by Bob Woodward
“We’ve got to,” Sununu said. “We’ve got to try to shape it.”
The lawyers reworked the letter, and within the hour it was on its way to the Hill.
• • •
In the early afternoon, Bush settled into his large white high-backed armchair before the fireplace in the Oval Office. Cheney took the other armchair by the fireplace because, with Baker still in Europe, he was the most senior cabinet officer present.
Powell, Webster, Sununu, Scowcroft and Gates sat on the two couches.
Richard Haass, the chief of the Middle East division of the NSC staff, had called in four of the government’s senior Arab experts to address the situation for the President.
Haass first introduced Ambassador April Glaspie, who had never returned to her post in Baghdad but had continued to work in the State Department.
Saddam had a hammer-lock on his troops, Glaspie said. The reason they didn’t surrender or rebel was fear that he would harm their families. “There will not be a revolt because Saddam Hussein controls the military. He will not withdraw from Kuwait, in my opinion. He knows we are going to go to war with him if he does not withdraw.” The steady buildup of troops showed he was bracing for an attack.
Are you saying that Saddam has understood right along that we’re going to come get him? Sununu asked.
Yes, Glaspie said.
“How can you tell that?” Sununu inquired.
“By what he’s saying and to whom he’s saying it,” she replied. The day before, Saddam had addressed his troops on the 70th anniversary of the Iraqi Army. The speech was also broadcast on the state-controlled television and radio. “We don’t believe the sacrifices will be small,” he had said, promising “the mother of battles.” Glaspie interpreted the speech as an internal message to the Iraqi Army to prepare for a war that would not be short.
She also said that although in the West Saddam was not generally recognized as a legitimate leader, a great many Iraqis supported him. They may not like him, but they like his program. “It is an illusion to think he is not supported.”
Haass then introduced William Rugh, a longtime foreign service officer and former ambassador to Yemen.
Rugh said if there was a full-scale war, the longer it lasted, the worse it would be because many Arabs would rally to Saddam as the man standing up to the West. He would grow into a hero. Winning is very important to Arabs, Rugh said, and even losing to the superpower could be winning. Saddam had some potent issues to exploit—the Palestinian question, deep suspicion about neocolonialism, and the divisions between rich and poor Arabs.
A CIA analyst spoke about the likely strong reaction in Israel if there was a war. It would be hard to restrain the Israeli leadership if they were attacked by Saddam.
Pat Lang of the DIA spoke last. He presumed he had been asked to the meeting because he had predicted the invasion of Kuwait. He imagined this meeting was similar to the war councils Lincoln and his cabinet held in the days before the Civil War started.
We have a perennial inability to comprehend alien cultures, even marginally alien cultures, Lang began. We don’t understand the Iraqis. Two flawed assumptions are often made. First, that the Iraqis are cowards. This is untrue, Lang said, stating that he had studied them for five years, been to Iraq many times, seen their troops on the ground, studied the Iran-Iraq War, studied Arabs, studied warfare. “My conclusion, after taking all these things into consideration, is as follows,” he said. “They won’t back away. They will fight skillfully and hard. They are tough. . . . They won’t surrender.” A war to expel them from Kuwait would eventually require a prolonged ground campaign to dig them out, he added.
Powell did not say anything, but he nodded several times at these assessments.
Lang stated that he was a specialist on the eight elite Republican Guard divisions that had been used in the Kuwait invasion. These units of some 110,000 were positioned as a reserve force for Saddam’s front line of 400,000-plus troops. The Guard was very well trained, equipped and led, he said, equivalent to the U.S. Army in these respects.
“If you break the Republican Guard,” Scowcroft asked, “will the rest of them surrender?”
“No,” Lang replied.
The second flawed assumption, Lang said, is that because Saddam is a criminal, brutal and inhumane, he is not a legitimate leader. This too is not true, Lang stressed. He agreed with Ambassador Glaspie. Saddam has either the support of the people or such tight control over them that he is legitimate in their eyes. Don’t be deluded about that, Lang said. A war with this small country, with its overdeveloped military and entrenched leadership, would be difficult and long.
“Other people say differently,” Bush said. “Nobody else is telling me that. Shamir, Mubarak, [Syrian President] Assad and Bandar all tell me it will be a pushover.”
Lang had decided he wasn’t here to scratch Bush’s back, so he replied, “Sir, if I may say, that sounds to me like a collection of the uninformed and self-serving.”
“Okay,” Bush said.
“Are they going to spring anything—surprises on Baker tomorrow over there?” Bush finally asked.
The four experts said probably not.
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IN GENEVA THE NEXT DAY, January 9, Baker held a six-and-a-half-hour meeting with Tariq Aziz at the Intercontinental Hotel. The Secretary of State presented Bush’s eight-paragraph “brink-of-war” letter. Aziz read it and left it on the table. He declined to accept it or to carry it to Saddam.
Baker appeared afterward at a press conference, his face drawn and solemn. “I heard nothing that suggested to me any Iraqi flexibility whatsoever,” he said. Watching on television back at the White House, Scowcroft knew that negotiations were now really over.
