killing several civilians, destroying homes and damaging other buildings, including the French embassy and the Swiss Ambassador's residence. It seems highly coincidental, to say the least, that the bomb exploded only a few blocks from Libya's internal- security headquarters, reputedly a onetime haunt of the notorious terrorist Abu Nidal. U.S. officials insist, however, that the security facility was not a U.S. target.

Some Pentagon officials theorize that the bomb may have been dropped by an attacker that was out of control. Three Navy pilots reported seeing one aircraft turn into a "fireball" and disappear into the ocean about ten miles offshore. The missing crewmen, who were presumed dead after a search yielded no signs of life, were Captain Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci, 33, of Puerto Rico and Captain Paul F. Lorence, 31, of San Francisco.

Over their targets, U.S. pilots were confronted with an astonishing barrage of Libyan defensive fire. The night sky over Tripoli was stitched with orange streaks as tracers and missiles arced up toward the attackers. "They fired everything they had," said a senior Pentagon official, including Soviet-built SAM-2, -3, -6 and -8 missiles and ZSU-23-4 antiaircraft guns. Said Vice Admiral Frank Kelso, commander of the Sixth Fleet, who was in overall command of El Dorado Canyon: "I don't think anybody has ever flown a mission in any more dense SAM environment than they were in today."

What prevented the Libyan missiles from inflicting real damage was the fact that most of them were fired without radar guidance. "We forced the Libyans to turn off their radar," says Lehman. "If they turned them on to guide their missiles, they would get a HARM down the throat." Nor was any defense mounted by the Libyan air force, whose pilots are notoriously poor night flyers. Military intelligence intercepted a radio transmission of air force headquarters in Tripoli pleading with a base commander in Benghazi shortly before the attack to get his craft in the air. The commander's reply: immediate takeoff was impossible.

But the performance of U.S. equipment was flawed. In an effort to prevent any bombing that might be deemed indiscriminate, U.S. airmen were under orders to abort their missions if on-board equipment showed the slightest glitch. Five of the 18 F-111 craft developed such malfunctions, probably in their radar targeting equipment, as did two of the carrier-based A-6 craft. Pentagon officials rightly maintain that the rules of engagement in wartime would not be as stringent as those for the Libyan mission, but the high rate of even minor malfunctions is hardly encouraging.

The bomb run completed, U.S. craft lifted quickly out of the Libyan light show and headed north. For the airmen flying the F-111s, that prospect included an additional eight hours' flying time and two more midair refueling operations. One last snafu occurred when one of the F-111s overheated and was diverted to a U.S. naval station near the Spanish town of Rota. When the rest of the crews returned to Britain after spending 15 hours strapped into the F- 111s' tight quarters, some men had to be lifted out of their seats.

By then Libyan radio was claiming many casualties, including the death of one of Gaddafi's eight children and the injury of two others. Dr. Mohamed Muafa, who identified himself as the Gaddafi family's physician, said he had found all three children in the wreckage of the colonel's home an hour after the attack. Washington officials were frankly surprised there were not more casualties in Gaddafi's compound. Of the five bombers assigned to hit it, four dropped 16 laser-guided 2,000-lb. Paveways. The bombs cratered the compound, blew out windows and caved in a wall or two, but they did not flatten any buildings. Gaddafi's tent was still standing, only slightly grazed by a fallen utility pole.

The Libyans also showed foreigners the residential damage wrought by U.S. bombs. But they showed no inclination to allow inspections of military targets. The U.S. displayed aerial photographs of the damage at the Benina air base near Benghazi showing the wreckage of at least four MiG-23 Flogger jets, two Mi-8 Hip lightweight helicopters and two F27 propeller-driven aircraft. The Pentagon estimates that at the Tripoli military airport the U.S. took out five Il-76 transports and caused major damage to several buildings. Defense officials admit that damage to the Sidi Bilal facility was less than they had expected, and withheld the results of bombing at the Benghazi barracks.

Libya's only military riposte to the raid was feeble. On Tuesday afternoon it launched two Soviet-made SS-1 ballistic missiles, each with about a ton of dynamite in its warhead, in the general direction of the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Fired from a military base near the Tunisian coast, they were evidently aimed at a Coast Guard navigational aid facility located on Lampedusa. Both missiles exploded three miles short of land.

Tripoli also claimed that it had knocked as many as a dozen U.S. aircraft out of the skies, and that surviving pilots were being hunted down by local citizens "like mad dogs." Authorities made no attempt to prove either claim, but few Libyans expected Gaddafi to let matters rest where they stood. Nor did those on the front line of the U.S. side seem to think that last week's raid put an end to the contest of wills between Gaddafi and Washington. On the day after the raid, TIME Correspondent Sam Allis noticed that someone had scrawled a message on the circular rear end of a Sidewinder missile stored on the deck of the carrier America. The grim inscription: THIS IS FOR MOMAR'S MOM.

CHART: REAGAN DECIDES

WEEK OF APRIL 7-13

"Try to make the world smaller for the terrorists," commanded President Reagan on April 7, as the U.S. looked for ways to forestall a new wave of Libyan terrorism. The planning for an air strike that would ultimately engage 150 warplanes and drop some 60 tons of bombs on Libya was intricate and constrained by a host of political and diplomatic as well as military considerations. It required U.S. airmen to fly through heavy flak in the dead of night and strike with flawless precision. The primary target: Colonel Gaddafi's headquarters. The unstated hope: that the Libyan leader would be asleep there when the bombs fell.

WALTERS VISITS EUROPE

APRIL 11-14

In a late-hour mission, the U.N. Ambassador was dispatched to win the backing of U.S. allies for a raid.

F-111s LEAVE U.K.

APRIL 14, 12:13p.m. TAKE OFF ...

ROUTE TO THE BATTLE

...7:00p.m. ATTACK

MAJOR TARGETS IN LIBYA

APRIL 14, 7:00-7:11:30p.m.

CLOSE UP ON TRIPOLI

The raid was a total surprise. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. The Libyans hastily put up a hail of antiaircraft fire, but their Soviet-made SAMs, fired without radar guidance, were wildly inaccurate. "We forced the Libyans to turn off their radar," says Navy Secretary John Lehman. "They knew if they turned them on to guide their missiles, they would get a HARM down the throat." Nor was any defense mounted by the Libyan air force, whose pilots are notoriously poor night flyers. Five F-111s were assigned to hit Colonel Gaddafi's compound, and four of them dropped 16 laser-guided 2,000-lb. bombs. The hope, said a senior Administration official, was to "turn the barracks into dust." The bombs cratered the compound, blew out windows and caved in a wall, but did not flatten any buildings. Gaddafi was probably safe in his underground bunker when the planes broke off the attack and headed back out to sea. One F-111, apparently hit by antiaircraft fire, never made it.

AFTERMATH

Lost raiders: F-111 Weapons System Officer Captain Paul F. Lorence and his pilot, Captain Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci. Their aircraft reportedly turned into a "fireball."

Reprisals: the corpses of three Western hostages seized in Lebanon, including American Peter Kilburn, dumped on a road outside Beirut two days after the raid.

With reporting by David Halevy and Bruce van Voorst/Washington