by Tom Clancy
Added to those questions were the more complex everyday problems of gaining the enthusiastic cooperation of all the host nations — not only Saudi Arabia but Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Egypt.
When one is doing business in the Middle East, the first requirement is patience. The American way is to focus on the heart of a problem, define a course of action, and implement the solution. In the Arab world, business is done more gently. Since personal relationships are all-important, business is conducted with a leisurely civility. A promise is given only after great deliberation, for once one’s word is given, it must be kept. The Arab way is to discuss, consider, and avoid mistakes made in haste. The Arab way is to take time to understand all aspects of a situation; they have a deep aversion to making mistakes that could cause hard feelings between individuals, tribes, or nations. So Horner knew that all he needed was a couple of years to discuss how to beddown the oncoming troops, how to organize command arrangements, and who should accomplish which tasks, where, and when, in order to make the deployment a success.
Time. Time was the real enemy. The desert summer of the Arabian Peninsula was a killer, and Iraqi intentions were unknown.
Sitting there in his aircraft seat, winging toward Riyadh, a hollow feeling came over him; fearful thoughts slithered through his brain. I can’t do it, he told himself. I’m not adequate. I won’t get it right. No one’s capable of meeting these challenges.
Until it came to him: I don’t have to succeed. John Yeosock, Bill Rider, and a host of others are here. I’m not alone. More important, none of us is alone. God’s always present. So I’ ll trust in God. Inshallah.
5
CENTCOM Forward
When they arrived at Riyadh Air Base, on the afternoon of Tuesday the seventh of August, Chuck Horner and the other Americans were greeted by Major General Harawi, the base commander and a friend of Horner’s since his initial visit to the Kingdom in 1987. In their three years working together, he and Harawi had learned to solve issues “offline” that might have gotten stuck in both countries’ bureaucracies if they’d been handled more formally. Meanwhile, Harawi spread the word that Horner could be trusted, which helped cement Horner’s already growing friendship with General Behery, the RSAF chief, and a close friend of Harawi’s. Among Arabs, friendship is everything.
The air base, now perched on the northeast corner of the city, had once served as the international airport, but modern hotels, apartment buildings, and shops spreading out of the old city center had crowded it, requiring the construction of a huge new facility, King Khalid International Airport, out in the desert well to the north.
General Harawi’s base housed the Saudi Air Force E-3 AWACS aircraft, a C-130 squadron, and the Air Force academy, with its collocated flight training school. For almost ten years it had also hosted the USAF ELF-1 AWACS aircraft and tankers that flew out of Riyadh twenty-four hours a day, and had provided early-warning radar coverage for the Saudi’s eastern province during the Iran-Iraq War and the oil tanker convoy operation in 1988 and 1989.
During those years, Harawi had cared for a TDY family of about 1,000 U.S. Air Force men and women. If any of them had a run-in with the police or the Mutawa, the religious police force, Harawi got them out of it and sent them back to the United States. Alternatively, if the hotel contractor tried to skimp on food or room services, Harawi paid him a call to remind him that the Saudi government was spending a great deal of money to make sure the USAF AWACS people were well taken care of during their stay in the kingdom. He had a major operation at Riyadh, and owing to its proximity to town, many VIPs used it, yet he looked after the American troops as if they were his own sons and daughters.[31]
Yeosock, Kaufman, Horner, and Harawi sat down in the elegant VIP reception lounge, with its cool, scented air, easeful light, splendid chandelier, and what seemed to be acres of blue-and-white Persian rug, while a tall, impassive Sudanese steward served gaua and sweet tea. In the coming months, the presidents and prime ministers, congressmen and parliamentarians who flocked to the Gulf to cheer and be seen with the troops of the coalition would all pass through this same impressive space. There they’d be served gaua and tea by the same impassive steward and be given the opportunity to make the transition from the rushed intensity of the West to the more measured pace of Saudi Arabia.
After a decent interval for small talk, Harawi probed Horner about events in occupied Kuwait and the other countries (many of them unfriendly) that bordered the Kingdom. What was happening in occupied Kuwait? Who’d gotten out and who’d gotten killed? What were the Iraqi forces doing? Would they attack or not attack? What was going to happen in Yemen and Sudan? On the adjacent seas? Like most Saudis, Harawi’s primary source of information was rumors; the entire Kingdom lived on rumor. Information there was on very close hold, which meant that accurate information was truly valuable, and having such information gave the possessor great power. Even a two-star general such as Harawi was not in the top-level information loop, which meant that he had access to more rumors than news.
News was particularly important, because, unlike Americans, who think of threats from far away, Saudis thought of threats from a tight, immediate circle — Iraq, Iran, Yemen, or even Sudan. Their sensitivity was very acute, their fears very immediate.
Practically, in his capacity as Saudi AWACS commander, Harawi needed an accurate assessment of Iraqi intentions. His AWACS aircraft were maintaining twenty-four-hour coverage over the northeast. His immediate problem was that the single E-3 they had airborne (out of the five they owned[32]) could cover only a small sector at any one time (approximately one-fourth of the border), and the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was very long. This left gaps in the low-level radar coverage. If the Iraqi air force came south anywhere but in the east, the RSAF would have to depend on ground-based radar to pick up the attack. Harawi was worried that the Iraqis would take advantage of this weakness and make an attack on the kingdom — and Riyadh Air Base was a prime target.
