It was half-past three in the afternoon when the White House summoned Rep. Robert Michel (R., Ill.) and other congressional leaders to an urgent meeting with President Reagan.
There had been rumors for days that the President intended to take a military swipe at Libya`s troublesome leader, Moammar Khadafy, fueled by the positioning of two American aircraft carriers and a flotilla of escort ships within striking range.
But there had been such talk in the past; and until that moment Michel, the House Republican leader, didn`t know that the death of an American serviceman in the terrorist bombing of a West Berlin disco 10 days earlier would be the act that finally provoked the ”swift and effective
retribution”–a retribution against terrorists pledged by Reagan in his inaugural address five years before.
As he hurried across town, Michel was unaware that three hours earlier 24 American F-111 fighter-bombers had taken off from their bases in Britain under orders from President Reagan to join carrier-based Navy warplanes to bomb key Libyan targets, including Khadafy`s headquarters, the Azizziyah barracks in Tripoli.
”I`ve never blown a confidence around here,” Michel later recalled.
”It would have been nice if they would have told me something ahead of time.”
As Michel`s comments reflect, Congress, which was given a role in declaring war under the Constitution and the disputed War Powers Act, was essentially excluded from the mid-April decision to undertake the biggest American bombing mission since the Vietnam War, a dangerous and unpredictable escalation in the war of nerves with Khadafy.
And, amid the applause from lawmakers and the American public following the raid, there is at least some restiveness among Capitol Hill leaders, even such administration stalwarts as Michel, who believe the White House has an obligation to inform them more than three hours before American bombs start falling on a foreign country.
”Congress will have to be brought into the decision,” Michel said. ”We can`t just stand placidly by.”
Just as terrorism has made concrete barricades around government offices part of the landscape here, it has left a mark on the way foreign policy is made, further widening the gap between Congress and the White House that emerged from Vietnam.
The use of American military force against a Third World country that Reagan has singled out as a sort of terrorist Public Enemy No. 1 is arguably the most important foreign policy decision made by the Reagan administration, which has anguished in public and private over how to deal with terrorist attacks.
But the need to move swiftly and protect the element of surprise, administration officials argue, has made any fuller consultation in advance with congressional leaders problematic. That view, too, has some support in Congress, where Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R., Kan.) and some conservative colleagues are pushing legislation that would give the President almost unlimited authority to deal with terrorists.
The decision to launch the retaliatory strike ended the administration impasse over the use of military force, a debate that Secretary of State George Shultz at one point said threatened to turn the country into an indecisive ”Hamlet of nations.”
The action reflected administration frustration that simply defensive measures, such as improving embassy security, were inadequate and that the
”soft options,” such as economic and diplomatic sanctions, had proved ineffective. There was a sense that military action was necessary to give more credibility to the administration`s campaign against terrorism.
”The handwringers say, `Gee, we shouldn`t have done that (bombed Libya); we should have used another option.` Well, there wasn`t any other option left to use that was effective,” said Adm. (ret.) J.L. Holloway, executive director of the Vice President`s Task Force on Combating Terrorism.
”You know what people say: Policy doesn`t mean anything unless people believe it. We have been saying we wouldn`t sit back while people or nations attack the U.S. We`ve said it very clearly and Khadafy didn`t believe it. Now I think he believes it,” Holloway said.
For the near term, the fight against terrorism has upstaged and pushed aside American efforts to seek a political settlement between Israel on one side and Jordan and the Palestinians on the other.
Even foreign policy experts who otherwise support the President`s decision to bomb Libya, such as former President Jimmy Carter`s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, worry that it jeopardizes Washington`s ability to resume its traditional role of mediator in the region.
For its part, the administration draws a clear distinction between terrorism and settlement of the Palestinian problem in the Middle East.
”Hijacking an Italian ship (the Achille Lauro), murdering an American, torturing and holding a bunch of other Americans is not justified by any cause I know of,” Shultz said last December. ”It has no connection with any cause.”
But there is an undeniable link between Arab terrorism, both against other Arabs and against Americans, and the troubled situation on the ground in the Middle East, where young, radicalized Palestinians provide a pool of potential terrorists for political leaders to use in their own designs on the region.
”Terrorism is in the Middle East because it is part of the Middle East problem,” said Rep. Henry Hyde (R., Ill.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees.
”There are people in the Middle East who are angry and unhappy about the situation there and have no outlet for their anger. If anybody says there is no connection, then they are part of the problem.”
The evidence isn`t at all clear about whether movement in the ”peace process” reduces terrorism by dissipating some of the Palestinian
frustrations, or whether it increases terrorism. Radical Arab leaders such as Khadafy and Syrian President Hafez Assad use terrorism to undermine any potential movement toward resolving fundamental issues such as the Israeli occupation of the predominantly Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip.
But such considerations were at most secondary in Reagan`s decision, which was very much tied to the mood of Americans. A survey conducted for the White House found that most of them were tired of feeling victimized by the terrorist threat.
