Reading I NEED HELP ON MY HOMEWORK

Case 234

The One Hundred-Hour War

Howard Diamond

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.

The opinions and analysis contained in this case study are solely those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, the School of Foreign Service, or Georgetown University.

1316 36th St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007 | isd.georgetown.edu | [email protected]

ISBN 1-56927-469-X Copyright © 1996 by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy

The One-hundred Hour War HOWARD D IAM OND UNIVER S IT Y OF MAR YLAND AT COL LEGE PARK

President George Bush took two final questions on rela- tions with the Soviet Union and walked off to quieter parts of the White House. His press conference of April 16, 1991, had not been easy. After announcing plans for expansion of U.S. efforts to protect Kurdish refugees in Iraq, the onslaught of questions quickly put the Presi- dent on the defensive.

Since the cessation of Operation Desert Storm on February 28, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had been using the remains of his army to cling to power, sup- pressing revolts by the Kurds in the north of Iraq, and Shiites in the south. The first question set the tone for the rest of the press conference:

Your administration estimates that a thousand Kurds are dying each day. How do you respond to critics who say that you’ve acted too little too late, and that you’ve turned your back on the very peo- ple that you inspired to rise up against Saddam Hussein?

The President’s response was sharp:

I don’t think we’ve responded too little too late. It is an extraordinarily difficult logistical problem, and we have been, as I said in my statement, send- ing lots of humanitarian relief in there . . . . And in terms of the other, I simply don’t accept that.

But the reporters remained unsatisfied. Questions and accusations regarding the administration’s culpabil- ity for the plight of the Iraqi rebels continued unceas- ingly. The President stood his ground, vociferously objecting to the barrage of accusations; his frustration becoming apparent.

The objectives were set out very early on and the objectives never included going to Baghdad, never included the demise and destruction of Saddam personally. You had many people that were telling me early on “Let sanctions work, let sanctions work; don’t do anything about the aggression at all.”

We led an [sic] national—an international—coali- tion of unprecedented historic proportions and achieved objectives and are you asking me if I fore- saw the size of the Kurdish refugee problem? The answer is no, I did not. But do I think that the United States should bear guilt because of suggest-

1

2 Howard Diamond

ing [sic] that the Iraqi people take matters into their own hands with the implication being given by some that the United States would be there to sup- port them militarily? That was not true. We never implied that.1

After twenty-seven more questions on the same topic, the President called it quits and went back to more peaceful parts of the White House. Only seven weeks earlier, President Bush had been welcomed as a hero in a triumphant televised address to a joint session of Congress. Now, not even two months since then, as he walked away from the press room, George Bush must have wondered how the great victory he had won in February had already turned sour.

A WAR OF AGGRESSION

On August 2, 1990, at 4 A.M. (local time), Iraq invaded Kuwait, its southern neighbor. Led by elite troops of the Republican Guard, Saddam Hussein’s forces rapidly overwhelmed Kuwait’s small army and occupied the capital, Kuwait City. Iraqi reinforcements began rolling into Kuwait almost immediately after the first wave attacked, and ominously, immediately after securing Kuwait City, the Iraqi army began moving south again— to the Saudi Arabian border.

For months before the invasion, tensions in the Persian Gulf had been high. Iraq and Kuwait had a num- ber of major disputes to settle, including terms for the repayment of Iraqi debts, delineation of the Iraqi- Kuwaiti border, and Iraqi charges that Kuwait was steal- ing Iraqi oil reserves by horizontal drilling. Efforts at negotiation had made little progress. In the middle of July, U.S. reconnaissance satellites showed troops and equipment belonging to units of the Iraqi Republican Guard moving toward the Kuwaiti border.

As the Iraqi military build-up on the border increased in scope, senior U.S. policymakers had been alerted, but none were expecting serious trouble. When the invasion did come, key administration officials were out of the country or on vacation, and the initial U.S. response was limited to issuing a curt statement con- demning Iraqi actions and calling for an immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. Overnight, administration officials rushed to prepare an executive order freezing Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets in the United States,2 and dur-

ing the next week, the administration worked feverishly to craft a policy for dealing with the Iraqi invasion.

RESPONDING TO AGGRESSION

On August 2, the day after the invasion, before going off to Aspen, Colorado, to give a speech announcing cuts in the defense budget and to meet with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, President Bush met with the National Security Council (NSC). Before the meet- ing began the President told reporters that he was not going to be discussing intervention or sending troops, but was interested in having the invasion reversed. He pointed out that “there will be a lot of frenzied diplo- matic activity. I plan to participate in some of that myself.”3

The meeting began with two briefings, the first, by CIA Director William Webster, reviewing the Iraqi operation and going over the latest intelligence, and the second, by Central Command (CENTCOM) commander-in-chief (CINC), General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, outlining possible military responses. The CINC presented only two options: the first would entail limited punitive air strikes against Iraqi military and strategic targets by carrier-based aircraft; the sec- ond would require execution of a large scale deploy- ment known as Operations Plan (Oplan) 90–1002. Oplan 90–1002 was a CENTCOM contingency plan for the defense of the Arabian peninsula; it called for the deployment of 100,000 to 200,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

The President, his National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney were all inclined to act, but were confronted by the doubts of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, White House Chief-of-Staff John Sununu, and Budget Director Richard Darman, all of whom doubted the efficacy of trying to reverse the Iraqi fait accompli.4

Arguments erupted about what the U.S. objective should be and the meeting broke up without reaching a consensus about what to do.

Bush returned from Colorado the same evening with his resolve strengthened after meeting with Thatcher. The two leaders had agreed that Iraq’s actions were unacceptable and had discussed possible naval actions to cut off the export of Iraqi oil. Scowcroft met privately with the President once they returned to

The One-Hundred Hour War 3

the White House and brought up the morning’s NSC meeting. Both men agreed that the morning meeting had not gone well and that the administration needed to get its act together. Scowcroft suggested that he make the case for action at the next day’s NSC meeting and then see if the administration’s key officials would fall in line.5

The confusion and uncertainty in the NSC on August 2 was replicated later that same day in a tense meeting of Defense officials in Cheney’s office. Cheney, like Scowcroft and the President, felt that the morning meeting had gone poorly, and was trying to pressure the Pentagon’s key officials, civilian and military, to develop better military options that he could offer to the President. Cheney’s eagerness to act was visibly matched by Powell’s reticence and growing concern that the military not be used to send signals or take politically inspired half-measures.

Powell, like most of the admirals and generals he led, had served in Vietnam and his views on the use of force had been shaped by that conflict. As a major, Powell watched as the war killed and maimed his men, dishonored his army, and tore at the fabric of the nation. In 1984, as Military Assistant to Secretary of Defense Weinberger, Powell helped create a set of tests for the use of force, known as the Weinberger Doctrine. Condemned by some as being overly cautious and too restrictive, the Weinberger Doctrine was designed to ensure that the U.S. military would never have to suffer another Vietnam.6

As Cheney pressed for military options, Powell continued to try and redirect the meeting away from military options for Kuwait and toward diplomatic options and protection for Saudi Arabia. Powell insisted that while the administration should “draw a line in the sand” to protect Saudi Arabia, thinking beyond that was unrealistic since the public does not “want their young dying for $1.50 a-gallon oil.”7

The Secretary and the Chairman went round and round until, finally, Cheney’s aides cleared the room so that he and Powell could speak in private. Cheney tried to impress upon Powell the need to come up with some viable military options, insisting that “We are the only ones who can tell the President what to do. He will look to us. The others can’t do it. So what do we do?”8 Pow- ell responded that Kuwait was a long way away, both physically and in the hearts of Americans, and that any precipitous action might cause the Iraqis to cross the

border into Saudi Arabia—it would be like “pissing into the wind.”9

The NSC met again on August 3 and, as had been planned the night before, Scowcroft began the meeting with a pitch for action:

We have got to examine what the long-term inter- ests are for this country and for the Middle East if the invasion and taking of Kuwait become an accomplished fact. We have to begin our delibera- tions with the fact that this is unacceptable. Yes, its hard to do much. There are lots of reasons why we can’t do things but it’s our job.10

Speaking for the State Department, Deputy Secre- tary of State Lawrence Eagleburger immediately voiced his support for Scowcroft’s position. “It is absolutely essential that the U.S.—collectively if possible, but indi- vidually if necessary—not only put a stop to this aggres- sion but roll it back.”11 The President indicated his support for this position as well, and consequently, the meeting produced a number of decisions including agreement to use U.S. forces if necessary, plans for get- ting sanctions passed by the United Nations (UN), and authorization for the CIA to begin planning ways to subvert or overthrow the Hussein regime.12 Finally, the President requested that Cheney, Powell, and Schwarz- kopf brief him the next day at Camp David about possi- ble military options.

