Talk:Operation Eagle Claw

I couldn't locate my copy of Rogue Warrior in time, but I recall that Marcinko's main criticism of the operation was not the planning or the resources but "command and control".

IIRC, he said that the Pentagon micromanaged the mission by remote control from a room in Washington, D.C., instead of letting the commander on the ground operate autonomously. This factor alone would doom the mission.

The decision to require the helicopters to fly close to the ground to avoid radar was okay, in itself, but there was no flexibility in it. When a sandstorm occurred, the local commander had no right to make a decision about maybe increasing the altitude of the helicopters and risk radar detection. He might have decided to take a chance: "They don't have good radar under 3,000 feet and they don't expect us anyway, so the heck with it! We're going in!"

Self-confidence is a key motivating and energizing factor in commando operations. Making your own decisions and seeing the successful results is the top confidence builder, and being micromanaged from afar is the top confidence destroyer. Having to relay simple (but crucial) decisions to some REMF overseas doomed the mission. --Ed Poor 06:48, 25 April 2007 (EDT)

Is the rationale for this very strong statement about Carter's motives really based on the speculation of a Master's student in a paper written for a class? This is far from an authoritative reference, and should certainly not be the basis for most of the article. - User:RWest 14:29, 30 July 2007