While Reagan rides high in American public opinion polls in the aftermath of the April 15 strike against Libya, the lessons of the fight against terrorism are that such victories are often regrettably short-lived.
The initial glow from the American interception of the plane carrying the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship last October, for instance, faded when Italy and then Yugoslavia ducked a formal American request to turn over to the U.S. Mohammed Abbas, the Palestinian described as the mastermind of the ship hijacking.
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Abbas was unexpectedly found aboard the aircraft forced down in Sicily by U.S. Navy jets. U.S. officials since then have posted a reward of up to $250,000 for information on Abbas, who briefly surfaced last week at an undisclosed location for a television interview with NBC News.
That incident highlighted the difficulty that the U.S. was having, and would continue to have, in getting visible cooperation from the Western European allies for measures that could preclude the need for military reprisals.
At the same time, terrorism expert Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corp. research group observed prophetically that the growing frequency of terrorist attacks involving Americans made it ”increasingly likely that the United States will be compelled to respond with military power.”
The risks of military action were tragically highlighted by the botched rescue attempt by elite Egyptian commandos who stormed a hijacked EgyptAir jet in Malta last November after an American passenger was murdered.
Fifty-seven passengers and two hijackers died in the shooting; so did administration plans for a joint military operation with Egypt to topple Khadafy.
In a sense the botched Malta rescue underscored the real difficulties of united military action as well as the limitations of the paramilitary commando raid.
Some weeks earlier, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had suggested to a U.S. delegation headed by Vice Adm. John Poindexter, now Reagan`s national security adviser, that ”something had to be done about Khadafy.”
The Mubarak overture, said an American intelligence officer, ”made some people around here very excited” and initiated planning for the U.S. to provide air, logistical and communications support to an Egyptian ground force.
It`s not clear that Mubarak would have followed through, but it became a moot point as far as the U.S. was concerned after what seemed to be a poorly planned and tragically executed mission against the EgyptAir hijackers.
Military planners concluded that even if Mubarak`s enthusiasm for the invasion remained high, the ability of his forces to carry it out and the dubious loyalty of conservative Moslems in the Egyptian military doomed the plan.
Then, two days after Christmas, came the event that set the U.S. firmly on the course of military confrontation with Libya.
In twin raids, Arab terrorists staged bloody attacks at airports in Rome and Vienna.
Reagan, reportedly beside himself with anger and disgust over the murder of 11-year-old American Natasha Simpson in the Rome airport attack, ordered the Pentagon to begin final preparation of contingency plans for military action against Libya.
The North African nation was suspected to be the base of another Palestinian terror master, Abu Nidal, and the raids were thought to have been staged from there.
Subsequently, evidence pointed to Syria as possibly playing a key role in the raids. But the die had been cast for the Reagan administration. Libya was the target and Khadafy was the culprit in an orchestrated confrontation with America`s President.
In public, Reagan has said the U.S. would take on others in the Middle East linked to terrorism, namely Syria and Iran.
In private, though, senior officials acknowledge a reluctance to confront Syria, a close Soviet client and truly powerful player in Middle East politics. Libya, in many ways, is the safer and easier target.
Reagan ordered a total U.S. economic boycott against Libya, but was unable for the most part to persuade the Western Europeans to join in. Without their particpation, U.S. officials acknowledged, the American sanctions would have little bite.
The administration also ordered Americans to leave the desert nation, hoping to avoid a possible replay of the Iran hostage drama as tensions escalated toward military confrontation.
Importantly, though hardly noticed at the time, Reagan laid out what the administration would subsequently use as legal justification for a military strike at Libya.
By providing aid to terrorist groups, Reagan said, ”Libya had engaged in armed aggression against the United States under established principles of international law, just as if it had used its own armed forces.”
Two months later, the administration would return to that statement, to defend the bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi as a legitimate act of self-defense permitted under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
If there was any confusion, Shultz bluntly spelled out where the U.S. now stood. ”It must be clearly and unequivocally the policy of the United Staes to fight back,” he said.
That was embodied in a National Security Decision Directive on Jan. 20. It adopted the recommendations of the Bush task force on terrorism and was the only official U.S. public statement outlining American`s policy on terrorism. In all, the task force report made 44 recommendations. Many of the suggestions merely restated administration policies already in effect, such as calling for better exchange of intelligence between the U.S. and its allies.
One section urged Congress to make murder of American citizens outside of the U.S. a federal crime. But the task force`s main message, Holloway said, was to warn other nations not to practice or support terrorist attacks on the U.S. or its citizens.
It was part of a consciousness-raising campaign designed to galvanize support for retaliatory strikes and test the public`s appetite for commitment of military forces against terrorism.
In retrospect, the task force report`s February statement that the American public would support ”swift, forceful and even aggressive” actions against terrorists even if ”inadvertent casualties result” signaled that sentiment within the administration had swung toward a military strike.
