Word: raids
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...raid was in fact a veiled execution attempt, it would pit the Reagan Administration against a specific presidential order and substantial legal precedent. In 1976, after public discontent over the revelations of cia assassination attempts in Chile, Guatemala and Iran, President Ford issued an Executive Order forbidding the Government from authorizing the assassination of world leaders. Both Presidents Carter and Reagan have reaffirmed that...
Some suggest that an assassination attempt could be considered more moral than an all-out attack. Neil Livingstone, president of Washington's Institute for Terrorism and Subnational Conflict, proposes that a precise covert action directed toward a single figure may be preferable to a military raid. Says Livingstone: "It is far more humane to get the legitimate bad guy than his baby daughter and innocent civilians." But it seems the Administration simply wanted to have it both ways. That is, it wanted to send a message to terrorists in general and a knockout punch to one in particular...
...retaliation against terrorists have always been to hit precisely defined targets and to minimize the chance of injuring civilians. Both concerns dictated a low-level attack with precision bombing. Furthermore, it would have to be carried out at night, when few people were on the streets. A night raid was also likely to risk fewer fliers than a daylight attack. Taking all these factors into account, Crowe and the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that additional aircraft would be necessary. The ones most ideally suited to the mission were the Air Force's F-111s at Britain's Royal...
...Colonel would be very much at home and killed or injured in the attack. Using the military euphemism for civilian casualties, one Administration official deadpanned, "If Gaddafi had been killed, I don't think it would have been considered 'collateral damage.' " Indeed, an additional reason for staging a night raid was to catch Gaddafi asleep, though U.S. intelligence officials warned the Administration that the Colonel is believed to rotate his sleeping quarters for security reasons. No fewer than five F-111s were assigned to hit Gaddafi's compound. The hope, says a senior Administration official, was to "turn the barracks...
...squadron of A-6 fighters roared over Benghazi from the Gulf of Sidra and began bombing the airfield. In Tripoli, part of the F-111 squadron had circled around inland and approached from the south. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. "We were able to see the hits," recalled one Navy airman, who had spent many hours studying photos of his target. "They looked just where they should have been...