It affected the way we targeted (and I don’t regret any of this): We did our best to avoid civilian casualties. We planned attack headings to avoid civilian areas. We accounted for the failures of precision munitions to guide properly. We did not shred Iraqi soldiers by dropping cluster bombs from B-52s. We did not drop bombs when we could not positively identify the target. We did our best to advertise the evils the Iraqis were committing inside occupied Kuwait.
And we screwed things up badly a few times: by hitting a command facility that was also being used as an air raid shelter, by demonizing Saddam Hussein instead of the occupation of Kuwait, and by allowing the wreckage on the road out of Kuwait City to be perceived back home as the highway of death, when there was very little death—though lots of destruction. (I am also sure the U.S. Army doesn’t like people seeing what airpower can do to an army . . . to anyone’s army.)
Thank God Saddam screwed up his own TV ops worse, time and again. Remember the burning oil fields of Kuwait? Remember the hostages? Remember the English hostage boy who was brought in as a “guest” of the great leader? When the President of Iraq came close to pat his little friend on the head, the boy froze with fear. All in glorious color. Saddam, old buddy, get a kid actor to stand in and stage the scene so he greets you with a kiss and a smile.
We in the West are stuck with a free press. It’s not always easy for us in the military to deal with our press, yet the press is our ultimate blessing and our lasting glory. When we are wrong, we will (sooner rather than later) be shown as wrong. When we are right and our actions are good, that will also come out. Sure, we can try to manipulate the press, and the press can attempt to manipulate the truth; but in the end there is enough integrity in both the military and the media to make sure most of the truth gets out to the world. The old boys will try to tell you we lost Vietnam because the evening news showed American boys burning villages and shooting old people. Get a grip. We lost in Vietnam because we were wandering in the wilderness of goals, mission, and policy; and in the process we came to believe that burning villages and shooting old people was good. The CNN Effect means that God’s looking over your shoulder all the time, and I think it is a blessing. It is not pleasant, and you take hits, but in the end it brings out the best in mankind when he is out doing his worst, waging war.
Here is how Horner made his own peace with the television invasion of Saudi Arabia in the summer of 1990:
Boomer and Turki at Dhahran became the stars in the eastern part of the country. I got the job of talking to the press in Riyadh, a job I had very little preparation for. Sure, I’d done local interviews and TV spots as the commander of various stateside bases. But Christ, these were the big boys. How was I going to handle questions I couldn’t answer because the answers were classified? Worse, how was I going to handle questions I didn’t know the answer to, which would make me look like a dumbshit? (Sure, I’m a dumbshit, but I don’t want the whole world getting their jollies watching me prove it on TV.)
Well, I survived the first hits; and I learned a little.
As I gained experience, I learned to talk plain English to the press, to tell as much as I could of the truth, to try not to cover my own ass, and to hell with them if they didn’t like an answer. That approach seemed to make sense to them, and we learned to trust each other. Most of them did their best to report what I said as accurately as they could, and I did my best to give them what I knew. If I didn’t know, I would tell them so; usually they didn’t know either and were just fishing.
In time, I also learned how to listen to a question and figure out the questioner’s story line. So if I thought some reporter was headed down a blind alley, or had the wrong slant, I would tell him so. Often this generated more useful, and more honest, questions.
Soon after I was appointed CENTCOM Forward, a Department of Defense press pool was formed, with Carl Roschelle from CNN as the designated leader. Carl was great to work with. But I soon learned that the news business is one of the most competitive in the world. A “can you top this” race between individual reporters, networks, and papers broke out.
The folks in the business are all trying to make a living involving extreme pressures to gather information and meet deadlines. They all want their own organizations to succeed, and that means getting the best, most exciting, most insightful information into the world’s TV sets before any of their competitors do.
This form of combat was brought home to me when ABC’s Sam Donaldson and NBC’s Tom Brokaw showed up at my doorstep in Riyadh. Each wanted an interview for that evening’s news in the United States. They flipped a coin to see who would go first, and Brokaw won. Unfortunately, his crew’s equipment, camera, and lights hadn’t arrived on the airplane with him. But when I suggested we set up with Donaldson’s crew and let the NBC team use that camera, it got very quiet in the room, and it instantly became apparent that Donaldson would do his interview, and if Brokaw wanted to videotape, his guys would have to go out and beg a camera.
As it worked out, we found a Saudi Military Public Affairs camera, so both interviews were done in time to send a satellite feed back to the States.
Our military often fails to understand the dog-eat-dog nature of the news business, or that each form of media has different time lines and communications requirements back to editors or studios. As a result, we often fail to assist and facilitate the media in ways that would be useful for both of us. Thus, the always cynical media personalities often lash out against the military, rail against what they perceive as news management, and complain bitterly that they are being censored. Sure, media guys have a lingering fear of the military, another hangover from Vietnam. But in reality, the fault is a simple misunderstanding on the part of the military about how to best support the unique requirements of different media.
