Caught In The Act

By Ed Magnuson

From the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut to the mine blast that ripped the hull of the U.S.-reflagged tanker Bridgeton in the Persian Gulf last July, the U.S. has been humiliated by acts of violence that were almost certainly plotted by Iran. But persuasive proof remained frustratingly elusive. Ronald Reagan's threats of retaliation against any terrorists found with American blood on their hands carried a hollow ring on the all-too- frequent occasions when no evidence could be produced. But last week a carefully coordinated military operation in the gulf swiftly altered the image of U.S. helplessness. A well-laid trap caught Iran red-handed.

The incriminating evidence of Iran's lawlessness consisted of nine deadly mines whose horns bristled from the deck of the crippled vessel Iran Ajr. The Iranian navy landing craft was seized off Bahrain after a surprise attack by two U.S. helicopters left five Iranian sailors dead and 26 others captive. The black weapons, mounted on wheels, pointed silent but damning accusations at the regime of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini.

U.S. Army crews in the high-tech helicopters had used infrared vision- enhancing gear to watch the Iranians rolling their explosive cargo into the sea. Under questioning, some of the sailors admitted what they were doing and even told where they had dropped the lethal charges. U.S. Navy SEALs (sea, air and land commandos) who boarded the vessel found charts detailing the mine- laying scheme. This helped the Navy locate and disarm seven other mines that the Iran Ajr had dropped into the sea-lanes.

The evidence contradicted the claim made in the United Nations the next day by Iranian President Ali Khamenei that the landing craft was a "merchant ship" and that the mine-laying charge was a "pack of lies." After the Iranian press agency claimed that the Iran Ajr was carrying food supplies to the port of Bushire, U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger scoffed, "These things certainly weren't vegetables and fruits."

The Iranians brazenly charged that the U.S. had murdered innocent sailors aboard the Iran Ajr. Yet on that very day a mine presumed to be theirs took ) the lives of four apparent innocents on a Panamanian-register ed research vessel that sank so fast there was no time to radio a distress call.

Iran's newly aggressive naval forces last week also attacked a British- flagged tanker, Gentle Breeze, setting it afire and killing one seaman. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the assault "absolutely outrageous." In the wake of the attack, Britain finally ordered the closing of Iran's Arms Procurement Office in London, which has been operating openly on the international weapons market throughout the country's seven-year war with Iraq.

The violence left the Ayatullah's government further isolated in world opinion. At the U.N., sentiment grew for a Security Council move to embargo arms shipments to Iran. Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly shortly before the Iran Ajr was seized, President Reagan declared that the council "has no choice" but to take action if Iran refused to accept a cease-fire in the gulf war. Yet the U.S. was having trouble persuading the Soviets to endorse the embargo; a Soviet veto could kill the proposal.

Nonetheless, the week's events strengthened the once lonely American military position in the Persian Gulf. Although the bloodshed led to renewed efforts in Congress to invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the incident suggested that the U.S. finally seems able to muster both the will and the means to protect shipping against primitive but effective mining. That was an improvement from the summer days when American sailors could only stand futile watch with rifles as a defense against mines. Since the Bridgeton debacle, the U.S. has safely escorted nine U.S.-reflagged tanker convoys past Iranian missile batteries in the Strait of Hormuz.

Increasingly, once reluctant allies are applauding and even joining in the American determination to keep the gulf's international waters open. Since mid-August the U.S. fleet of 40 ships in the region has been joined by British, French, Belgian, Dutch and Italian warships and minesweepers.

The first drawing of Iranian blood by American forces produced sharp warnings from Iran that the Great Satan would be punished. As regular troops and Revolutionary Guards paraded through Tehran to mark the seventh anniversary of the gulf war, Khamenei vowed in New York that the "United States shall receive a proper response for this abominable act." U.S. military and diplomatic posts were placed on a worldwide alert against terrorist assaults.

While no one could predict where the U.S.-Iranian clashes might lead, the capture of the Iran Ajr gave the U.S. military a big lift. Defense Secretary Weinberger was elated as he hailed the operation: "We were capable, we were ready . . . and they ((U.S. forces)) did an extraordinary, skillful and difficult task very well." The successful military show was staged only a week after the FBI's seizure of a much wanted Shi'ite Muslim terrorist, Fawaz Younis, who was lured onto a yacht in the Mediterranean, seized and spirited off to stand trial in the U.S. for the 1985 hijacking of a Jordanian airliner that carried four Americans among its 70 passengers and crew.