At the end of the August 3 NSC meeting, the administration’s policy was beginning to come together, but one very serious obstacle remained before any kind of military action could be taken: the administration would have to get approval from Saudi Arabia, the nation most threatened by the Iraqi tanks in Kuwait. On the night of the invasion, the administration had offered to send a squadron of F-15s, but the Saudis, uncertain of the administration’s level of commitment, had refrained from either accepting or refusing. In Washing- ton, their “non-answer” was seen as a diplomatic rebuff.

To get the Saudis onboard, Scowcroft arranged for the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to come to the White House on August 3. Bandar had a prominent reputation in Washington and was well known to the Bush team. Bandar’s meeting with Scow- croft and Sununu started off poorly. Scowcroft wanted an assurance from Bandar that American assistance would be accepted if offered, but Bandar refused to

4 Howard Diamond

provide such assurance until he knew what sort of assis- tance the United States would offer. The deadlock was finally broken by the appearance of the President. Annoyed by the Saudi’s apparent lack of confidence in his administration, the President said, “I give you my word of honor; I will see this through with you.”13 Ban- dar was struck by the President’s personal commitment but wanted more details.

At the President’s request, Scowcroft set up a meeting that afternoon at the Pentagon so that Bandar could be briefed on the details of Oplan 90–1002 and see the latest top-secret satellite photos of the region, which showed the true extent of the danger his nation faced. Bandar was impressed, not only by the size and posture of the Iraqi forces, but also by the size of the commitment the administration was offering. Bandar joked to Powell that it should now be “clear to you why we did not want the tactical fighter squadron.”14 He promised that when he spoke with the Saudi leader, King Fahd, he would recommend that the American offer of assistance be accepted.

The next day, August 4, at Camp David, the admin- istration’s top officials met again to go over the details of Oplan 90–1002. The briefing on the plan was given by General Schwarzkopf, together with his air com- mander, Air Force Lieutenant General Charles Horner. Schwarzkopf began by reviewing the capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces, which included the following:

• 900,000 men, in 63 divisions; including eight elite Republican Guard divisions.

• 5,747 tanks, of which 1,072 were modern front- line Soviet T-72s.

• 10,000 or so armored vehicles, of which 1,600 were of an advanced type.

• 3,500 artillery pieces, of which only 330 were self- propelled.

• 3,000 or so heavy equipment transports for mov- ing tanks.15

• 1,127 aircraft, but limited numbers of front-line models.16

Schwarzkopf pointed out that, while this was a for- midable force, “they’re not 10 feet tall.” He told the group that it would take seventeen weeks to assemble the full deterrence piece of Oplan 90–1002. To develop an offensive capability, he would require between eight and twelve months to give U.S. commanders a favor- able ratio of attacking forces.17 There were a number of

questions about the potential for air strikes early in the deployment and the capability of the troops to defend against chemical attack, but the discussion quickly turned to the reliability of the Saudis.

In a conversation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Bush had been warned that getting the Saudis to accept American assistance would be difficult. It was decided that the President would call King Fahd to “take a sounding and make a pitch.”18 In their conversa- tion, Fahd and Bush agreed to send an American team to Riyadh to brief the Saudi leadership on what the United States would do if asked for assistance. Bush, sensing the Saudis were trying to keep their options open by asking for a “low-level technical or manage- ment team,” decided instead to send Cheney, Schwarz- kopf, and Deputy National Security Advisor Bob Gates. “I want to do this,” Bush told Scowcroft, “I want to do this big time.”19

On Sunday August 5, Cheney and his team left for Saudi Arabia. In an afternoon press conference, after coming back from Camp David, the President detailed some of the intense diplomatic activity in which the administration had been engaged. The President men- tioned some seven world leaders that he had spoken to and told reporters that they had all agreed that Iraq had to withdraw unconditionally from Kuwait and that the creation of a puppet regime would not be acceptable. The President took a number of questions and then concluded by making a clear and sharp declaration:

I am not going to discuss what we’re doing in terms of moving of forces, anything of that nature. But I view it seriously, not just that, but any threat to any other countries as well, as I view very seriously our determination to reverse out this aggression. . . . This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggres- sion against Kuwait.20

The next day, August 6, Secretary Cheney called the White House from Saudi Arabia. Cheney told the President that King Fahd had been impressed by Oplan 90–1002 and the overhead photos; he had agreed to the American deployment. Over the phone, the President formally authorized Cheney to begin the operation. Cheney then called Powell at the Pentagon and told him the Saudis had approved—it was time to start send- ing American forces into the Arabian Desert.

The One-Hundred Hour War 5

August 6 also saw the passage of a mandatory eco- nomic and financial embargo on Iraq by the United Nations Security Council. On August 7, the first F-15s departed from Langley Air Force Base bound for Saudi Arabia. On August 8, the President spoke to the nation to explain what was being done. He began by quickly reviewing the course of events and then enumerated four principles to guide U.S. policy:

First, we seek the immediate, unconditional, and complete withdrawal of all Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Second, Kuwait’s legitimate government must be restored to replace the puppet regime.

Third, my administration, as has been the case with every President from President Roosevelt to President Reagan, is committed to the security and stability of the Persian Gulf.

Fourth, I am determined to protect the lives of American citizens abroad.

The President went on to explain why he was send- ing troops to defend Saudi Arabia.

I want to be clear about what we are doing and why. America does not seek conflict, nor do we seek to chart the destiny of other nations. But America will stand by its friends. The mission of our troops is wholly defensive. Hopefully, they will not be needed long. They will not initiate hostili- ties, but they will defend themselves, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and other friends in the Persian Gulf.21

The public, when asked in August if they approved or disapproved of the President’s actions, strongly sup- ported the President by a margin of nearly three to one.22

HOLDING THE LINE

Given its mission to deter further Iraqi aggression and to defend Saudi Arabia (and other friendly Gulf states), the Pentagon went to work. In short order, messages

went out and troops began to move. The President went to the Pentagon on August 14 to give a speech and then meet with Cheney and Powell to check on the sta- tus of the deployment. Powell briefed the President on how the operation would run, week by week through December 1, when Operation Desert Shield would be fully in place.

“At some point Schwarzkopf will report to you, mission accomplished,” Powell told Bush. “What we need, Mr. President, is for you to tell us before that mis- sion is accomplished, is what you want us to do next— so if we have things in the military supply pipeline, do we stop the pipeline or keep going or whatever?”23 The President did not respond, but Powell felt that he had made an important point: if the mission was to go beyond defending and deterring, the President would have to let him know about it well in advance.

Over the next few weeks the deployment pro- ceeded apace. While on vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, the President approved an intelligence finding authorizing the CIA to work with elements in Iraqi soci- ety to overthrow the Hussein regime.24 The United Nations was busy throughout August, passing a resolu- tion declaring Iraq’s annexation of Kuwait null and void; demanding the immediate release of foreigners from Iraq and Kuwait and the right of diplomats to visit their nationals; and calling upon UN members with ships in the region to enforce sanctions by inspecting and verifying cargoes and destinations. Early in August, Turkey and Saudi Arabia had already shut off the flow of Iraqi oil running through pipelines in their countries. Combined with the UN embargo, the rope was being pulled tight around the throat of the Iraqi economy.

Early in September, a bipartisan group of congres- sional leaders went to the Persian Gulf to see for them- selves how things were progressing and meet with regional leaders. They did not like what they saw— American soldiers slaving away in the Arabian desert while Kuwaiti officials entertained themselves lavishly in Saudi hotels. At a dinner hosted by the Sheikh-Presi- dent of the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi, Sena- tor Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s temper finally spilled over. After hearing toast after toast, praising the cour- age of the Kuwaitis, the New York Democrat finally erupted, “Your Grace! Your Grace! Your Grace, the Kuwaitis left their wives. They left their servants. They took their money and stuffed it into Swiss bank accounts. That is not my definition of courage.”25

6 Howard Diamond

The delegation’s discomfort though was kept from the public. Speaking to reporters after the group returned, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Claiborne Pell (D-RI) remarked, “The delegation is convinced that the President’s decision to send forces to the Per- sian Gulf area was an essential response to Iraqi aggres- sion.” Senator John Glenn (D-OH) and Moynihan also indicated guarded support.26

In a meeting with the President to discuss their trip, however, the Senators offered a much less san- guine view. The congressmen made two points: (1) that the Congress should be called back from its summer recess to give their approval for Operation Desert Shield under the obligations of the War Powers Act, and (2) that while the President had the nation’s sup- port at the moment, if the defensive deployment began to evolve toward a different mission, public and con- gressional support could not be counted on. Senator William Cohen (R-ME) offered the President one final, grim assessment: “We visited the Kuwaitis, we saw the Kuwaitis and we realized that Kuwaitis are willing to fight—until every U.S. soldier has dropped.”27

Throughout the next four months, the administra- tion cobbled together an unprecedented coalition of nations to oppose Iraq.28 Billions of dollars to support the cost of deploying U.S. forces were promised by Kuwaiti, Saudi, German, and Japanese leaders. Forces from around the globe joined the Americans in the Gulf. The United Nations continued to demand Iraqi withdrawal while passing additional resolutions tight- ening the embargo, insisting on protection of diplo- matic privileges, and condemning widespread human rights abuses in Kuwait.

