The plan to rescue the hostages involved establishing a staging area in the Iranian desert from which American helicopters carrying assault troops were to make a lightning strike on the embassy.
The Hercules carrying the assault troops is believed to have flown into Iran from Pakistan.
In Paris,the Iranian Foreign Minister,Mr. Ghotbzadeh,said the raid was “an act of war.”
He said:“I have given instructions to the navy and to the workers in the oilfields that any American action that results in any damages,everything is going to be blown up.”
Mr. Ghotbzadeh earlier threatened that Iran would halt all oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf,where nearly two-thirds of the West’s oil import are produced,if the United States mined Iran’s ports in the gulf.
He did not say how Iran,whose military forces are believed to have deteriorated in the past year,would do this. But he indicated that Iran would ask the Soviet Union for help at least in defusing any mines that might be placed.
In another interview,Mr. Ghotbzadeh compared the US action to Hitler’s invasion of Austria before World War II.
Dismissing President Carter’s statement that the rescue was for humanitarian reasons,Mr. Ghotbzadeh said:“The very action has put in danger the lives of the hostages.”
He said he had instructed the militant students holding the hostages to act with restraint in their reaction to the raid,and added “… I hope they do.”
But he said he did not feel the safety of the hostages could be guaranteed if the US Government continued to “make such unwarranted and foolish actions.”
Iranian security forces have located what they believe are the remains of US military aircraft. Smouldering wreckage was seen last night by the passengers of a bus travelling across Iran’s eastern Kavir-E-Lut desert between the towns of Mashad and Yazd. Planes had been sent to check the reported sighting.
Military sources in Mashad quoted unconfirmed reports that five helicopters were found intact near the wreckage.
President Bani-Sadr today cut short a visit to the south-western province of Khuzestan to fly to Tabas.
Throughout the night President Carter consulted his top military and diplomatic advisers.
The President said both he and the officers leading the mission had been confident that it would succeed.
He had postponed it in the hope that Iranian authorities would respond to peaceful pressure to release the hostages,he said.
But “the steady unraveling of authority in Iran made their early release unlikely.”
Some observers here believe that European leaders,who had not been advised on the operation,may now be reluctant to take further non-military measures against Iran.
Mr. Carter said more detailed information about the mission would be made available to the American people “when it is appropriate to do so.”
He said that when he had determined that the early release of the hostages was unlikely “I made that decision to commence the rescue operation – this was a necessity and a duty.”
The failure of the mission may spoil Mr. Carter’s chances of winning the Democratic nomination and being re-elected in November this year.
Mr. Carter said the mission was undertaken by highly trained volunteers.
“It was a humanitarian mission and was not directed against the people of Iran,” he said.
He vowed to continue peaceful methods to secure the release of the hostages and called on America’s allies to maintain economic and political pressure on Iran.
There was no immediate reaction from the Ayatollah Khomeini,Iran’s spiritual leader and the man who ultimately will decide their fate.
Iranian officials initially expressed their disbelief at the rescue bid. Students at the embassy have not announced their next move,but previously warned that US military action would lead to the hostages being killed and the destruction of the embassy.
The Moslem militants announced on April 9 that they would burn the embassy and kill all hostages if “even the smallest” military action was taken.
It was a repeat of the warning first issued in November,less than three weeks after they took the embassy.
Relatives of the hostages have greeted the news of the mission with shock,bewilderment and confusion.
One,Mrs. Bonnie Graves,said:“Eight deaths for what?”
Another,Mrs. Louisa Kennedy,who is in London on a European tour to urge America’s allies to support efforts to free the hostages,said:“I’m appalled,I mean I’m amazed.
“I never though there had been any thought of that. I don’t want anything to happen to the hostages as a result of some misunderstanding,” she said.
In Teheran,a lawyer for one of the hostage’s parents described the raid as “idiotic”.
“I can’t see that anything fruitful could have come out of it,” lawyer Carl McAffe said. He and his clients,Barbara and Kenneth Timm,have been talking to Iranian officials about the hostages.
Mr. McAffe said:“Any efforts we have been pursuing have been completely destroyed.”
From London,Geoffrey Barker reports that the US consulted neither its west European allies not the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation before the mission.
This was made clear this morning in statements in the House of Commons by the Deputy Foreign Secretary,Sir Ian Gilmour,and in Brussels by a NATO spokesman.
Sir Ian told the parliament that there was no prior consultation with Britain but that “we were informed of the possibility of a rescue attempt.”
At a Press conference 10 days ago,President Carter broke diplomatic relations with Iran and announced new and tougher diplomatic sanctions in an attempt to free the hostages. He warned that “some sort of military action” might be taken if peaceful political and economic methods failed.
“The authorities in Iran should realize that the availability of peaceful measures,like the patience of the American people,is running out,” he said.
Mr. Carter had briefly considered an earlier attempt to rescue the hostages shortly after their capture last November. But he abandoned it when warned that the advantage of surprise had been lost.
The Soviet Foreign Minister,Mr. Gromyko,said that the Soviet Union condemned the American action.
“This cannot lead to a peaceful solution,” he said at a Press conference in Paris.
He said earlier that the Soviet Union “remains resolutely against” all military action against Iran.
Mr. Gromyko refused to commit himself on the question of Soviet help for Iran.
Moscow Home Radio described the mission as an “armed provocation.”
It was an “unprecedented piece of adventurism undertaken by Washington behind a smokescreen of verbiage about its intention to refrain from military measures in the US-Iran conflict,” the station said.
In Belgrade,the official Yugoslav news agency,Tanjung,called the attempt a “violation of Iranian territorial integrity.”
And in Damascus,Syria’s State Radio called it an “act of overt aggression” and “American piracy.”
A West German Government official said in Bonn that the White House announcement had taken the Government by surprise.
In Canberra,the Australian Government last night said the action was “understandable.”
The Foreign Minister,Mr. Peacock,said he hoped all the parties would now show “the maximum restraint.”
He received two cables yesterday from the US Secretary of State,Mr. Vance,about developments.