Had to Act Quickly on Mining, Officials Say : Decision to Retaliate Was Made After Firm Evidence That U.S. Warship Had Been Target

President Reagan’s decision to attack Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf was made Friday after U.S. military and intelligence officials determined “conclusively” that the mine that almost sank the Navy frigate Samuel B. Roberts last Thursday was deliberately planted by Iran to strike a U.S. warship.

Top Administration officials, meeting Friday morning at the White House, agreed unanimously that the United States had to move quickly to punish the Iranians for the latest round of mine laying, government sources said. The Defense Department and National Security Council spent the weekend narrowing the list of possible targets to the two Iranian oil platforms that came under heavy U.S. fire early Monday morning.

There was virtually no debate within the Administration over whether to respond to the Iranian mining--only on how to calibrate a response that would minimize the risk to American servicemen and be politically acceptable to Congress and allied nations.

‘Clear Consensus’

“There was a clear consensus right along” among senior officials who met Friday to discuss retaliation, one Administration source said. At the meeting were Reagan, Secretary of State George P. Shultz, Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. and National Security Adviser Colin L. Powell.

“We had to do something,” a senior Administration official said. “We couldn’t sit idly by while they mined the Straits” of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

Administration officials were eager to deter what they considered an imminent resurgence of Iranian hostility toward American forces in the gulf. Tehran appears to have avoided provocative actions in the gulf for several months, but its renewed mine laying was seen as an offensive that needed to be headed off quickly and forcefully.

“It was a clear sign that after months of avoiding confrontation (with American forces), the Iranians were going out and looking for trouble again,” one defense official said. “We needed to respond.”

Reagan Gave Go-Ahead Friday

This thinking led Reagan to give his aides the broad go-ahead Friday morning to begin planning a military strike.

The decision to target two Iranian oil platforms was made with relative ease, sources said. The Navy had destroyed two similar platforms last October after Iran fired a Silkworm missile at a U.S.-flagged tanker in Kuwaiti waters, blinding the American captain and wounding 17 other crewmen.

A senior Pentagon official said that Monday’s action--though it resulted in a heavier response than previous U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran--was intentionally confined to a limited scale to preempt criticism by Congress and U.S. allies, who do not want to see the United States blunder into war with Iran.

“There’s a heavy political component in decisions of this sort,” this official said. “This is a shadow war. There’s a hell of a lot of political freight in these decisions--the effect on world opinion, congressional opinion. The range (of options) was fairly limited this time.”

White House, State Department and Pentagon officials worked through the weekend preparing operational plans while Reagan was at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., and Shultz was in Augusta, Ga., playing golf. Carlucci canceled a planned trip to Puerto Rico to oversee military planning.

The process was simplified because the Joint Chiefs of Staff had already prepared detailed contingency plans for a wide range of military strikes against Iranian targets.

Hitting platforms is fairly low on the escalation ladder, Pentagon officials indicated. While such action is above a simply symbolic show of force, it is far below attacks on military or civilian targets on Iranian soil that would be likely to result in high casualties and a worldwide outcry.

Warships Move Into Gulf

By Sunday morning, U.S. warships in the gulf and the northern Arabian Sea began moving into place, even though final attack orders had not yet been issued. Officers and crew aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise were alerted to prepare the ship’s 90 aircraft for surveillance, air cover and, possibly, combat operations over the gulf.

By Sunday night, the Navy had moved several warships from the Arabian Sea into the gulf to provide sufficient firepower to destroy the platforms and deal with any threat from Iranian ships or aircraft. When the attack began, the Navy had in position a cruiser, four destroyers, seven frigates, an amphibious assault ship, six minesweepers, an ammunition ship and a command ship.

At 8:30 p.m. Sunday, senior policy-makers--including Shultz, Carlucci, Crowe and Powell--met with Reagan in the family quarters of the White House to discuss final plans for the operation.

By 9 p.m., when Reagan called five congressional leaders to the White House to present the plan for retaliation, the decision to hit the platforms was all but sealed.

The meeting lasted until about 10:20 p.m. Washington time.

House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) was in New York, and House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) was in Palm Beach, Fla., when they received news of the White House meeting. An Air Force plane was sent to Florida to pick up Michel, who later returned to Florida after midnight on the same aircraft.

After the lawmakers left the White House, “the President then met again, without the congressional leaders, with his national security advisers to discuss the matter, in view of the congressional concerns raised, and gave the final go-ahead,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

As the attack began at 1 a.m. Washington time Monday--8 a.m. in the gulf--Crowe and a handful of senior military and civilian advisers monitored and directed many aspects of the operations from the National Military Command Center, a large, restricted area of the Pentagon aglow with graphics depicting the scene in the gulf.

They were in constant communication with on-scene commanders, tracking Iranian movements and coordinating U.S. strikes. Carlucci arrived at the Pentagon at 4 a.m. and briefed reporters on the ongoing operation three hours later.

Allies Notified

During the night, Washington also moved to soothe allies’ nerves in advance of the operation, notifying Britain, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium--all countries with naval forces in the gulf--just before the strike. The Soviet Union, China and Persian Gulf states, including Iran’s war foe, Iraq, learned from Washington of the operation as the attack began.

During the session with the lawmakers, Administration officials reportedly presented convincing evidence that the mine that damaged the Roberts last week was laid by the Iranians. U.S. intelligence and military personnel reported that the serial numbers of mines recovered in the area last week were close in sequence to those of other mines seized aboard an Iranian mine-laying ship last September.

Although the congressional leaders expressed support for retaliation against the oil platforms, sources said, they sought--and received--assurances from Reagan that the Administration is not planning additional action to further escalate the fighting.

However, some in the Pentagon who have advocated stronger military measures against Iran got what they wanted as well, thanks to the unexpectedly bellicose Iranian response. The Administration took what it described as a “measured” action in shelling the platforms, but Iran responded with attacks on U.S. ships, helicopters and warplanes, thus justifying the strong U.S. reaction.

“We were prepared to do more, and when they obliged us, we did more,” one senior Pentagon official said.