The Bombing of the BLT Headquarters Building

BACKGROUND

Beirut International Airport has two runways that form a rough "V" (figure 1). The airport hangars and administrative buildings lie at the interior of the "V". Three of the buildings in the center of that complex were turned over to the marines when they arrived in Beirut in September 1982. Thus, the marines were not in an isolated position but rather in the midst of an international airport with all the attendant traffic.

The 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) is comprised of four elements--a helicopter squadron, the Battalion Landing Team (BLT), the Marine Service Support Group (MSSG), and the MAU headquarters. The helicopters were stationed on the U.S.S. Iwo Jima offshore. Each of the other elements was housed in a different building in the airport complex. The BLT headquarters building was the target of the attack Sunday morning, October 23, 1983.

Although all the details of the bombing cannot be known, the facts as established by the sworn testimony of surviving witnesses, are as follows:

THE APPROACH

The subcommittee was unable to establish with certainty the access route the truck driver used, as it could find no one who saw the vehicle until it was inside the parking lot adjacent to the BLT headquarters. The subcommittee, however, notes three qualifications to the original assumption that the truck had traveled south on the airport access road through a Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) checkpoint.

First, Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, commander of the 24th MAU, told the subcommittee that he now believes the truck emerged from the Shiite suburbs northeast of the airport and was driven west (see item 6 on figure 1) to a point just south of the LAF checkpoint. From there it could enter the airport grounds without passing any LAF sentry.

Second, even if the truck did pass a LAF sentry post, and even if the sentry post were occupied at that time, there was no assurance the vehicle would have been checked. Several witnesses testified that LAF soldiers were notorious for their casual approach to searching vehicles.

Third, it is merely an assumption that the vehicle used the airport access road and that it even entered the airport that morning. While there is no other access road, it is possible, though unlikely, that the truck entered the airport overland.It is also possible that the truck might have been in the airport for days and that the explosive

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was brought onto the airport grounds piecemeal to be assembled there.

The subcommittee learned of, and wishes to note, two incidents that occurred shortly before the attack; their significance is open to speculation.

The first incident was reported by the guard on duty at post No. 5, which stood beside the BLT building looking out over the airport access road (figure 2 for this and for other locations to be mentioned in this report). The guard testified that shortly before the bombing, "I did see a white Mercedes and the guy that was driving was the only person in the car. He reached all the way out the passenger window and took two pictures of the building, and I thought that was kind of strange. . . . It was about--a guess--maybe five minutes just before it (the explosion) happened." The timing was perhaps a coincidence, though shorty after dawn on a Sunday morning cannot be considered a normal time for taking snapshots.

The second incident was reported by the guard on duty at post No. 6, which was in the parking lot transited by the killer. This sentry testified, "About 5o'clock in the morning, . . . truck came in this area (indicating the public area of the parking lot), . . . drove around in a circle and just drove right out and left." He said the vehicle had no lights on although it was before dawn. But he added, "It wasn't unusual to see trucks come in without lights on at that time." He said the truck was "similar" in size to the vehicle used about an hour later attack [sic], but he couldn't say if it was the same truck.

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Figure 2

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THE EYEWITNESSES

The subcommittee took testimony from four eyewitnesses to the attack:

Lance Corporal John W. Berthiaume was stationed at Guard Post No. 5 overlooking the airport access road and to the west of the line of attack.

Lance Corporal Eddie DiFranco was stationed at Guard Post No. 6 in the parking lot immediately to the west of the line of attack.

Lance Corporal Henry Linkkila was stationed at Guard Post No. 7 in the parking lot immediately to the east of the line of attack.

Corporal Kenneth Farnan was off duty, washing up at a water trailer (referred to as a "water buffalo") at the southeast corner of the BLT.

Subsequently, a subcommittee staff member interviewed Sergeant Stephen Russell, the sergeant of the guard the morning of the explosion, at his home in North Carolina where he was recuperating from his injuries.

The witnesses thus saw the attack from five different perspectives. In the following description, the witnesses will be quoted in the same counterclockwise order as listed above.