One of the toughest interviewers for me was Michael Gordon of The New York Times.36 He came on with all the warmth of a cobra; his questions were well thought out, difficult to answer, and tough; he clearly thought I was hiding things from him—specifically, that our situation was much worse than I was letting on, and I was an idiot who really didn’t have a grip on what was happening. (He was partially right on the last point.) Yet after reading his stories, I came to a different conclusion about Gordon than his interviews led me to. Media people, I realized, just like the military, live or die on their integrity. If a reporter deliberately strays from the truth, he or she is dead meat among their peers and editorial masters. Even though I might not like the particular story line he was creating, for all his flaws, Michael Gordon reported my words accurately.
During this period, a lot was going on, to say the least. While much of this had to be kept from the Iraqi intelligence-gathering system, it was important to provide reporters with a wide and deep background understanding of the current situation, so their reports were accurate and made sense. That meant they would inevitably learn data that, if reported, could endanger American lives or success on the battlefield. At the same time, we in the military prefer that some stories don’t appear in the media—because they make us look stupid. Or we think we have to keep information secret that’s in fact widely known back home. Trying to keep all of that in balance makes working with reporters a delicate operation.
From Michael Gordon’s New York Times teammate, Eric Schmidt, I learned you can trust the media. Schmidt has a dogged investigative streak. He finds out more about what’s going on than anyone I’ve ever met. But if the information he finds is truly classified—in order to protect lives or success in battle—you can depend on him to withhold it. Snow jobs will not work on Schmidt, so if you’re stupid, expect to read all about it under his byline. But if it truly needs to be protected, you can trust him. The same holds for 95 percent of the media, to whom integrity is job one.
Fear of the media seems to go with the job description of soldier, sailor, or airman. Why? God only knows. When you think about it, if you can trust the press and the TV commentator to tell the truth, and
I do, then it’s not the media we fear but the American people . . . a sad commentary on our military mind-set.
Sometimes you . . . we . . . all of us do asinine things. If you are doing something stupid, pursuing a poor policy, or wasting taxpayers’ dollars, and the press or television paints you in an embarrassing light, that is probably a good thing. In the long run, the exposure, no matter how painful, is good for the military and the nation. If, on the other hand, you are getting the job done skillfully, pursuing a noble cause, or managing a military operation with efficiency (how rare that is!), then you have much to gain from media exposure. The American people are quite capable of judging good and bad for themselves.
I guess the bottom line is we have little to fear if we trust the judgment of the folks who pay the bills.
ON AND ON
All the while, more units arrived daily, which meant that Horner and his staff would be neck deep sorting out additional difficulties, problems, and dilemmas, mostly about where to get more—more phones, more cars, more rooms, more food, more water, more everything.
Horner usually met with Khaled daily, often several times a day, mostly to work on logistical support to cover the beddown on incoming units. He also talked to Schwarzkopf two or three times a day. Since the CINC still felt strongly about not putting troops in hotels, these conversations were often strained. Unfortunately, there was simply nothing else to do. In those early days, until tent cities could be erected for the Army, or pre-positioned shelters for the Air Force, there was no other place to put people. Since the Navy and the embarked Marines slept on their ships, this was less of a problem for them.
Every night, Horner and his staff met with the Saudis to make sure everyone had the same intelligence view of the Iraqis and to sort out problems at the highest level. Then he and his people went over the day’s confusions and crises, after which they discussed how the various land, sea, and air forces were deployed and the amount of military power they could assemble if attacked.
About 10:00 P.M., the rumors would start. On at least three nights, there was reliable information that the Iraqis had attacked. Horner kept cool and waited out each report, looking for corroborating intelligence. It never came.
By 3:00 A.M., they’d have things pretty well nailed down for the night; and then it was off to bed for at least three hours of sleep.
Then the whole drill began again.
15 AUGUST 1990
This is the way a typical day went for Chuck Horner during his time as CENTCOM Forward, as he reconstructs it:
0520 I wake up at the sound of the first prayer call in the apartment I share with John Yeosock. It’s still dark outside. A few moments later, in the shower, I can smell the desert through the open bathroom window.
0535 I eat breakfast with John Yeosock, Grr, my aide, and Major Fong, Yeosock’s aide. I have a fried-egg sandwich and orange juice from a can. Even before Fong fixes John’s breakfast, John is already through his first cigar of the day. We drink coffee in the living room and watch the evening news from the United States via the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service Satellite over the Mediterranean. There are no commercials, but there are spot announcements about how great it is to serve in Europe and enjoy the local culture.
0600 I drive with Grr to the Ministry of Defense and Aviation five blocks south along Airport Boulevard.
0620 We enter the rear of MODA, pass through a guard checkpoint before entering the garage, and park on the fourth floor of the parking garage in a reserved spot just to the right of the rear entrance. I have a Saudi security badge with my picture on it and all sorts of Arabic writing and stamps that lets me go anywhere in the MODA building. A similar one does the same for RSAF Headquarters. I don’t have any badges for U.S. areas, though, since the only place I would not be in a Saudi facility would be on the USMTM compound, where we have set up a SCIF (Special Category Intelligence Facility) with a guarded entry point, and they all know what I look like.
