At 8:00
PM on 17 May 1987, a Mirage F-1 fighter jet took off from Iraq's Shaibah military airport and headed south into the Persian Gulf, flying
along the Saudi Arabian coast. An Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)
plane, in the air over Saudi Arabia and manned by a joint American-Saudi
crew, detected the aircraft. Aboard the USS Stark, a Perry-class
frigate on duty in the gulf, radar operators picked up the Mirage when
it was some 200 miles away; it was flying at 5,000 feet and traveling at
550 mph. Captain Glenn Brindel, 43, commander of the Stark, was
not particularly alarmed. He knew it was fairly common for Iraqi and
Iranian warplanes to fly over the gulf. Earlier in the day, Iraqi jets
had fired missiles into a Cypriot tanker, disabling the vessel. But no
American vessel had been attacked.
In
keeping with standard procedure, Captain Brindel ordered a radio message
flashed at 10:09 PM: "Unknown aircraft, this is U.S. Navy warship on
your 078 for twelve miles. Request you identify yourself." There was no
reply. A second request was sent. Still no answer. Brindel noted that
the aircraft's pilot had not locked his targeting radar on the Stark,
so he expected it to veer away.
At
10:10 PM, the AWACS crew noticed that the Mirage had banked suddenly and
then turned northward, as though heading for home. What they failed to
detect was the launching by the Iraqi pilot of two Exocet AM39
air-to-surface missiles. The Exocets had a range of 40 miles and each
carried a 352 lb. warhead. For some reason, the sea-skimming missiles
were not detected by the Stark's sophisticated monitoring
equipment. A lookout spotted the first Exocet just seconds before the
missile struck, tearing a ten-by-fifteen-foot hole in the warship's
steel hull on the port side before ripping through the crew's quarters.
The resulting fire rushed upward into the vessel's combat information
center, disabling the electrical systems. The second missile plowed into
the frigate's superstructure.
A
crewman sent a distress signal with a handheld radio that was picked up
by the USS Waddell, a destroyer on patrol nearby. Meanwhile, the
AWACS crew requested that two airborne Saudi F-15s pursue the Iraqi
Mirage. But ground controllers at Dhahran airbase said they lacked the
authority to embark on such a mission, and the Mirage was safely back in
Iraqi airspace before approval could be obtained.
As
fires raged aboard the Stark, Brindel ordered the starboard side
blooded to keep the gaping hole on the port side above the waterline.
All through the night the fate of the stricken frigate was in doubt.
Once the inferno was finally under control, the Stark limped back
to port. The Navy immediately launched an investigation into an incident
that had cost 37 American seamen their lives. The Stark was
endowed with an impressive array of defenses -- an MK92 fire control
system that could intercept incoming aircraft at a range of 90 miles; an
OTO gun that could fire three-inch anti-aircraft shells at a rate of 90
per minute; electronic defenses that could produce bogus radar images to
deceive attackers; and the Phalanx, a six-barreled gun that could fire
3,000 uranium rounds a minute at incoming missiles. Brindel insisted
that his ship's combat system was fully operational, but Navy
technicians in Bahrain said the Stark's Phalanx system had not
been working properly when the frigate put out to sea. (Brindel was
relieved of duty and later forced to retire.)
A C141B
Starlifter carried 35 flag-draped caskets to the Stark's home
base at Mayport, Florida. (Two of the crewmen were lost at sea during
the attack.) President Reagan and the First Lady were on hand to extend
condolences to grieving families. Reagan was under fire from Congress
and the press for putting American servicemen in harm's way on a vaguely
defined mission. "We need to rethink exactly what we are doing in the
Persian Gulf," said Republican Senator Robert Dole. The Senate
overwhelmingly passed a resolution, sponsored by Dole and Democratic
Senator Robert Byrd, that demanded the president explain to Congress the
strategy and goals of the Persian Gulf mission -- and the risks
involved. Congress was also unhappy with Saudi Arabia for what it viewed
as a lackadaisical response to the request to pursue the Iraqi Mirage --
so unhappy, in fact, that the administration thought it wise to delay
submission of a proposal to sell new F-15 fighter jets to the Saudis.
The
strife in the gulf had started in 1984 when Iran and Iraq, at war since
1980, began attacking each other's ships. Inevitably, the vessels of
third countries became targets. Over 200 ships had been attacked in the
past three years. The Iranians were particularly keen to target the
ships of Iraq's ally, Kuwait. Even though only 7% of American oil
supplies came from the region, the Reagan administration insisted that
U.S. strategic interests required a naval presence in the gulf. Critics
complained that Western Europe and Japan, which acquired 25% and 60% of
their respective oil needs from the gulf, weren't doing their part in
keeping the sea lanes open. In fact, certain Western European nations
had become major suppliers of military hardware to both Iran and Iraq.
Damage done to the Stark had been caused by French-built missiles
fired from a French-built aircraft.
The
administration argued that to withdraw from the gulf would be to
surrender America's role as leader of the free world, and that if oil
shipments were disrupted, prices would soar, adversely affecting the
U.S. economy. As one Western diplomat put it, if the U.S. backed out, it
wouldn't "have enough credibility to float a teacup." Furthermore, the
Soviet Union had increased its naval presence in the gulf, and the fear
was that if the U.S. faltered, the Soviets would gain the upper hand in
the region -- and growing Soviet influence in the region would pose a
long-term threat to the West's oil supplies. "We will not be
intimidated," said Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. "We will not be
driven from the gulf." He described the attack on the Stark as a
"horrible error," and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was quick to
apologize for the "unintentional incident." Evidently, the Mirage pilot
had mistaken the Stark for an Iranian tanker. Iraq promised to
pay compensation to the families of the 37 slain seamen, and reparations
for damages to the frigate. Officially the United States was neutral in
the Iran-Iraq conflict, but the administration had decided that
geopolitic considerations required that Iraq not lose the war. In the
aftermath of the Stark incident, the rhetoric coming out of
Washington was of a forgiving nature where Iraq was concerned, while
growing increasingly hostile in reference to Iran.