THE VEHICLE

The witnesses were in general agreement about the vehicle: It was a Mercedes truck with a yellow stakebed.

BERTHIAUME. Definitely a yellow truck . . . stakebed, I guess they call them, or a fence; it looks kind of like a six-by . . I don't think it (the back) was covered.

DIFRANCO. The truck was yellow. It was big. It could have been a stakebed, but it resembled a fire truck for some reason. I don't know. It was bigger than a fire truck, but it resembled one from the back. . . . It was sort of a sold back--fiberglass, plastic--something that was formed over the back to make it look as though it was actually part of the truck.

LINKKILA. . . . yellow Mercedes truck . . . size of a six-by, except not as high . . . a stakebed . . ., about two-foot sides. . . . It was open.

FARNAN. It was a gray Mercedes Benz, yellow stakebed. . . . The cab was gray, pugnose cab. . . . The back was a stakebed and that was all yellow.

In his unsworn testimony, Sergeant Russell described the truck as a yellow stakebed Mercedes.

FIRST SEEN AND HEARD

No witness saw or heard the truck until an instant before it crashed through the concertina wire dividing the parking lot into a public section and a marine section. If the truck were driven straight form the lot entrance to the concertina wire, it would be

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able to cover a distance of approximately 235 feet (all distances are taken from measurements provided by the Marine Corps unless otherwise indicated) without anyone being aware of its presence by sound, let alone by sight.

An account provided by the marines about a week after the attack said the truck (then described as gray) circled the public parking area twice in a clockwise direction before heading for the wire. This account was not substantiated by any of the witnesses. Only one saw the truck before it cleared the wire. He testified that he first saw the truck just as it made a right-hand turn into the wire. That testimony would indicate the driver did not take a direct line from the parking lot entrance to the wire. It would also suggest that, if the truck did circle the lot, it did so in a counter-clockwise direction. The witness was uncertain as to the direction from which the vehicle approached the wire, but was certain it did not come directly from the entrance.

Corporal DiFranco saw the truck, ". . . as it was making a turn into the fence about 6:15. . . . It was making a hard right. I couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from or how it got over there, but it was making a hard right turn . . . three feet-maybe three, four--right outside the wire." He testified that what made him look up to see the truck was "the noise of the truck."

Corporal Linkkila testified he first heard the truck when it went "through the concertina wire. . . . The first time I seen it, it was between myself and Post No. 6."

Berthiaume and Farnan were not in position to see the truck at this time.

When the truck crashed through the concertina wire, Corporal DiFranco thought it made "just a popping sound, just something snapping, like somebody walking over twigs."

Corporal Farnan, who was at the "water buffalo," approximately 270 feet from the concertina wire (a subcommittee estimate--not a marine measurement), had a different recollection. It was the sound of the truck crashing through the wire that alerted him. "I heard it when it hit the wire," he testified. "There was a pretty loud noise. . . . I was looking around and I turned to my right and there he was, already past the shower. . . . I seen him when hi was shifting gears, when he hit the shower unit. He was shifting because you could hear him revving the engine a lot." DiFranco also said the driver was "gearing up all the way in."

Sergeant Russell said that just before the explosion, he was standing in the guard shack facing the building lobby when he heard the sound of an engine revving, turned around and saw the truck coming through the gate. He said he ran out of the guard shack, away from the approaching truck, helling, "Hit the dirt, hit the dirt." He said he ran through the building lobby and out the north side. He saw the truck hit the guard shack, come to a halt in the center of the lobby and stop. After a second's pause, he saw a yellow flash at the truck's grill, the last thing he recalled before being knocked down and unconscious by the blast.

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PASSAGE THROUGH PARKING LOT AND GATE

Both sentries in the parking lot testified that the truck drove between their guard posts directly through the gate in the fence along the north end of the parking lot. That gate was directly in front of the entry to the BLT headquarters. The subcommittee inspected the gate. If it had been closed, it might have provided some impediment for the truck, but did not appear strong enough to stop a vehicle of that size. It was not put to the test by the terrorists, however. The witnesses to the attack all agreed that the gate was not only open, but that it was, in fact, rarely, if ever, closed.

