PBS Frontline: Retreat from Beirut (1985)

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:01]Major funding for Frontline is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding is provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.

[00:00:14]Lebanon. We decided to show our military might by sending in the Marines. A gulf developed between those who knew something about Lebanon and those who were making the decisions at the political level. In every instance where I've sat in a meeting at the National Security Council, the most bellose people were always the civilian advisers to the president. Tonight on Front Line, an investigation of a policy that resulted in tragedy, lives lost, and the humiliation of retreat.

[00:00:54]from the network of public television stations. A presentation of KCTS Seattle, WNET New York, WPBT Miami, WTVs Detroit, and WGBH Boston.

[00:01:07]This is Frontline with Judy Woodruff.

[00:01:14]>> Good evening. It was exactly one year ago today that the last US forces left Beirut, Lebanon. In a way, it seems much longer than just a year. And Lebanon seems a place we are trying hard to forget. But currently, there is a major debate at the highest levels of our government. It is about the proper use of American military power. It is also about our experience in Lebanon.

[00:01:41]Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, who opposed aspects of our military mission there, argues for extreme caution in committing combat troops abroad. Once committed, he says, commit to win. Secretary of State George Schultz, on the other hand, argued that we had no choice and that we must not be too cautious in using our strength as an instrument of foreign policy. Tonight, what are the lessons of Lebanon?

[00:02:10]Frontline correspondent William Grider looks back at our experience there and at the decisions that shaped it. William Grider is formerly an editor at the Washington Post and now national editor for Rolling Stone magazine. His report is produced by Nancy Sauce and Sherry Jones. It is called Retreat from Beirut.

[00:02:45]A young man dies in the service of his nation and because of television all of us are mourners at his funeral.

[00:02:53]This young Marine with 265 others was killed in a troubled place called Lebanon.

[00:02:59]Now more than a year later, we must still ask a painful question. Were their deaths a meaningful sacrifice or an empty gesture?

[00:03:11]The American engagement in Lebanon was bewildering.

[00:03:15]On the evening news, the public saw for the first time since Vietnam images of Americans at war. But this was not war, not another Vietnam. Then why were the Marines sent there in the first place?

[00:03:27]Unheard by the general public, this question and others were argued out privately at the highest levels of our government and afterwards brushed aside.

[00:03:35]Tonight, we set out to look for some answers. In the last 8 months, we've interviewed dozens of participants, military men on the ground in uniform, the top command at the Pentagon, career diplomats who knew the Middle East, some in the White House where the policy was shaped.

[00:03:51]Many of these officials, fearful for their careers, would speak only if they were not identified. But the story we will tell follows their accounts of what actually happened. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the President's National Security Adviser declined to be interviewed, but many career diplomats and soldiers want these questions explored. What are the risks?

[00:04:14]When should a president send fighting men to troubled places?

[00:04:22]It is places like this where trouble often starts. Countries where the present is defined by eternal realities and ancient enmities.

[00:04:32]Lebanon.

[00:04:34]It is a country no bigger than Connecticut, squeezed by two powerful neighbors, Israel and Syria. A country whose capital city of Beirut is a modern contradiction, widely loved for its charm and sophistication, but hiding a dangerously primitive social reality.

[00:04:53]The capital of a country that is not quite a genuine nation.

[00:04:57]Its boundaries encompass 20 religious groups, a Muslim majority fractured into sects, Sunni and Shiite and Drews, a Christian minority with constitutional power and little real authority.

[00:05:16]A feudal state, each faction, Christian and Muslim, with its own militia, loyal to its own neighborhoods.

[00:05:26]They are accustomed to bloodshed among themselves, blood feuds passed down for generations.

[00:05:33]They are also accustomed to foreign forces occupying their land. Syria controls the eastern third of the country.

[00:05:44]>> Thousands of Palestinians have laid claim to villages in the south and camps in Beirut.

[00:05:51]Lebanon is the command center of Yaser Arafat's PLO.

[00:05:58]It's a country whose fragile peace is founded on instability.

[00:06:18]April 1982, Israeli military leaders vowed to decapitate the PLO to stop its guerrilla warfare once and for all. They begin by bombing and shelling southern Lebanon, where Palestinians live among the Lebanese.

[00:06:40]On June 6th, Israeli tanks invade.

[00:06:48]Washington is not surprised. Israel has signaled its plan to the United States in advance.

[00:06:55]But the Israeli army does not stop as had been promised. They push north, pursuing the retreating PLO. In 3 days, they reach the outskirts of Beirut.

[00:07:18]By August, Beirut is burning, a city under siege.

[00:07:31]The world watches the same TV images Americans see and fears it will get even worse.

[00:07:37]That Israel will invade the Muslim neighborhoods in the heart of the city to root out the PLO and house-to-house fighting.

[00:07:47]The United States is implored by other Arab countries to intervene to prevent disaster.

[00:07:55]The government of Lebanon has requested and I have approved the deployment of United States forces to Beirut as part of a mult.