As the diplomats began their coalition-building in early September, President Bush was becoming dissat- isfied. Iraqi refusal to release foreigners trapped in Iraq and Kuwait grated on his nerves, and the reports of atrocities in Kuwait sickened him. By the end of Sep- tember, it was becoming clear inside the administration that the President was losing faith in economic sanc- tions. The deployment of U.S. forces to the Gulf was proceeding well and, as he had suggested to the Presi- dent back in August, General Powell wanted to know when to stop “putting things in the funnel.”

Powell favored containment. Before becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Powell had been Presi- dent Reagan’s National Security Advisor—he under- stood how policy got made—and Colin Powell was

worried about where the policy on the Gulf was going. His daily calls to Schwarzkopf and daily meetings with Cheney focused more and more on the question of what comes next. To Powell the answer was clear: noth- ing new, just let the sanctions do the job. This senti- ment was shared widely in the Congress, but Powell needed allies at the highest level of the administration.

Through late September, Powell arranged meet- ings with Secretary of State Baker, Brent Scowcroft, and Defense Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz, looking for allies to help him make the case for simply holding the line. Powell approached Cheney twice and the issue was finally taken up by the NSC on October 5. Powell made the case for a long-term containment strategy. Although it might take up to two years, Powell sug- gested that it would eventually work and was a valid option to consider. Powell, however, stopped short of personally advocating this position. The President pon- dered Powell’s advice and responded, “I don’t think there is time politically for that strategy.”29 A few days later Powell took a call from Scowcroft. The President wanted a briefing on what an offensive option would look like, Scowcroft said. Powell said that he would get on it.

PREPARING FOR WAR

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the CENTCOM commander, was of the same generation as Powell and was also not at all eager to send his troops into combat. Vietnam had scarred him, as it had Powell, and he too was committed to protecting his soldiers from capri- cious political mandates. The CINC believed, as did the Chairman, that if soldiers were to be committed to bat- tle, they should only go with a clear objective and should be allowed to use overwhelming force to achieve it.

In late September, as Schwarzkopf was becoming more confident in the capability of Desert Shield, he began to ask Powell when the continual addition of forces would stop. What, he was asking, is the next step? Powell had no answer until after the October 5 NSC meeting. After receiving Scowcroft’s request for a presidential briefing on offensive options, Powell con- tacted Schwarzkopf on October 8 and told him he had forty-eight hours to send over a team to brief the Presi-

The One-Hundred Hour War 7

dent on CENTCOM’s air and ground campaign plan to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait.

Schwarzkopf was alarmed. Since the deployment had begun in August his efforts had focused on prepar- ing for defense against an Iraqi attack. Now only two months later, the President wanted to see plans for ejecting Iraq from Kuwait by force. CENTCOM’s offen- sive plans were cursory at best, but with one exception. Even before the end of August, Air Force planners in the Pentagon had put together a polished and aggres- sive plan for an air campaign against Iraq that had, more or less, been adopted by CENTCOM.

Schwarzkopf ’s ground campaign plan was pre- pared in the last two weeks of September by a small cell of junior army officers derisively referred to as the “Jedi Knights.” Their plan called for a single U.S. corps to drive directly into the heart of the Iraqi forces. The U.S. troops would attack at night and by the end of the first day would aim to be about thirty kilometers north of Kuwait City—right in between the Iraqi forces in Kuwait City and the Republican Guard. Casualties were expected to be heavy.

The Jedis’ ground plan was briefed to Schwarzkopf on October 5. The CINC quickly noticed the Jedis’ dis- comfort with their own work. When he pressed them, they pointed out that coalition forces were insufficient for an offensive, and to do the job properly, they would need at least another corps. Schwarzkopf seemed to agree but said little.30 A few days after the Jedis’ brief- ing, Schwarzkopf was informed by Powell that he had to brief what plans he had to the President.

Schwarzkopf was dismayed and angry; he sus- pected that Washington was eager to send his troops into battle without sufficient concern about how many would not come back. Before sending the briefing team off to Washington, the CINC gave them all a warning to “stick to their brief and not offer personal opinions.” If he found out about any “free-lancing,” he would per- sonally run the offending officer out of the service. The last thing Schwarzkopf wanted was for the White House, captivated by a slick briefing, to tell him to go with what he had. As a final precaution, he insisted that his chief of staff lead the briefing team and, at the end, deliver a “CINC’s Assessment,” elaborating all of Schwarzkopf ’s concerns.

The CENTCOM team briefed the Joint Chiefs, Powell, and Cheney on October 10 and then went to the White House the next day. Neither briefing went

well. First the chiefs, and then the high administration officials, attacked the plan. The air campaign seemed solid, but there was agreement at both briefings that the ground campaign was poorly conceived and would result in thousands of casualties.

The President was intrigued by the air campaign though, and inquired about whether it could be initi- ated separately from the ground campaign. The answer came, not from the briefing team, but from General Powell: “I have to tell you Mr. President that it will not meet your objectives. I cannot assure you that the Iraqi ground forces will be out of Kuwait, just because we do an air campaign.”31

There were a number of other questions before Scowcroft brought the meeting back to the ground campaign. Why were U.S. forces attacking directly into the enemy, Scowcroft asked. Why weren’t they attack- ing from the west hitting the Iraqi flank? Why did they have to go “high-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle?” Powell again answered for the briefers. He explained that logistically, attacking from the west was just too hard. The President asked what would be required to make an attack from the west possible. Another corps, Powell replied.

The next day, Scowcroft informed Cheney that CENTCOM’s briefing hadn’t gone well and that the Pentagon would have to do better.32 Cheney agreed and quickly picked up on a radical concept for a “Western Excursion,” developed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Henry S. Rowen. Rowen’s plan called for coali- tion forces to sweep into the western Iraqi desert, at once capturing Iraq’s SCUD missiles and threatening Baghdad itself. If the Iraqis tried to respond, their forces would become vulnerable to allied air power.33 With Cheney trumpeting the potential of the “Western Excursion,” the pressure on CENTCOM and the Joint Staff to come up with something better grew intense.

To Cheney the situation was clear—the President was becoming rapidly disenchanted with sanctions and was increasingly inclined to use force to liberate Kuwait. Cheney himself agreed with this position, as did Scowcroft. Where Baker and Powell stood, how- ever, was less clear. Baker had ably helped to construct the coalition and his aggressive diplomacy guaranteed that the United States alone would not be paying for operations in the Gulf. At the same time though, Baker was cautious about using force; he simply didn’t believe the public would support such a move.

8 Howard Diamond

Powell too was leery of using force. Meeting with British Air Chief Marshall Patrick Hine, Powell had indicated that he would be willing to wait as long as two years for sanctions to work.34 Powell had tried to make the case for containment back in late September and early October, but failing to find allies, he had shelved his arguments. Publicly, Powell seemed to be pulling with the rest of the team, but in private with Prince Bandar he confided, “If we don’t have to fight, it will be better. If we have to, I’ll do it, but we’re going to do it with everything we have.”35

AT THE CROSSROADS

The cautious support voiced by congressional leaders in early September was rapidly unraveling as adminis- tration statements became more bellicose. On October 30, a group of congressional leaders went to the White House to meet with the President and discuss the situa- tion in the Gulf. Before long, the meeting had broken down into an angry, partisan exchange of accusations.36

Senator William Cohen recalled that he had never seen emotions—including his own—quite so high in a White House meeting.37 As the meeting concluded, it was clear that the free ride the administration had been enjoying on its Gulf policy had come to an end.

