As far as bombing biological arsenals and the attendant risk of unleashing rather than preventing a catastrophe, I told Sir David Craig, “If it heads south, just blame me.”
President Bush had a knack for putting people at ease when they entered the Oval Office. A big grin, and “Hi, Dick, hi, Colin. Did you hear the one about the psychiatrist who …” There was no smile when we met on January 15, the day the UN deadline ran out. He barely acknowledged the arrival of the Gang of Eight. We took our usual places in the U of seats and couches in front of the fireplace, the President still occupying the armchair on the right which he had broken in for eight years as Vice President. I unbuttoned my uniform jacket, an unconscious gesture when I felt tense. Everyone seemed to take his emotional cue from the President. We were on edge, some speaking abruptly, others testily. We argued over the best response to a last-minute diplomatic brainstorm the French were pushing, and we went over the biological weapons threat one more time. We debated what the President should say in the speech he intended to make to the nation when the fighting started.
“I’m going to have to send General Schwarzkopf an execute order,” I said, “if we are going to set this thing in motion.” That sparked another heated discussion. According to the joint congressional resolution passed three days before (by 250 to 183 in the House and 52 to 47 in the Senate), the President was supposed to satisfy Congress that he had exhausted all efforts to get Iraq to comply with twelve UN resolutions before he could go to war. While the others were arguing about how to handle this requirement, I took out a yellow legal pad and started writing. When I finished, I interrupted the crossfire long enough to say, “Mr. President, maybe this’ll do it.” I read what I had written: “The Secretary of Defense has directed that offensive operations begin on 17 January 1991. This direction assumes Iraqi failure to comply with relevant UN resolutions and that the President will make the determination required by Section 2 (B) House Joint Resolution 77….”
When I finished, no one said anything. I took the silence to mean tacit approval. “After Dick signs it,” I said, “I’ll send the order to Norm later this afternoon.” This handful of words would unleash a war.
Norm and I had a method for transmitting messages, a secure fax line, which we used when we wanted distribution kept to an absolute minimum. My executive assistant, Dick Chilcoat, would take the fax to a tiny communications center near my office, and at the other end, Norm’s executive officer would take it off. Never more than four or five people saw a transmission. At 4:15 P.M. on January 15, I leaned into the doorway of Chilcoat’s office next to mine and said, “Send the CINC the execute.”
On the evening of January 16, the pre-battle calm descended over me. I was sitting in my office, shirt collar open, watching CNN. Once the dice have left your hands, there is nothing to do but watch how they come up. Not even small things remained to be checked. The battle was in the hands of the gods, particularly the arbitrary Mars. At 6:35 P.M., I was watching CNN’s Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, and John Holliman, like current-day Edward R. Murrows, broadcasting from the ninth floor of the Rasheed Hotel, speculating over the meaning of sudden streaks of tracers exploding across the black, empty sky above Baghdad. I knew the answer. B-52 bombers, taking off from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana hours before, had launched cruise missiles. Army Apache helicopters had crossed the border and shot up Iraqi early-warning radars. Young Americans were flying F-117A Stealth fighters from Saudi airfields and Navy A-6s from aircraft carriers. Tomahawk land attack missiles had been fired from our warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Iraqi air defense emplacements were lashing out blindly over the Iraqi capital. It was January 17 in the Middle East. The air phase of what Saddam Hussein had called “the mother of all battles” had begun.
I had no doubt we would be successful. We had the troops, the weapons, and the plan. What I did not know was how long it would take, and how many of our troops would not be coming home.
Nineteen
Every War Must End
I WAS UP MOST OF THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16–17, ON THE PHONE CONstantly, watching television out of the corner of my eye as we conducted our first war while it was being broadcast live from the enemy capital. Just after 5:00 A.M., Washington time, Schwarzkopf called me with his first summary report of the air campaign. Norm was too much the professional to be carried away by the first blush of victory, but he was hard pressed to conceal his excitement. “We got off eight hundred and fifty missions,” he told me. “We clobbered most of the targets.” Iraq’s key biological weapons and nuclear sites had been hit hard. The Iraqis’ western air defense system was knocked out. Supply dumps were in flames. Two Scud missile launching sites had been struck. “The ITT building in downtown Baghdad is glowing,” he said, “and we’ve blown down one of Saddam’s palaces.”