Instrumental in the success of the gulf strike were the efforts of Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Contending that it is far better to prevent minelaying than to hunt for explosives after they are planted, Crowe overrode interservice rivalries and dispatched a specially equipped and trained Army unit to join the gulf fleet. Three weeks ago he visited Rear Admiral Harold Bernsen, commander of the Middle East Force on the command ship U.S.S. La Salle off Bahrain. The two officers worked on the plans to track and catch Iranian vessels capable of laying mines. Crowe gave Bernsen freedom to move swiftly once the trap was sprung. "The critical decision was his," Crowe told TIME last week. "I didn't want a long bureaucratic chain of command for this operation."

U.S. military sources say the Iran Ajr (pronounced Ah-zur; it means "heavenly reward") and its suspicious cargo were first spotted early in September by jointly operated U.S.-Saudi Arabian AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft, as well as carrier-based Navy P-3 surveillance planes. The 157-ft. roll-on, roll-off landing craft and two similar vessels, all much larger than the dinky dhows and other boats capable of dropping only a single mine or two, were placed under continuous electronic watch. When the Iran Ajr slipped out of the port of Bandar Abbas, many American eyes were watching.

Aboard the U.S.S. Jarrett, a guided-missile frigate cruising some 30 miles off Bahrain, pilots from Task Force 160 based in Fort Campbell, Ky., stood by with their OH-6A Cayuse helicopters. Built by Hughes Aircraft, the two-man OH- 6As are touted as the quietest choppers in the world. Beyond their silent- strike capability, they carry another little-known advantage: jutting just to the left of the nose of each of the helicopters is a boxy snooping device. Inside are infrared sensors capable of reading whatever might be unfolding ahead of the aircraft, even on a dark night.

Also patrolling nearby was the U.S.S. Guadalcanal, carrying a contingent of Navy SEALs, trained for varied covert operations and ready to move away from the mother vessel in a small boat. Both the Jarrett and the Guadalcanal were directed by Bernsen on the La Salle. Officers on all three vessels waited expectantly to see what the Iranian ship would do.

Radar screens in the information command center on the Jarrett tracked the Iran Ajr moving toward a site some 50 miles northeast of Bahrain, where tankers of many nations often anchor while awaiting berths at docks in Kuwait. A number of channels converge at this gulf crossroads; U.S. warships rendezvous here to pick up their escort missions. Two of the Army choppers lifted quietly off the Jarrett to get a closer look at the gray Iranian vessel.

Flying some 200 ft. above the sea and without lights, the two helicopters closed to within about 500 yds. of the Iranian ship. From that distance, and apparently hovering too quietly to be heard by the crew they were watching, the Army specialists peered at their monitors. The Iran Ajr had virtually stopped in the water. The shadowy figures of the sailors were doing precisely what the U.S. observers had been expecting. At midnight (gulf time) the pilot of the lead chopper reported to his command ship that the Iranians were "dropping objects overboard which appear to be mines."

On the La Salle, Bernsen heard the reports from the airborne spotters that the Iranians were pushing mines off a 10-ft. gangplank-like platform. At 12:03 a.m. he gave the Army pilot a curt order: "Execute."

Without giving their victims a warning, the two helicopters cut loose with a barrage of 7.62-mm rapid-fire machine-gun rounds and 2.75-in. rockets. A gas container toward the vessel's bow exploded, starting a fire. Another blaze erupted in the engine room. When the Army flyers stopped the attack and moved in to inspect the results, they were astonished to see figures on the ship still rushing about -- and pushing more mines overboard. Apparently, in the Pentagon's later analysis, the Iranians were trying to get rid of the evidence.

At 12:41 a.m. Bernsen ordered the choppers to halt the Iranians' continued seeding of the waters. The strafing resumed until the Iran Ajr was disabled, its stern on fire. Six hours later in the light of dawn the SEALs from the Guadalcanal scrambled up the hull of the crippled ship. They found no one alive. Three bodies had been left behind by the fleeing crewmen amid a scene of destruction caused by the chopper assaults. Windows were shattered and huge gouges pocked the hull and cabin. Offices and other rooms had been ransacked in a hasty effort by the Iranians to destroy papers.

When other Navy experts arrived to inspect the ship, they found that all but two of the nine mines arrayed at mid-deck were armed and, as one officer said, "ready to go." Luckily, one bullet that had pierced a mine had not set off its 250-lb. load of explosives. If it had, the other mines would presumably have ignited too. The crew might have been killed, and the long- sought evidence would have vanished.

The M-08 mines were of a primitive design created by the Russians as early as 1908 and still manufactured in recent years by North Korea. When a ship hits one of the protruding spikes, acid is released, detonating the charge. The tethers were set to keep the mines, waiting unseen but lethal, within 40 ft. or less of the surface. Navy specialists said the same type of mines had damaged the Bridgeton in the shipping channel to Kuwait in July and the Texaco Caribbean just outside the Strait of Hormuz in August. The same type of mine destroyed a supply boat in the Gulf of Oman last month, killing five crewmen.

