In the predawn darkness of 15 April 1986, the sky along the Libyan coast suddenly erupted in blinding fire and dense smoke. U.S. Navy attack aircraft from carriers in the central Mediterranean and U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers based in England had begun their attacks on terrorist facilities and military installations in or near the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. President Ronald Reagan had ordered the operation—code-named El Dorado Canyon—in retaliation for the Libyan government’s involvement in the bombing of a West Berlin discotheque that killed one off-duty American Soldier and mortally wounded another.
The raid, which was America’s first military action directed against international terrorism, had three objectives: punish the regime of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi for the West Berlin attack, interrupt further acts of Libyan terrorism by smashing key components of its infrastructure, and dissuade Gadhafi from future sponsorship and support of terrorist violence. Polls taken after the raid showed that the American people heartily approved the use of force against the Libyan dictator, but many believed that Reagan should have acted much earlier against the agents, sponsors, and supporters of terrorism.1
What’s apparent in the wake of 9/11 is that the U.S. actions against Libya that climaxed with the strike nearly 25 years ago were the United States’ first war against international terrorism; its ongoing campaign against al Qaeda is its second. The latter conflict has put Reagan’s war in clearer focus. It was marked by strong rhetoric, countless policy debates, and extreme caution in the use of force. Operation El Dorado Canyon, however, coming more than five years after Reagan took office, was a daring act that unnerved Libya’s dictator, forced him to pare back his involvement in terrorist violence to ensure his own survival, and sent an explicit warning to terrorists and terrorist states around the world.
Tough Talk But Little Action
When Reagan took office on 20 January 1981, Americans were already the principal targets and victims of international terrorism. In 1980 nearly 40 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide were directed against American citizens or property.2 On the very day Reagan became chief executive, 52 American hostages were freed after 444 days of captivity in Iran. The hostage crisis was a traumatic experience for the American people, and it contributed in large part to Reagan’s landslide victory over his predecessor, Jimmy Carter. A week after the inauguration, at a White House ceremony honoring the former hostages, Reagan committed the country to bold and determined action against terrorism: “Let terrorists beware that when the rules of international behavior are violated, our policy will be one of swift and effective retribution. We hear that we live in an era of limits to our power. Well, let it be understood that there are limits to our patience.”3
Seemingly acting in defiance of Reagan’s declaration, terrorists stepped up their violence against Americans over the next five years, and after each incident Reagan stated that the perpetrators and their sponsor would be held accountable for their deed, but he did not order retribution as he had promised. He did not avenge the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, the destruction of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut airport six months later, or the hijacking of TWA 847 to Beirut in June 1985.
The United States did score a stunning victory over terrorism by capturing the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in October 1985, and Reagan warned terrorists everywhere that “they can run but they can’t hide.”4 That triumph would be short-lived, however. Two months later, Palestinian terrorists carried out twin attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports, massacres that killed 20 travelers—including five Americans.
With each new act of violence, Americans became angrier and more insecure and wondered if Reagan’s war against terrorism consisted only of promises of stern action.5 Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman would later write that by early 1986, “It . . . appeared that despite our great power—and our rhetoric—terrorism would succeed against Reagan as it had against his predecessor.”6 Then, in mid-April 1986, Reagan responded convincingly to a terrorist attack by ordering the strike on Libya.
Targeting Gadhafi
America’s problems with Moammar Gadhafi had begun during Richard Nixon’s presidency. In 1973, the dictator declared the Gulf of Sidra south of 30 degrees 30 minutes north latitude to be sovereign Libyan territory. Gadhafi’s exaggerated claim violated international conventions governing territorial waters and spurned the right of navies to operate in the international waters and airspace of the central Mediterranean. Furthermore, during the 1970s the Libyan leader became a leading practitioner of state-sponsored terrorism, which he used to achieve his foreign policy objectives. He carried out acts of subversion against moderate governments in the Middle East and Africa and provided diplomatic support, training, arms, and funding to a disparate collection of terrorist groups worldwide. By the end of the decade, the United States and several other Western governments viewed him as the most notorious champion of international terrorism.
