Operation Eagle Claw
Operation Eagle Claw was a failed United States Department of Defense attempt to rescue 53 embassy staff held captive by Revolutionary Iran on 24 April 1980. It was ordered by U.S. president Jimmy Carter after the staff were seized at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran. The operation, one of Delta Force's first, encountered many obstacles and failures and was subsequently aborted. Eight helicopters were sent to the first staging area in Great Salt Desert called Desert One, but only five arrived in operational condition. One had encountered hydraulic problems, another was caught in a sand storm, and the third showed signs of a cracked rotor blade. During the operational planning, it was decided that the mission would be aborted if fewer than six helicopters remained operational upon arrival at the Desert One site, despite only four being absolutely necessary. In a move that is still discussed in military circles, the field commanders advised President Carter to abort the mission, which he did.
As the US forces prepared to withdraw from Desert One, one of the remaining helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft that contained both servicemen and jet fuel. The resulting fire destroyed both aircraft and killed eight servicemen. In the context of the Iranian Revolution, Iran's new leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, stated that the mission had been stopped by an act of God who had foiled the US mission in order to protect Iran and its new Islamist government. In turn, Carter blamed his loss in the 1980 US presidential election mainly on his failure to secure the release of the hostages. The American hostages were released the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration.
Motivation for military intervention
On 4 November 1979, fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were taken hostage in the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, by a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, avid supporters of the Iranian Revolution. U.S. president Jimmy Carter called the hostage-taking an act of "blackmail" and the hostages "victims of terrorism and anarchy". but in Iran it was widely seen as an act against the US and its influence in Iran, including its perceived attempts to undermine the Iranian Revolution and its longstanding support of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979.The crisis had reached a climax after diplomatic negotiations failed to secure the release of the hostages. Facing elections and with little to show from negotiations, the Carter government ordered the State Department to sever diplomatic relations with Iran on 7 April 1980. Cyrus Vance, the United States Secretary of State, had argued against a push by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski for a military solution to the crisis. Vance left Washington on Thursday 10 April for a long weekend vacation in Florida. The following day, Friday 11 April, Brzezinski held a newly scheduled meeting of the National Security Council where he insisted that it was time to "lance the boil", and Carter said it was "time for us to bring our hostages home". During this Security Council meeting of 11 April Carter confirmed that he had authorized the mission. He also continued to entertain the planning for a concurrent punitive air-strike, but this was finally rejected on 23 April, one day before the start of the mission, which was code-named Operation Eagle Claw.
Operation Eagle Claw occurred amid a breakdown in diplomatic relations between Iran and its western neighbor Iraq, including frequent border skirmishes, calls by Khomeini for Iraqi Shi'ites to revolt against the ruling Ba'ath Party, and allegations of Iraqi support for Arab and Kurdish separatists in Iran. According to an 11 April 1980 Central Intelligence Agency analysis, "Evidence indicates that Iraq had probably planned to initiate a major military move against Iran with the aim of toppling the Khomeini regime" and had "sought to engage the Kuwaitis to act as intermediary in obtaining United States approval and support for Iraqi military action against Iran". Carter, who wrote in his diary on 10 April that "The Iranian terrorists are making all kinds of crazy threats to kill the American hostages if they are invaded by Iraq—whom they identify as an American puppet," may have been influenced by such reports to approve a rescue mission prior to the outbreak of a possible Iran–Iraq War.
Planning and preparation
Planning for a possible rescue mission began on 6 November, two days after the hostages were taken. Army Major General James B. Vaught was appointed as Joint Task Force commander and was to be forward-based at Wadi Kena in Egypt, reporting directly to the President. In turn, he had two field commanders: USAF Colonel James H. Kyle as the field commander for aviation and US Army Colonel Charlie Beckwith as ground forces field commander. In planning the operation, some of the maps the US used were tourist maps.The plan was designed so all four main services of the Department of Defense would have a part: Army, Navy, Air Force and the Marine Corps. It was planned that helicopters and C-130 aircraft, following different routes, would rendezvous on a salt flat 200 miles southeast of Tehran. Here the helicopters would refuel from the C-130s and pick up the combat troops who had flown in on the C-130 transports. The helicopters would then transport the troops to a mountain location closer to Tehran, from which the rescue raid would be launched into the city the following night. The operation was further to be supported by an in-country CIA team. On completion of the raid, hostages were to be taken to a captured Tehran airport from where they were to be flown to Egypt.
On 31 March, anticipating the need for military action, a US Air Force Combat Controller, Major John T. Carney Jr., was flown in a Twin Otter to Desert One by covert CIA operatives Jim Rhyne and Claude "Bud" McBroom for a clandestine survey of the proposed landing areas for the helicopters and C-130s. Carney installed remotely operated infrared lights and an IR strobe to outline a landing pattern for the pilots. He also took soil samples to determine the load-bearing properties of the desert surface. At the time of the survey, the salt-flat floor was hard-packed sand, but in the ensuing three weeks an ankle-deep layer of powdery sand had been deposited by sandstorms.
The Tehran CIA Special Activities Division in-country paramilitary team, led by retired US Army Special Forces officer Richard J. Meadows, had two assignments: to obtain information about the hostages and the embassy grounds and to transport the rescue team from Desert Two to the embassy grounds in pre-staged vehicles. Desert One was in the South Khorasan Province, in the Dasht-e Lut desert near Tabas ; Desert Two was located 50 miles short of Tehran at. A small advance force infiltrated Tehran and secured a warehouse where five Ford trucks and two Mazda vans with facade compartments that would conceal the assaulters as they went through Iranian checkpoints were kept.
Assault teams
The ground forces consisted of 93 Delta soldiers to assault the embassy and a 13-man special forces assault team from Detachment A to assault the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where three further hostages were being held. A third group of 12 Rangers were to act as the roadblock team at the Desert One landing area. Rangers were also tasked with taking and holding the Manzariyeh Air Base near Tehran to be used to escape from Iran. In addition, the CIA had prepared an in-country team of 15 Iranian and American Persian-speakers, most of whom would act as truck drivers.Ingress
The complex plan required that on the first night, three USAF EC-130s, carrying the logistical supplies, and three MC-130E Combat Talons, carrying Delta Force and Ranger troops, would depart Masirah, off the coast of Oman, for Desert One, a flight of over. They would be refueled by Air Force KC-135 tankers en route. Desert One would be secured by a protection force, and once secured, a refueling area would be established for the helicopters with approximately of jet fuel being made available from collapsible fuel bladders carried in the C-130s.Eight United States Navy RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters were positioned aboard, off the coast of Iran. The helicopters would fly to Desert One, refuel, load up the Delta Force and part of the Ranger teams, then fly further to Desert Two. As it would be close to morning, the helicopters and ground forces would hide during the day at Desert Two. The rescue operation would take place the second night.