Operation Earnest Will

Operation Earnest Will (24 July 1987 - 26 September 1988) was the U.S. military protection of Kuwaiti owned oil tankers from Iranian attacks in 1987 and 1988, three years into the Tanker War phase of the Iran–Iraq War.[1] It was the largest naval convoy operation since World War II.

The U.S. Navy warships that escorted the tankers, part of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, were the most visible part of the operation, but U.S. Air Force AWACS radar planes provided surveillance and Army special operations helicopters hunted for possible attackers.

In December 1986, the government of Kuwait asked the Reagan administration to send the U.S. Navy to protect Kuwaiti tankers.[2] U.S. law forbade the use of Navy ships to escort civilian vessels under foreign flag, so the Kuwaiti ships were re-registered under U.S. flag.

Even before Earnest Will formally began, it became clear how dangerous Persian Gulf operations would be. On 17 May, an Iraqi warplane fired two Exocet missiles at the guided missile frigate USS Stark, killing 37 sailors and injuring 21. Iraqi officials said the targeting of the U.S. warship was accidental.[citation needed]

The USS Crommelin (FFG-37), USS Copeland (FFG-25), USS Kidd (DDG-993), and USS Fox (CG-33) were the first U.S. Navy ships assigned to escort the Kuwaiti oil tankers. On the very first escort mission, on 24 July 1987, the Kuwaiti oil tanker al-Rekkah, re-flagged as the U.S. tanker Bridgeton, struck an Iranian mine damaging the ship, but causing no injuries. The Bridgeton proceeded under her own power to Kuwait, with the thin-skinned U.S. Navy escorts following behind to avoid mines.[1]

On 15 October, the reflagged U.S. tanker Sea Isle City was struck while at anchor by an Iranian Silkworm missile, wounding 18. The U.S. Navy responded by destroying two Iranian oil platforms.

Other U.S Navy vessels and their respective crews participated in Operation Ernest Will. They were then under the command of the U.S. Navy Third Fleet which was tasked with primary responsibility for operations in the event of hostilities in the Persian Gulf region. The command flag was transferred from November 1986 through August 1991 when the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet took command. The numerous ships used in Operation Ernest Will mostly consisted of Carrier Battle Groups, Surface Action Groups and ships from the Pacific's Third and Seventh fleets as well as the Mediterranean based Sixth fleet. They operated on a rotating basis, typically a six month deployment schedule and are too numerous to list properly.

Earnest Will overlapped with Operation Prime Chance, a largely secret effort to stop Iranian forces from attacking Persian Gulf shipping. A dramatic moment of Prime Chance was the 21 September 1987 attack on the Iran Ajr, an Iranian ship converted for use as a minelayer. U.S. Army gunship crews used night-vision devices to watch the Iranian vessel lay several mines, then fired miniguns and rockets at it. A SEAL team and Special Boat Unit personnel landed aboard the vessel and seized it. Several Iranian sailors were rescued from the waters of the Persian Gulf after leaping overboard during the attack. EOD technicians from EOD Mobile Unit 5 scuttled the vessel the following day.[citation needed]

On 14 April 1988, the American frigate USS Copeland (FFG-25), while on patrol, encountered trouble with its primary missile launcher.[citation needed] The Samuel B. Roberts, assuming Copeland's patrol area, struck an Iranian mine and was badly damaged. Four days later, U.S. forces retaliated with a one-day attack on Iranian warships, armed speedboats, and oil platforms used as naval bases. Dubbed Operation Praying Mantis, it was the biggest engagement of surface warships since World War II. Two Iranian ships were destroyed, and two American pilots died when their helicopter crashed.

On 3 July 1988, USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655, an Airbus A300B2, over the Strait of Hormuz after mistaking it for an Iranian F-14. 290 people were killed.

These two side effects of Earnest Will — Praying Mantis and the downing of the airliner — helped convince Iran to agree to a ceasefire on 20 August 1988, ending its eight-year war with Iraq.