[00:08:04]In no case will our troops stay longer than 30 days. If they're shot at, will they be withdrawn, sir, immediately? If they're shot at, will they be withdrawn immediately?

[00:08:17]>> Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:08:22]August 25th, 1982.

[00:08:27]Military leaders harbor misgivings about the decision to deploy troops. What is the precise military mission? How long will they stay? Diplomats want the Marines in Lebanon for 60 days. The Pentagon is leery. They settle on a mission of 30 days, strictly limited in scope.

[00:08:50]With the French and the Italians, the Marines will ensure the peaceful evacuation of PLO combatants from the city.

[00:08:57]Then they will leave themselves.

[00:09:17]This first deployment seems a great success. US diplomats cut a deal between Israel and the PLO, and the small contingent of Marines supervises the evacuation of 15,000 fighters without a single incident of bloodshed.

[00:09:37]The diplomatic exchanges include one other crucial promise. The US and its allies will guarantee the safety of the families the PLO fighters leave behind.

[00:09:47]Women and children and the elderly.

[00:10:02]US diplomacy has yet another task.

[00:10:05]Working with Israel to help install a new Lebanese president, Bashir Jamaal.

[00:10:10]He's leader of the powerful Christian felage militia.

[00:10:17]But his faction is only 20% of the population.

[00:10:21]His victory is celebrated only in the Christian neighborhoods of East Beirut.

[00:10:25]in Israel and in Washington.

[00:10:29]>> From the American perspective, things were going much better than any of us ever thought possible. But Jamal, a bright young man, very aggressive and very charismatic, had just been elected president. He was uh dependent upon uh the United States. He was committed to our point of view. Morris Draper is a career diplomat who served with Philip Habib as special envoy to the Middle East. Together they negotiated terms for the Marine deployment and for the PLO evacuation.

[00:11:02]>> It just looked very good to us at that point.

[00:11:10]>> Israel's troops surround Beirut, but the PLO fighters are gone. The Marine mission is finished.

[00:11:18]At the Pentagon's urging, the multinational force departs early, 12 days ahead of schedule.

[00:11:34]>> Troubled places like Lebanon have a way of disappointing expectations.

[00:11:39]3 weeks after his election and 2 days after the multiational force leaves Lebanon, Bashir Jama is assassinated by a terrorist bomb.

[00:11:49]Optimism is shattered, displaced by an ancient emotion well known to this place. A longing for revenge.

[00:12:05]Two days later, Christian felanges forces enter the camps of Sabra and Chhatila where the families of the PLO fighters remain. For two days, the Christians kill unarmed Muslim people.

[00:12:22]>> Almost 800 of them.

[00:12:39]In Washington, outrage is mixed with guilt. American power had intervened in Lebanon to protect these people. Now it feels responsible.

[00:12:51]A fateful debate unfolds within the US government over just one weekend. In less than 48 hours, the White House, the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon thrash out the options for an American response.

[00:13:05]Congress could limit the president's power to commit Marines if it were to be a combat situation.

[00:13:11]Congressional leaders are assured this isn't the case. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense express strong dissent over a military role. Their objections are overruled by the president himself. The Marines will return to Lebanon. My fellow Americans, the scenes that the whole world witnessed this past weekend were among the most heart-wrenching in the long nightmare of Lebanon's agony. Millions of us have seen pictures of the Palestinian victims of this tragedy.

[00:13:41]There's little that words can add, but there are actions we can and must take to bring that nightmare to an end.

[00:13:49]The multinational force will return to Beirut for a limited period of time.

[00:13:54]But I've concluded there is no alternative to their returning to Lebanon if that country is to have a chance to stand on its own feet. Peace in Beirut is only a first step. The Lebanese people must be allowed to chart their own future. They must rely solely on Lebanese armed forces who are willing and able to bring security to their country. They must be allowed to do so.

[00:14:19]And the sooner the better.

[00:14:37]The president said the Marines will stay for a limited period, but that question is one of many left unanswered. I'm not high on uh what the politics are back in the government or the politics here are.

[00:14:50]I'm just your basic grunt. All I know is that I have a job. That that job was to come here and do what I was told to do.

[00:14:58]And that was to help keep the peace here and help protect the people we're supposed to protect. First of all, I think it's pretty good to be able to represent the Marine Corps like this here. And uh while driving through town and everything like that, I guess the Lebanese people really appreciate us being here. That's a really good feeling.

[00:15:17]>> What's the best part about being here?

[00:15:20]>> Beach.

[00:15:22]Spend your vacation in Beirut.

[00:15:30]The Marines are assigned a passive position at the airport south of the city. The outpost is set on low-lying ground close by Muslim suburbs hostile to the Lebanese government.

[00:15:42]But the Marines are not here for combat.

[00:15:44]Not here to do what Marines are trained to do, attack an objective and capture it.

[00:15:52]We were there as a peacekeeping force.