After Horner had filled him in as best he could, and assured him that enough E-3s were on the way to fill his gap, the two friends said their goodbyes; then Kaufman, Yeosock, and Horner packed into a waiting car for the trip to MODA (the Ministry of Defense and Aviation) and a meeting with the heads of the Saudi military forces and their chairman, General Muhammad al-Hamad. Hamad, the Kingdom’s only active-duty four-star general, was Colin Powell’s counterpart.
Horner had known the tough but amiable soldier for well over three years, and made sure to call on him first thing whenever he visited the Kingdom. Their previous encounters had always been friendly, yet challenging. He wondered how this one would turn out.
Unlike Horner’s counterparts, Behery and Harawi, who’d worked closely with him to solve practical, military cooperation problems, the job of the head of the Saudi military was to work the larger political-military picture. Specifically, he had to raise a modern military in a part of the world where there were real, immediate threats. For that, he needed U.S. help, though he was not always comfortable admitting it, or rather, he needed to be able to buy up-to-date American military equipment and training. Since the U.S. government had traditionally been acutely sensitive to the wishes of those who saw U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia as inimical to the best interests of Israel, the history of U.S.-Saudi military cooperation at Hamad’s level had not been rosy.
As a result, whenever Hamad and Horner met, Hamad would welcome the American three-star warmly in English, a language he spoke perfectly. Gaua and tea, and talk of family and friends, would follow. Then he would switch to Arabic, to make sure his words were accurate, and, through a translator, give Horner a savage tongue-lashing — usually because the Congress was not acting on a military case of vital interest to Saudi Arabia. After the chewing-out, the talks would resume in English, with the tough Arab soldier wearing a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye. He would then wish Horner well and send him on his way. The routine never varied. Though h
e was dead serious, it was not personal. It was role-playing.
Why did he take shots at Horner? Because he was the closest American just then; and in the American setup you never knew who could really get things done. Hamad didn’t know Horner from Adam in those prewar days, but he did know Horner outranked the two-star he had in his building who was the USMTM commander.
The car carrying the Americans passed through the air base’s main gate, beyond which was a traffic circle. In the center of the circle was a large fountain. At one time the water had flowed out of the lip of a huge gaua pot, with four smaller gaua pots on the sides, and it thus became known as Teapot Circle. In 1989, the Saudis had torn the gaua pots down and put in a tiered water fountain with spray shooting out of the top — but it was still called Teapot Circle.
After swinging around the circle, the car headed south down Airport Boulevard toward the old city. Along this major artery was a complex of buildings that housed the Saudi military headquarters. Two blocks from the base was the MODA officers’ club — rooms for guests, dining areas, athletic fields, and gyms for men and women. Although it was much larger than its American counterparts, it had all the features an American military officer might expect to find, save one. There was no bar.
Next to the MODA club was the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) compound. This covered a city block, and was walled. Within the walls were offices, a club (also no bar), a soccer field, some small houses, and two high-rise apartment buildings where John Yeosock and Chuck Horner would room together for the next nine months. The job of USMTM was to administer the various foreign military sales contracts the United States had established with Saudi Arabia. There were Army, Navy, and Air Force sections, each with staffs ranging up to two hundred people, including those who instructed the Saudi military in the use of the equipment or in setting up the training programs they had purchased from the United States. For example, at the AWACS wing, there was a USAF cadre who lived in Saudi Arabia for a year or two and trained their Saudi counterparts in the operation and maintenance of the E-3 AWACS. The two-star commander of USMTM worked for the commander in chief of Central Command.
A few blocks down from the USMTM compound was the beautiful brown-and-blue marble headquarters of the Royal Saudi Air Force. Horner would make his office here after General Schwarzkopf arrived. Along the way were hotels and upscale shops, including a Holiday Inn just past Suicide Circle, the roundabout immediately south of the RSAF headquarters, and so called because to enter it was to take one’s life in one’s hands, and many old buildings in the process of being torn down. Farther down Airport Boulevard were the buildings that housed the Royal Saudi Land Forces (RSLF) and the Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF). At last, the gleaming white MODA facility rose up on the right, about two and a half miles from the air base. It was a seven-story office building, with a high wall around it and a single square tower rising up in front. A much larger, three-winged building extended back from the street, and was backed by a five-tiered parking lot.
At about 3:00 P.M., the car carrying the American party turned in past the guards and into the parking garage in the rear. From there, they were escorted to General Hamad’s office, where Hamad and the Saudi chiefs of services — land, sea, air, and air defense — were waiting.
During the walk through the lovely, spacious MODA complex, Don Kaufman offered a few suggestions:
First: the MODA building would be a good place for CENTCOM Headquarters.