On 26 September 1988, USS Vandegrift escorted the last tanker of the operation to Kuwait.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

The Iraq War, also known as the Occupation of Iraq, The Second Gulf War, Operation Iraqi Freedom,or Operation New Dawn is an ongoing military campaign which began on March 20, 2003, with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by troops from the United States and the United Kingdom.

Prior to the war, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed a threat to their security and that of their coalition/regional allies. In 2002, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1441 which called for Iraq to completely cooperate with UN weapon inspectors to verify that Iraq was not in possession of WMD and cruise missiles. The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) found no evidence of WMD, but could not verify the accuracy of Iraq's weapon declarations. Lead weapons inspector Hans Blix advised the UN Security Council that while Iraq was cooperating in terms of access, Iraq's declarations with regards to WMD could not be verified.

After investigation following the invasion, the U.S.-led Iraq Survey Group concluded that Iraq had ended its nuclear, chemical, and biological programs in 1991 and had no active programs at the time of the invasion, but that they intended to resume production if the Iraq sanctions were lifted. Although some degraded remnants of misplaced or abandoned chemical weapons from before 1991 were found, they were not the weapons which had been the main argument to justify the invasion. Some US officials also accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, but no evidence of a meaningful connection was ever found. Other proclaimed reasons for the invasion included Iraq's financial support for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, Iraqi government human rights abuses, and an effort to spread democracy to the country.

The invasion of Iraq led to an occupation and the eventual capture of President Hussein, who was later tried in an Iraqi court of law and executed by the new Iraqi government. Violence against coalition forces and among various sectarian groups soon led to the Iraqi insurgency, strife between many Sunni and Shia Iraqi groups, and the emergence of a new faction of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. In October 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi government estimated that more than 365,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million. In 2007, Iraq's anti-corruption board reported that 35% of Iraqi children, or about five million children, were orphans. The Red Cross stated in March 2008 that Iraq's humanitarian situation remained among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.

In June 2008, U.S. Department of Defense officials claimed security and economic indicators began to show signs of improvement in what they hailed as significant and fragile gains. Iraq was fifth on the 2008 Failed States Index, and sixth on the 2009 list. As public opinion favoring troop withdrawals increased and as Iraqi forces began to take responsibility for security, member nations of the Coalition withdrew their forces. In late 2008, the U.S. and Iraqi governments approved a Status of Forces Agreement effective through January 1, 2012. The Iraqi Parliament also ratified a Strategic Framework Agreement with the U.S., aimed at ensuring cooperation in constitutional rights, threat deterrence, education, energy development, and other areas.

In late February 2009, new U.S. President Barack Obama announced an 18-month withdrawal window for combat forces, with approximately 50,000 troops remaining in the country "to advise and train Iraqi security forces and to provide intelligence and surveillance". General Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, said he believes all U.S. troops will be out of the country by the end of 2011, while UK forces ended combat operations on April 30, 2009. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said he supports the accelerated pullout of US forces.

Operation Desert Fox

The December 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox) was a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets from December 16–19, 1998 by the United States and United Kingdom. These strikes were officially undertaken in response to Iraq's failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions as well as their interference with United Nations Special Commission inspectors. Although many believe that the operation was named for German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who earned the nickname "Desert Fox" during the North African Campaign of World War II, this was not the case; the operational name was one of at least a half dozen contingency plans that U.S. Central Command developed to respond to a range of possible crises involving Iraq. Others included "Desert Lion," "Desert Badger," "Desert Viper," and "Desert Raptor" and were not used in order to mitigate an offensive perception of the operation, although the reference to Rommel was not thought of beforehand.


It was a major flare-up in the Iraq disarmament crisis. The stated goal of the cruise missile and bombing attacks was to disrupt Saddam's ability to maintain his grip on power.


On October 31, 1998 US President Bill Clinton had signed into law H.R. 4655, the Iraq Liberation Act.[2] The new Act appropriated funds to Iraqi opposition groups in the hope of removing Saddam Hussein from power and replacing his regime with a democracy.


The Act also said that:


Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.


