Monday, November 14,1983/The Battalion/Page 9
ommando praises
eagan for Grenada
R.I.
K\/ Poni r> 1i'i^ii
United Press International
iDENVER — The former
jmmando chief who led a
|iled attempt to rescue Amer-
in hostages in Iran in 1980
iys President Reagan’s speed
j id determination made a suc-
jss of the recent U.S. invasion
F Grenada.
“I see some of the same prin-
ples in our mission in Grenada
lat applied in Iran,” Charlie
eckwitn, a retired Army col-
nel, said during the weekend.
“The Reagan administration
as prudent in going down
icre and biting it in the bud
efore all the students became
ostages,” he said, referring to
.mericans attending medical
:hool in the tiny eastern Carib-
ean nation. “It could have been
le same thing all over again.”
Beckwith, in Denver Satur-
ay to promote “Delta Force,”
is book about the unsuccessful
ostage-rescue mission in Iran,
aid the'U.S. invasion of Grena
da was a success because Reagan
moved quickly and decisively.
“The weapons we captured in
Grenada indicate an extreme
excess that existed there, and
some of those weapons could
have found their way to this
country,” he said. “Our govern
ment today, because of what
happened in Iran, doesn’t suffer
from apathy when it comes to
terrorists or aggression.”
SAS of Austin, a security con
sulting firm, said the mission
would have succeeded had it not
been for bad luck.
Beckwith, a veteran of 28
years in the Army, also de
fended his decision to scrap the
Iran hostage-rescue mission in
the Iranian desert April 24,
1980, after three of his eight
helicopters malfunctioned.
“There was no other choice,”
he said. “It would have been tot
ally ludicrous to go to Tehran
with only five helicopters. I
wasn’t about to be a part of the
murder of America’s finest sol
diers.”
Beckwith, now president of
“I’m convinced it would have
succeeded,” he said. “Without a
shadow of doubt, some people
would have been hurt, but it
would only have been a handful.
It wouldn’t have been 50. I fi
gure we might have lost about
four or five Delta Force men and
maybe one or two hostages.”
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He said he based his convic
tion on careful interviews with
the hostages after they were
freed in January 1981.
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
SUMMER STUDY
“We asked each of them
where they were when Delta
Force was to have gone over the
wall (at the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran),” Beckwith said. “After
talking to them and evaluating
what they said, I was sure we
could have pulled it off.”
IT AI
1 1 /VL, I*v
Shelling
MAY 14 TO JUIY 2,1984
Rebels violate cease-fire again
United Press International
TRIPOLI, Lebanon — Sy-
in-backed Palestinian rebels
telled Yasser Arafat’s last
onghold in the Beddawi re-
igee camp Sunday and re-
r Meted the PLO chief’s condi-
ms for leaving north Lebanon
/i a “time-gaining gimmick.”
In Beirut, tensions ran high
|ter the state-run radio
mounced Lebanese President
min Gemayel had postponed
ucial talks with Syrian Presi-
:nt Hafez Assad on the with-
awal of Syrian and Israeli
rces from Lebanon.
U.S. F-14 Tomcat fighter jets
;w reconnaissance flights over
e capital as Lebanese army
isitions, 5 miles east of Beirut,
in ok mortar fire. A Lebanese
oneldier was killed in clashes with
oslem Druze militiamen, the
__dio said.
Gemayel postponed a plan-
id trip to Damascus Monday
e ter Assad was taken to the hos-
(tal for treatment of an unspe-
fied illness. The radio said the
scussions would be held when
con .-ssad’s health improves.
The talks were to have been
emayel’s first with Assad, who
icks the anti-government mili-
: Shi
is in Lebanon as well as the
en-ot
ilestinian dissidents opposed
AT
Arafat’s rule of the Palestine
( iberation Organization.
x Despite pledges by the war-
ng factions to spare Tripoli
irther bloodshed, artillery ex-
' )nr langes in the north punctured
tenuous 4-day-old cease-fire,
statement from Arafat’s com-
—*and said loyalist forces repel-
d a three-pronged attack by
yrian commandos and Palesti-
ian rebels overnight. Beirut
adio reported two more
ttempted assaults on Beddawi
uring the day.
From the northern edge of
ripoli, rebel shells could be
ien falling on the Beddawi re-
ugee camp. Arafat’s men fired
back — at Mount Terbol to the
east and Khoura to the south
where the Syrian-backed rebels
are entrenched.
Sporadic shelling continued
throughout the day, setting
ablaze another tank at the coas
tal oil refinery, where fires have
been raging for the past 11 days.
It was not clear who started
the renewed violence, the worst
violation of the Wednesday
night cease-fire mediated by the
Arab Gulf states.
“We expect (all-out) fighting
to resume soon,” said Moham
med Shaker, a spokesman for
Arafat. “The Syrians came here
to try to eliminate us, and they
are not going to stop midway.”
The Palestinian dissidents,
who have trapped Arafat in Tri
poli with Syrian help, dismissed
his conditions for leaving north
ern Lebanon and accused him of
provoking further fighting by
fortifying his positions inside
the city.
In a news conference Satur
day, Arafat said he would not
leave Tripoli unless assured of
the safety of the nearly 60,000
Palestinians in the region. His
exact whereabouts were not
known.
Arafat is worried about a re
peat of the massacres at the Sab-
ra and Chatila refugee camps in
Beirut where hundreds of peo
ple were killed by Christian Pha
lange forces in September 1982.
Arafat did not elaborate on
the guarantees he wanted, but
one of his aides said the guerrilla
leader wanted an Arab observer
force, withdrawal of the Syrian-
backed dissidents from the Tri
poli region and lifting of the 11-
day-old siege of Beddawi.
“Arafat’s demands and pre
conditions for leaving Tripoli
are nothing but a time-gaining
gimmick,” said a rebel spokes
man in Damascus. “Let us hope
he does not seriously believe the
Arab states will send observers
to Tripoli.”
An exodus from the Beddawi
refugee camp continued Sun
day. Heavy rains have made the
deep underground shelters un
inhabitable, and the lack of elec
tricity and running water in the
camp has created acute hard
ship for those remaining.
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