U.S. Secretly Aided Iraq in War With Iran, Book Says

Despite its official policy of neutrality, the Reagan Administration provided Iraq with secret intelligence and military advice, playing a key role in preparations for an assault that forced Iran to accept a cease-fire, according to a book published Tuesday.

The book, “In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade” by journalist Robin Wright, also says that White House National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane and Lt. Col. Oliver L. North were nearly kidnaped by Iranian militants during their ill-fated efforts to trade arms for hostages.

Wright’s book asserts that President Reagan joined with the leaders of France, Egypt and Jordan to give Iraq the support it needed to reverse an earlier string of defeats and seize the initiative in the Persian Gulf War.

In April, 1988, Iraq mounted a climactic assault on the Faw Peninsula, a strategic area along the disputed Shatt al Arab waterway that had been captured in 1986 by Iran. The Faw campaign became the turning point in the eight-year war.

After Iraq reclaimed the peninsula, the Iranian regime of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which had vowed to fight on until victory, accepted a U.N.-mediated cease-fire.

The Reagan Administration’s tilt toward Iraq was well known at the time of the attack, but the extent of U.S. involvement in Baghdad’s strategy and tactics was a carefully guarded secret.

“In part to restore U.S. credibility among Arab regimes after its arms sales to Tehran and in part out of fear . . . that Iran might break through, Washington advised Baghdad for more than a year on strategy to retake Faw,” reports Wright, now a correspondent in the Washington bureau of The Times.

“Besides providing intelligence on Iranian strengths and positions, U.S. military advisers mapped out how Iraqi units and weapons could most effectively strike at Iranian positions,” she wrote. “With American and other foreign guidance, Iraq constructed a replica of Faw’s junctures for practice runs.”

During part of the time that the United States provided assistance, the book maintains, the biggest problem was persuading the Iraqis to accept the advice. Foreign advisers said Iraq’s early resistance to the help cost Baghdad valuable time.

In part, U.S. support for Iraq was intended to reverse the advances Iran had made in early 1987 in an offensive code-named Karbala-5. The Iranian victories in that operation, Wright said, were made possible by U.S. intelligence information supplied secretly to Tehran as an adjunct of the unsuccessful initiative that became known as the Iran-Contra affair.

In the Karbala-5 operation, begun only a week after the defeat of an earlier Iranian drive, the Iranian army drove six miles into Iraq, reaching the outer defensive perimeter of Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.

“To Iraq and the outside world, it appeared that Tehran had finally made the strategic strike it needed,” Wright wrote. “Karbala-5 had been successful in part because of American intelligence provided to Tehran during Irangate. The military assessments passed through the ‘second channel’ included information on Iraq’s defensive positions and troop strengths. The intelligence did not change Tehran’s strategy, but it did help determine in what strengths and directions Iran deployed its troops and artillery.”

The book traces Iran’s Islamic revolution from Khomeini’s triumphal return to Tehran in 1979 to the end of the gulf war. Much of the focus is on the Iran-Contra affair and its consequences.

The near kidnaping of McFarlane and North by Iranian militants occurred during their now-celebrated trip to Tehran on May 25, 1986, to discuss the proposed arms-for-hostage swap.

Wright writes that Iranian guards loyal to the officials engaged in the secret negotiations with the Americans fought off a rival guard contingent that had intended to prevent further dealing with “the Great Satan” by taking the Americans captive.