After Reagan committed the country to a war against terrorism, his policymakers focused their attention on Libya and its mercurial leader for a number of practical reasons. Gadhafi was the world’s most visible terrorist, several leaders in the Middle East and Africa detested his meddling regime, and—most important—Libya was the most vulnerable militarily of the leading state supporters of terrorism. Through exhaustive deliberation and debate, Reagan’s national security team crafted a multifaceted and incremental strategy that would defy Gadhafi’s illegal claim over the Gulf of Sidra, challenge his subversive activities, and confront his wide-ranging use of terrorism. The administration hoped this deliberate and measured approach would exploit Gadhafi’s domestic weaknesses and set the stage for an internal regime change.
During the first five years of the Reagan presidency, the administration’s strategy of diplomatic and economic sanctions, covert operations, and demonstrations of military force became stricter, bolder, and more assertive. In 1981 the Central Intelligence Agency launched a covert operation in Chad designed to challenge indirectly Gadhafi’s grip on power. In 1985, the CIA was set to provide lethal aid to Libyan dissidents in the hope that they would topple Gadhafi’s government, and National Security Council officials actively encouraged an Egyptian invasion of Libya. In 1982 the President banned the importation of Libyan oil, and four years later, he prohibited all commercial transactions between the United States and Libya.
During his first year in office, Reagan had directed the U.S. Sixth Fleet to conduct a large freedom-of-navigation exercise near Libya; five years later, he ordered the fleet to carry out a series of large and complex demonstrations, culminating in a huge surface-and-air operation in the Libyan-claimed Gulf of Sidra. The exercises vigorously denied Gadhafi’s illegal claim to the waters and forcefully demonstrated America’s revulsion of Libyan subversion and terror.
At the heart of American military power arrayed against Libya was the Navy’s formidable Battle Force Sixth Fleet (Task Force 60). The force included one or more battle groups consisting of an aircraft carrier, an air wing of advanced tactical aircraft, and a shielding flotilla of modern cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. Owing to the overwhelming strength of the battle force and flexible rules of engagement that permitted the fleet commander to respond vigorously to any hostile act directed at the force, U.S. ships and aircraft were able to operate with impunity in Libyan-claimed waters and airspace and vigorously repulse all attacks and threats of force by Gadhafi’s military.
During the August 1981 freedom-of-navigation exercise, Rear Admiral James E. Service led Task Force 60, which then consisted of the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and Forrestal (CV-59) aircraft carrier battle groups. When one of two Libyan Su-22 Fitter J aircraft fired an air-to-air missile at a pair of Nimitz-based F-14 Tomcats, the pilots of the American fighters acted swiftly in self-defense and, in a dogfight lasting about a minute, shot down the aggressors with Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.
Crossing the ‘Line of Death’
For about two years following the 1981 air engagement, Reagan’s Libya strategy seemed to quiet Gadhafi, but by 1984 the dictator was linked to several infamous acts of subversion, terrorism, and deadly mischief—most notably, the murder of a British policewoman outside the Libyan Embassy in London, the assassination of Libyan dissidents living abroad, and the mining of the Gulf of Suez. Reagan had failed to convince Gadhafi to renounce terrorism and subversion largely because the United States’ European allies either gave his policy—which included the closure of all Libyan embassies and a total ban on the purchase of the country’s oil—little support or rejected whole parts of it. They feared Libyan terrorism and strove to avoid any action that might threaten their lucrative commercial relationship with the country. After investigators uncovered evidence that Gadhafi’s government had supported the terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports on 27 December 1985, U.S.-Libyan tensions quickly escalated to an international crisis, but the United States found itself essentially alone in dealing with Gadhafi.
In early 1986, Reagan ordered the Sixth Fleet again to challenge Gadhafi. On three occasions, the fleet commander, Vice Admiral Frank B. Kelso, dispatched Task Force 60 to the vicinity of Libya to defy Tripoli’s claim of sovereignty over the Gulf of Sidra and confront Gadhafi regarding his practice of sponsoring, supporting, and encouraging acts of terrorism. In January and February, the USS Saratoga (CV-60) and Coral Sea (CV-43) battle groups conducted Operations Attain Document I and II. In each instance, the battle force, commanded by Rear Admiral David E. Jeremiah, promptly achieved naval and air superiority near the Libyan coastline. Navy and Marine Corps aviators performed nearly 150 intercepts on a variety of Libyan aircraft, but not one Libyan pilot achieved a firing position on a U.S. fighter plane.
In March, with the arrival in the Mediterranean of the USS America (CV-66) battle group, the huge naval force, totaling 26 warships and 250 carrier-based aircraft, executed Operation Attain Document III, a giant freedom-of-navigation exercise that included extensive surface and air activity below 32 degrees 30 minutes, which Gadhafi boasted would prove to be a “line of death” for the American fleet.
