ONE OPTION INVOLVED EXTENSIVE BOMBING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570023-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: April 2, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570023-3
h2PEARED
:~ MADE. A
One Option Involved
Extensive Bombing
By Bob Woodward
Wa.hmKton Nr .t ?t. ff "0
Eight months of secret U.S. ef-
forts to win Egyptian approval for a
U.S.-Egyptian military operation
designed to overthrow Libyan lead-
er Muammar Qaddafi appear to
have foundered following public dis-
closure and rejection of the plan by
Cairo, informed sources said yes-
terday.
Still, there were contradictory
reports yesterday on whether the
plan had been abandoned by the
United States. Officials were
quoted this week in Cairo as saying
that the Egyptian government had
rejected three U.S. overtures in re-
cent months for a joint attack on
Libya. U.S. sources, however, said
that secret discussions in Cairo in
February were productive and the
joint planning was continuing.
One option of the plan called for
U.S. military air operations in c-
ordination with Egypt, which would
attack across the 600-mile Libvan-
Egyptian border. U.S. support was
to include extensive bombing in
what one source said would have
been the most ambitious and ag-
gressive foreign policy decision in
the Reagan administration.
President Reagan authorized the
planning and in the last eight
months sent two high-level emis-
saries to Egypt for secret military
planning, according to informed
sources. One emissary, Vice Adm.
John M. Poindexter, now Reagan's
national security affairs adviser,
headed a team of military planners
that visited Cairo late last summer
around Labor Day: a senior Penta-
gon general assigned to the Joint
Chiefs of Staff continued the efforts
this February in meetings that ode
source said "went very well."
Reagan never gave final approval
to carry out the military plan even if
Cairo had assented and sources dis-
agreed yesterday about how close it
came to realization. "It was really a
plan for a surprise attack on Libya
~~; .SEI\GTON POST
2 April 1985
in conjunction with Egypt, nothing
less," one source said.
The Defense Department last
year also slowed its planning when
strategists concluded that as many
as six divisions, or 90,000 men,
would have to be used if direct U.S.
military involvement was required.
"The whole attitude of the Pen-
tagon study was," said one source,
" 'Do we want a war with Libya?' "
Libya's armed forces include
73,000 regular troops and 535
combat aircraft.
The joint U.S.-Egyptian military
discussions were one of the most
closely held undertakings in the
Reagan White House, sources said.
"A small group of mostly senior ad-
visers took the war-making power
unto themselves," one source crit-
ical of the planning said recently.
"They had insufficient understand-
ing of the Middle East .... It could
have been a disaster."
Even while disagreeing over de-
tails of the plan and its current sta-
tus, a number of sources agreed
that it was not to be executed until
there was a clear-cut military or
terrorist provocation by Libya and
Qaddafi, its erratic leader.
One part of the U.S. plan called
for Egypt to attack Libya on the
ground, occupying perhaps half the
country. Then, at Egyptian request,
the United States would step in to
assist. Another scenario suggested
that once in control of half of Libya,
Egypt would have sufficient lever-
age to force Qaddafi out of power.
In another alternative, U.S.
bombers and tactical fighters would
strike major Libyan military instal-
lations before the Egyptian attack
or in concert with Egypt's attack.
Despite Egyptian hostility toward
Qaddafi, the sources said, some
U.S. strategists believed that Arab
solidarity likely would have pre-
vailed, preventing Egypt's partic-
ipation with the United States in
any large-scale attack against an
Arab neighbor unless Libya at-
tacked first.
Some administration officials
have described the plan as"precau-
tionary' and a "contingency." Sev-
eral sources have said that the U.S.
Navy exercise last week in Libya's
Gulf of Sidra-code-named "Oper-
ation Prairie Fire"-may have sat-
isfied the administration's goal of
sending a message of U.S. resolve
to Qaddafi. Three U.S. aircraft car-
rier groups retaliated against a Lib-
yan missile attack by sinking at
least two Libyan patrol boats and
bombing a missile radar site.
In December and January when
The Washington Post learned of
some of the secret planning with
the Egyptians, certain details about
ongoing military plans were omitted
from articles after a request from
senior administration officials. On
Dec. 21, The Post reported that a
high-level emissary for anti-Libyan
military contingency planning had
been sent to the Middle East. In a
Jan. 24 article, Egypt was first iden-
tified as a key participant in the se-
cret planning. Poindexter was not
identified as one of the emissaries
to Cairo until an article last Wed-
nesday in The Post in the wake of
the Gulf of Sidra action.
Poindexter's role as the planning
emissary to Cairo was a closely held
secret and apparently triggered a
response in Egypt.
Ibrahim Nafeh, editor in chief of
the semiofficial Al-Ahram and a
man close to Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak, wrote on Monday
that "the United States has at-
tempted more than once to join in
an action with Egypt against Libya."
He cited three such attempts and
said that Egypt had rejected the
proposal each time.
The Washington Times yester-
day said that administration sources
confirmed these reported rejec-
tions.
Well-placed administration
sources, however, said the Egyptian
reaction was not outright rejection
and that during the February meet-
ings in Cairo a senior Defense De-
partment planner reported positive
results. The White House had no
comment yesterday.
There is apparent division in the
Egyptian government about the
U.S. plan, and one source said that
Egyptian Defense Minister Abdul-
Halim Abu Ghazala, a defense at-
tache in Washington during the
mid-1970s. was more inclined to at
least listen to U.S. plans.
U.S. relations with Egypt were
strained last October after the hi-
jacking ot eeItalian cruise s fp
Ac tt Te Laron U.S. je s in &'r-
cepted an Egyptian air iner carrying
the four hitackers. An article the
next month in The Was hin tonPost
detailing a covert CIA plan to at-
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570023-3
 Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570023-3
tempt to undermine the Qaddafi
regime-which has been only a or-
tion of t e a ministration's anti-
c afi plans-also increased
Egyptian fears that any joint under-
taking d ainst Qaddafi with the
United States would become public.
Abu Ghazala was a arently up-
set about the CIA disclosure. ac-
cording to an intelligence report,
and was told by t e . embassy in
Cairo that the story wou not
arouse much controversy because
near Ty everyone in the United
States favored unseating Uaddafi
The seriousness with which the
anti-Libyan planning was undertak-
en by the White House is illustrated
by one written analysis about prob-
able Soviet reaction to a military
strike against Libya prior to the
November summit meeting. The
analysis concluded that the Soviets
would keep their distance, and any
U.S.-Egyptian move would not hurt
the summit.
As details of the plan were dis-
closed to Pentagon and intellg n
analysts over the last eight months
serious o sections began to surface.
No one in the White House had fully
grasped the extent to which Qad-
dafi, who has ruled since 1969, has
a hold on the Libyan population of 3
million people, according to one in-
formed source. Through a series of
so-called revolutionary committees,
Qaddafi has organized and armed
the population, in some instances
down to individual blocks in the Lib-
yan capital of Tripoli. These peo-
ple's committees are fiercely loyal
to Qaddafi, according to some U.S.
analysts.
The Pentagon, according to
sources, was also concerned that
the planning did not fully deal with
the task of launching and coordinat-
ing such a military operation across
the Atlantic.
"This wasn't Grenada," one
source said, "though there were
frequent references to it in the dis-
cussions."
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/23: CIA-RDP90-00965R000807570023-3