A terrific idea, it instantly flashed on Horner. In that way, CENTCOM could be collocated with the Saudi JCS equivalent… and in so doing they’d be going a long way toward avoiding some of the major mistakes of Vietnam, where — except for some showcase “combined headquarters” and “liaison groups”—the Americans had remained apart from the South Vietnamese. Horner wanted everyone acting as one team: all equals, no “big brother come to save your ass” act.
Second: there was a newly completed underground command center at MODA; Horner should ask General Hamad to let CENTCOM use it.
Third: Horner would be welcome to use USMTM staff ’s small suite of rooms at MODA for his advance headquarters.
All three sounded so right to Horner that he enlisted Kaufman on the spot as his chief of staff.[33]
A few moments later, they were shown into Hamad’s conference room. Since the start of the crisis, Hamad had been meeting daily with his service chiefs; the Americans were now to be part of such a meeting. Around the large table sat Horner’s closest Saudi friend, Lieutenant General Behery, head of the Royal Saudi Air Force. Next to him sat the Saudi land force commander, Lieutenant General Josuf Rashid, and the commander of the Saudi naval forces, Vice Admiral Talil Salem Al-Mofadhi. Also present was the head of MODA Plans and Operations, Major General Jousif Madani. And finally, to General Hamad’s left, was a man Horner didn’t yet know, Lieutenant General Khaled bin Sultan, who at the time was the commander of the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces, and was soon to become the Saudi military commander and Schwarzkopf ’s coalition equal.
Khaled, another, older son of Prince Sultan, was a big man, well over six feet tall and weighing two hundred-plus pounds, with a black mustache and dark hair combed straight back. He’d attended Sandhurst, Great Britain’s West Point, and spoke English and French fluently.
Khaled (as Horner was to learn very shortly) was a forceful man — probably due to his Sandhurst training. Instead of the bobbing-and-weaving style of most Arabs — who were so polite you couldn’t tell what they were for or against — he was direct. With Khaled, you knew where you stood, which made it much easier to work with him than with most Arabs.
Everyone shook hands all around, and after some polite remarks, got down to business. Two or three people on the USMTM staff gave the group the same briefings Cheney had given the King, including intelligence photos. There wasn’t much new there: the Iraqis were in Kuwait, much of Kuwait was in Saudi Arabia, and there were scarcely any serious military forces to stop the twenty-seven Iraqi divisions then in Kuwait from swinging south. For now, however, these seemed to be digging in on the border. The implication was that they weren’t planning an immediate attack. On the other hand, a military person plans to counter capability and takes little solace in intent. The military has been fooled too often.
Horner then gave to the assembled Saudis a brief rundown of the visit to Jeddah — the reason for it, Bush’s instruction to find out the King’s needs and wishes, as well as some insight into what had taken place at the meeting with Sultan that morning and what was likely to happen during the next few weeks:
As a result of the King’s invitation to U.S. military forces, U.S. Marines from the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade would soon be arriving in Jubail; meanwhile, the 82d Airborne would be moving into Dhahran, followed by the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division and the 101st Air Assault Division. Fighter squadrons would be going to every major Saudi air base. The 1st TFW F-15Cs and 552d AWCW E-3 AWACS aircraft were already en route. The Kingdom was about to receive hundreds of thousands of Americans: an urgent response to the military threat, but also an unwanted disruption to a culture vastly different from that of the United States.
Most of these generals had attended U.S. higher military schools at Fort Leavenworth or Maxwell AFB, so they understood the enormity of this deployment. However, none of them there — including Chuck Horner — had ever experienced such a movement in real life. He was ready for mass confusion, and he was not surprised when it hit full force.
At that point, the number one Saudi concern reared up. General Hamad broached it as if he were reading a script.
“Chuck, you’re not going to deploy women, are you?”
It was more a plea than a question.
“General Hamad,” Horner answered, “you know our services are totally integrated, that women make up ten to twenty percent of the units, and that even if we decided to prevent women from coming to the Kingdom, we couldn’t do it because it would make our units combat-ineffecti
ve.”
Hamad knew all this, and Horner knew he knew. They had worked this issue for the past ten years, as women assigned to AWACS had deployed to Saudi Arabia.
“Well, Chuck,” General Hamad pleaded earnestly, “I know you are not going to let your women drive.”
Here he was also well aware that women assigned to AWACS drove when they were on duty, in uniform, if their job required it. Sure, there were occasions when women drove while off duty or not in a uniform, but Horner had never heard about it, and therefore, in the logic of the Saudis, it didn’t happen.
“General Hamad,” Horner spoke softly, “these women will be leaving their homes, and in many cases their children, to come to the aid of your nation. Some of them may very well shed their blood, give up their lives in the defense of the Kingdom. If their military duties require them to drive, then of course they will drive.”
For a time they were at an impasse, until the Land Force Commander, Josuf Rashid, came to the rescue. He asked some questions, his face stern but not angry. It was no time for warmth. There was too much to be done and too little time.
“Chuck, let me get this straight. You intend to deploy women as part of your forces?”
“Yes, sir,” Horner replied.
“These women may have military duties that require them to drive cars and trucks?”