After the congressmen left, the NSC principals met to hear from General Powell, who had just returned from Saudi Arabia. Powell had gone to check on CENTCOM’s new plans for the ground portion of an offensive and to find out what would be needed. While he had been away, Cheney announced that U.S. forces in the Gulf would be increasing, perhaps by as many as 100,000 more troops. Powell was furious that an appar- ent decision in principle on a major military issue had been made without him. At the White House meeting he was determined to make clear what would be required if Washington wanted to go to war.

Scowcroft opened the meeting by declaring that the administration was now at a crossroads and that the time had come to decide whether to stick with the package of Desert Shield and sanctions or to start mov- ing toward an offensive option. Baker concurred; as he saw it, there were only two options: either the adminis- tration could tighten the sanctions regime or it could issue an ultimatum that would have to be backed up if Iraq failed to comply.

The meeting turned to the military option and the time had come for Colin Powell to lay out what would be required to get Iraq out of Kuwait by force. When Powell had spoken with Schwarzkopf in Riyadh, the CENTCOM commander had asked for two additional armored divisions, additional Marines, one more air- craft carrier and some additional planes from the Air Force. Now, in front of the NSC, Powell forwarded a different request:

Powell’s list went well beyond what the CENT- COM chief had sought. Powell was proposing that a second Army corps [the VII armored corps based in Europe] be sent, to include the 1st Infantry Divi- sion at Fort Riley, Kansas, a doubling of the Marine forces in the Gulf, three additional aircraft carriers, and a virtual doubling of the number of Air Force planes.38

Cheney commented that he supported Powell’s recommendation without condition and that, in his opinion, moving to an offensive option was the right move to make.39 Scowcroft and his deputy Bob Gates both thought that Powell’s request might have been designed more to intimidate George Bush than Saddam Hussein but, unperturbed, the President responded, “If that’s what you need, we’ll do it.” Final approval was given the next day, but the decision to double U.S. forces in the Gulf was not made public until November 8, the day after congressional elections.

The pitch of congressional opposition, first indi- cated at the October 30 meeting, rose quickly after the troop increase was announced. References to Vietnam were thick in the air as Democrats and Republicans alike began to publicly voice their concerns. Said Sena- tor Moynihan, “they’re going to send our men and women into battle for those Kuwaitis who have taken over the Sheraton Hotel in Taif and are sitting there in their white robes drinking coffee and urging us on to war. What is the matter with George Bush?”

Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), Chairman of the Sen- ate Armed Services Committee, was equally critical. “The last thing we need is to have a war over there, a bloody war, and have American boys sent and brought back in body bags and yet not have the American peo- ple behind them.”40 On November 13, Democrats announced that they would be holding hearings to review the situation in the Gulf and maintained their

The One-Hundred Hour War 9

position that any offensive operation would have to be approved by the Congress in advance.

Even senior Republicans, including Senate Minor- ity Leader Bob Dole (R-KN), House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R-IL), and Senator Richard Lugar (R- IN), the ranking minority member of the Senate For- eign Relations Committee, were urging the President to seek the approval of the Congress before American troops were committed to action. The White House assured congressional leaders that the President would continue to consult with them, but insisted that the President had no obligation to ask for a congressional resolution authorizing the use of force.

Through November, public and congressional sup- port for the President dropped off. A poll conducted by USA Today following the announcement of additional troop deployments showed that public approval of the President’s handling of the Gulf crisis had fallen from 82 percent in August to a bare majority of 51 percent in November.41 On November 20, a group of forty-five Democratic representatives went to federal court to seek an injunction prohibiting the administration from sending U.S. troops into combat without congressional approval. Less than a week later, congressional hearings on the Gulf crisis began on both sides of the Capitol.42

On November 29, with Secretary of State Baker acting as chairman, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678, authorizing member states to “use all necessary means” to force Iraq out of Kuwait if it did not withdraw by January 15, 1991. The use of force res- olution had passed by a vote of 12–2–1, with Cuba and Yemen voting against and China abstaining. Secretary Baker had labored mightily to convince the Soviets to approve the resolution and had finally won their accep- tance for the “all necessary means” language. With the UN resolution in hand, the administration continued its preparations for war.

Congressional reaction to the “use of force” resolu- tion was deeply divided. The next day, to the dismay of the Bush Administration, two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs, General David Jones (USAF, ret.) and Admiral William Crowe (USN, ret.) testified that they believed economic sanctions would ultimately be effec- tive and that moving to an offensive option was a mis- take. The President felt betrayed. Crowe had once been part of the administration. As November passed into December, the administration was faced with a conten-

tious Congress, which, in addition to holding hearings challenging the administration’s policies, also contin- ued to demand a congressional vote before any U.S. troops were sent into combat. There was, however, a bright note for the administration: the President’s standing in the polls continued to rise as December went on.

On January 8, one day before a “last chance for peace” meeting between Secretary of State Baker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, the President asked the Congress to “adopt a Resolution stating that [it] supports the use of all necessary means to implement UN Security Council Resolution 678.”43 The Congress debated the measure for three days before voting. In the House the vote was 250 to 183; in the Senate, 52 to 47. The President had won; the last pieces were falling into place. In early January, as the public waited for war to come, polls showed that 62 percent of the public approved of the President’s policy to use force if neces- sary to liberate Kuwait.44

On January 15 the United Nation’s deadline passed without an Iraqi pullout. On January 16, at 7 P.M. Wash- ington time, coalition aircraft began bombing targets in Iraq. The Gulf War was on.

“FIRST WE’RE GOING TO CUT IT OFF, AND THEN WE’RE GOING TO KILL IT.”

“Our strategy to go after this army is very very simple,” said General Powell at a press conference. “First we’re going to cut it off, and then we’re going to kill it.”45 The strategy for liberating Kuwait, even if it was simple, had evolved over the course of several months and repre- sented an amalgam of approaches and compromises.

Back in December, when asked in congressional hearings why it was necessary to put more ground troops into the Gulf, rather than simply relying on air power General Powell explained:

Many experts, amateurs and others in this town believe that this [forcing Iraq out of Kuwait] can be accomplished by such things as surgical air strikes or perhaps a sustained air strike. And there are a variety of other nice, tidy, alleged low-cost incre- mental may-work options that are floated around with great regularity all over this town. . . .

10 Howard Diamond

But one can hunker down, one can dig in, one can disperse to try to ride out such a single-dimension attack. Recognizing that such attack will do griev- ous damage to the defenders after such a strategy has been executed, the decision is still in the hands of the defender to decide whether or not he has had enough punishment. Such strategies are designed to hope to win, they are not designed to win.46

The plan for Desert Storm, as it evolved, would entail a massive, overwhelming application of force. The President had made it clear on a number of occa- sions that a war in the Gulf would “not be another Viet- nam.” At a news conference, the day after the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678 authorizing “all necessary means” to free Kuwait, the President prom- ised,

This will not be a protracted, drawn-out war. . . . I want peace. I want peace, not war, but if there must be war, we will not permit our troops to have their hands tied behind their backs, and I pledge to you there will not be any murky ending. If one Ameri- can soldier has to go into battle, that soldier will have enough force behind him to win and then get out as soon as possible, as soon as the UN objec- tives have been achieved. I will never, ever agree to a halfway effort.47

“The President,” Cheney once joked in a speech, “belongs to what I call the ‘Don’t screw around’ school of military strategy.”48

The first plans for attack were those developed by the Air Force back in August 1990. The Air Force plan, dubbed “Instant Thunder,” proposed that Iraq could be forced out of Kuwait by incapacitating Saddam’s regime through air strikes. Instant Thunder called for attacks on Iraq’s “centers of gravity”: its political/military com- mand and control network, its military and chief eco- nomic production facilities (including its weapons of mass destruction), its oil production centers, and its transportation network. The plan suggested that vic- tory might be possible without any ground combat at all, and it impressed Air Force leaders who arranged for the plan to be briefed to General Powell.