[00:15:54]Uh and because of that mission, we did not carry the kinds of arms or throw up the kinds of defenses that we would have in a tactical situation. Uh we were also not there in real strength. We had sufficient numbers for our uh security of of the area that we were in, but by no means would we have been a match for any kind of a concentrated attack by any of the factions. They could have taken us on at any time and done serious damage. The vulnerability was part of the strategy that if the Marines had been in a big bunker well protected then they would have been in the combatant role which the administration didn't want them to be in they wanted them to be there as a symbol of US interest a political gesture so they put them in a vulnerable place >> there was no police power as such there was no military objective as such it was showing the luck. In other words, it was it was a symbolic show of force uh to support the concept of a legitimacy and a constitutional government taking over its own uh territory.

[00:17:07]>> What was the Pentagon's view of that proposal to go back in again?

[00:17:11]>> Well, the I think it's fair to say uh basically the military wants to know what the military mission is. The basic question is what are we doing?

[00:17:24]And it was explained in policy terms.

[00:17:28]You ought to be a buffer in order to enable a government time to grow up.

[00:17:34]Well, that's a policy. But to the man on the ground, he he wants to say, "Yes, sir. I understand that, but what does that mean? What do I do?"

[00:17:42]>> Uh there was a great reluctance on the part of the military to put that force in there without a clear identification of what its mission was.

[00:17:50]>> The Pentagon was was the Pentagon The Pentagon principally said, "Let's get in and get out as quickly as we can." I mean, that was basically the Pentagon's position. I think properly so.

[00:18:00]>> If you had said to many in the Pentagon, they're going to be there for more than 3 months or they're going to be there more for more than 6 months, uh, it would have caused substantial consternation.

[00:18:13]I personally get goosey when somebody just talks about military presence on the ground somewhere when you have somebody who considers himself to be your enemy.

[00:18:29]They are a neutral peacekeeping force told to fire only in self-defense.

[00:18:34]Their weapons are not loaded.

[00:18:47]No one will hide. No one will stand in your way.

[00:18:57]Nothing standing nothing.

[00:19:28]Success of this military mission, when it will end, depends solely on what American diplomats can achieve, not on anything the Marines can do themselves.

[00:19:39]The team of Philip Habib and Morris Draper begin a series of manysided negotiations with Israel and Syria and the Christian controlled government in Beirut headed by Basher Jamal's brother Amen.

[00:19:52]>> There was a very solid expansive optimistic kind of mood. So although very ambitious goals had been set in which Phil and I joined, uh I think we recognized some of the problems but didn't think the existence of problems out there should deter us from trying.

[00:20:13]Unless Jamal builds a government that includes all rival religious factions and pleases both Israel and Syria, genuine peace would remain elusive.

[00:20:23]Decades of diplomacy and intermittent war had failed to achieve that goal. Now the Marines are assured the heroic feat might be accomplished in a few months.

[00:20:34]Diplomats pursue a foreign policy set in Washington. And Washington is sometimes oblivious to the intractable realities on the scene.

[00:20:42]>> Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.

[00:20:45]>> The question of how long the Marines will stay, left vague so far, is soon defined in the most ambitious terms.

[00:20:52]almost casually by the president himself.

[00:20:56]>> John, Mr. President, do you have a plan for getting the United States out of Lebanon if fighting should break out there? Uh, or could the Marine presence there lead to another long entanglement such as Vietnam?

[00:21:10]>> No, I don't see anything of that kind taking place there at all. and the u uh the Marines are going in there into a a situation that with a definite understanding as to what we're supposed to do. I believe that we are going to be successful in seeing the other foreign forces leave Lebanon and then as such time as Lebanon says that they have the situation well in hand, why we'll depart.

[00:21:38]>> Saying that they will remain there until all foreign forces are withdrawn.

[00:21:43]Yes, because I think that's going to be that's going to come rapidly.

[00:21:49]>> In the State Department, there was an attempt to try and figure out what this meant and how we were going to implement this policy.

[00:21:58]He said that that the Marines will stay there until foreign forces leave. What does that mean? What will their role be?

[00:22:05]>> Daniel Pipes was in Middle East policy planning at the State Department. Will their numbers expand along with the French and Italians? Will they take the place of the Syrians and the Israelis?

[00:22:15]Are they there for peacekeeping or peace enforcing purposes? Many questions arose at that point.

[00:22:22]>> But was that accepted as because the president said something offhand at a press conference that that's the new government policy?

[00:22:29]>> Well, yes, the president does make policy. If the president clearly says that the troops will be there, this the state department or the defense department cannot come out and say they will not. They can try and and and and shade his remarks in such a way that well what he meant by evacuation of all foreign forces was they're pulling back 20 m or partial or not all of them really. But you can't say no, he didn't mean it or that's not really government policy.

[00:22:58]That's that's out of the question.

[00:23:03]If the Marines must stay in Lebanon until both Israel and Syria agree to leave, a second mission becomes critical.

[00:23:10]>> How you doing there, young man?

[00:23:11]>> Building a Lebanese army that can genuinely defend the country.

[00:23:15]>> Talk to me a little bit about this post.

