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Kashani doesn't quite see the incident in exactly those terms. The impetus behind inviting a representative of the government, Kashani says, was that "if you want to know where SA is going right now, then you have to ask them. Now if the situation changes, if there's a revolution, all that will change...
Some plans have been drawn in impressive detail. One involves three waves of carrier-based planes that would strike in quick succession under cover of predawn darkness. First, fighter planes would launch missiles that home in on radar to knock out once again the radars at the SA-5 missile sites at Surt and Benghazi. Then, attack planes would wing in low and fast to knock out the missiles and their launchers. Once they had been destroyed, the third wave would hit adjacent airfields, destroying the runways so that Gaddafi's 550 combat aircraft could not scramble to counterattack...
State Department spokesman Bernard Kalb said the Soviets also were warned that supplying SA-5 missiles might encourage Khadafy to "take risks which would force us to respond. This in fact turned out to be the case...
Early action reports from the Gulf of Sidra claimed that half a dozen of Libya's Soviet-made SA-5 missiles had fallen harmlessly into the sea, while the Navy's harm missiles had knocked out a radar station on land. Yet the Libyans were able to replace their radar within a few hours, and there remained some uncertainty whether all four harm (cost: $283,000 each) had actually struck home...
...They also serve who only stand and wait." That was what White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan recalls thinking early Monday morning after he heard that Libya had fired two errant SA-5 missiles at U.S. planes flying off the Libyan coast. For 36 hours, Regan and other top aides had been waiting for news from the Gulf of Sidra, where three U.S. carrier groups were skirting Muammar Gaddafi's "line of death." Vice Admiral Frank Kelso, commander of the Sixth Fleet, had orders to fire if fired upon, but he had yet to make his move...