The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (129 page)

M
averick admiral James “Ace” Lyons (
left
) greets Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (
right)
in Hawaii on June 18, 1987. Lyons used the occasion to push for his own secret plan to wage war on Iran.
(James Lyons)

C
IA director William Casey arrives at Capitol Hill on December 11, 1986, to answer questions regarding selling weapons to Iran in an attempt to develop ties with moderates in the Iranian government. Casey saw Iran through the lens of the Cold War and worked to rebuild CIA operations inside Iran.
(Associated Press)

C
hairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral William Crowe, briefs Reagan and his national security advisers in the White House Situation Room on the plan to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attack. The administration saw this as an opportunity to undo the damage of the Iranian arms sales and deploy military forces into the volatile Persian Gulf.
(Reagan Library
)

T
he USS
Stark
burns after being accidently hit by two Iraqi missiles, killing thirty-seven sailors.
(Department of Defense)

A
U.S. naval convoy of Kuwaiti tankers transits the Persian Gulf in the summer 1987. As a key supporter of Iraq in its war against Iran, Kuwait became the target of Iranian reprisal attacks.
(Department of Defense)

T
he commander of U.S. Central Command, General George Crist, USMC (
left
), talks with Navy lieutenant Paul Hillenbrand about operations against Iranian attack boats. The marine general commanded all U.S. forces in the Middle East during two tense years of a quasi-war with Iran.
(Paul Hillenbrand)

S
EALs storm the Iranian ship
Iran Ajr
. In one of the biggest intelligence coups in recent history, American special operations forces attacked the Iranian ship while it was laying mines aimed at sinking U.S. warships.
(Department of Defense)

T
he crew of an American patrol boat rescues Iranian Revolutionary Guard sailors from the
Iran Ajr.
They had abandoned their ship the night before after being strafed by U.S. Army helicopters, September 22, 1987.
(Department of Defense)

T
o defeat swarms of Iranian small boats, the U.S. military developed an imaginative solution by converting the large oil construction barge
Hercules
into a floating base for navy patrol boats, elite SEALs, and army special forces helicopters. Its timely deployment in October 1987 blunted a large Iranian naval attack on Saudi Arabia.
(U.S. Special Operations Command)