[00:23:16]How are you doing?

[00:23:17]>> Fine, thank you.

[00:23:18]>> You uh enjoying working with the United States Marines?

[00:23:20]>> Yes, I am sergeant of the military Lebanese.

[00:23:22]>> And you are in charge of the uh Lebanese honest post?

[00:23:25]>> Honest post.

[00:23:26]>> Very good.

[00:23:27]>> Very good. Thank you.

[00:23:28]>> How do you find working with United States Marines? They are very good.

[00:23:31]>> I I thank you very much.

[00:23:32]>> Well, they tell me the same thing about you.

[00:23:35]>> They tell me the same thing.

[00:23:36]>> Okay.

[00:23:36]>> They're very happy to be here.

[00:23:38]>> Okay. Thank you.

[00:23:39]>> We thank you very much.

[00:23:40]>> My demonstrators are going to demonstrate most of these positions. So, at this time, I like my demonstrators to go out and post. Demonstrator.

[00:23:52]>> The response of the Lebanese to the rebuilding of their army was was extraordinarily warm.

[00:24:01]So on the face of it, it looked pretty good. Um almost day by day, one saw improvements. Um >> they're improving their looks, uh impressing their uniforms. They were >> showing some style.

[00:24:21]>> American military leaders are not so sanguin about how quickly the Lebanese army will be ready to take over. It is much a much longer time frame to really train a good army. I mean I had many discussions uh with the marine and army officers and the general consensus was you were talking about two years to train a good brigade.

[00:24:50]1983 begins with no sign of the quick diplomatic solution. The Lebanese government, relying on American sponsorship, drags its feet on reaching accord with its domestic rivals.

[00:25:01]Positions harden. In the next months, each faction begins rebuilding its own arsenal and guarding its own neighborhood.

[00:25:10]Israeli troops occupy southern Lebanon and some mountain villages overlooking Beirut, awaiting the diplomatic victory that will allow them to withdraw.

[00:25:20]Syria seizes the opportunity to refortify its third of the country.

[00:25:26]Our temporary peacekeeping force has now been in Lebanon 7 months.

[00:25:37]April 18th, 1983, a car bomb shatters the American embassy in downtown Beirut, 5 miles from the Marines at the airport.

[00:25:49]61 people are killed, including 17 Americans.

[00:25:54]It is a warning. In this situation, a terrorist bomb can be as dangerous as an enemy battalion.

[00:26:02]I think that started to raise concern about the vulnerability of the military forces in the area. that the forces really, you know, all they were was a a donut, a bullseye sitting there at the airfield and weren't able, you know, and without a clear identification of anything uh any mission that they had other than just sitting there as a presence.

[00:26:24]>> No one stops to reconsider. I don't think anybody ever went to the president. I'm sure nobody went to president said, "Give us a clear-cut mission or take us out."

[00:26:34]>> The government is caught in a dilemma constructed of its own promises. It may be increasingly dangerous to keep the Marines in Lebanon, but it would look weak to withdraw.

[00:26:47]>> Within days of the bombing, Secretary of State George Schultz arrives on the scene to push for a settlement between Israel and Lebanon. Schultz assumes that Syria will withdraw its troops if Israel does.

[00:27:00]But he has been warned by his own ambassadors to the Middle East countries that Syria will not go along with any treaty that rewards Israel in any way for its invasion. He dismisses the ambassador's advice as negative thinking. He and his negotiators push to complete the deal that Israel hased.

[00:27:19]If I understand it, the May 17th Accord for for starters granted recognition to Israel from the government of Lebanon and uh which would be a political goal of an accomplishment from the invasion. Uh another u provision which allowed Israeli patrols through fairly wide areas of Lebanon. Well, let's uh >> I I I'm not trying to go through the whole all the details of the May 17th Accord, but would would it not be reasonable for the Syrians to interpret those as as geopolitical benefits for Israel out of the >> Well, the Syrians um um did make some of those arguments, although some of the Syrian complaints about um the accord between the Israelis and Lebanese uh were over trivial matters in our opinion. I don't think we did enough with the Syrians. We didn't do enough with the Syrians to give them some stake in dealing with us on Lebanon. We put the Syrians in a box, labeled it Soviet puppet, and have deprived ourselves of a relationship aside from the diplomatic one with one of the of the principal Arab actors. We attempted without realizing what we were doing to give Israel at the conference table what had been unable to win at the battlefield.

[00:28:38]The agreement is signed between only Israel and Lebanon. Syria denounces it.

[00:28:47]>> The reaction in Beirut is immediate.

[00:28:51]Muslims demonstrate in protest and for the first time the Lebanese army fires on its own citizens.

[00:28:58]Instead of delivering peace, the May 17th accordes in Lebanon.

[00:29:05]A coalition of anti-government factions announces its opposition. The needed American diplomatic success seems more remote than ever.

