User:Stickhandler/Sandbox/Bernsen

Tanker War and Operation Earnest Will

Bernsen returned to the La Salle in 1986 as commander of the United States Navy's Mideast Force.^[1][6] America's reputation in the region took a blow in November of that year with the revelation that White House officials had sold arms to Iran, and Bernsen set up a series of meetings worked to reassure U.S. security partners in the region.^[7] On February 3, 1987, he received a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust from Hammad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, then the deputy to Bahrain's emir.^[8]

On May 17, 1987, an Iraqi fighter jet hit the USS Stark with Exocet missiles, killing 37 sailors.^[9][10] Three days later, President Reagan declared a "policy of self-defence" would now be ordered, as he accepted Iraq's official apology:^[11] "Our ships are deployed in the Persian Gulf in order to protect U.S. interests and maintain free access and maintain freedom of navigation and access to the area's oil supplies. It is a vital mission, but our ships need to protect themselves and they will. [From now on] if aircraft approach any of our ships in a way that appears hostile, there is one order of battle. Defend yourselves. Defend American lives.. We're going to do what has to be done to keep the Persian Gulf open. It's international waters. No country there has a right to try and close it off and take it for itself. And the villain in the piece really is Iran. And so they're delighted with what has just happened."^[12]

Historian Harold Lee Wise described Iranian actions in the Gulf:^[7]

On July 23, 1987, the U.S. launched Operation Earnest Will, a UN-sanctioned effort to escort civilian oil tankers through the wartorn Persian Gulf. Admiral WIlliam Crowe, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was relieved by these decisions: "During my recent Gulf visit I had heard firsthand from the Middle East Force’s commanders and men about the unprovoked and murderous attacks they were witnessing. They were a frustrated group of sailors; they hated to have to restrain themselves while atrocities were carried out in front of their eyes."

The MV Bridgeton was, the very next day, the first casualty among the re-flagged tankers. Bernsen had "slowed the convoy so that it would pass Farsi Island during daylight, but the Bridgeton encountered a floating mine rather than the anticipated small-boat attack. IRGC divers using speedboats had laid the mines under cover of darkness,"^[13] and one blew a 10 by 30 foot hole in the tanker.^[14] Bernsen wrote, "The events of this morning . . . represent a distinct and serious change in Iranian policy vis-à-vis U.S. military interests in the Gulf. There is no question that Iranian forces specially targeted the escort transit group and placed mines in the water with the intent to damage or sink as many ships as possible."^[15][16]

Bernsen wrote a report to CENTCOM to solve his problem with a bold idea: "In my view, to be successful in the northern Gulf we must establish intensive patrol operations to prevent the Iranians from laying mines. I believe we can achieve the desired results with a mix of relatively small patrol craft, boats, and [helicopters]." Of course he faced remonstrations from the Navy but Admiral Crowe and Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage supported him, and SecDef Weinberger approved the plan,^[15] and the Mobile Sea Bases were born.^[17]

Bernsen moved quickly to summon special warfare surveillance and patrol forces for the northern Persian Gulf: six Mark III patrol boats, other special boat assets, and two SEAL platoons. All deployed the following month, many taking up station on a pair of oil servicing barges, Hercules and Wimbrown VII, converted for use as mid-gulf bases. They operated in secret, along with Army helicopters based off Navy frigates, as Operation Prime Chance.^[18][19] This was the first operational deployment for forces under the newly created U.S. Special Operations Command.^[20]

On September 21, Bernsen ordered SEALs to attack the Iran Ajr after U.S. sailors spotted the Iranian vessel laying naval mines in the Persian Gulf. This was the result of a policy decision from the Reagan administration towards pro-active deterrence.^[21] After the attack, the SEALs captured the remaining Iranian sailors and a week later, scuttled their vessel. Crowe had given Bernsen full responsibility for counter-mining efforts. ("It is far better to prevent minelaying than to hunt for explosives after they are planted," the Joint Chiefs chairman said later. "I didn't want a long bureaucratic chain of command for this operation.") Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was elated with the operation: "We were capable, we were ready...and they [U.S. forces] did an extraordinary, skillful and difficult task very well."^[22] Four days later the US decided to release the Iranian crew, but not before their handiwork had claimed another four lives with the sinking of MV Marissa I.^[23]

On September 28 Bernsen was called out of a formal dinner with Weinberger and U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain Sam H. Zakhem when the USS Kidd discovered a new Iranian minefield.^[24]

As of October 5, Bernsen's fleet of 40 ships had escorted nine reflagged oil tankers past the Straits of Hormuz. By that date the MEF had been joined by "British, French, Belgian, Dutch and Italian warships and minesweepers." A journalist from Time wrote that "once reluctant allies are applauding and even joining in the American determination to keep the gulf's international waters open."^[22]

In October, Bernsen highlighted naval presence as "our most important long-term mission. Our presence in the Persian Gulf is designed to do a number of things, one of those things is to encourage the containment of the Iran-Iraq War so that it doesn't spread beyond the areas in which it is currently taking place... In other words, not so much a specific country but a group of countries, the gulf states, the Arab states. Certainly our presence is an encouragement to them, and a way of showing our determination to maintain freedom of the seas, sealanes of communication, to make sure they remain open and make sure the gulf is as stable a place as it can be, which is obviously a great advantage to those gulf countries. But I'm not sure it applies to any one country. It's a collective."^[6] Bernsen also said that US forces "respond to threats against United States flag vessels, and that's the extent of my function out here—militarily."^[6]

At the time, Bernsen's support from the CIA was weak: it was “very difficult to ferret out specific details concerning leadership decisionmaking ... I never saw any report, and certainly no report to be authoritative. So what you really did was make your assumptions based on what you knew about them, their track record.”^[13] Bernsen later recalled that escalation was not in the cards: "A great many things were debated. . . . Those rather radical solutions were—except for in some quarters—dismissed pretty much out of hand. No one in Washington.. really was interested in an all-out attack on Iran."^[25]

Bernsen's tenure at Middle East Force came as the U.S. military was still working out its chain of command for operations in the region. As MEF commander, Bernsen controlled the surface warships and other forces in the Persian Gulf, which fell under the Pentagon's U.S. Central Command. But the eastern terminus of the Earnest Will convoys and the aircraft carrier that supported them were in the adjacent Arabian Sea, which was assigned to U.S. Pacific Command, and therefore fell under a newly created Joint Task Force Middle East commanded by Rear Admiral Dennis M. Brooks. Bernsen and Brooks clashed repeatedly, which in December 1987 led Crowe to combine JTFME and MEF under Brooks’ successor, Rear Admiral Anthony Less.^[26][27] Less succeeded Bernsen as Commander MEF in February 1988.^[28][29]

Late career

In 1988, Bernsen returned to a desk as the director, plans and policy and staff for the commander of the Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1991, he served his final post as deputy chief of staff for the Atlantic Fleet commander.^[1]