“At one point well into the Grenada operation, the allegedly threatened medical students called in to the command center where l was operating to tell us where they were and to ask where the US military was. The students could hear the gunfire, but no one had tried to “rescue” them. Learning from radio broadcasts that Reagan had acted to save them, the students were growing concerned that they had not been rescued and at how easy it would be for the Cuban military advisers to take them hostage. The military commanders to whom l passed that information told me they had no orders to rescue the American students, despite the fact that the President had been on television that morning justifying the intervention in part by the need to save the medical students”, said Richard Clarke. Pictured here: US troops in Grenada, armed with LAW rockets (Light Anti-Tank Weapons) in 1983, as part of Operation Urgent Fury take up position on a hill to provide over-watch of an assault against armed Cuban military forces on the Island.
Richard A. Clarke served the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence community and the National Security Council for thirty years. He also served eleven years consecutively at the White House on national security under three presidents.
In the Bush (41) administration he served as assistant secretary of state. In both the Clinton and Bush (43) administration he served as national coordinator for security and counterterrorism.
Clarke has been described as “scary intelligent.”
He was also considered the E.F. Hutton of the intelligence community “when he speaks people listened.”
In his book “Your Government Failed You – Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters” he describes the 1983 military invasion this way:
“With little debate and almost no preparation, Marines and paratroopers assaulted the island nation. The attack on Brenda came as a surprise to the US forces involved, as well as to the Cuban and Grenadan forces and the US students. In what should have been a cakewalk, 19 Americans were killed and 116 wounded in a confused ad hoc operation.
I had moved to the State Department in 1979 and by 1983 was working closely with the military from the department’s ” Little Pentagon” – the Bureau of Political and Military Affairs. Thrown into both the Beirut and Grenada operations to plan and coordinate, I was amazed at the ease with which the decision was made to deploy our military and what little precision there was on what it was to do. More frightening was the obvious lack of planning for the kind of operation the forces were being asked to conduct.
At one point well into the Grenada operation, the allegedly threatened medical students called in to the command center where l was operating to tell us where they were and to ask where the US military was. The students could hear the gunfire, but no one had tried to “rescue” them. Learning from radio broadcasts that Reagan had acted to save them, the students were growing concerned that they had not been rescued and at how easy it would be for the Cuban military advisers to take them hostage. The military commanders to whom l passed that information told me they had no orders to rescue the American students, despite the fact that the President had been on television that morning justifying the intervention in part by the need to save the medical students. That incident was typical of that day of confused fighting in Grenada. US forces were cut off, could not communicate with other US forces, underestimating the opposing forces strength and suffered more than 130 casualties in one day!”
See: Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters http://www.amazon.com/Your-Government-Failed-You-Disasters/dp/B003JTHSR2
Operation Urgent fury –
The U.S. Army’s Rapid Deployment Force (1st, 2nd Ranger Battalions and 82nd Airborne DivisionParatroopers), U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Delta Force, and U.S. Navy SEALs and other combined forces constituted the 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica, and members of the Regional Security System defeated Grenadian resistance after a low-altitude airborne assault by the 75th Rangers on Point Salines Airport on the southern end of the island, and a Marine helicopter and amphibious landing occurred on the northern end at Pearl’s Airfield shortly afterward. The military government of Hudson Austin was deposed and replaced by a government appointed by Governor-General Paul Scoon until elections were held in 1984.
While the invasion enjoyed broad public support in the United States and received support from some sectors in Grenada from local groups who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate, it was criticized by the United Kingdom and Canada. An attempted United Nations General Assembly resolution, which would have condemned it as “a flagrant violation of international law” was vetoed in the Security Council.
The U.S. awarded more than 5,000 medals for merit and valor.