[00:29:16]The Marines have been in Lebanon 8 months, and once again, the president is asked how long they will stay. Well, you have to remember what the multinational forces went in there for. The multinational forces are there to help the new government of Lebanon maintain order until it can uh organize its military and its police and assume control over its own borders and its own internal security. So it could be that the multinational forces will be there for for quite a period. Reagan's press conference remarks seem once more to expand American policy. The limited period originally promised now sounds indefinite open-ended.

[00:29:59]>> That's the function and the purpose for the them being for our multinational forces being there.

[00:30:04]>> Once it became apparent that we were going to be there 60, 90, 120 days, somebody dropped the ball in Washington because we just went from checkers to chess.

[00:30:22]Did anybody argue in those meetings and say, "Mr. President, this is not a vital interest of the United States."

[00:30:27]>> If they did, I never heard it.

[00:30:30]>> Les Janka, deputy White House press secretary serving the National Security Council. as the decision making moved up into the higher levels uh fewer and fewer people were involved who really knew the Middle East who really knew Lebanon and were in a position to argue in terms of history in terms of facts on the ground in terms of America's relations with these countries uh in those kind of terms and again as as you go up the decision chain you have more and more people who are share the political philosophy of the president they share the general al approach towards managing the world. And so you you have less and less philosophical disscent to come up with a radical sort of position that this is this is nuts or we're going 180° the wrong way. You need somebody who is watching it carefully with the sort of steely gaze of a banker who will look at it and say smells like three-week old fish to me buddy. Um you you need somebody who's going to keep a weather eye on it so that people who are advocates don't get too far out of hand.

[00:31:41]People who've got too much of themselves in that policy.

[00:31:44]>> Robert Murray, former under secretary of the Navy who served on the Pentagon Commission that investigated Lebanon.

[00:31:50]>> Somebody might have said, for instance, when the embassy blew up, uh gee, now is this really working out?

[00:31:59]>> What would have happened if you had pulled the Marines out? just said where we were taking them home.

[00:32:04]>> Well, how could we link it to anything?

[00:32:06]We didn't have anything.

[00:32:09]The Marines were sent there along with the French and so forth to um give psychological support to the Lebanese as they were taking over. The Lebanese were having a few problems. It wasn't all that good.

[00:32:23]Um but any kind of major political success or diplomatic success or security success uh we could have um perhaps used and we were looking for that but we hadn't quite seen it.

[00:32:41]Summer 1983 what was first called peace looks more and more like war. Tensions build, especially in the mountains overlooking the marine position, the Shu.

[00:32:54]The Israelis control the Shu, but threaten to withdraw.

[00:32:58]If they do, they'll leave a military vacuum to be fought over between the Drews and the Christian Fage.

[00:33:05]>> The Drews are backed by Syria, now rearmed by the Soviet Union.

[00:33:11]As the reality on the ground becomes more ominous, the US finds itself in the peculiar position of pleading with the Israelis not to pull out. 3 hours of war last night. See that? See the burnt spot in the middle of the hill up there.

[00:33:28]Last night at 1:00 until 4:00 this morning, a battle back and forth, three directions was all attacking that one perimeter. up there in the hill are the are the Syrians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Christians, and the Catholic.

[00:33:42]They're all fighting the the Syrians right now in the top of them mountains up there. They're knocking down buildings and everything just about every night.

[00:33:54]September 4th, Israel, whose invasion triggered American involvement here, pulls out of the Shu mountains. The Marines are now side by side with the battle zone, just as the military commanders had feared. After I received my briefings in Washington and after I heard of the various alternatives that were being uh suggested for the Marines employment, there was no way that I could see that without the Israelis cooperating as we had asked them to do and with all the factions that were competing for turf that the Marines were not going to be caught in center some way.

[00:34:40]There was no doubt in my mind that uh I was going to have to have the sad duty of reporting on the most significant casualties to Marines since Vietnam.

[00:35:06]The Marines have been in Lebanon for almost a year, trying not to get involved in the hostilities that flare around them. But as the fighting intensifies, they themselves become targets.

[00:35:17]Commanders send daily reports up the chain of command to Washington describing the growing dangers and they begin to take casualties.

[00:35:29]Heat up here.

[00:36:04]We should get we should get uh combat pay number one cuz this believe it or not this is a combat zone.

[00:36:12]>> You're not getting >> no definitely taking casualties. We are caught up in this. You know we're not separate. We're definitely in the middle here.

[00:36:23]Now, uh we are a peacekeeping mission definitely, but uh if we're engaged and we are engaging other targets, that's a war in my opinion. That's uh definitely that's combat.

[00:36:35]Trying to figure out for myself. I'm still trying to understand what's going on over here for myself so that I can say yes or no. Should we or shouldn't we be here?

[00:36:47]>> Word down. Wish right back.

[00:36:49]>> They don't already pop up. Lieutenant got word of that around there.

[00:36:53]>> Yeah.

[00:36:55]Brim reaper. Brim reaper. This is auto creature.

[00:37:00]>> Hey, mad man. Come climb up here.

[00:37:03]>> What do you see so much? Look at this.

