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Naval Institute Press
291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
© 2003 by Joseph T. Stanik
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2016.
ISBN: 978-1-61251-580-9 (eBook)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Stanik, Joseph T.
El Dorado Canyon: Reagan’s undeclared war with Qaddafi / Joseph T. Stanik.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States—Foreign relations—Libya. 2. Libya—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—1981–1989. United States—Military relations—Libya. 5. Libya—military relations—United States. 6. Reagan, Ronald. 7. Qaddafi, Muammar. I. Title.
E183.8.L75 S726 2002
327.730612—dc21
2002016520
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First printing
For my father, Joseph Stanik,
and in memory of my mother,
Maxine Slaven Stanik
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prologue: The Air Battle Near Tobruk
1 Muammar al-Qaddafi and the Libyan Jamahiriyya
2 “Swift and Effective Retribution”
3 The Wave of Terror
4 Operation Prairie Fire
5 Planning to Strike Qaddafi
6 Operation El Dorado Canyon
7 The Aftermath of Operation El Dorado Canyon
Epilogue: Lockerbie and Beyond
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Errata
In the dead of night on 15 April 1986, U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers and U.S. Navy attack aircraft struck terrorist headquarters and support facilities in and near the Libyan cities of Tripoli and Benghazi. President Ronald Reagan had ordered the operation—code named “El Dorado Canyon”—in retaliation for Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s involvement in a terrorist bombing in West Berlin that had claimed the life of one U.S. serviceman, mortally wounded a second, and injured several other Americans. The raid’s purpose was three-fold: to punish Qaddafi for the West Berlin attack, to disrupt Libyan terrorist operations by crippling the country’s terrorist infrastructure, and to dissuade Qaddafi from sponsoring or supporting further acts of terrorism. The American public overwhelmingly supported Reagan’s decision to use force against Qaddafi, though many believed that Reagan should have acted much sooner against the agents and sponsors of international terrorism.
When Ronald Reagan took office as the fortieth president of the United States on 20 January 1981, the country was under assault from the forces of international terrorism. American citizens were the primary targets of terrorist violence and, on the day Reagan began his presidency, fifty-two American hostages were freed after 444 days of captivity in Iran. The hostage crisis was a humiliating experience for the United States, and it played no small role in driving Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter, from office. A week later, at a public ceremony celebrating the homecoming of the hostages, Reagan pledged that his administration would respond to acts of terrorism with “swift and effective retribution.” Over the next five years terrorist aggression against Americans became increasingly violent, and after each incident Reagan stated that the responsible party would be held accountable for its deed. Yet he did not act. He did not avenge the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April 1983, the destruction of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut six months later, the murder of off-duty Marine embassy guards in El Salvador in June 1985, the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 that same month, or the massacres of innocent travelers at the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985. With each new and more horrifying act of violence the American people felt more vulnerable, became increasingly angry and frustrated, and began to believe that Reagan’s war against terrorism consisted of powerful rhetoric but not much else. By early 1986 it seemed likely that Reagan’s presidency would fall victim to terrorism, just as Carter’s had years before. Then, in mid-April 1986, the president gave a convincing response to a specific terrorist incident by ordering Operation El Dorado Canyon.
Why did it take Reagan so long to retaliate? The likely answer is that it was much easier for him to promise military action than to carry it out. It was difficult to locate the perpetrators of a terrorist act. State sponsors, if their involvement could be established, were often immune from attack because of unique political or strategic circumstances. One of Reagan’s most important advisers was opposed to using military force except under strict criteria. At the same time America’s European allies were staunchly opposed to military action due to their own political and economic concerns.
Once Reagan committed his administration to a campaign against terrorism in January 1981, his policymakers trained their focus on Qaddafi’s radical regime in Tripoli. They did so for several practical reasons: Qaddafi was the most open advocate of international terrorism, many leaders in Africa and the Middle East reviled his regime, and Libya was the weakest militarily of the leading state supporters of terrorism (a list of states that included Syria and Iran).
America’s difficulties with Qaddafi did not begin with Reagan’s presidency. In 1973 Qaddafi declared the entire Gulf of Sidra an integral part of Libyan territory. His unlawful claim violated international conventions governing territorial waters and spurned the right of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and other navies serving in the Mediterranean to conduct naval exercises in international waters and airspace. Furthermore, during the
