The Gulf Punch, Counterpunch

By Michael S. Serrill

"Rashadat, Rashadat. This is the U.S. Navy. We will commence firing on your position at 1400 hours. You have 20 minutes to evacuate the platform." The warning was broadcast from a convoy of four U.S. destroyers steaming 3 1/2 miles southeast of Iran's Rashadat oil-loading platforms in the Persian Gulf. The Iranians did not reply, but within minutes 20 to 30 men were seen scrambling off the facility, situated 75 miles off the Iranian coast, and into a small boat that sped north toward Lavan Island. The warships -- the U.S.S. Hoel, John Young, Leftwich and Kidd -- then poured 1,065 rounds of 5-in. shells onto the two platforms. When the blasting was over, the structures had been reduced to twisted, flaming hulks.

With the naval bombardment, the conflict in the Persian Gulf entered a new and more dangerous phase, one characterized, in typical Middle East fashion, by attacks and counterattacks, retaliation and revenge. The U.S. was responding to Iranian Silkworm missile strikes on the oil tankers Sungari and Sea Isle City two weeks ago. The Sungari is U.S.-owned, and the Sea Isle City is one of eleven Kuwaiti tankers now flying the American flag. President Reagan called the 85-minute blitz of the oil platforms a "prudent yet restrained response" to Iranian aggression. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger told a press briefing after the Navy action, "We consider the matter closed."

The Iranians, however, did not see it that way. "God willing, we will carry out our duty in the coming days and make them sorry," said Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani. At midweek the vow of vengeance was made good. Yet another Silkworm missile was launched from the Iranian-occupied Fao peninsula, about 50 miles north of Kuwait City. The missile scored a direct hit on Sea Island, Kuwait's only deep-water oil-loading facility. The strike caused an explosion that could be heard 20 miles away in Kuwait City. The loading dock's destruction could temporarily cripple the emirate's ability to pump its oil aboard the largest supertankers. No ship was docked there when the Silkworm struck, so only five workers were hurt, none seriously.

Kuwaiti defense forces on Failaka Island, 15 miles northeast of Kuwait City, watched the Silkworm blast off from Fao and head toward the oil dock. No effort was made to shoot the missile down, as had been done with the Silkworm that hit the Sea Isle City. Late in the week, however, Kuwaiti officials announced that they were setting up U.S.-made Hawk missile batteries on Failaka, where they will be close enough to Fao to interdict the Silkworms. The Kuwaitis have had the Viet Nam-era missiles since 1975.

The U.S. retaliation and the Iranian counterstrike abruptly changed the profile of the gulf confrontation. Suddenly it looked less like a protective operation, in which U.S. warships quietly go about keeping Kuwaiti oil tankers out of harm's way, and more like a direct face-off between Iran and the U.S. -- a situation that, given the state of high dudgeon on both sides, could easily slide out of control. Secretary Weinberger, having made his point militarily, tried to turn down the rhetoric. "We do not seek any further confrontation with Iran," he said, "but we will be fully prepared to meet any escalation of military actions by Iran with stronger countermeasures." President Reagan was somewhat blunter. "We're not going to have a war with Iran," he said. "They're not that stupid."

Though the U.S. bombardment of Iranian oil platforms raised new fears, it received quiet backing from the Arab gulf states and more vocal support from West European allies and even from Congress, where the Senate has been eager to enhance Congress's role in deciding gulf policy. One senior Pentagon officer said the attack on the oil platforms, though seen by some of his colleagues as too mild, was "as much as we could do to the Iranians while doing the least possible to the Congress." The Senate passed a resolution supporting the retaliation by a 92-to-1 vote. Majority Leader Robert Byrd ! called the action "minimal and appropriate."

The Administration got more good news when the Senate postponed consideration of a bill that would have attempted to force the President to invoke the War Powers Resolution. That 1973 law gives Congress a role in deciding whether to continue a military action of the kind under way in the gulf. The Administration has maintained that the resolution does not apply to the U.S. presence. At a meeting with TIME editors last week, Weinberger claimed that Administration officials had done "more than we are obliged to do" when President Reagan conferred with congressional leaders before launching the assault and then issued a cursory written report to Congress.

After putting aside debate on the war-powers bill, the Senate passed a much weaker resolution, requiring the Administration to give a full report on the gulf situation to Congress within 30 days. The legislators would then have 30 days to pass a nonbinding resolution approving or rejecting the policy.

Like Congress, the public seems to have lined up behind the Administration, while worrying about a wider war. In a poll taken last week for TIME by Yankelovich Clancy Shulman,* 59% of those questioned approved of the reflagging operation in the gulf, up from 53% in a similar poll last August. At the same time, 73% of those questioned thought the U.S. actions were "likely" to result in more terrorism, and 68% thought they would result in a "military exchange" between Iran and the U.S. Despite those fears, 60% of those polled were in favor of stronger retaliatory action against Iran.

The White House did not need any polls to decide to take aggressive action in the wake of the attack on the Sea Isle City, in which two Americans were injured. The only questions were how and when to act. To some, the most logical course was to send Navy jets over Fao and pulverize the offending Silkworm missile launchers. But this scenario presented problems. The Chinese- made missiles can be moved within hours to another site. Since U.S. officials deliberated for several days before responding, a strike at Fao made little sense. "All we'd do there," Admiral William Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told TIME , "is kill a lot of date trees."