BERTHIAUME. The gate has always been open. But I couldn't tell you; I didn't see the gate. It has always been open. . . I never seen the gates closed, never.

DIFRANCO. It was always open. It was never closed.

LINKKILA. to the best of my knowledge, it was always open.

FARNAN. I don't remember if there was a gate there or not, but it was always open. It was never closed.

Sergeant Russell also said that the gate was open.

The subcommittee notes that DiFranco and Linkkila had to pass through the gateway to reach their guard posts when they took up their watch at 4 a.m.

Colonel Geraghty and Captain Morgan France, commander of the ships offshore, testified that they believed the gate was closed at some times and open at others. However, the witness most familiar with the gate and its surroundings, including the eyewitnesses, agreed the gate was rarely, if ever, closed.

VIEW OF DRIVER

Lance COrporal DiFranco testified he saw the driver of the truck. His post, No. 6, was on the driver's side. DiFranco said that as the truck went by, "He looked right at me, . . . smiled, that's it."

Sergeant Russell said he saw the driver and described him as having bushy hair and wearing a blue shirt possibly with pinstripes.

OPPORTUNITY TO FIRE

Although news reports said some marines had fired at the truck and President Reagan repeated that in his October 27 televised report to the nation, the five eyewitnesses all said that none of them fired at the truck nor heard any shots fired by anyone else.

However, three other marines testified that they heard firing before the blast. Two of them said they later heard from Sergeant Russell that the corporal of the guard, Corporal Terry Hudson, had fired at the oncoming truck. (Sergeant Russell contradicted this during his interview.) Corporal Hudson was critically injured in the explosion an died in December. The subcommittee is unable to reconcile the firm testimony of the five eyewitnesses with the equally certain testimony of the other three relative to gunfire.

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Some of the witnesses testified that after the explosion the resultant fire caused ammunition in the building to explode and suggested that might have confused some survivors of the blast.

Four of the five eyewitnesses were armed. Corporal Farnan, who was washing at the "water buffalo" after coming off duty, was not. In compliance with orders, however, because they were posted at interior positions, none of the sentries' M-16 rifles was loaded, nor was Sergeant Russell's .45 caliber pistol. The rifles at "sling arms," i.e., carried over the shoulder, and their magazines were in a pouch carried on the belt. The three sentries testified that the time it took to get their weapons off their shoulders, to place a magazine into the rifle, and to chamber a cartridge left them no time to fire at the truck.

BERTHIAUME. When I saw the truck, he was already through the gate and coming right by this pot shack--the officers' mess tents. . . . I just remember grabbing my weapon off my shoulder. . . . By the time I grabbed it up like that, he was already in the building and just--boom--that was it.

DIFRANCO. I kind of stared for a couple seconds and then started to load my weapon. When my weapon was loaded, it (the truck) had gone through this fence and was on its way towards the gate . . . out of range to do anything effective to the truck. . . . The magazine was in at the time (when the truck was closest to him), but not locked and loaded. . . . I got a round into the chamber after the truck was already through the gate. There wasn't that much difference for that truck going that speed, by the time I could put the round in the chamber, for him to be out here. . . . (When the truck was near him) I was in the process of load--chambering , loading, you know, finishing the loading of the weapon. . . But the magazine was not fully seated, it was in the opening but not topped up on and not ready to be chambered. . . Soon as I saw it (the truck) over here, I knew what was going to happen, so I just went back into the bunker. I was going to call the guard shack at that time, but by the time I was ringing it up and getting ready to call, I thought, well, why call, he must see the truck coming in. So, I let the phone down and the truck just crashed in and blew up a couple of second later.

LINKKILA. From the time that it took me to put, when I initially saw the truck, to put a magazine in my weapon, chamber a round and bring down my rifle, he was just coming to the front of the BLT.

Sergeant Russell stated that he could not have loaded his .45 caliber automatic pistol and fired effectively before the detonation. He further stated that he heard no shots before the explosion.

