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CQ Politics | SpyTalk - Beirut Bombings: Intelligence Warning Sat in Pipeline
The Marines stationed at Beirut airport in 1983 could have had plenty of time to prepare for the suicide bomber that struck with devastating consequences 25 years ago this week, their commander says.
But the eavesdropping National Security Agency's intercept of an Iranian telephone call that gave the order got stuck "in the intelligence pipeline."
In all, 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors died in the Oct. 23, 1983 attack.
"Unknown to us at the time, the National Security Agency had made a diplomatic communications intercept on 26 September ... in which the Iranian Intelligence Service provided explicit instructions to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus (a known terrorist) to attack the Marines at Beirut International Airport," says Marine Col. Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, writing in the latest issue of Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute.
"The suicide attackers struck us 28 days later, with word of the intercept stuck in the intelligence pipeline until days after the attack."
The Marines stationed at Beirut airport in 1983 could have had plenty of time to prepare for the suicide bomber that struck with devastating consequences 25 years ago this week, their commander says.
But the eavesdropping National Security Agency's intercept of an Iranian telephone call that gave the order got stuck "in the intelligence pipeline."
In all, 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors died in the Oct. 23, 1983 attack.
"Unknown to us at the time, the National Security Agency had made a diplomatic communications intercept on 26 September ... in which the Iranian Intelligence Service provided explicit instructions to the Iranian ambassador in Damascus (a known terrorist) to attack the Marines at Beirut International Airport," says Marine Col. Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, writing in the latest issue of Proceedings, a publication of the U.S. Naval Institute.
"The suicide attackers struck us 28 days later, with word of the intercept stuck in the intelligence pipeline until days after the attack."