[00:37:04]>> Okay. That man you cut out right there with the rifle ching the scope on. He's a sniper. Okay. To snipe the enemy so so we don't waste a bunch of ammunition.

[00:37:14]>> Yo, which way did Ran? Let him know.

[00:37:15]Talk to him.

[00:37:16]>> Who's the one who got hit? Ran got hit.

[00:37:19]>> Where'd it come from? coming from right up there near the top of the horizon.

[00:37:22]That big bunch of steel stuff and Julian out here on their way.

[00:37:28]>> Where's Tyber at?

[00:37:33]>> I'm appreciate if somebody gets tired out of the goddamn bunker.

[00:37:36]>> Like two people up there.

[00:37:37]>> Check out them two.

[00:37:38]>> Yeah, that's where people out in this building. They ducking their head down and going off.

[00:37:42]>> Oh, what building is it?

[00:37:43]>> This building right behind the yellow.

[00:37:44]See them three yellow little things in the middle up there. You see right that building >> with the red curtains on it?

[00:37:48]>> No. No. The one the yellow right up above it.

[00:37:51]>> See the way you all are right now?

[00:37:53]That's about 10 dead Marines. Why don't you guys go right ahead and disperse?

[00:37:56]You can send a couple Marines down there for security. Couple up here.

[00:38:03]>> They are firing back at faceless snipers in Muslim neighborhoods. But the White House insists this is not combat. This is not war.

[00:38:16]The skipity doo d.

[00:38:19]I'm the happiest marine in the whole USA.

[00:38:26][ __ ] Well, Mr. Chairman, here we are again.

[00:38:34]You and I and a couple of others were here 19 years ago when we had this same kind of debate.

[00:38:41]If you vote for this resolution, events will overwhelm it.

[00:38:47]>> All along, Congress has voted money to keep the Marines in Lebanon. But as they see them under fire, taking casualties, Congress begins to debate the president's policy.

[00:38:58]>> We cannot turn tail and run. We cannot.

[00:39:00]>> The administration claims the Marines aren't involved in war for a very specific reason. The War Powers Act passed in 1973 to prevent a president from leading us into another Vietnam.

[00:39:12]>> If the Marines are in fact engaged in combat, Congress has 60 days to approve the action or bring them home.

[00:39:19]>> The War Powers Resolution was purchased at a terrible price.

[00:39:26]Rivers of blood and mountains of dead from Vietnam.

[00:39:32]And the American people, whether it be in Central America or in the Middle East or in any other part of the world, are determined not to have another Vietnam.

[00:39:43]>> Lebanon is a trap. Lebanon is a quagmire.

[00:39:47]>> We cannot have 535 primidonas deciding what we're going to have as foreign policy. We've got to have leadership from the commander-in-chief.

[00:39:58]The commander-in-chief and his allies insist that it is his decision. That's what this debate is all about whether or not Congress will assert its constitutional authority over war makingaking.

[00:40:09]>> Speaker, it is with great reluctance that I rise in opposition to this resolution.

[00:40:13]>> One of the most forceful advocates for withdrawal is himself an honored veteran of Vietnam.

[00:40:18]>> I've agonized over this issue, not only because of my personal experience, but more importantly because of my training in military doctrine, strategy, and tactics. Republican John McCain of Arizona.

[00:40:30]>> A Navy flyer who spent six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

[00:40:35]I do not foresee obtainable objectives in Lebanon. I believe the longer we stay, the more difficult it will be to leave. And I am prepared to accept the consequences of our withdrawal.

[00:40:45]>> I am impressed that those who have had military experience say that this is a disastrous matter. If we are there to fight, then we are far too few.

[00:40:57]If we are there to die, then we're far too many.

[00:41:09]>> Lebanon is engulfed in civil war. The Lebanese army itself moves into the Shu, battling village by village against the Syrianbacked Drews.

[00:41:25]Yeah, >> the Lebanese army's position is increasingly precarious. They have only the US to turn to. The worsening situation ignites a major debate within the administration over the role of the Marines. Some argue that Syria is the source of the trouble and must be shown our resolve. Some even want to send the Marines into the mountains to fight alongside the Lebanese army. It is White House strategists versus the military.

[00:41:54]The military did not want to escalate our involvements into the Shu mountains.

[00:42:00]Of all the areas in the world where you could through inadvertence go to war with the Soviet, it was there because we really had our forces probably as close as we have ever had. And we weren't masters of how the how how the activities might unfold.

[00:42:13]>> Moving up into the hills would have required a much bigger force and a different role, different mission because now we would be occupying people's villages. So, we would have to be in the business of suppressing militia forces at least and possibly Syrian uh uh forces or Iranian revolutionary guards uh as well.

[00:42:37]>> There was a sense in the White House that we wanted to overcome the Vietnam syndrome. It was specifically discussed a number of occasions.