That was the good news. I waited apprehensively. “What about losses?”
“Colin,” he said, “it’s incredible.” It appeared so far that only two aircraft were down, while we had anticipated losing as many as seventy-five planes in this first strike. Our F-117A Stealth fighters, used in action only once before in Panama, slipped through the Iraqi air defenses like ghosts. Iraqi antiaircraft gunnery proved wild and ineffectual. And Saddam’s air force barely got off the ground. That is how the war went throughout the first day, almost unopposed success.
Air traffic control alone was an astonishing feat. The first night, seven hundred coalition combat aircraft hit Iraq. Cruise missiles were launched in combat for the very first time. One hundred and sixty flying tankers circled the skies to refuel this aerial armada. The task of controlling these swarms of fighters, bombers, tankers, and missiles made Chicago’s O’Hare look like a county airport.
After the initial strikes, I watched a TV reporter shove his microphone in front of a young fighter pilot just back from his first combat mission, helmet tucked under his arm, hoses dangling, face sweat-streaked, hair matted. After answering the reporter’s question, the flier started walking away, then he turned back to the camera and said, “I thank God I completed my mission and got back safely. I thank God for the love of a good woman. And I thank God I’m an American and an American fighter pilot.” I sat there, melting. This was the military I wanted the country to see, not the old stereotyped dropout from nowheresville, but smart, motivated, patriotic young Americans, the best and the brightest.
The euphoria of the first day actually created a problem. Reports by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer from the Pentagon made it seem as if all that remained was to organize the victory parade. I called Pete Williams, the Defense Department’s spokesman. “Pete,” I said, “tell Blitzer and these other press guys to cool it. This is the beginning of a war, not the end of a ballgame.” In this age of instant information, people tended to expect instant results. Over the next few days, the mood shifted quickly from euphoria to a funk. Why hadn’t we won yet? Was something wrong? The truth was that, in spite of heavy punishment, the Iraqis had not shown the slightest sign of caving in, despite the expectations of the most fervent air power apostles.
On the morning of the 22nd, I went upstairs to see Secretary Cheney. “Dick, we’ve got to get this thing into perspective,” I said. At this point, the American people had seen on television only staff briefings out of Saudi Arabia and the Pentagon. So far, no senior administration official had explained how the war was going. “Somebody should be doing that,” I said.
“We’ll hold a press conference tomorrow,” Dick decided.
I then called my chartmakers and had them put together some graphics. Along with a detailed briefing on the operation, I also wanted a sound bite that would capture the essence of this campaign.
Late that afternoon, I was sitting at my desk jotting down phrases and running them through my mind, getting ready for the press conference. I tried out one combination that went: “We are going to cut off the Iraqi army and neutralize it.” No. Cut it off and “attack” it. Maybe. Cut it off and “destroy” it. Closer, bu
t I was still dissatisfied. I wanted something forceful, unmistakable and short. The vice chairman, Admiral Dave Jeremiah, my indispensable right-hand man, always looking out for me, stopped by the office. “Dave,” I said, “I want you to hear something I’ve written. ‘Here’s our plan for the Iraqi army. First, we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it.’”
Dave looked a little uncomfortable. “Sounds a bit stark,” he said. “Are you sure that’s what you want to say?”
Bill Smullen came in to discuss the press conference arrangements, and I repeated the line. Smullen’s eyes widened. “Is that too strong?” I asked.
“It doesn’t leave any room for misunderstanding,” Bill answered.
The next day, at 2:00 P.M., Cheney and I faced the press in the briefing room on the second floor of the E-Ring. Dick led off with brief comments, and wrapped it up saying that Saddam Hussein “cannot change the basic course of the conflict. He will be defeated.” He then turned the stage over to me.