As the Jarrett approached the site, moving cautiously to avoid any mines, the crews spotted ten Iranians drifting in rubber rafts. Sixteen others, including four wounded sailors, were in the water, clinging to flotsam or still swimming. All were picked up. The survivors claimed that two of their crewmen were missing and that one had sped off in a motorized "Zodiac" speedboat. The Iran Ajr's captain, who spoke English, was among the wounded.

While Washington officials pondered what to do with the men they delicately termed "detainees" rather than "prisoners," the Iranians were transferred from the Jarrett to the La Salle. Dressed in fresh La Salle T shirts and oversize jeans, the sailors were bound by the wrists with plastic handcuffs, their ankles were tied with cord, and each crewman was put on a cot in the ship's vehicle-storage room. On Saturday they were flown to Oman and released to the International Red Crescent (the Islamic version of the Red Cross) for repatriation. Their ill-fated ship was packed with explosives and scuttled in deep water off Bahrain.

U.S. officials had no qualms about the swift use of force in the incident. "These guys were performing a hostile act -- putting mines in the water," said Crowe. "Warnings don't make sense at that point. You want to stop them -- and we did."

After Iranian President Khamenei denied before the U.N. that the Ajr had been laying mines, U.S. diplomats briefly hoped that the 15-member Security Council would be emboldened into a unanimous vote for an arms embargo against Iran. But Khamenei had scoffed at the U.N. as a "paper factory for issuing worthless and ineffective orders," and the futility of the sanctions effort seemed to prove his point. Last July the council unanimously called for a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war, which Iraq declared it would accept. But Iran stalled, refusing to clarify its intentions even when visited by U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar during his unsuccessful peace mission to the gulf area two weeks ago.

Since any one of the five permanent members of the council (the U.S., Britain, France, the Soviet Union and China) can veto a resolution, an embargo rested heavily on Moscow and Peking. The Chinese, whom U.S. officials charged with regularly selling arms to Iran, have been cool to an embargo. In a U.N. address that was generally easy on the U.S., Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze sidestepped the sanctions issue and instead called for joint U.N. protection of gulf shipping.

After Secretary of State George Shultz held a one-hour meeting with Shevardnadze and lunched with China's Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian, the Reagan Administration seemed to give up hope of a quick sanctions vote. Instead, the U.S. showed more interest in preserving unity among the five permanent council members. The five did agree on a renewed effort to get Iran to endorse a cease-fire, threatening possible Soviet and Chinese votes for an embargo if it does not.

The capture of the Iran Ajr renewed another debate that seemed to have a similar lack of substantive effect. On Capitol Hill, a group of Senators claimed that the U.S. clearly was engaged in hostilities in the gulf. That, they argued, required the President to observe the War Powers Resolution. Under the law, Reagan is required to notify Congress of the use of U.S. military forces in a hostile situation; the troops would have to be withdrawn in 60 days unless both houses approved the assignment.

Noting that the law makes no distinction between offensive and defensive hostilities, Republican Senator Lowell Weicker of Connecticut challenged his colleagues to face their constitutional duties squarely as the branch of Government empowered to decide whether to declare war. A Senate vote to invoke the law had lost, 50 to 41, only a week earlier. Weicker accused both the President and Congress of being unwilling to take a stand on the military situation in the gulf. "Both the Congress and the President would prefer a fog, where if things go wrong, nobody can find you," Weicker charged.

Indeed, neither branch was eager to force the war-powers issue just after the politically popular U.S. military action. To mollify the Senate and House, Reagan sent letters to both bodies reporting on the U.S. seizure of the Iran Ajr and defending it as "necessary to protect U.S. vessels and U.S. lives from unlawful attacks." More such action would follow if needed, Reagan wrote. He made this report, he explained, in a "spirit of mutual cooperation toward a common goal." The ploy may have helped defuse the congressional rebellion. The Senate postponed until this week any decision on whether to press the issue.

Given Iran's continued belligerence toward the U.S. presence in the gulf, the prospect of further hostilities involving American forces is likely to keep Congress -- and eventually the U.S. public -- on edge. Yet the President seems determined to prevent interference with a policy that is just beginning to show results. To invoke the War Powers Resolution now, says a senior White House aide, would "introduce 60 days of uncertainty in a situation where we are now getting great credit for our dependability."

The critical issue, says a Western diplomat in the gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi, "is whether the U.S. has the guts to stick it out. The downfall of the Shah and the bugout from Lebanon are vividly remembered here as examples of an American collapse of will." The trap that was snapped on the Iran Ajr last week demonstrated more than improved American military capability. It sent a message about renewed American resolve, and the White House does not want that to evaporate.

With reporting by David S. Jackson/Bahrain and Bruce van Voorst/Washington