Powell’s overall impression was positive, but he didn’t believe that air power could do the job alone, and he was concerned that the plan might allow the Iraqis to

maintain their potent offensive military capabilities. Powell remarked, “I don’t want Saddam Hussein to walk away with his army intact. He could claim a politi- cal victory. I won’t be happy until I see his tanks destroyed. I want to leave their tanks as smoking kilo- meter fence posts all the way back to Baghdad.”49

Nevertheless, Powell was sufficiently taken with the plan to send its drafters onto CENTCOM where they would ultimately produce a very similar plan under the command of General Horner. Schwarzkopf was also impressed by the plan, but shared Powell’s concerns. Schwarzkopf recalled after the war, “I had never felt you were going to eject the Iraqis out of Kuwait short of ground action. I did feel there was a possibility that you could launch [an air campaign] and as a result Iraq would make a decision to pull out, but I did not think it was likely.”50

Conversely, the ground campaign planning pro- ceeded more slowly. CENTCOM had focused its work before the Iraqi invasion on rapid defense, not offense, and the evolution of Desert Shield into Desert Storm meant an evolution of coalition objectives. When ini- tially deployed, U.S. troops were given the mission “to establish a defensive capability in the theater to deter Saddam Hussein from continued aggression, to build and integrate Coalition forces, to enforce sanctions, to defend Saudi Arabia, and to defeat further Iraqi advances, if required.”51

As Washington moved toward an offensive option, CENTCOM’s objectives expanded to include the fol- lowing:

• Neutralization of the Iraqi national command authority’s ability to direct military operations;

• Ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and destruc- tion of Iraq’s offensive threat to the region, includ- ing the Republican Guard in the Kuwait Theater of Operations;

• Destruction of known nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons production and delivery capa- bilities to include Iraq’s known ballistic missile program; and

• Assistance in the restoration of the legitimate gov- ernment of Kuwait.52

Based on the third of the four U.S. objectives in the Gulf listed by President Bush in his August 8 speech (to restore security and stability to the Persian Gulf ), CENTCOM’s goal of liberating Kuwait also entailed

The One-Hundred Hour War 11

destruction of Iraq’s offensive military capability and, in particular, the Republican Guard.

To Schwarzkopf there was never any doubt about what to hit hardest. While CENTCOM plans recog- nized three centers of gravity (Iraq’s command-and- control facilities and leadership, weapons of mass destruction, and the Republican Guard), to the CINC, there was only one—the Republican Guard.53 In the words of one CENTCOM planner:

The Republican Guard Forces Corps (RGFC) rep- resented the strength of Saddam’s regime. It pos- sessed the bulk of his offensive force projection capability as well as the heart of the domestic power base used by Saddam to retain control of the Iraqi government. Operationally, the RGFC was positioned as a reserve force and possessed the only capability for Saddam to influence the out- come of the conflict by striking coalition forces and inflicting maximum casualties in a short period. . . . At the same time, elements of the RGFC were interspersed with Iraqi regular and popular forces as a stop-gap measure to end desertions, instill (and sometimes coerce) fighting mettle into those forces and strengthen the Iraqi political will.54

From start to finish, the focus of CENTCOM’s ground plan would be not only to liberate Kuwait, but also to attack the Hussein regime through its chief support and strong right arm—the Republican Guard.

The operational plan for Desert Storm had four phases, with the first two occurring roughly simultane- ously. Phases I and II entailed achieving air superiority while beginning an intense strategic bombing campaign designed to cripple the Iraqi state and its ability to sup- ply and control its armies. Phase III would focus the coalition’s air power onto Iraqi ground forces and espe- cially the Republican Guard. Finally, in Phase IV there would be a ground offensive to end Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait and eliminate Iraq’s ability to threaten further regional peace and stability.55

Two hours after the war began on January 16, the President addressed the nation:

We are determined to knock out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb potential. We will also destroy his chemical weapons facilities. Much of Saddam’s artillery and tanks will be destroyed.... Our objec-

tives are clear: Saddam Hussein’s forces will leave Kuwait. The legitimate government of Kuwait will be restored to its rightful place, and Kuwait will once again be free.56

In mid-January when the air war began, U.S. ground forces were still moving into place and would not be ready until the latter part of February. Nevertheless, the plan for Operation Desert Storm and the objectives it was designed to achieve were already in place.

THE WAR BEGINS

The Gulf War began in the air, at 3 A.M. Gulf time, and within fourteen hours, 1,000 air sorties (one plane fly- ing one mission) had been flown. By the end of the Gulf War, coalition aircraft would fly “52,000 air-to-ground sorties [that] delivered approximately 210,000 unguided bombs, 9,300 guided bombs, and 5,400 guided air-to- surface missiles, and 2,000 anti-radar missiles.”57

Within hours of the first attack, the Iraq air defense network was down, followed soon thereafter by the Iraqi electrical grid, oil refineries, and most of the tele- phone and communications system. Bridges fell by the dozen and many Iraqi facilities for the production of weapons of mass destruction were bombed out as well. Only ten days after the air war began, the targeting focus shifted to the Iraqi ground forces in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (KTO) where day by day, around-the-clock, coalition aircraft dismantled the Iraqi military piece by piece. Air superiority had been won only hours after hostilities began, and throughout the conflict, hundreds of coalition jets would swarm over the KTO.

On January 6, when the public was asked if they approved or disapproved of the President’s decision to go to war if the coalition’s deadline for Iraqi withdrawal passed unheeded, 62 percent approved, 32 percent dis- approved, and 6 percent were unsure.58 Ten days later, with the war underway, public support was up to sev- enty-nine percent.59 By January 23, when asked how long the coalition should prosecute the war, 91 percent answered, until Iraq was forced from Kuwait; 87 per- cent answered, until Iraq’s offensive capabilities are destroyed; and 73 percent responded, until Saddam Hussein is either captured or killed.60

12 Howard Diamond

As allied jets pounded targets in Iraq and Iraqi forces in Kuwait, indications that the coalition’s goals were beginning to creep began to emerge. The night the air war began, General Powell had told reporters that while coalition forces were targeting “the command and control of Iraqi armed forces, and how their national command authority controls those forces,” no particular effort was being made to target Saddam Hus- sein.61

A few days later at a news conference, President Bush also indicated that no special attempts were being made to target Saddam Hussein, but he added that “no one will weep when he’s gone,” even though, “[w]e don’t want to see a destabilized Iraq when this is all over.”62 On February 6, though, while speaking with reporters, President Bush again addressed the issue of Saddam’s survival.

Now would I weep? Would I mourn if somehow Saddam Hussein did not remain as head of his country? . . . In fact, it would—in fact, it would be a lot easier to see a successful conclusion, because I don’t believe anybody other than Saddam Hussein is going to want to continue to submit—to subject his army to the pounding they are taking, or his people to the pounding that is going on. So I would like to think that somehow, some way, that would happen. But I have no evidence it will.63

The President expanded on this theme nine days later in speeches he gave to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington and to Raytheon workers (the maker of Patriot air defense missiles) in Andover, Massachusetts. To both audiences the President suggested “there’s another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator to step aside, and to comply with the United Nations resolutions, and then rejoin the family of peace loving nations.”64

While the President’s rhetoric was expanding, with the support of many in Congress, some members were beginning to wonder about how the war’s endgame— which by mid-February appeared to be fast approach- ing—should be played out. House Foreign Affairs Com- mittee Chairman, Lee Hamilton (D-IN), remarked, “It is not clear to me what winning this war means” because “recent statements and our military’s actions

suggest that our goals are expanding to include the sur- render of Iraq and the destruction of its military.”65

The war—in particular the air war—was going, at least from Washington’s perspective, quite smoothly. In late January, there had been an Iraqi thrust aimed at the Saudi town Khafji, but allied air power had quickly demolished the Iraqi attack with few allied casualties. In February, a bunker in Baghdad thought to house Iraqi government officials was struck by U.S. F-117 stealth fighters, killing more than two hundred civilians. Aside from these upsets, however, coalition air forces contin- ued their one-sided war of attrition unabated.

A DESERT STORM BREWING

By early February, officials in the White House and the Pentagon felt that the time for a ground assault to force the Iraqis out of Kuwait was drawing near. Much had changed since the disastrous briefings of October 10– 11. By February 6, when the last of the VII Corps equip- ment arrived from Europe, CENTCOM had assembled an awesome fighting force.

CENTCOM divided the KTO into five sections, each to be handled by a corps level detachment. Along the coast was the Joint Forces Command-East ( JFC-E), composed of five brigades from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Arab nations. To their west was the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), which included two Marine divisions and an armored brigade borrowed from the Army.

On the Marine Corp’s left was the Joint Forces Command-North ( JFC-N), made up of several divi- sions and brigades from Egypt, Kuwait, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the coalition’s power on the ground was in the Third Army, composed of the VII Corps and the XVIII Airborne Corps. Before being put into action, these two massive units secretly shifted, 150 and 250 miles respectively, west across the barren Saudi desert in preparation for the “left hook” that would catch the Iraqis by surprise.

The VII Corps had been brought to the KTO from Europe, where it had been based for decades waiting for a Soviet invasion that never came. The VII Corps possessed some of the best units in the Army. Com- posed of four armored divisions—the U.S. 1st, 3rd, 1st Armored Cavalry (as a reserve), and the British 1st; the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment; and the 1st Mecha-

The One-Hundred Hour War 13

nized Infantry Division—the VII Corps possessed hun- dreds of highly advanced M-1 Abrams tanks and thousands of M2/3 Bradley armored fighting vehicles.

