Armed Forces: A Lesson for Sunland

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Moscow protested that "the American brass has obviously set itself the task of creating a tense situation near the southern border of the Soviet Union." The Russians indicated that any U.S. aircraft straying too close to Soviet territory would be shot down. Yet all such shouting was fully expected, and at week's end the U.S. and Iran pushed right ahead with "Exercise Delawar,"*a training maneuver which assumes that Iran has asked the U.S. for help in stopping an invasion of its borders from the north.

For exercise purposes, Iran was called "Freeland" and, rather inappropriately, considering the conditions that prevail over much of well-refrigerated Russia, the invading forces were dubbed "Sun-land." But since Iran shares 1,500 miles of its northern border with Russia, the name did not fool anyone. Staged in cooperation with the mideast CENTO military alliance and planned by U.S. General Paul Adams' Tampa-based MEAFSA command (see box), the war games were clearly designed to buck up a nervous U.S. ally in whom the U.S. has invested one-half billion dollars in military assistance. Said one U.S. State Department planner: "We ought to show our muscle. There will be words and then it will be forgotten."

As part of that show, three dozen F-100 fighters sped off their home runways at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico on the 5,200-mile flight to Torrejon, Spain, then the 3,100-mile leg to Dezful, Iran, with frequent in-flight refueling by Strategic Air Command KC-135 tankers. Some 2,500 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division boarded twelve Military Air Transport Service C-135 jets at Kentucky's Fort Campbell, landed at Adana, Turkey, in a miserable rain. There they switched to C-130s, their usual jump planes. From all over the U.S., various cargo craft headed east with combat equipment.

Once in Iran, all forces of Exercise Delawar, including 2,500 U.S.-equipped Iranian troops, came under the command of Iranian Lieut. General Gholem Azhari. His first concern was to defend Vahdati airfield near Dezful against an enemy column theoretically bearing toward it. This job was given to the U.S. paratroopers, who dropped in front of the invaders. At the same time, a U.S. amphibious force in the Persian Gulf sent a marine rifle com pany storming onto the island of Kharg to protect an imaginary oilfield against invasion or sabotage.

After the landings, four days of maneuvers were scheduled in the mock war. While U.S. officers were interested in seeing how troops of the two nations would mesh in such a situation, the main point had already been made. It could hardly be missed either by the Soviet military strategists to the north or by Red Chinese forces threatening nearby India to the east: the U.S. is equipped to put a lot of troops anywhere, anytime—and fast.