America's First Clash with Iran by Lee Allen Zatarain

Author:Lee Allen Zatarain
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027040
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781612000336
Publisher: Casemate Publishers and Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2010-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

“A ONE-DAY WAR”

One day after the Samuel Roberts mining, President Reagan met with his top national security advisors in Washington to review his options for retaliatory strikes. In the Gulf, within hours of the near-loss of the Roberts, a crisis action team had met with the Commander of the Joint Task Force Middle East (JTFME), Admiral Less, to review contingency plans for possible strikes against Iran. Intelligence personnel began gathering imagery and other information on potential targets, while maintaining an up-to-date plot on the locations of Iranian forces. Recommendations for strikes against Iran were sent to the U.S. Central Command on April 15. However, no decision on retaliatory action had been made at the President’s initial meeting because proof of the mine’s origin was not yet available.

It was not long in coming. On that same April 15, 1988, Marine helicopters from the USS Trenton found an M-08 type mine in the vicinity of the Shah Alum Shoals, where the Roberts was hit. Guided by smoke markers dropped by Marine CH-46 helicopters, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel took intelligence photographs of them, showing their serial numbers. Lot numbers on these mines indicated that they were from the same series found aboard the Iran Ajr when that ship had been seized in September 1987. Clearly, they had been laid by Iran.

President Reagan again met with his top advisors. It was felt that failure to take action would only encourage Iran to commit further provocations. The State Department wanted any action to be “proportionate” and related to the provocation. The Pentagon was more interested in striking at targets that had real military significance, particularly ones whose destruction would reduce Iran’s ability to hurt U.S. forces in the Gulf. Those kinds of targets included Iranian minelaying ships and mine storage depots. The JTFME’s first choice was to hit those targets with cruise missiles and air strikes. However, limiting collateral damage was an important consideration. That ruled out the Iranian naval headquarters at Bandar Abbas, which was located right next door to a hospital. In the end, the President again elected to refrain from hitting Iranian territory and chose to go after platforms in the Gulf. The Pentagon was also able to obtain approval to sink an Iranian warship. The idea was that an Iranian mine had seriously damaged and nearly claimed a U.S. warship, and now Iran would pay in kind. “They got one of our frigates, and we wanted one of theirs,” an official later said.1

There was one particular Iranian ship that the U.S. Navy was hoping to get a shot at: the frigate Sabalan. It was a 1,540-ton, Vosper Mark V-class frigate built in Britain for the navy of the Shah. Over the last few years it had earned a bloody reputation for its attacks on neutral ships, in which it would viciously concentrate its fire against the civilian crew quarters. On several occasions the Sabalan had stopped ships in the Strait of Hormuz and boarded them to inquire about their destinations and cargoes.

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