To the VII Corps’ west was the XVIII Airborne Corps, which included the first units to arrive in Saudi Arabia in August. The real power of the XVIII was the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division, which, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, held nearly all of the corps’ heavy armor. Filling out the corps were the 101st Air Assault Division, the 6th French Division, and the 82nd Airborne Division. All told, CENTCOM had better than half a million soldiers on the ground, more than 2,000 tanks, 2,200 armored personnel carriers, 1,800 fixed wing aircraft, and 1,700 helicopters.66

Facing the coalition across the border was an Iraqi force whose pre-war strength included some forty divi- sions totaling 362,000 men. The air war had been a bru- tal nightmare for the dug-in Iraqis, whose numbers at the time of the ground war had fallen to about 183,000 due to desertions, injuries, and deaths from the allied air campaign.67 Coalition jets flew more than 23,000 air- to-ground sorties against Iraqi forces beginning in Janu- ary and had destroyed between 16 and 39 percent of the Iraqi tanks, between 13 and 32 percent of Iraqi armored personnel carriers, and 20 to 47 percent of Iraqi artil- lery pieces.68

Before the air war had begun, CENTCOM had set as a goal the destruction of 50 percent of Iraqi tracked vehicles and artillery and, although that goal had not been reached, on February 9, while meeting with Cheney and Powell in Riyadh, General Schwarzkopf reported his forces would be ready to undertake ground operations by February 21, plus or minus three or four days, depending on the weather.69 The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman listened to nine hours of briefings by CENTCOM’s division commanders and, in the end agreed that Schwarzkopf ’s plans for the ground war were solid. On February 11, the President accepted Cheney and Powell’s combined recommendation that the ground war begin some time around February 21.

Throughout February, as the coalition continued to pound the Iraqis from the air, Soviet diplomatic efforts to save the Iraqis from a ground assault began to intrude on the coalition’s plans. On February 21, Soviet Presi- dent Gorbachev announced from the Kremlin that the Iraqis would be willing to accept a withdrawal from Kuwait contingent on the repeal of the UN resolutions

and a lifting of economic sanctions after two thirds of the Iraqi troops returned to Iraq.

The administration acted quickly to regain control of the situation. After meeting late on a Thursday night, the administration responded to the Soviet plan by announcing a twenty-four-hour ultimatum for Iraq to begin withdrawal from Kuwait, to be completed in seven days. According to one senior U.S. official, the ultimatum was chosen in order “to not let [Gorbachev] dominate the discussion. . . . We had to take the initia- tive back from the Soviets and say, “Look we are the coalition and we will set the terms for how this war will end.”70

Only a week earlier Cheney had refused Schwarz- kopf ’s request to push back the date for the ground war past the 24th. Following the first Iraqi proposal for withdrawal, Schwarzkopf suggested to Cheney and Powell that time was on the coalition’s side and that even a negotiated Iraqi withdrawal would mean an allied victory. Cheney responded that allowing the Iraqis to withdraw with their armies still somewhat intact would be a strategic blunder. Absent a compel- ling reason for postponement, Cheney insisted that Schwarzkopf be prepared to “wrap it up” beginning on the 24th.71

The coalition’s deadline for Iraqi withdrawal passed without any Iraqi movement. Eight hours later, coalition forces began their assault. According to one senior administration official,

People underestimated George Bush’s determina- tion to make good on what he said Aug. 4, that “this will not stand.” He wants this thing rolled back. He doesn’t want Saddam to have a graceful retreat. He doesn’t want him to be able to go back into Kuwait in six months. He doesn’t want a compromise solu- tion. He doesn’t want Saddam Hussein to save face. Bush wants to win.72

On February 23, at 10 P.M. (Washington time), President Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office. The President expressed his regret that Saddam Hussein had chosen not to accede to the coalition’s ulti- matum and announced that “I have . . . directed General Norman Schwarzkopf, in conjunction with the coalition forces, to use all forces available, including ground forces, to eject the Iraqi army from Kuwait. . . . The lib- eration of Kuwait has now entered a final phase.”73

14 Howard Diamond

OPERATION DESERT STORM

The ground war began on February 24, around 4 A.M.

(Gulf time), with breaching operations by the I MEF. The Marines had been quietly moving their forces inside Kuwait well before the attack commenced and were able to breach the thick Iraqi obstacle belt in only a few hours. The Iraqi forces they encountered crum- bled after only a few shots, and within three hours of the start of combat operations, it was becoming clear that the Iraqis had no intention of standing and fighting.

The rapid collapse of the Iraqi defenders in Kuwait presented General Schwarzkopf with a strategic dilemma. According to CENTCOM’s plan, the Marines were supposed to conduct a fixing action—in crude terms, bait. Ideally, the Iraqis would concentrate on rebuffing the Marine’s assault and begin moving units south. As they did so they would become highly vulner- able to allied air power.

Most important though, the VII Corps and part of the XVIII Corps were not slated to begin their attacks until G+1 (February 25). According to CENTCOM’s plan, they were to advance over the course of three or four days to hit the exposed right flank of the Iraqi forces and, in particular, the Republican Guard. Since October, when plans for the two-corps offensive were drawn up, Schwarzkopf had insisted to his planners that the goal of allied ground forces must go beyond the lib- eration of Kuwait: CENTCOM’s objective was to envelop and destroy the Republican Guard.74

However, with the Marines chewing through what opposition they faced, a new and unexpected problem faced the CINC. If the Marines drove the Iraqis back, acting like a piston rather than a trap, the Iraqi forces would be able to escape, retreating to the north before the VII and XVIII Corps could swoop in from the northwest to deliver the coup de grâce. Three hours after the Marines’ attack commenced, and faced with the possibility of an Iraqi escape, Schwarzkopf ordered the VII Corps and the armored elements of the XVIII Corps to begin their attacks—fifteen hours ahead of schedule.

In the months while U.S. forces were streaming into the theater, the Iraqi army had constructed an elab- orate system of defensive barriers including mines, fire trenches, antitank obstacles, and barbed wire, which U.S. forces took to calling the “Saddam line.” The VII Corps had carefully thought out plans for breaking

through, however all of the VII Corps’ plans assumed that breaching operations would be done by daylight. Fearful of getting caught in the midst of a breach, or suf- fering friendly fire casualties in the dark, the VII Corps commander General Fred Franks ordered his troops to wait for daylight before resuming their breaching oper- ations.

The second day of the ground war, G+1, was as dramatically successful as the first. The Marines contin- ued to pummel the Iraqi army occupying Kuwait, and by the end of the day, they were only ten miles outside Kuwait City. Iraqi forces had put up little real resistance and what counterattacks they had attempted had been quickly crushed by coalition airplanes and helicopters.

The two Arab commands were achieving dramati- cally different results. JFC-E, located on the Marines right flank, faced little resistance and were speeding up the Kuwaiti coastal highway toward Kuwait City. JFC- N, on the Marines left flank, faced with the burning fire- trenches of the “Saddam line” were making little if any progress breaking through into northwestern Kuwait.

The XVIII Corps in the far west was charging hard: the 6th French Division and the 82nd Airborne rushed to capture As Salman to the far west; the 101st, in the largest helicopter assault in history, flew ninety-three miles into Iraq and set up a fire base protecting the 200,000 gallons of fuel they lifted in from Saudi Arabia; the 24th Mechanized and 3rd Cavalry Regiment were working their way over rough terrain (made worse by thousands of unexploded cluster bomblets dropped by coalition jets over the past weeks), in bad weather to link up with units of the 101st and capture Highway 8, to prevent resupply or escape for the Iraqi forces from the west.

The VII Corps though, made relatively little prog- ress since being ordered to attack. Forcing the enormity of the armor heavy corps through only two breach points had caused massive delays and those units that had gone through were ordered to slow down in order to keep the corps’ forces concentrated in a “mailed fist.”

Upon discovering the VII Corps’ sluggishness, the CINC flew into a rage, threatening to relieve the Third Army commander, General John Yeosock, and the VII Corps commander, General Franks, if progress wasn’t made quickly. Schwarzkopf spoke with Powell that day and struggled to explain why the VII Corps had made so little progress. Powell reminded the CINC that he was

The One-Hundred Hour War 15

not to let the Republican Guard get away and ordered Schwarzkopf to call Yeosock to relay his displeasure.75

Throughout the day (G+1) divisions of the VII Corps made their way through the “Saddam line” and began to methodically press their attack against the Iraqis. Later that day, Franks received an order from Third Army headquarters, “VII Corps Destroys RGFC NLT EENT 27 FEB” (VII Corps destroys Republican Guard Forces Command not later than nautical twilight on the evening of February 27).76 Faced with pressure to hit the Republican Guard quickly, the VII Corps switched to a new contingency plan—Fragplan 7. The new plan would redirect the corps from swooping north toward Basra, to envelop the Republican Guard from the rear, to the less ambitious goal of turning due east to smash through the screen the Iraqis were form- ing to protect units fleeing from Kuwait.