Three others, however, testified that they heard shots. Excerpts from the testimony follow:

Lance Corporal Robert Calhoun, who was sleeping on the roof, testified:

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We didn't ever see the truck. We heard the shots. I at least heard three shots. It sounded to me like it was a .45 caliber pistol and it was close. At that time of the morning, that is what woke me up, was the shots. I started raising up in my sleeping bag and I heard the shots.

Corporal Joseph Martucci, who was also sleeping on the roof, said:

It sounded like it was in front of the building and it definitely sounded like a .45. . . . There was an explosion. We saw the center of the roof actually lift, blow out--it was a type of skyline in the center of the roof. There was a delay between the actual explosion, and the building--the floor-was going down in approximately three or four second. . . . We rode the roof down.

Lance Corporal Burnham Matthews, who had been on patrol with Corporal Farnan and had just returned to his room inside the BLT, said:

I was on the northeast corner, the third story. . . . To me, in the building, it sounded like an M-16, approximately four or maybe more than that. . . . I heard shots. I heard a crash where it came through the building. . .. . There was a man standing next to me and I told him to wake everybody up because it sounded like something was happening on the compound. . . . I said, "There's something going on . Wake everybody up." . . . I never did hear the explosion. I remember my door came off the hinges and I was picked up off the chair and thrown of the window.

SPEED OF VEHICLE

Estimating the speed of a vehicle is, admittedly, little more than guesswork. Establishing the speed of the attacking truck has been complicated by the fact that a number of witnesses testified that the truck was accelerating, and that they heard the gears being shifted as the driver headed for the BLT.

BERTHIAUME (who only saw the truck after it had passed through the gate). I think it was faster than 30 miles per hour, but I couldn't really tell you for sure, but he was going pretty fast.

DIFRANCO. 40 miles an hour. . . . I can make it slower, faster. I'm not too sure, just guessing.

LINKKILA. He was going at least anywhere between 40 and 50 miles per hour when passing between Guard Posts No. 6 and No. 7.

FARNAN. Maybe 40, maybe 50.

Sergeant Russell estimated the truck's speed at 25 to 30 miles per hour.

From the middle of the concertina wire to the entrance of the BLT is a distance of 450 feet. At an average speed of 60 miles per hour, it would take only 5.1 seconds to cover that distance. None of the witnesses estimated the vehicle was going that fast. On the

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basis of their testimony, an average speed of 30 miles per hour appears more realistic.

At an average speed of 30 miles per hour, it would take 10.2 seconds to cover 450 feet. That would have allowed for the vehicle to have hit the wire at 20 miles per hour, a slow speed consistent with the fact that neither sentry in the parking lot heard it approach, and would have allowed i to reach 40 miles per hour before entering the BLT.

THE PIPES

Testimony established that normally there were three steel pipes on the ground in front of the BLT. Two were placed parallel to the building about 50 feet in front of it. The third was placed perpendicular to the others. Witnesses were not entirely certain of the origin or purpose of the pipes. It appears that the pipes parallel to the building were there to prevent a car bomb from being driven right up to the building. But as the map figure 2) shows, its placement would do not such thing.

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Figure 3

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There was also a question as to the exact location of the pipes on the morning of the blast. The pipes were not fixed in place and could be moved. Although the witnesses generally agreed that pipes were in place, they were vague and uncertain in their answers.

If the pipes were in their proper places, this raises another question concerning the width of the gap between the two pipes in front of the BLT. The subcommittee has a photo (figure 3) which was taken September 24, four weeks before the bombing. It shows a gap wide enough for a truck to drive through with east. The witnesses generally agreed that the gap was designed to allow a jeep to pass through. The witnesses were uncertain as to the spacing the morning of the attack.

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Figure 4

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When the delegation from the subcommittee inspected the site, it found two hollow metal pipes were in front of the fence near the gate leading to the parking lot. The delegation photographed the pipes (figure 4). The end of one was slightly crushed. That would be consistent with the testimony of Corporal Farnan that the truck appeared to hit one of the pipes. However, their location and disfigurement could have been the result of the explosion or of the pipes being battered by equipment used during the rescue operation.