I explained the battle plan. We were using our airpower first to destroy the Iraqis’ air defense system and their command, control, and communications to render the enemy deaf, dumb, and blind. We then intended to tear apart the logistics supporting their army in Kuwait, including Iraqi military installations, factories, and storage depots. And then we would expand our attack to the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait.
My presentation was deliberately understated and unemotional. And then I delivered the punch line. “Our strategy in going after this army is very simple,” I said. “First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.” Those words led the press coverage on television that evening, and in the papers the next day. They achieved what I wanted. They let the world—and particularly Iraq—know our war aim unmistakably.
As I went over the charts to describe bomb damage, I said, “I’ve laundered them so you can’t really tell what I’m talking about because I don’t want the Iraqis to know what I’m talking about.” And I added with a smile, “But trust me.” The reporters seemed amused and did not press me further.
As the air war continued, I dealt less than frankly with the media on one occasion and later regretted it. Norm Schwarzkopf, briefing from Riyadh, had become a comforting television presence, big, confident, witty. At one press conference, Norm ran a video of one of our smart bombs streaking toward four cylindrical objects. As the screen filled with one of those Nintendo images of an exploding bull’s-eye hit, he announced that four Scud missile launchers had just been blown away.
Or had they? Rear Admiral Mike McConnell, my intelligence chief, came to me about an hour later. “Mr. Chairman, we’ve got a problem,” Mike said. “We don’t think those were Scuds. We think they were four Jordanian fuel trucks pulled up at a rest stop.”
“Where’d you get that?” I asked.
“A captain, an analyst, on Schwarzkopf’s staff,” McConnell said.
“So have the captain call General Schwarzkopf and tell him they made a mistake.”
“Nobody over there is going to tell Norm Schwarzkopf he made a mistake,” McConnell said.
“Then how the hell is he supposed to know?” I answered. I pushed a button on my console. The CINC came on immediately. “Hey, Norm,” I said, and I explained what McConnell had just told me.
The phone suddenly felt like a hot rock. “Not Scuds! Jee-zus! You think it’s easy being over here undercut by a bunch of Washington chairwarmers? Can’t I get any support from anybody?”
“Relax,” I said. “We got the info from your own staff. Just have your intelligence people analyze the strike again, and we’ll talk. Let’s not argue about it.”
Norm was soon back on the phone. “By God,” he said, “those certainly were Scuds. That analyst doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s just not as good as the others. But I’m telling you, I can’t put up with much more of this crap, going on television, then having your guys second-guess me.”
“Just trying to protect your credibility,” I said. “It’s a precious asset.”
The next day our photo reconnaissance experts came to me with pictures that were hard to deny, four burned-out hulls of tanker trucks, certainly not Scuds. I let the story stand, without correcting it. Norm’s burdens were so heavy and preserving his equanimity so important that I did not want to undercut him. But the truth will out, as it did when a CNN camera crew shot film of the destroyed vehicles from ground level. Another good media rule: better to admit a mistake than be caught in one.
The Scud was a cheap, crude, inaccurate Soviet engine of destruction. In chummier days, the Russians had provided the Iraqis with hundreds of these missiles, which had a range of less than three hundred miles and carried only a small payload. The Scud was the only offensive air weapon the Iraqis used. They boosted its range by welding two of them end to end, which produced a rickety, even more wayward contraption that could carry only a 160-pound warhead. If these Scuds struck within two miles of a target, it was considered a hit. However, cities present targets that size, and when Scuds began to fall on Tel Aviv and Haifa, the Israelis instinctively wanted to lash back. No Israeli government could be seen as failing to protect its people from an Arab attack. Yet if we were going to preserve the Arab end of the coalition, we had to keep the Israelis out of this fight. The Scud, a lousy military weapon, thus was proving, for the Iraqis, a useful political weapon, since the Israelis began planning to take over Scud hunting themselves.