That evening, Baghdad Radio announced that Iraqi troops would be withdrawn to positions held prior to August 1, which would represent “practical compli- ance” with UN Resolution 660. The President met with his advisors for about an hour before sending press sec- retary Marlin Fitzwater out to deliver a statement:

We continue to prosecute the war. We have heard no reason to change that. . . . We don’t know whether this most recent claim about Iraqi with- drawal is genuine. We have no evidence to suggest the Iraqi army is withdrawing. In fact Iraqi units are continuing to fight. . . . The statement out of Bagh- dad today says that Saddam Hussein’s forces will fight their way out while retreating. We will not attack unarmed soldiers in retreat, but we will con- sider retreating combat units as a movement of war.77

By February 26, G+2, allied victory was beginning to look certain. Beginning at 1 A.M., allied jets had begun hammering the enormous convoy of vehicles attempting to escape from Kuwait City. The first flight of F-15Es had bombed the van and rear of the convoy, trapping it on the road, and throughout the day pilots from the Air Force, Navy, and Marines rained destruc- tion on the twenty-five-mile-long column of fleeing Iraqis. The road would soon be dubbed “the highway of death.”

At the end of the third day of the war, the Marines and JFC-E were just outside of Kuwait City, waiting for

daylight the next day when the Arab forces would enter and reclaim the badly mauled city. The 24th Mecha- nized and the 3rd Armored Cavalry, leading the XVIII Corps, continued to make ground heading east toward Jalibah airfield and, ultimately, toward the Iraqi city of Basra, where Iraqi forces were escaping.

The VII Corps too seemed to be finally getting up its steam and by late afternoon had crashed into the for- ward divisions of the Republican Guard that were screening the rest of the Iraqi army’s escape. As fighting came to a halt Tuesday night, Schwarzkopf spoke with the Chairman by phone. The two men agreed that the war would not last much longer, that the Iraqi army was all but broken, and that if they weren’t careful, what had begun as a just war would be soon reduced to “just kill- ing people.”78

THE ONE-HUNDRED HOUR WAR

Wednesday, February 27, G+3, would prove to be the last full day of the ground war. Front page articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post detailing the one-sided nature of allied air attacks were making administration officials nervous. The Times reported, “All night long American warplanes pummeled Iraqi tanks, armored personnel carriers, and trucks on the road leading north from Kuwait City as they sought to reach Basra, pilots said. The movement created a col- umn 25 to 30 miles long, three or four abreast in places, and except for a few surface-to-air missiles, they were defenseless against F-15, F-111, and F-16 fighter-bomb- ers that came at them, wave after wave, along with Navy planes.”79

The report in the Post was even more graphic, describing how “allied pilots . . . swarmed over Iraqi armor and truck columns, slaughtering the scattering vehicles by the score in a combat frenzy variously described as “a turkey shoot” and “shooting fish in a barrel”:

“We had a report from a night squadron that they had discovered a lot of Iraqi tanks on the move,” Salomonson [an A-10 pilot] said. “We launched out of here, didn’t quite know what we were going to see, so we got up there about sunup, and sure enough there’s tanks all over. We found them . . . and had tanks burning in five minutes.”

16 Howard Diamond

“There’s just nothing like it,” Salomonson said. “It’s the biggest Fourth of July show you’ve ever seen, and to see those tanks just ‘boom,’ and more stuff just keep spewing out of them and shells flying out to the ground, they just became white hot. It’s won- derful. . . .”

“This morning it was bumper-to-bumper,” said Navy Lt. Brian Kasperbauer, . . . the pilot of an A-6 Intruder aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger. “It was the road to Daytona Beach at spring break . . . and spring break’s over. . . . 80

In Powell’s view the allied onslaught was fast approaching the point of diminishing returns and per- haps even going beyond it.81 It was time to start turning the allied war machine off.

On February 27, allied forces liberated Kuwait City and continued to pound the remainder of the Iraqi Army, aggressively pressing to reach the Republican Guard, who by then were fleeing in droves. The five heavy divisions of the VII Corps had formed a battle line eighty miles long on a north-south axis and were smashing away everything in their path as they rolled east to hit the Republican Guard. The 24th Mechanized and 3rd Armored Cavalry of the XVIII Corps, after cap- turing the Talilah and Jalibah airfields, rushed onward to the Rumailah oil field, where they expected to begin their final attack on Basra. The Republican Guards were almost within reach. Coalition forces were only ten-to- thirty miles from their final objectives at the end of G+3.

The noose was all but closed. Army commanders, confident that their envelopment of the Republican Guard was imminent, ordered the line for close air sup- port (the Fire-Support Coordination Line, or FSCL) to be pushed east, putting Basra and the highways con- necting to it off-limits to the Air Force in order to pre- vent friendly fire casualties. For eight hours though, Iraqi forces rolled up the highway unmolested.

Powell and Schwarzkopf spoke by phone at 7:05 A.M. Washington time (3:05 P.M. Gulf time), to discuss bringing the war to a close.

Powell told Schwarzkopf that CENTCOM was entering a “window” in which to end the war. Schwarzkopf agreed.

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Powell asked.

Schwarzkopf had spoken to Yeosock earlier that afternoon and Yeosock had said that the Army needed one more day. Schwarzkopf jubilantly reported that the Iraqis had been pushed into a box near Basra. By the evening of February 28, CENT- COM would have destroyed the Republican Guard. “Do you realize if we go until tomorrow night that will be five days? The five-day war. Does that have a good ring to it?” Schwarzkopf asked. Powell was noncommittal.82

Later that day, Schwarzkopf ’s staff contacted Pen- tagon spokesman Pete Williams. The CINC was aware that there would be an end of the war briefing and Schwarzkopf wanted to do it himself that afternoon. The idea was run past Cheney and Powell, who both approved, and at 9 P.M. Gulf time (2 P.M. Washington time) Schwarzkopf met with reporters. The CINC spoke for about an hour describing the conduct of Operation Desert Storm up to the present and announced that for the Iraqi army, “the gates are closed.” He then took a number of questions:

“You said that the gate was closed. Have you got ground forces blocking the roads to Basra?”

“No.”

“Is there any way they can get out that way?”

“No. That’s why the gate’s closed.”

When asked if he felt that political pressure from outside would keep him from achieving his mission, the CINC replied,

I think I’ve made it very clear to everybody that I’d just as soon the war had never started. And I’d just as soon never have lost a single life out there. That was not our choice.

We’ve accomplished our mission, and when the decision makers come to the decision that there should be a cease-fire, nobody will be happier than me.

The One-Hundred Hour War 17

Later, responding to another question, Schwarz- kopf modified his earlier remarks:

When I say that the gate is closed, I don’t want to give you the impression that absolutely nothing is escaping. Quite the contrary. What isn’t escaping is heavy tanks. What isn’t escaping is artillery pieces. What isn’t escaping is that sort of thing.

That doesn’t mean that civilian vehicles aren’t escaping. That doesn’t mean that unarmed Iraqis aren’t escaping. And that’s not the gate I’m talking about. I’m talking about the gate that has closed on the war machine that is out there. . . .83

In fact though, the gate was not closed. Although the allies had bombed the bridges over the Euphrates river on numerous occasions, numerous crossings remained available north and west of Basra. With sev- eral crossing points still available and immunity from air attack due to movement of the FSCL, Iraqi forces were rushing out of the theater unimpeded. This oversight, though clear to CENTCOM’s air planners, was not picked up by the Army-dominated CENTCOM head- quarters. Subsequently, in its daily briefing to the JCS, CENTCOM reported that the enemy was all but trapped. The misinformation was promptly passed on by the Joint Staff at the Pentagon to the White House.

President Bush met with his top advisors around 2:30 P.M. Washington time (about 10:30 P.M. Gulf time, about an hour after Schwarzkopf ’s briefing in Riyadh) to discuss when the ground war should be concluded and on what terms. The President and all his senior advisors believed that the Republican Guard was all but encircled and awaiting destruction. In the White House, the war looked like it was over and there were growing fears of charges of brutalizing a defenseless enemy.