The Secretary of State flew on to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Fahd. Under the secret agreement with the United States, Fahd had to give his permission for any offensive military operation that might be staged from his country. Baker now asked for that permission. Fahd quickly gave his approval, asking only that he receive advance notification prior to war.
Baker promised that he would personally pass the word to Prince Bandar in Washington before any attack.
They agreed that very careful communications arrangements between Bandar in Washington and Fahd in Saudi Arabia had to be worked out to prevent a leak. So they would not have to worry about transmitting messages or finding secure phones, Fahd and Bandar arranged to use a codeword, “Suleiman,” the name of an employee of the royal family when Bandar was a child. If Bandar mentioned Suleiman in a phone call to the king, that would mean war.
Though Cheney had cautioned against seeking a resolution of support from the Congress, he lobbied hard for its approval. He was sent to the Hill to lobby his own constituency, the Republicans; the White House did not send him to talk with wavering Democrats. He spoke to a closed-door caucus of all House Republicans and then a similar session with all Senate Republicans. He did not tip off anyone that a war was imminent. But he did say that they should have no illusions: don’t vote for this resolution if you are reading it as another diplomatic lever.
Bush and the White House leaned hard, however, on the argument that the resolution was the last, best chance to persuade Saddam to withdraw.
On Saturday, January 12, after three days of sober debate, the Congress granted Bush the authority to go to war. The resolution it passed included the “all necessary means” language of the United Nations resolution, but also specifically authorized “use of military force.”
The vote was close in the Senate—52 to 47. The House approved it 250 to 183.
Cheney decided he had to eat a little crow. He called the President and congratulated him. Cheney acknowledged that he had been wrong, the President had read the Congress better.
Bush told reporters: “This clear expression of the Congress represents the last, best chance for peace.” Asked if this made war inevitable, Bush said no.
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“Have you made the decision in your mind?” one reporter asked.
“I have not because I still hope that there will be a peaceful solution.” He added that “an instant commencement of a large-scale removal of troops with no condition, no concession, and just heading out could well be the best and only way to avert war, even though it would be, at this date, I would say almost impossible [for Saddam] to comply fully with the United Nations resolutions.”
Eagleburger and Wolfowitz had been dispatched to Israel that weekend. Israel was still the wild card. The previous month, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had made an extraordinary pledge directly to Bush. Despite Iraq’s obvious preparations to attack Israel, and the Iraqis’ public assurances that they would, Shamir said Israel would not launch a preemptive attack on Iraq. This would be a departure from the traditional Israeli emphasis on surprise attacks, which had obvious military advantages. Israel would not start the war.
Among other things, Shamir did not want to discourage immigration, which would fall off if Israel became directly involved in the war and began looking like a dangerous place.
But no one on the U.S. side was sure what Israel would do when it was attacked by Saddam, as was now certain to happen. Wolfowitz and Eagleburger tried to sound out the Israeli leadership. Shamir said that he naturally could not make promises about what Israel would do. No state could make such a pledge, particularly not Israel, with its long tradition of answering any and every terrorist incident. But he agreed to consult with the United States before acting, and promised it would not be just a perfunctory notification after the cabinet had decided to respond. It would be a genuine consultation. Shamir said he saw the advantages of staying out of a war, but the tried and tested principles of state survival might dictate unilateral action.
Eagleburger and Wolfowitz offered to improve Israel’s defenses through an expansion of a deployment of U.S. Patriot missiles that was already under way. These ground-to-air anti-missile missiles could be used against Iraqi SCUDS. It was not a proven system, but it was the best system available. The Israelis were skeptical, but they agreed to accept the offer, which would eventually include U.S. operation and maintenance crews.
Bush had also authorized a special top-secret, secure, voice communications link between the Pentagon operations center and the Israeli Defense Force headquarters in Tel Aviv. U.S. personnel in Israel would monitor and operate the cryptographic equipment that was part of the system. Cheney would be able to plug into this secure line, given the codename HAMMER RICK, from his office. President Bush promised that Cheney would give the Israelis advance notice before any offensive operation was commenced. HAMMER RICK would also be used to pass the very latest and best intelligence to the Israelis about any possible attacks on Israel.
The system became operational on Sunday, January 13.
That night, Bush met with Cheney, Scowcroft and Powell at the White House residence. Baker was still traveling. Having made the crucial decisions, the group now just had to keep the operation on track. Schwarzkopf’s preferred date and time for the attack, an H-Hour of 3 a.m. Saudi time on January 17, was still good. The question was when and how to make the necessary notifications to the allies and the Congress. Soon enough but not too soon, they agreed. An hour or two before the operation in most cases.
Cheney also reviewed the target list with the President, to make sure Bush was aware of potential points of controversy. He wanted Bush to be happy with all of it.
The President was concerned about one set of targets and asked that it be dropped. It included statues of Saddam and triumphal arches thought to be of great psychological value to the Iraqi people as national symbols.
• • •
On Monday morning, January 14, Cheney and Powell spent an hour in the STOC going over the targets for the air campaign one final time. Special task forces made up of hundreds of intelligence officers and planners had coordinated all the information—satellite photos, intercepted communications and anything else available—to make sure that a crippling blow would be dealt to Saddam’s communications and air defenses in the first 24 hours. Thereafter, the air campaign would be a systematic juggernaut that would reduce the Iraqi war machine more each day.