BERTHIAUME. They had an opening like right there (pointing to a map) and they had like a gate up there like one of the things you park your bicycles in. . . . We would slide the gate out of there so we can get the CO's jeep right up to the building.

Later, on being shown the old photo with the widely spaced pipes, he was asked if that was the normal spacing and replied, "I imagine,yes, I imagine so."

DiFranco addressed the question of the gap three times in his testimony. First he placed the gap at "eight feet approximately." Later he acknowledged in answer to a question that the gap was big enough for a jeep to go through and smaller than the gap in the photo. Still later, he agreed that the gap was wide enough for a truck to get through.

He addressed the question of the truck passing the pipes at three points in his testimony. First, he had this exchange with Congressman Britt:

Mr. BRITT. Did you watch the truck go through the pipes?

Corporal DIFRANCO. Yes, sir.

Mr. BRITT. Was it impeded in any way by the two pipes?

Corporal DIFRANCO. No, not that I could tell.

Mr. BRITT. Did you see the pipes bounce up or down . . .

Corporal DIFRANCO. At that point I decided to take off to my bunker.

Later he agreed, in response to a question, that the truck had no trouble getting past the pipes and that the pipes did not wobble. Still later he specified that the truck went, "Not over, between them."

LINKKILA. There was like a six-foot opening and we kept a gate where the jeeps could come through.

Later, on looking at the photograph (figure 3) and being asked if the gap shown was normal, he said. "Normally, it's a little closer than that. From what I saw, the truck kind of just jumped over them because, being a truck as it was, ma'am, it is rather heavy and much higher off the ground than a car would be and it just kind of bounced over, . . . but it didn't veer off course."

FARNAN. As I recall, it didn't have no trouble. Once I seen it, from the shower units, it went straight. It didn't bounce.

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Later he said, "I think it hit the one (pipe)--one on my side moved a little bit, like moved like that, just a little bit, but it didn't stop him."

Mr. BRITT. So he did not go over the pipes?

Corporal FARNAN. No.

Mr. BRITT. He just went between the pipes?

Corporal FARNAN. Yes. The pipes were spaced you know.

He was shown the two photographs. Asked if he saw the bicycle rack-like gate fly up when the truck came through, he said, "No, there was nothing there." Shown the photo taken of the pipes after the explosion, he pointed to the crushed end of the one pipe and said, "The other pipes were never dented like that before."

SERGEANT OF THE GUARD SHACK

The entry to the BLT building was partially blocked by a plywood and sandbag structure occupied by the sergeant of the guard and the corporal of the guard. The witnesses all testified that the truck rammed through the shack.

BERTHIAUME. I seen him (the truck) go right into the guard shack.

DiFranco agreed, under questioning, that the truck hit the guard shack squarely, and then added, "I didn't see it curve any." (This is the same sentry who testified that before the explosion he had returned to his bunker and started to telephone the guard shack.)

LINKKILA. It went just like this arrow (pointing to a diagram), went to the right (of the guard shack). It just might have took out the right side of it.

FARNAN. The only time it did (wobble or bounce or deviate) was when it hit the sergeant of the guard shack.

MEASUREMENTS

The powers of observation of eyewitnesses--especially to a startling event that is over rapidly--are always open to question. That is true in this case as well. As can be seen from the quotations above, Corporal DiFranco's testimony was not internally consistent. The others were uncertain about many details and often answered questions hesitantly.

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Figure 5

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In the area of measurements, their powers of observation were also questionable. For example, the undamaged concertina wire (figure 5) strung across the parking lot was about five feet high when photographed by the delegation just after the blast. Corporal Berthiaume put it at "about four feet high," and Corporal Farnan said it was "about two or three feet" high. Corporal Linkkila was not asked about the concertina wire. He was asked, however, the distance between posts No. 6 and No. 7. He said "about 40 feet." Marines Corps measurements show the center points of the two posts to be 145 feet apart. Corporal Linkkila estimated the distance from the parking lot entrance to his guard post at "about 70 feet." The actual distance was about 315 feet. From his guard post to the BLT entrance, he estimated a distance of "about 80 or 90 feet," which the actual distance was closer to 350 feet. The actual distances thus ranged from 3½ to 4½ times as much as the corporal estimated. The subcommittee does not quote these figures to ridicule in any way the witnesses, but merely to underscore their imprecision. [The HyperWar editor has to wonder why the estimates were solicited in the first place, when precise measurements were available to the investigators--and what possible difference either value had to the business of Congress? This descent into trivia and meaningless quotations from eyewitnesses smacks of an attempt to "look busy" while actually avoiding the issues of policy and politics that Congress is charged with under the Constitution.]