[00:42:46]>> The military learned caution from Vietnam. Some in the White House drew an opposite lesson. It was his attempt to show the American people that we had overcome it as well as not just the Middle East, but the rest of the world that America was back from where, I'm not sure, the slew of despond of Southeast Asia, I presume, but that we were back ready to to use our power in the world for our own interests and for the good of Western civilization.

[00:43:17]>> Midepptember, 2 weeks after the Israeli withdrawal, had a round head 100 me south. First platoon out.

[00:43:24]>> The Marines hunkered down at the airport are now under regular attack.

[00:43:29]>> Carrying out Washington's orders falls to their commander, Marine Colonel Tim Gity. Colonel Gerity caught the brunt of all of this. On the one hand, he was the ground commander. So, he had all the responsibility for calling the shots as to what targets would be addressed and which ones would not.

[00:43:49]uh but he had very little authority in terms of the fact that you had layers of command going back to Washington and each had its own idea how this uh mission was supposed to be accomplished.

[00:44:01]You had Ambassador McFarland and and his group that were coming in who uh were a direct representative of the president and they were flitting to Damascus and Tel Aviv and back and uh all of these various uh entities were competing for supremacy and each of them providing guidance. But bottom line was that Colonel Gerity was the guy that had to make the hard calls.

[00:44:26]The president's new negotiator is Robert Bud McFarland, number two man at the National Security Council.

[00:44:33]>> A man with limited Middle East experience, but a leading advocate of escalating the Marine involvement. He is himself a former Marine.

[00:44:41]>> That because you were here, there's going to be a Lebanon.

[00:44:48]And if you had not been here, there wouldn't be one.

[00:44:53]Bud was cast in that role as a trying to negotiate a a diplomatic solution to a rapidly deteriorating military security situation. The scope of his diplomacy, his task became much more immediate, much more hour to hour and and much more focused on if not just Lebanon or not just Beirut but on a small little village, Sugil Garb in the Shu. I mean this is where you had diplomacy gone gone crazy at a certain point. Of course, he called for and received uh president approved using uh the the ships offshore uh not just to fire in defense of the marine forces but actually to add their firepower to the strength of the central Lebanese forces. I think at that point diplomacy became hopeless.

[00:45:42]>> September 11th, the president authorizes naval shelling of Arab combatants in the village of Suka Guard. The administration says supporting the Lebanese army is an act of self-defense to protect the Marines, but the escalation will engage the US in civil war. Over the next week, officials witness an extraordinary confrontation.

[00:46:03]McFarland, the president's man, arguing with the military commander, Gered, pressing him to order the naval guns to fire. Colonel Gered resists. He had no doubt in his mind that if we opened up with naval gunfire in a situation that was clearly not in our own best interest and the other side chose to that in a gigantic barrage of all of their assets, we would have been obliterated.

[00:46:34]September 19th, Colonel Gity relents. He gives the order to fire.

[00:46:42]The White House insists that nothing has changed, that the peacekeeping mission is not involved in war.

[00:46:47]>> It was our public excuse that this was to to defend the Marines at the airport.

[00:46:52]But in fact, the the shells were called in as an adjunct to uh the attempts to to to achieve a little bit of stability in the Shu so that the diplomacy, the withdrawal efforts, the separation of the various uh fighting, the sectarian fighting could go forward. It was in direct support of the Lebanese military.

[00:47:12]>> Was that a deception on the part of the government?

[00:47:16]>> No, it was just uh we had the ability to define our actions and we defined them that way. And had we defined them another way, we would have been probably involved in a bigger fight with the Senate than we were involved in with Syrian forces or Drew's Drew's forces or any others.

[00:47:32]If those peacekeeping forces are >> two days after the shelling of Suk Algarb, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meets.

[00:47:40]>> I therefore feel that with the collapse of Lebanon.

[00:47:42]>> Television pictures of war contradict the White House claims.

[00:47:46]>> Members of Congress are alarmed. Critics demand an immediate withdrawal.

[00:47:51]>> What is in fact at stake here is my concern over this administration's whether or not this administration has a policy. The president proposes a political compromise which Democratic leaders in the House rush to embrace. He will acknowledge that Congress has a voice in the matter and Congress will let the Marines stay for another 18 months.

[00:48:14]>> That bargain is attacked here. It seems clear to me that while the age-old problems of the Middle East will not be solved in 6 months or 8 months or 18 months, that we will surely know within the next several months whether the situation in Lebanon is going to degenerate into hopeless civil warfare.

[00:48:33]>> Senator Charles Matias, a Republican, proposes allowing the president only 6 months to get the Marines out of Lebanon.

[00:48:40]>> Is there anyone who wishes to say anything? If not, the clerk will call role.

[00:48:44]The vote is on the most fundamental question, the commitment of American fighting forces abroad.

[00:48:50]>> Specifically, will the president be given another 18 months in Lebanon or limited to the 6 months Matias has proposed?

[00:49:00]>> Congress complains that it deserves a larger role in foreign policy. But the question this day is whether senators will claim that authority and repudiate the commander-in-chief.

[00:49:12]If the eyes win, the president loses.