Behind the scenes, the pace of activity already had quickened at the National Security Council, Defense Department and State Department as plans were scrutinized to ”raise the stakes” for Libya.
Reagan gave his approval, after extensive discussion with his top advisers, for new American naval maneuvers in Libya`s disputed Gulf of Sidra. It was decided that the maneuvers, to be conducted in February, would be sold publicly as the exercise of freedom of navigation in international waters.
But the private discussion among the President`s top advisers centered on setting the military rules of engagement, anticipating that the exercise was almost certain to provoke a military response from Khadafy.
Despite the expectation of a military clash, Reagan gave his approval without consulting in advance with congressional leaders, as he would do again weeks later in ordering the bombing raid. As predicted, Libyan forces fired on American jets, triggering brief American counterattacks against two Libyan naval ships and against land-based radar sites.
The clash left the administration and the President visibly emboldened. Public opinion polls suggested the Americans overwhelmingly favored the attack, the Soviet Union didn`t rush to the rescue of Libya, and the Navy attack planes from the U.S. 6th Fleet easily defeated Libya`s smaller and technologically inferior armed forces.
On April 5, a bomb exploded in a West Berlin disco frequented by off-duty American servicemen, killing an American soldier and a Turkish woman and injuring 230 other people. Communications between Tripoli and its embassy in East Berlin, intercepted by U.S. intelligence, led American officials to conclude that the attack had been carried out under the direction of Libya.
From that point, a counterterrorism official said, the administration was both compelled to respond in some way and finally ready to take military action that would ”match the rhetoric with action.”
The supersonic American warplanes were just a few hours from their targets as Michel and his congressional colleagues anxiously assembled at the Cordell Hull Room in the Old Executive Office Building adjoining the White House, which served as an auxiliary ”situation room” for the National Security Council. On the wall, a map of Libya was displayed, showing the bombing targets.
The President already was waiting with his top foreign policy advisers:
National Security Adviser Poindexter, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe.
”The President kicked it off,” one participant recalled. ”Then came Poindexter; he called on Weinberger; then came Crowe; and then Shultz, who came in late.”
As the crucial minutes ticked by, Reagan described the dramatic mission and, meeting the barest definition of ”consultation,” told the congressional leaders that there was still time to recall the planes if they had strong objections. But he gave the impression that the offer was a courtesy that he didn`t expect the lawmakers to take up.
”I don`t know what I could have done if I had had objections,” said one of those called to the meeting. ”The general impression was, `This is what we are going to do, period.` ”
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In any event, no one at the meeting sought to test the President`s sincerity.
The congressional leaders had questions, for instance, about the risks to American pilots and innocent civilians in Libya. One asked whether the evidence was in hand to support a military strike or whether the pressure of American public opinion was behind the decision.
”We know we`ve got them nailed,” a confident Poindexter said. ”Cold turkey.”
After the raid, the President went on national television and, to the distress of some intelligence officials, disclosed that the U.S. had intercepted communications from Libya to its East Berlin embassy, directing the attack on the West Berlin disco. Khadafy, as Shultz said, was ”his own smoking gun.”
Administration officials had hoped the bombing raid would trigger a successful coup against Khadafy; and if he had been killed in the American raid, Reagan said last week, ”I don`t think any of us would have shed tears.”
Although Khadafy survived the air raid and remains in power, the President and his top advisers now believe that their anti-Khadafy measures have put the Libyan leader on the defensive within his own nation.
One official, speaking on condition he not be named, said U.S. intelligence reports suggest that Khadafy is no longer the sole, undisputed ruler of Libya, apparently being forced to share power within a ruling clique. ”We`re certainly going to keep the heat on him now,” the official said. The administration, having won a pledge of cooperation from allied leaders at last week`s Tokyo economic summit, also intends to keep the pressure on major allies to take steps against Libya, which was singled out in the allies` joint communique as a source of state-sponsored terrorism.
In the meantime, the raid hasn`t put an end to terrorism against the U.S. and other Western nations.
There have been 11 terrorist attacks or attempted attacks aimed at Americans or Britons since the American warplanes returned from the mission to their British bases and Navy carriers. On those, the administration has watched its language and bided its time.
One counterterrorism official said the administration isn`t compelled to use force again against Libya, although ”a lot of people” advocate it. ”You could do it again,” he said. ”There are a few targets we missed.”
But the President and his top aides have offered little more than cryptic hints to Congress and the American public about whether they have altered permanently the way the U.S. fights terrorism, whether they are more ready now to strike back with military force.
”We did what we had to do . . . ,” Reagan said last week, telling Japanese journalists that he had acted reluctantly after economic and diplomatic sanctions failed. ”I hope this action will have been enough to convince Khadafy to change his policies.”
”If not,” he warned, ”I will not hestitate to act again.”