0625 I enter Major General Don Kaufman’s suite of offices on the fourth floor of MODA, two halls down from Khaled’s office and four halls down from Hamad’s, which is in the front of the building. The night shift is still at work; the changeover to the day shift is at 0700. Meanwhile, the day shift (mostly USMTM NCOs who handle message traffic) is starting to come on duty (the message center is located on the USMTM compound where our apartment is located). Since Bill Rider has already moved to the RSAF headquarters, the only officers now in the suite are all U.S.: Kaufman, Yeosock, Grr, Fong, and me. John and I sit down in our separate offices to start through the read file—all the messages that came in that night, a stack of paper about two to five inches thick. I read them quickly, look at the top lines for who sent the message, who it was intended for (usually one or more addressees are listed), and the message subjects; and then I scan the message to take what I want from it. Many of the messages cover what is currently being airlifted from the States, but there is also much intelligence information about the Iraqi army in Kuwait. On those messages where I want action taken, I will write on the side of the message. Here’s an example:
On a message from the Joint Communications Support Element in Tampa that’s addressed to their detachment in Riyadh (busy trying to plug U.S. comms into the MODA bunker, so CENTCOM Headquarters could talk secure to Washington), I might put something like this: “J-6, Make sure we can integrate with the Saudi secure comm. net. H.” Though my note is addressed to the CENTCOM J-6, a major general USAF communicator, it actually goes to his rep in the MODA, only days in-country and still trying to figure out what’s going on and what he should do. The point of my note is to inform him that we are going to operate as a coalition and that if he creates a U.S.-only comm system, that is a nonstarter.
Later in the day, he appears in my office to rant and rave about how our systems are incompatible with the Saudis’ and so he can’t do what I asked; and even if he could, doing it would give foreign nationals access to our crypto gear . . . and on and on.
“If you can’t find a solution,” I tell him, “then the Saudis will talk over unprotected circuits to their forces, and the Iraqis will be the foreign nationals who will have access to our secrets. So please get out of my office and figure how to rig it so we can talk secure (encrypted) to the Saudis and they can talk to their own units secure.”
Dealing with messages will go on for an hour or so. But there will be interruptions when people stick their heads into the room to ask a question or to talk about some incident that occurred during the night they think I should be aware of (either because they want me to know they have things under control or because it will come up when Schwarzkopf calls or when I meet with the Saudis). I drink about four cups of coffee and eat some strange pastry from a local store. There is a cup to collect coffee and pastry money.
0900 John, Don, and I go down to a small conference room for the morning stand-up with the rest of the CENTCOM and component representatives. In some cases, these are dual-hatted. So, for example, Grant Sharp represents both the CENTCOM J-5 Plans and the naval component (currently a Navy two-star on the La Salle, which is tied up in Bahrain, but will soon be a Navy three-star now en route to Riyadh and about to move the two-star out of his bunk aboard the La Salle). Tom Olsen, the acting Commander of CENTAF (until the CINC returns to the theater and I can go back to my old job), represents CENTAF. John Yeosock represents ARCENT, while Don Kaufman acts as the temporary CENTCOM chief of staff (and takes notes and directs actions that come out of the meeting).
The meeting starts with an intelligence briefing, which updates the Iraqi deployment on the Saudi border, but may also include news items, such as events in Europe or the (not yet former) Soviet Union that relate to the crisis. There is a short weather briefing from the USAF briefer, who’s come down from the RSAF Headquarters with Tom Olsen. After these briefings, we go around the table and discuss matters that are of concern to all who are present, or that need to be resolved.
It might come up, for e
xample, that Dhahran is overrun with incoming troops, that the army people do not have anywhere to stay and are already triple hot-bunking it: three eight-hour sleep shifts per day for two people per shift, one on the bed and one on the floor under the bed; you swap every other day, meaning that six people can sleep per day per cot. There is also much talk about fouled-up deliveries—people at one place and their equipment at another (especially a problem with the army units).
Later, John Yeosock goes over the ground defense for the day, and then Jim Crigger or Tom Olsen does the same for the air defense setup. This is followed by what-ifs regarding an attack by Iraq on Saudi Arabia, update plans for evacuation of civilians, where we would resist and with what, and so on. None of this is pretty early on; but it gets better every day as more planes and troops arrive.
We break as soon as possible, so everyone can get back to work. (Long staff meetings are bad. They should start on time and we get them over with as soon as possible. They should take no longer than an hour, and thirty-five to forty minutes is better.)
1000 I wander down the hall to Khaled’s office and have a cup of cappuccino with him. Among Arabs, you never jump into business, so at first we make small talk about unimportant things, such as how Americans are coping with the weather, or else he talks about Saudi history and old stories about the Kingdom. Eventually we get around to real issues, such as the new demands for support that the buildup of forces is making on the Saudi hosts. The buck stops with Khaled, and he listens carefully. I am careful not to make outlandish requests, and I tell him often that my need for a thousand telephone lines is not crazy, but in fact I will likely be coming back to him in a few days asking for a thousand more. This in a nation where the king has to approve installation of all international phone lines.
Every Man a Tiger (1999) Page 28