When Libya attacked American fighter aircraft with SA-5 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and threatened the force with missile patrol boats on 24 March, the fleet reacted with quick and deadly precision. Kelso activated Operation Prairie Fire, a contingency plan designed to counter any hostile act or perceived aggression directed at the fleet. In response to the missile attack, Saratoga-based A-7E Corsair IIs disabled the SA-5 battery with high-speed antiradiation missiles. Meanwhile, A-6E Intruders from the America and Saratoga attacked and sank the Waheed, a French-built fast missile boat, with Harpoon cruise missiles and Rockeye cluster bombs. On the 25th, Coral Sea– and America-based Intruders carried out a devastating Harpoon and Rockeye attack on the Ean Mara, a Soviet-built missile corvette.
To avenge his humiliating defeat in the Gulf of Sidra, Gadhafi ordered several terrorist operations designed to cause “maximum and indiscriminate casualties” against American citizens and interests overseas.7 In early April, Libyan agents crossed from East to West Berlin and carried out a deadly bombing of La Belle discotheque, a popular hangout for American servicemen. The blast killed two U.S. Soldiers and a Turkish woman; another 230 people, including 79 Americans, were injured. U.S. and British intelligence, however, intercepted communications between Tripoli and the Libyan Embassy in East Berlin that included the order for the operation and report of its successful outcome. The intercepts proved official Libyan involvement in the attack and provided Reagan with a long-sought smoking gun.
After the West Berlin bombing, Reagan concluded that diplomatic measures, economic sanctions, and large naval demonstrations had not produced a change in Gadhafi’s behavior. He therefore ordered Operation El Dorado Canyon. While the President realized that few allies would support the mission, one provided crucial backing. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher permitted U.S. Air Force F-111Fs fighter-bombers based in England to participate in the operation (their use on a non-NATO mission required the consent of the British government). Her approval would make possible a significantly larger and more destructive raiding force.
El Dorado Canyon
In the aftermath of Gadhafi’s sponsorship of a deliberate attack on American citizens, Task Force 60 and units of U.S. Air Forces Europe (USAFE) planned and carried out a precision, low-level, night air strike. Commencing at 0200 on 15 April, F-111Fs from Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) 48, based in Lakenheath, England, and A-6Es flying off the Coral Sea and America struck terrorist facilities and airfields in and near Tripoli and Benghazi, respectively.
Using 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs (LGBs), a trio of F-111Fs attacked the Bab al-Aziziyah Barracks complex in Tripoli, which served as the command center of the Libyan terrorist network, a billeting area for Gadhafi’s guard force, and his personal residence. Three more F-111Fs dropped LGBs on the Murat Sidi Bilal Training Camp on the coast near Tripoli, ripping apart a school for naval commandos and terrorist frogmen. Finally, five F-111Fs attacked the Tripoli Military Airfield with 500-pound bombs, destroying several Soviet-built IL-76 Candid transport aircraft, which had been used to support terrorist activities beyond Libya’s borders.
Far to the east, six Intruders off the America, dropping 500-pound bombs, scored devastating hits on the Jamahiriyah Guard Barracks in Benghazi, which served as an alternate terrorist command center and an assembly facility for MiG aircraft. Using 500-pound bombs and cluster ordnance, a half-dozen A-6Es off the Coral Sea struck the Benina Airfield near Benghazi, demolishing several fighters, transports, and helicopters.
A huge armada of USAFE and Task Force 60 aircraft supported the joint strike force. Air Force KC-10A Extender and KC-135R Stratotanker aerial refuelers and EF-111A Raven electronic-warfare aircraft accompanied the TFW 48 fighter-bombers from England to the central Mediterranean. The Air Force tankers refueled the F-111Fs four times en route to Libya and twice on the return to England. While A-7Es, F/A-18 Hornets, and EA-6B Prowlers—joined by the Ravens—suppressed enemy radars and SAM batteries, F-14s and F/A-18s protected the strike aircraft and the battle force from a Libyan counterattack. E-2C Hawkeyes performed long-range air and surface surveillance, strike coordination, and fighter control, and KA-6Ds and KA-7s provided invaluable tanking services for the carrier-based aircraft. The participation of U.S. Marines in El Dorado Canyon boosted the multiservice nature of the operation; Hornets from two of the four F/A-18 squadrons on the Coral Sea and the Prowlers from the America were flown by Marine aviators.