In addition, Fao is at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, too far from the only U.S. fighter-bombers in the region. Those are aboard the U.S. aircraft carrierRanger in the Arabian Sea and could not reach Fao without cumbersome midair refueling. The U.S. would only undertake a Fao mission if its planes were granted landing rights in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, both of which have refused for fear of Iranian reprisal. Despite the recent attacks on Kuwait, Defense Minister Sheik Salem Al-Sabah last week reiterated his country's opposition to giving the U.S. access to the bases.

A final factor ruling out Fao was the Pentagon's assumption that its missile emplacements are protected by Hawk batteries -- possibly the very ones made operational by the Reagan Administration's shipment of spare parts to Tehran in 1986 in an effort to free American hostages in Lebanon. The Administration was not willing to risk having a plane shot down or a pilot captured and marched through the streets of Tehran. The State Department last week issued new warnings to Americans not to travel to Iran because of "its virulent anti-American policies and support for terrorism."

Having rejected retaliation against Silkworm sites, U.S. officials began to consider other possibilities. Defense Secretary Weinberger and Admiral Crowe favored sinking an Iranian frigate, but that option was rejected by White House officials because it might result in Iranian casualties, which would trigger more demands that the War Powers Resolution be invoked. Possible attacks on Farsi Island, a base for the Revolutionary Guards that harass gulf shipping, and on the port city of Bandar Abbas, were turned down for the same reasons.

The Administration finally settled on the Rashadat oil platforms, which are part of a larger oil field called Rostam, as the perfect target. The facility, which has an underwater pipeline running to Iran's coastal Lavan Island and originally consisted of three platforms, has not been used for oil-loading purposes since one of its platforms was destroyed by Iraqi planes in November 1986. Instead, said Weinberger, it has recently been used "to mount radar surveillance, to report on convoy movements and to launch small-boat attacks against nonbelligerent shipping." Because Rostam is in international waters, attacking it did not blatantly challenge Iranian sovereignty. Militarily, the risks were minimal. Hitting Rostam also offered a small measure of revenge. On Oct. 8 a U.S. Navy helicopter reported being fired on from the facility.

When the four destroyers moved into position to launch their bombardment, two other warships were already posted at positions northeast of the platforms, prepared to stop any Iranian effort to defend them from Bandar Abbas. The initial shells hit stored fuel oil and ammunition, setting off a furious fire and a series of explosions. After 45 minutes little was left of the platforms, but the shelling continued. "We didn't spare the shells," said Weinberger. A senior naval officer was more emphatic: "We made a show of force."

After the shelling stopped, a Navy SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) commando team in a rubber Zodiac raft tied explosives to the pilings that remained and demolished them. Five miles away, a second SEAL team boarded another oil platform abandoned hours earlier by Iranians and destroyed communications and other equipment.

For all the sound and fury, the attack on Rostam was mostly symbolic. Neither side suffered any casualties, and loss of the platforms will not have much effect on the Iranians' ability to interfere with gulf ship traffic. U.S. hard-liners and Kuwaiti officials were dismayed, in fact, that the blow had been so soft. Some analysts saw no alternative in the long run to taking out the Silkworms, whatever the dangers and logistical difficulties. "You either have to destroy the missile sites or give up the notion of protecting the ships," said Edward Luttwak, a Washington-based military analyst.

An even better idea would be to cut off the source of the missiles, and last week the U.S. took steps to do that by announcing it was suspending transfers of high-technology equipment to China until it stops selling Silkworms to Iran. Both China and Iran deny any such transactions, but intelligence reports leave little doubt that Peking is the source. The suspension of technology sales means that China will not be able to buy legally from the U.S. some of the computers, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and other electronic gear essential to its modernization.

The latest gulf violence raised a host of larger questions. Chief among them: What will it now take to end the U.S.-Iran conflict? As last week's events show, both sides are on the alert, poised to take retaliatory action to defend their pride and maintain their credibility. Given the escalation mentality, a series of small confrontations could lead to more deadly military incidents. On the other hand, the fact that Iran responded to the U.S. attack by again hitting at Kuwait suggests that Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini is not ready to confront the U.S. military directly. Instead, Iran has chosen to sow * confusion in the ranks of U.S. policymakers by striking collateral targets like Kuwait.

As a result, gulf specialists wondered last week whether the U.S. can or should take additional measures to defend the emirate. The broad U.S. goal in the gulf is, after all, to keep its waters open to shipping. If the Kuwaitis are prevented from selling their oil because of constant Iranian bombardment, then the stream of commerce will be disrupted. Moreover, the U.S. made a partial commitment to Kuwait's defense in July by agreeing to reflag its tankers. The U.S. extended that commitment when it reacted to the attack on the Sea Isle City, which was in Kuwaiti waters and therefore technically out of U.S. jurisdiction. Secretary Weinberger last week stretched it still further, saying in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. warships would come to the aid of any neutral ship under attack, and might provide escort service to non-Kuwaiti ships "for a specific voyage."

Meanwhile, the U.S. gulf force was joined last week by an unusual new commando team: a crack unit of five dolphins, just out of boot camp. The marine mammals were set to work guarding two barges off Bahrain that the Navy is using as helicopter pads. Another group will arrive this week and begin work as mine hunters. They are all part of a top-secret Navy marine-mammal training program that costs $25 million a year. Officials took care to reassure animal lovers that the dolphins are used only to find mines, not to explode them, and therefore are in no danger -- except for the normal risk incurred while swimming in what is fast becoming a serious war zone.

FOOTNOTE: *Conducted by telephone on Oct. 22 among 810 adult Americans. The sampling error is plus or minus 3.5%.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Kuwait and Bruce van Voorst/Washington