Bush invited Air Force chief of staff McPeak, Cheney and Scowcroft for lunch that day in the White House residence. McPeak had just returned from 10 days in the Gulf visiting Air Force units, and Bush, a Navy pilot in World War II, wanted a firsthand account.
McPeak still felt that the operation could be done with much less force. He believed in air power as much as the departed General Dugan, and felt the other services had gone way overboard in their deployments. The Marines were too willing to build another Iwo Jima Memorial for their dead comrades. The Navy didn’t need six aircraft carriers for the operation, and the Army certainly didn’t need the VII Corps. Ground forces would be needed so someone could walk into Saddam’s office with a bayonet and make him sign the surrender papers, but not for much more. But McPeak was keeping his mouth shut. He had quickly grasped Powell’s doctrine of maximum force and was not arguing.
The Air Force chief told Bush that in order to satisfy himself about his own service’s readiness, he had visited 16 of the air bases in the Gulf and gone out with the air crews in elaborate rehearsals over the Saudi desert. Routes had been created to duplicate the distances and conditions the air crews would encounter inside Iraq.
“These guys are ready to go,” McPeak told Bush. “I’ve been out there. I’ve been flying with these guys. They are very good. They’re peaked up.” He said that if the President decided to launch the offense, his recommendation was to do it as soon after the January 15 deadline as possible. In the first weeks of the deployment in August, McPeak said, there had been lots of fighter pilot talk: “We’re going to rip his head off” and so forth. Now there was no bravado. The pilots were calm and cool. It reminded him of the experienced gunfighters in the movie Shane, knowing there would be a shootout but not eager for it.
Bush wanted details.
I went out with a flight of four F-15s, McPeak explained. I flew in position number two, which is where they always put the weak guy. Carrying live 2,000-pound bombs, I flew six sorties. Combat conditions were duplicated. Radio silence. We flew in an armada with electronic jamming aircraft and tankers to refuel. It looked like the movie Star Wars.
The pilots could not withstand much more delay, he told Bush. Any substantial delay past tomorrow would really let the air out of their balloons psychologically, he said. It would be ruinous.
Congressional leaders were summoned later in the day to an urgent meeting at the White House. Asked when the United States would attack, Bush replied, “Sooner rather than later.”
Late in the afternoon, Baker and Bob Kimmitt went to the Pentagon and spent an hour in the STOC reviewing the targets. Cheney wanted Baker to apply his political eye to the air campaign, to see if he spotted any unforeseen consequence. No other changes were made in the target lists.
• • •
Bush spoke with Baker by phone at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 15, then went for a solitary walk around the White House south lawn.
The President called two clergymen that morning. One was the head of Bush’s own church, Bishop Edmond Browning, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Browning had led a peace vigil the night before outside the White House.
Bush also phoned the Senate chaplain, the Reverend Richard C. Halverson, who joined him in a prayer for the nation.
At 10:30 a.m. Bush met in the Oval Office with his inner council: Quayle, Baker, Cheney, Scowcroft, Powell, Sununu and Gates. Bush had the two-page draft of the top-secret National Security Directive (NSD) before him.
It had been modified to include two conditions. It now authorized the execution of Operation Desert Storm, provided that: (1) there was no last-minute diplomatic breakthrough, and (2) Congress had been properly notified. The document basically laid out the administration’s case for launchin
g the offensive soon after the deadline. It stated that it was the policy of the United States to get Iraq to leave Kuwait; all peaceful means, including diplomacy, economic sanctions and a dozen U.N. resolutions, had failed to persuade Iraq to withdraw; waiting would be potentially damaging to U.S. interests because Iraq was continuing to move additional forces into the Kuwaiti theater of operations, and was improving its fortifications in occupied Kuwait; Iraq continued to pillage Kuwait and brutalize its people; Iraq’s military had to be attacked in order to defend U.S. and allied forces. It also directed that civilian casualties and damage to Iraq should be minimized consistent with protecting friendly forces, and that Islamic holy places should be protected.
The President signed it. The NSD was intentionally not dated. The date and time would be added when and if the two conditions were met.
Bush authorized Cheney to sign a formal execute order and send it to Schwarzkopf that day.
Cheney went to have lunch with the Senate Republicans. At a separate meeting with Democratic senators, he was asked, “When the deadline expires, are you going to wait or will you move fairly rapidly?”
Operational security was foremost in Cheney’s mind, but he did not want to mislead them. “Sooner rather than later,” he replied, using the phrase Bush had used the day before in speaking to congressional leaders.
By 5 p.m., Cheney was back in his office. Powell arrived with a top-secret folder containing the execute order. The Chairman had written it out himself. He went over it with Cheney. An orange cover sheet explained that the order was authorizing Schwarzkopf to execute Desert Storm pursuant to the warning order of December 29.
If it had been a normal execute order, Cheney would have just initialed a block on the front to indicate he had approved it. Powell would then formally release it, under his authority to transmit communications between the Secretary and the CINC.