The air strike had a profound impact on both Gadhafi and America’s allies. The Libyan dictator received the clear, unmistakable message that he could no longer attack Americans without incurring a serious penalty. At the G-7 economic summit in Tokyo in early May, the leaders of the seven largest industrial democracies took steps they hoped would forestall further military action. The United States and its allies imposed strict diplomatic measures that would isolate terrorist states, improved cooperation between their law enforcement and intelligence services, and condemned Libya by name for its involvement in terrorism. When asked what message the allies were sending to Gadhafi, Secretary of State George Shultz responded: “You’ve had it, pal! You are isolated! You are recognized as a terrorist!”8
Assessing the Campaign
Scrutiny of Reagan’s Libya strategy reveals five lessons that dominated his administration’s war on terrorism. First, development of a comprehensive U.S. strategy toward Libya was a long and difficult process. Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger disagreed over the use of force (ironically, the former was the hawk), the United States and its allies differed over political and economic sanctions, and career officials and political appointees sparred within the executive branch.
Second, contrary to the reputation among his critics of being a “trigger-happy cowboy,” Reagan avoided the use of force until he could accurately identify those responsible for a specific attack and—in the case of Libyan terrorism—until economic sanctions, diplomatic initiatives, and demonstrations of naval power had been given a reasonable chance to alter Gadhafi’s behavior.
In a televised address on the night of the raid, Reagan emphasized that the United States had not attacked Libya in haste: “We tried quiet diplomacy, public condemnation, economic sanctions, and demonstrations of military force. None succeeded. Despite our repeated warnings, Gadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong.”9
Several factors restricted Reagan’s use of force. Pinpointing the perpetrators of an attack, such as the Marine barracks bombing, was difficult. For strategic or political reasons, Syria and Iran, both prominent state sponsors of terrorism, were immune from attack. Syria was the Soviet Union’s closest ally in the Middle East, and the Reagan administration was engaged in a secret initiative with the Iranian government that became part of the Iran-Contra affair. The Secretary of Defense was reluctant to use military force except under a strict set of guidelines, which became known as the Weinberger (later Powell) Doctrine. And U.S. allies feared that military force would increase terrorist violence in their countries and disrupt lucrative commercial ties with Mideast nations.
Third, the air strike was a major political and psychological defeat for Gadhafi despite the fact that relatively few bombs hit Bab al-Aziziyah, the Libyan terror network headquarters. The Air Force and Navy aircrews had to follow strict guidelines in delivering their ordnance in order to minimize civilian casualties and friendly losses. Owing to a combination of human error, mechanical failure, and enemy fire, only three of the nine F-111Fs targeting Bab al-Aziziyah dropped their 2,000 pound LGBs, and only two planes hit the target. Since each plane carried four bombs, a more successful attack would have been devastating, possibly killing Gadhafi. (An adopted daughter was killed and two sons were injured.)
The raid severely damaged Gadhafi’s terrorist apparatus, derailed several planned operations aimed at Americans, and temporarily weakened the Libyan leader’s hold on power. In the days following the strike, he faced down a series of military uprisings and remained in seclusion until early summer.
El Dorado Canyon also demonstrated that the United States had both the capacity and the will to attack the supporters and sponsors of terrorism. On the night of the strike, Reagan explained: “Today, we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.”10 Henceforth, Gadhafi had to face the fact that the next terrorist incident traced to the Libyan government would trigger another armed riposte from the United States. Veteran Washington journalist David Ignatius noted that the raid “broke the psychology that had allowed Gadhafi to intimidate much of the world and revealed that . . . Gadhafi was weak, isolated, and vulnerable.”11
The raid did not compel the dictator to abandon terrorism, but it forced him to develop more cautious and surreptitious methodology, which in turn reduced his involvement in terrorist activity. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a clear act of revenge for El Dorado Canyon, attests that he had not given up the deadly practice.12
After a Scottish court convicted a Libyan agent of planting a bomb on Flight 103, The Wall Street Journal proclaimed: “With few exceptions, the world community by the late 1980s had had enough of exploding planes and assassinations. President Reagan’s raid on Libya in April 1986 . . . laid the groundwork for a get-tough policy.”13
Fourth, the U.S. Navy and Air Force prepared for operations against Libya with exceptional skill and thoroughness and executed them with great courage. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force servicemen risked their lives in combat against Libyan air, naval, and air defense forces.