Section 4(a)(2) states:


The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for [Iraqi democratic opposition] organizations.


The bombing campaign had been anticipated since February 1998 and incurred wide-ranging criticism and support, at home and abroad. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates initially announced they would deny US military the use of local bases for the purpose of air strikes against Iraq.

Operation Just Cause

The Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which set in motion the process of handing the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control, was signed by President of the United States Jimmy Carter and Omar Torrijos of Panama on September 7, 1977. U.S. relations with General Noriega spanned decades from 1959 to the early 1980s, when Noriega served as a U.S. intelligence asset and was on the Central Intelligence Agency's payroll. Noriega's relations with George H. W. Bush may have begun in the 1970s, when Bush was head of the CIA. Noriega had worked to advance U.S. interests in Central America, notably in sabotaging the forces of the socialist government in Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, and the FMLN revolutionaries in El Salvador, receiving a salary upwards of $100,000 per year for his efforts. Although he worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration to restrict illegal drug shipments, he was known to work with the drug dealers themselves simultaneously.

During the 1980s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan negotiated with General Noriega, requesting that the Panamanian leader peacefully step down, while pressuring him with several drug-related indictments in U.S. courts. Later negotiations involved dropping the drug-trafficking indictments. In March 1989, an attempted coup against the government of Panama was resisted by Noriega's forces. In May '89, during the national elections, an alliance of parties opposed to the military dictatorship of Manuel Noriega counted results from the country's election precincts before they were sent to the district centers. Their tally showed their candidate, Guillermo Endara defeating Carlos Duque, candidate of a pro-Noriega coalition, by a nearly 3-to-1 margin. Endara was beaten up by Noriega supporters the next day. Noriega declared the election null and maintained power by force, making him unpopular among Panamanians. Noriega's government insisted that they won the presidential election and irregularities had been on the part of U.S.-backed candidates from opposition parties. Bush called on Noriega to honor the will of the Panamanian people.

A US Marine Corps LAV-25 in Panama

In October 1989, Noriega foiled a second coup attempt led by major Moisés Giroldi. Pressure mounted on Bush, as the media labeled him a "wimp" for failing to aid Panama amidst his rhetoric. Bush declared that the U.S. would not negotiate with a known drug-trafficker and denied having any knowledge of Noriega's involvement with the drug trade prior to his indictment. President Bush's allegations that forces under Noriega's command had shot and killed an unarmed American serviceman, wounded another, arrested and brutally beat a third American serviceman and then brutally interrogated his wife, threatening her with sexual abuse, were cited by US Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering to the United Nations Security Council as sufficient grounds for invasion as an act of self-defense within Article 51 of the UN charter.

Three incidents in particular occurred very near the time of the invasion, and were mentioned by US President George H.W. Bush as a reason for invasion. In a December 16 incident, four U.S. personnel were stopped at a roadblock outside PDF headquarters in the El Chorrillo neighborhood of Panama City. The United States Department of Defense claimed that the servicemen were unarmed and in a private vehicle and that they attempted to flee the scene only after their vehicle was surrounded by a crowd of civilians and PDF troops. The PDF claimed the Americans were armed and on a reconnaissance mission.

U.S. Marine, 2nd Lt. Robert Paz, returned from a restaurant in Panama City. Paz was recovering from recent knee reconstruction surgery, and on leave from his duty station of Camp Pendleton California; he was stopped and harassed to the point where he panicked; as he attempted to flee, he was shot and killed. It was also reported by the Los Angeles Times that "according to American military and civilian sources" the officer killed was a member of the "Hard Chargers", a group whose goal was to agitate members of the PDF. It was also reported that the group's "tactics were well known by ranking U.S. officers" who were frustrated by "Panamanian provocations committed under dictator Manuel A. Noriega", although the group was not officially sanctioned by the military. The Pentagon later denied that such a group ever existed. According to an official U.S. military report "witnesses to the incident, a U.S. naval officer and his wife were assaulted by Panamanian Defense Force soldiers while in police custody".