El Dorado Canyon: Reagan's Undeclared War with Qaddafi

During the 1980s, the United States government made two strategic mistakes for which its citizens paid, and are still paying, a desperate price. One was supporting the termination of the Iran-Iraq war, which was usefully keeping two of our worst enemies preoccupied. The other was what Joseph Stanik calls Ronald Reagan's undeclared war with Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan murderer. It was a sitzkrieg, a phony war. As soon as he entered office, Reagan started talking tough about fighting terror and particularly about Libya, which at the time was supporting indiscriminate violence in more than 50 countries. But Reagan never interrupted his serial napping long enough to instruct the government to do anything. And until George Shultz was appointed secretary of state, the Cabinet was divided between the timid and the temporizers. Stanik traces a history not of vigorous and forthright action against terrorism but of vacillation, inattention and confusion. The CIA floated its usual cockamamie plots, several of which were terminated by leaks from within the administration; but no serious action was proposed. At the highest policy levels, study after inconclusive study was done while Libya escalated its murders of Americans continuously. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean Sea, the Navy was winning some skirmishes with Libya's military over freedom of navigation claims. Stanik confuses these freedom of the seas operations with antiterrorism, but despite this "El Dorado Canyon" is still a useful template for evaluating current events. After years of pushing, Shultz finally persuaded Reagan to authorize a small military strike -- code-named El Dorado Canyon -- to punish Libya for one of its many terrorist attacks. It was a punchless gesture. Although Reagan had made his reputation by scorning the gloves-on incrementalism of Democratic administrations in Vietnam, his answer to Qaddafi limited the United States to a single, small air strike that did no material damage to Libya. The Air Force component was a disaster, only one of 18 planes hitting its target. Nearly half the planes had technical failures. The Navy strike was more successful but the weight of ordnance was too light to be effective. Stanik unaccountably describes this demonstration as an operational success that showed the capability of weaponry and the skill of American warriors. Skill they had, but their weapons didn't work. Nearly half the F-111F planes never managed to drop their bombs, the targeting systems failed to work in combat conditions and the Aegis radars were unable to discriminate targets -- the last a portent of a much more consequential failure the next year when Aegis shot down an airliner in the Persian Gulf. The strike did persuade Qaddafi, apparently, that he was doomed if he provoked the United States into a determined attack, but it did not dissuade him from terrorism. He went on blasting airliners out of the sky, but he did pull back from his extravagant support of "liberat

This book gives a deatil look about why United States was forced to attack Libya. And author does this very convincingly. Based on the real news the book is able to justify the attack. Eventhough author claims that he looks the attack in "US view", the reader will definetly understand the US' position in Libya's attack. Very well documented of the war plans and behind the scene events makes this book readable.The author tries to explain painstackingly the rumblings in the Reagan administration which may be boring to some readers who wants the action immediately. But his efforts to cover all the ends should be appreciated. To some extent, he is brave enough to point out the goof ups made by Reagan administration and very rare from a western author. Reading this book one can relate how the US went to war without any allies(it could be a thesis subject about how the so-called allies are not sharing the war efforts with US but other green pastures) support.Overall a very good book to know about the attack, US' military power and Reagan's administration's activities during that time.

Joseph Stanik, a retired naval officer and former history instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, provides readers with a well-researched political and military history of U.S.-Libyan relations from the start of Reagan?s presidency through the aftermath of Operation El Dorado Canyon, the precision air strike aimed at Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's terror apparatus. He chronicles the development of administration policies to confront international terrorism and its most prominent advocate, Colonel Qaddafi, and carefully describes the political and economic strategies, diplomatic initiatives, covert actions, and military operations aimed at the Qaddafi regime. A major asset of Stanik's book is his clear analysis of those policies. Along the way, he explains why it took Reagan so long to retaliate against horrendous acts of terrorism directed against American citizens. Disagreement within the administration over the application of military force and unsupportive allies--Sound familiar?--are among the reasons. Four times during Reagan?s presidency, hostilities erupted between American and Libyan forces; therefore, Stanik devotes considerable space to operational planning, descriptions of military equipment and tactics, and accounts of combat action. He provides thrilling accounts of two dogfights between U.S. Navy and Libyan fighters, naval surface action in the Gulf of Sidra, and tension inside the cockpits of U.S. Air Force F-111Fs as the planes bore down on Qaddafi's compound in downtown Tripoli. Stanik also takes readers through the Lockerbie affair and relates our current war against global terrorism to Reagan?s controversial pledge to strike terrorists with ?swift and effective retribution.?

As the U.S. ramps up toward war with Iraq, Mr. Stanik's book assumes new interest. He tells the story of the six-year confrontation between the Reagan administration and the secular Islamic dictator Muammur Qaddafi of Libya. It's hard slogging through the first half of the book, which details in sometimes confusing terms Qaddafi's terrorist games and the American responses. But the second half--the chapters involving Operation El Dorado Canyon--are fascinating because they illustrate the first use of the type of warfare that has since become the hallmark of American arms: a precision strike, at night, with split-second timing and guided bombs, over incredible distances. Well worth reading. -- Dan Ford

Stanik, a former navy officer, has written a careful account of the jousting between Ronald Reagan and Muammar Qaddafi. Over the course of six years, Qaddafi sponsored terrorist strikes at American and other interests, and the U.S. responded with naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Sidra and proxy wars in Africa. (France was involved with the U.S., Egypt, and others.) The cover shows one of these minor but bloody skirmishes, in which a Libyan gunboat was blown out of the water. They did nothing to slow Qaddafi, who in 1986 masterminded an explosion in a Berlin disco frequented by American soldiers. Within hours, the U.S. was planning a military strike. True to form, France refused overflight rights, so the Britain-based bombers had to fly a 3,000-mile route out over the Atlantic and back into the Mediterranean. Did it work? Not entirely. Libyan then sponsored the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103--only to pay reparations later. After that last defiant display of terrorist power, Qaddafi seems to have mended his ways. This is a solid book, especially interesting in the detail of that fantastic raid on Libya from bases in Britain. -- Dan Ford