The Air Force role in El Dorado Canyon was remarkable. The F-111Fs, under the command of Colonel Sam Westbrook, were required to fly a strike mission of 14½ hours and nearly 6,000 miles—around the Iberian Peninsula—after the French and Spanish governments closed their airspace to the fighter-bombers and their support aircraft. One F-111F was hit by either a SAM or antiaircraft fire en route to Bab al-Aziziyah. Passing over Tripoli without dropping its LGBs, the plane crashed into the sea; its pilot, Captain Fernando Ribas-Dominicci, and weapon systems operator, Captain Paul Lorence, were the mission’s only U.S. fatalities. El Dorado Canyon was planned and carried out in the spirit of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, a major piece of legislation that mandated interservice cooperation but did not go into effect until nearly six months after the strike.
Finally, the U.S. Sixth Fleet—specifically Task Force 60—played an indispensable role in the confrontation with Gadhafi. The battle force, which did not require approval from foreign governments for its movements, established a commanding presence off the coast of Libya. While on station, it exerted a powerful influence on Gadhafi, exacted “swift and effective retribution” against units of the Libyan military that meant harm, and during El Dorado Canyon projected destructive power ashore. After fulfilling each of its missions, Task Force 60 withdrew to peaceful waters.
President Reagan’s application of military force was a classic demonstration of the value of carrier-based naval power in the execution of U.S. foreign and national security policy. His use of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean in the 1980s was limited in scope, supported specific national interests and objectives, was carried out with few political costs, frustrated the enemy’s ability to respond militarily, secured a favorable political outcome in a dispute with a foreign power, and was successful enough to forestall a larger conflict or a costly, long-term commitment of military forces to maintain that outcome.14
Libya’s claim of sovereignty over the Gulf of Sidra was thoroughly discredited, and Gadhafi wisely reduced his involvement in terrorism. After El Dorado Canyon, any government or organization considering a terrorist act to advance its objectives would have to take into account the prospect of retaliatory military action.15 Twenty-five years have passed since the air strike, but the story of Operation El Dorado Canyon and the events, circumstances, and policies leading up to the heroic mission deserve to be remembered.
1. George J. Church, et al., “Hitting the Source,” Time, 28 April 1986, p. 26; “Reagan Decides It Had to Be Done,” Economist 299 (19 April 1986), p. 17.
2. CIA National Foreign Assessment Center, Patterns of International Terrorism: 1980, Research paper, June 1981, p. iii.
3. Ronald Reagan, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1982), p. 42.
4. Ronald Reagan, “Transcript of White House News Conference on the Hijacking,” The New York Times, 12 October 1985.
5. Joseph T. Stanik, El Dorado Canyon: Reagan’s Undeclared War with Qaddafi (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003), p. 90; John F. Lehman, Command of the Seas (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988), p. 363.
6. John F. Lehman, Command of the Seas, p. 363.
7. Vox Militaris, “The U.S. Strike against Libya: Operation El Dorado Canyon,” Army Quarterly and Defence Journal 116 (April 1986), p. 136.
8. Jacob V. Lamar, David Beckwith, and Jay Branegan, “A Summit of Substance,” Time, 19 May 1986, p. 16.
9. U.S. Department of State, “U.S. Exercises Right of Self-Defense against Libyan Terrorism,” Department of State Bulletin, June 1986, pp. 1-2.
10. Ibid., pp. 1-2.
11. David Ignatius, “Bombing Gadhafi Worked,” The Washington Post, 13 July 1986.
12. U.S. Department of Defense, “Report of the Threats and Scenarios Panel,” The Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DOD Responses to Transnational Threats, Vol. III Supporting Reports, February 1998, p. 3.
13. “A Lockerbie Verdict,” The Wall Street Journal, 1 February 2001.
14. James Cable, “Gunboat Diplomacy’s Future,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings vol. 112, no. 8 (August 1986), pp. 38, 40.
15. Twice more before 11 September 2001, the United States used force in response to terrorist incidents. In June 1993, President Bill Clinton ordered a Tomahawk cruise missile attack against Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad after U.S. investigators uncovered a plot by Saddam Hussein to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush during his visit to Kuwait a few months earlier. In August 1998, massive truck bombs exploded at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The terrorist attacks killed more than 250 people, including 12 Americans. Clinton responded by launching scores of Tomahawks against facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan linked to Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the attacks.