[00:49:15]He'll have only 6 months to get the Marines out.

[00:49:18]>> The uh yays are nine, the nays are eight. The >> the administration is defeated by one vote.

[00:49:28]>> Mr. Chairman, um as leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Howard Baker is responsible for administration policy.

[00:49:38]>> Mr. Chairman, I move to reconsider the vote by which the >> if this decision holds, it will be historic. Congressional rejection of a president's deployment of troops >> is to table the Baker motion to >> the vote was 9 to8 against the president. So the majority leader turns the pressure on the one Republican who voted for speedy withdrawal, Senator Matias.

[00:50:01]Whole thing goes on the tube.

[00:50:04]>> Whatever Baker whispers, it works.

[00:50:10]Mr. Chairman, we're obviously at a very difficult place and so on the on the basis of preserving the process, I will move to reconsider.

[00:50:23]>> In the end, Matias backs down >> and votes against the same proposal he originally introduced.

[00:50:29]>> I thank everyone for their >> in its facetoface confrontation with the president. Congress backs down too.

[00:50:36]It agrees to let the Marines stay in Lebanon for 18 more months.

[00:50:48]>> October 23rd, 1983, 5 days earlier, the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the first time had formally proposed to the White House, pull the Marines out of their dangerous situation, put them back on the ships.

[00:51:03]Nothing happens.

[00:51:10]A truck loaded with explosives crashes into the Marine barracks and destroys it. 241 die.

[00:51:41]The Marines would stay on for another 4 months. The president continued to insist that they would remain, that we had a vital interest in Lebanon. He accused congressional critics of wishing to cut and run. In the next months, we escalated further, shelling by the battleship New Jersey and air raids against Syrian positions.

[00:52:02]The Syrians waited, taunting American diplomats face to face. Despite your tough talk, they said, "America has no stomach for this fight."

[00:52:12]As the dead and wounded came home, the public pressure for withdrawal got stronger and stronger.

[00:52:19]A formal Pentagon inquiry reprimanded commanders like Gity for lack security, but they also urged the president to change his policy.

[00:52:30]On February 7th, 1984, as quietly as possible, a press release was posted in the White House. The Marines would return to their ships.

[00:52:45]They had been in Lebanon 16 months and 29 days.

[00:52:50]As long as there is a chance for a peaceful solution, we're going to try and see if there's any contribution we can make to achieving that. And uh I'm I just as long as that chance exists, I'm not going to give up and say, "Well, it's all over and uh we're not bugging out. We're just going to a little more defensible position.

[00:53:17]War is a blunt instrument. People get hurt. Diplomacy sometimes goes ary."

[00:53:23]Those facts were not squarely faced in Lebanon. The real risks were not explained up front.

[00:53:29]The tragedy should have taught us be wary of deploying fighting men as a symbolic gesture unless we are really ready to use them. But afterwards only the military re-examined itself. No one investigated the performance of the State Department or Congress or for that matter the White House. Everyone shared responsibility.

[00:53:50]A president who failed to reconsider his own wishful thinking.

[00:53:55]military leaders who consented too easily to a mission they knew was flawed.

[00:54:01]A secretary of state who brushed aside warnings from his own experts in the field.

[00:54:08]Ultimately, the question is not who is to blame, but once again, did America learn anything?

[00:54:37]Next week on Front Line, we examine another major foreign policy concern.

[00:54:42]One which has been called the most dangerous issue of our times, nuclear proliferation.

[00:54:49]Puliter prize winning journalist Seymour Hirsch reports on the case of a Pakistani businessman accused of trying to smuggle restricted nuclear technology out of the United States and into Pakistan.

[00:55:03]>> It all started with these tiny switches called critons. They can be used as triggers for nuclear bombs. This man tried to buy them in the US and ship them to Pakistan.

[00:55:16]Was he an innocent businessman or an agent of the Pakistani government?

[00:55:21]>> I was used as a scapegoat.

[00:55:23]>> The guy knew what he was doing.

[00:55:27]>> And how much did the US government know?

[00:55:30]Did the administration choose to look the other way to protect its interest in Pakistan?

[00:55:35]>> I don't know why the government didn't make any more of this.

[00:55:39]Now you that's what I'm hoping you're going to be able to tell me why the government didn't make more of this. The government started off this case going into court reading something from the State Department saying this man is a big spy and we got to do all kinds of horrible things to him and at the end of the case for some reason they quietly folded their books and went away.

[00:56:00]>> The program is called Buying the Bomb.

[00:56:03]It is next week on Frontline. I'm Judy Woodruff. Good night.

[00:56:10]Heat.

[00:56:22]Heat.

[00:56:31]Heat. Heat.

[00:57:16]For a transcript of this program, please send $4 to Frontline, Box 322, Boston, Massachusetts 02134.

[00:57:28]Frontline is produced for the documentary consortium by WGBH Boston, which is solely responsible for its content.

[00:57:36]Major funding for Frontline was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional funding was provided by this station and other public television stations nationwide.