ANTICIPATION OF ATTACK

All of the witnesses agreed that there was concern before the bombing over the possibility of a car bomb attack. Beyond that, however, there was little agreement.

Corporal DiFranco testified that he and his buddies "used to talk about whether or not we would get hit or where we would get hit from, and that (the parking lot) was the area we all thought was the most vulnerable to attack . . . because all we had was concertina wire."

On the other hand, Corporal Berthiaume said he never heard any talk about the possibility of a vehicle trying to crash through the wire.

Corporal Linkkila added a different nuance, indicating that the fear was not of a car crashing through the BLT, but of a vehicle packed with explosives being parked just outside the marine compound. He testified, "Through the week before, we had been hearing quite a bit about car bombs because it happened to the embassy and so on. So, they had been giving posts Nos. 3, 4, and 5 to watch--and No. 5 Alpha--(all of which were along the airport access highway) to watch for any type of vehicle that stopped on the road along our perimeter. But over here, you know, (in the parking lot) there wasn't any vehicles coming very close to us. There wasn't anything to worry about."

Corporals Linkkila, Farnan, Calhoun and Matthews testified that there was a special concern over security along the road that passed between the MAU and MSSG buildings (item No. 8 on figure 1). That road was used by traffic going to and from the buildings of Trans Mediterranean Airlines (TMA), east of the marine compound. The witnesses testified the rules on loaded weapons were different for guards posted on that road. At guard posts No. 6 and No. 7 in the parking lot, there were single guards who were not permitted to carry magazines in their rifles. Linkkila testified that at posts No. 1 and No. 2, "They always had double guards and

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magazines in because they were on the main road that came through where a lot of traffic came down into the airport." Farnan testified that the last time he stood watch at post No. 1, he had a magazine in his M-16 but no round in the chamber.

THE EXPLOSION

Estimates by FBI explosives experts who have inspected the scene place the power of the device in the truck at the equivalent of 12,000 pounds of TNT. That was described as a "conservative" estimate. The device is believed to have been comprised of explosives placed around cylinders of gas. The subcommittee was told the gas-enhanced explosion had the effect of increasing the destructive power. The power of the explosion was put at six times that of the car bomb that struck the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983.

The power of the explosion in the atrium of the BLT headquarters was sufficient to drive the floor beneath the truck eight feet down into the earth. That floor was an inch of marble atop a seven-inch base of concrete.

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Figure 6

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Building construction in the Middle East is notoriously flimsy by American standards. That is one reason car bombs have a special attractiveness. A simple explosion will knock out the first story walls of a building with the upper stories crashing down like an accordion. The BLT building, however, was of much sturdier construction. Built for Lebanon's civil aviation authority, the building had a considerable glass area around the ground floor. The weight of the structure was borne by more than a dozen stilt-like structures, rather than by the walls. These pillars were built of reinforced concrete. The reinforcing rods were 1¼ inch thick (figure 6). It is unlikely that an ordinary car bomb would have brought the BLT crashing down. In fact, the marines had decided to keep their men in that building because of its high standard of construction and the feeling that it provided uncommon protection against shell-fire. Indeed, during the period immediately preceding the bombing, the major perceived threat was the numerous artillery, mortar and rocket rounds impacting in the MAU area; the BLT building was effective in protecting the marines from injury and death from the primary perceived threat at the time. The massive nature of the truck bomb raises questions the subcommittee can not answer as to whether the killers knew they were dealing with a strong structure and would have to take unusual measures to bring it down.

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