On January 28, Cheney asked Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary for policy, and me up to his office. Three very determined Israelis would be there, he said: Rear Admiral Abraham Ben-Shoshan, the defense attaché at the Israeli embassy; David Ivri, their defense director general; and General Ehud Barak, deputy chief of staff. The six of us sat down around Cheney’s table and listened to the Israeli’s intentions—a combined air and ground assault into the western Iraqi desert to find and destroy Scud launchers. A daring plan, but disastrous politics for the coalition. I asked if I might talk to Barak alone, soldier to soldier. The two of us retreated to my office.
“These attacks are devastating to the morale of our people,” Barak began. I countered, mentioning the performance of our Patriot missiles in downing Scuds. Not good enough, he answered. Some Scuds were still getting through, terrorizing the Israeli civilian population. “You must understand us,” Barak went on. “It is hard for Israelis to have others risk their lives in our defense. We want to be involved.” I repeated the familiar arguments about the fragility of the coalition. “If we don’t go in and clear out the Scuds,” Barak said, “Saddam may use them to deliver chemical warheads when you launch your ground offensive. They may fire nerve gas or a biological warhead at our cities. If that happens, you know what we must do.”
I had a pretty good idea what he meant. Israeli missile crews were reportedly on full alert. And who knew what they would be firing?
Israel had an assault force ready to go against the Scud sites, Barak explained. Israeli planes would fly over Jordan or through Saudi airspace. Schwarzkopf had already warned me that the Saudis would never accept such an Israeli intrusion. Still, I understood the intensity of Barak’s feelings. His nation had survived for the past forty years by taking no guff from its enemies. You could hear the echos of “Never again” in everything Israeli leaders said.
Finally, Barak and I rejoined the others. It was clear to our side that we had to keep Israel out of this war, and there was only one way: stop the Scuds. Norm Schwarzkopf began diverting more and more of his combat aircraft to Scud-busting, as many as a third of all missions flown. British and U.S. special operations troops slipped behind enemy lines to search out Scuds. American Patriot missile units were sent to help protect major Israeli cities. Scuds still came through, but less often.
Sometimes we fight with fury; sometimes the wisest weapon is restraint. Prime Minister Shamir showed a special brand of statesmanship in resisting heavy pressure from those around him to strike back. The forbearance of the
Israelis, in the face of intense provocation, going completely against their grain, in my judgment helped keep the coalition intact.
By the third week in February, the air war had been going on uninterrupted for thirty-five days. I wanted to make sure the President understood that war was going to look a lot different once fighting began on the ground. I took advantage of one of our almost daily briefings to paint the contrast. “Once the ground war begins,” I said, “we don’t get these antiseptic videos of a missile with a target in the cross hairs. When a battalion runs into a firefight, you don’t lose a pilot or two, you can lose fifty to a hundred men in minutes. And a battlefield is not a pretty sight. You’ll see a kid’s scorched torso hanging out of a tank turret while ammo cooking off inside has torn the rest of the crew apart. We have to brace ourselves for some ugly images.” I also made sure that Cheney and the President understood that ground combat cannot be reported as quickly as air strikes. “There’s going to be confusion. You won’t know what is happening for a while. And so in the early hours, please don’t press us for situation reports.”
The cold bath of reality was important. Notwithstanding Panama, Cheney had never seen war on a grand scale. The President had, but only from the air during his own long-ago fighter pilot days.
As the bombing continued, one downside of airpower started to come into sharp focus, particularly what happened on February 13. That day, two of our aircraft scored direct hits on the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad, which we regarded as a command and control site and which the Iraqis claimed was an air-raid shelter. Whatever use the structure served, a large number of civilians died in the strike, which the whole world witnessed on television as victims were hauled from the smoking rubble. Schwarzkopf and I discussed this tragedy. Did we still need to pound downtown Baghdad over a month into the war? How many times could you bomb the Baath Party headquarters, and for what purpose? No one was sitting there waiting for the next Tomahawk to hit. Schwarzkopf and I started reviewing targets more closely before each day’s missions.
My American Journey Page 63