General Powell made the case for ending the war soon claiming that “It’s clear that the Iraqi army is bro- ken. If anything they’re just trying to get out,” and that there was a “psychic cost to be borne” if U.S. troops continued to strike the nearly helpless Iraqis. Having spoken with Schwarzkopf that morning, he suggested that “By tonight there really won’t be an enemy there. If you go another day, you’re basically fighting strag- glers.”84

The President checked around the room. “We do not want to lose anything now with charges of brutal- ization,” said the President. “The issue is how to find a clean end. This is not going to be like the battleship Missouri.”85 Baker and Cheney agreed that the allies’ objectives had been achieved and Powell pointed out that allied air power would remain available for prompt- ing the Iraqis to abide by terms of a cease-fire. “Why do I not feel elated?” Bush asked. “But we need to have an end. People want that. They are going to want to know we won and the kids can come home. We do not want to screw this up with a sloppy muddled ending”86

After some additional discussion, the President asked Powell what Schwarzkopf ’s thoughts were. Pow- ell took the secure phone on the President’s desk, called the CINC, and told him that the President wanted to “end it today.” Did Schwarzkopf have any problem with stopping at 5 A.M. (Gulf time)? Schwarzkopf replied he did not, so long as it was clear that CENTCOM reserved the right fire on any Iraqi forces that fired first. The CINC called his senior field commanders and asked if they had any problem with a 5 A.M. cease-fire. For all but the Third Army commander, the war was already over, and Yeosock was not about to challenge the wisdom of an apparent decision in principle.

After the war was over, Bush recalled:

In the final hours, we were told that the ring had not yet been completely closed but that, of all the Iraqi divisions inside the ring, only a tiny fraction still maintained unit cohesion and could be consid- ered “fighting forces.” My recollection is that the number amounted to two or three divisions. I do not recall whether any of the divisions still thought to be cohesive were Republican Guard divisions. . . . We were concerned principally about two aspects of the situation. If we continued the fighting another day, until the ring was completely closed, would we be accused of a slaughter of Iraqis who were simply trying to escape, not fight? In addi- tion, the coalition was agreed on driving the Iraqis from Kuwait, not on carrying the conflict into Iraq or on destroying Iraqi forces.87

Finally, at 8 P.M. Washington time (2 A.M. Gulf time), Powell again called the CINC from the White House to inform him that the President and his aides had agreed to halt the war at midnight, Washington

18 Howard Diamond

time (8 A.M. Gulf time) after one-hundred hours—more for the clean, even image of one-hundred hours than any other reason. Schwarzkopf said that he had no objections. The President and Secretary of Defense both got on the line to congratulate him. After hanging up, Schwarzkopf walked into the CENTCOM war room to inform his Deputy Commander (DCINC), General Calvin Waller:

”I talked to Colin,” the CINC said. “We’re going to stop.”

Waller’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re going to stop?”

“The more technical term is they want a cessation of hostilities.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Waller asked. “Is this a cease-fire?”

“No this is not a cease-fire,” Schwarzkopf said. “We’re going to take up a protective posture where we’ll only fire if fired on. We’ll still be on a wartime footing.”

“Why are we stopping at this point?”

“I’m told that we’re stopping because there is some concern about our attacks and the carnage on the highway from Kuwait to Basra.”

The DCINC pondered this for a moment. . . . Waller wondered why the double envelopment was not given time to unfold. “Why not go ahead and do what we were going to do?” he asked. . . .

“Because that’s what the commander-in-chief wants,” Schwarzkopf replied evenly. “The Presi- dent has said we’ve accomplished enough.”88

At 9 P.M., Washington time, the President addressed the nation from the Oval Office. “Kuwait is liberated,” he said. “Iraq’s army is defeated. Our military objectives are met.”89 An hour before the President spoke, Schwarzkopf called Powell to let him know that Iraqi T-72 tanks were still crossing the Euphrates river. The gate was not closed.

AFTERMATH

A wave of relief and euphoria swept over the United States as the realization that the Gulf War had been won

at a cost of less than 150 American lives took root. Speaking to state legislators on March 1, the President announced, ”It’s a proud day for Americans and by God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”90 Within the administration, however, the joy of victory was oddly tempered. At his press conference the same day (March 1), the President was asked by a reporter why he seemed to be somber in light of the United States’ great victory in the Gulf. The President’s reply was telling:

Well to be very honest with you, I haven’t yet felt this wonderful euphoric feeling that many of the American people feel. I’m beginning to. I feel much better about it today than I did yesterday.

But I think it’s that I want to see an end. You men- tion World War II. There was a definitive end to that conflict. And now we have Saddam Hussein still there, the man that wreaked this havoc upon his neighbors. We have our prisoners still held. We have people unaccounted for.

So I—I think I’m beginning to—beginning to feel the joy that Americans all feel now is proper. It has to do with a new wonderful sense of patriotism that stems from pride and the men and women who went over there.

I sense that there is something noble and majestic about patriotism in this country now. It’s there. And so I’ll get there. But I just need a little more time to sort out in my mind how we—I can say to the American people. it’s over, finally. Last “t” is crossed, last “i” is dotted.91

On March 3, General Schwarzkopf met with two Iraqi generals in the town of Safwan to arrange the terms of the cease-fire. Before the meeting the CINC had grumbled, “they better not ask for much, I’m not in a very charitable mood.”92 The meeting went smoothly and agreement was quickly reached on a timetable for exchange of prisoners, the return of bodies, and the marking of minefields. When asked, Schwarzkopf assured the Iraqis that the cease-fire line was not a “per- manent line” and had “nothing to do with borders.” He also approved an Iraqi request to use helicopters over Iraqi territory; an exception to the coalition mandated “no-fly zone” in southern Iraq. Incredulous, the Iraqis asked the CINC if that included armed helicopters.

The One-Hundred Hour War 19

Schwarzkopf replied, “I will instruct our Air Force not to shoot at any helicopters that are flying over the terri- tory of Iraq.”93

Reconnaissance photos taken after the cease-fire had been announced showed that 842 Iraqi tanks (a quarter of Iraq’s tanks in the KTO) and 1,412 Iraqi armored personnel carriers and other armored vehicles (half of its APCs in the theater) had escaped destruc- tion. Significantly, at least 365 of the tanks that escaped were T-72s belonging to the Republican Guard. By the CIA’s count, the Republican Guard had gotten away with about half of its tanks. Moreover, of all the senior officers captured on the battlefield, only one was from a Republican Guard unit. In short, much of the Guard had gotten away and was being put back together as it escaped north of Basra and reconstituted its various commands.94

As the fighting on the battlefield ended, uprisings in Iraq against the Hussein regime were growing in both number and strength. For some time, the overthrow of Saddam seemed certain, with his army in apparent dis- array and revolts occurring in both the north and south of Iraq. The Hussein regime continued to wobble through the early days of March while it reorganized the remains of its army. By the middle of the month, the combination of armed helicopters and reconstituted Republican Guard units proved sufficient to suppress the Shiite revolts in the south and was proceeding against the Kurds in the north.

The administration was split as to what to do. Fears that the United States would get sucked into a civil war conflicted with the desire to “finish the job” and over- throw Saddam. The President and Cheney showed interest in shooting down Iraqi helicopters, but were quickly reminded by Powell that they’d be starting down a slippery slope that might lead to a quagmire, an indefinite commitment of uncertain purpose. Scow- croft added that it might not be in the U.S. interest to see Iraq break apart.

As the Kurdish revolts were suppressed, footage and reports of Kurdish refugees fleeing to the moun- tains of northern Iraq filtered back to the United States. Accusations of betrayal by the Bush Administration were voiced in Congress by Democrats and Republi- cans alike, and harkening back to the 1988 Presidential campaign, a number of articles appeared asking the infamous question, “where was George?”95 As the num- ber of Kurdish refugees continued to grow, ultimately

reaching about two million, the administration realized it had to do something beyond air-dropping food and medical supplies.

In April, under pressure from France at the UN, and Britain and Turkey, which wanted to avoid an influx of new Kurdish refugees, the United States estab- lished enclaves for the Kurds in northern Iraq, safe- guarded by U.S. troops and a no-fly zone enforced by U.S. air power. President Bush announced the initiation of “Operation Provide Comfort” at a press conference on April 16:

All along I have said that the United States is not going to intervene militarily in Iraq’s internal affairs and risk being drawn into a Vietnam-style quag- mire. This remains the case. . . . We intend to turn over the administration of, and security for these sites as soon as possible to the United Nations. But we must do everything in our power to save inno- cent life, and this is the American tradition and we will continue to live up to that tradition.96

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Why is George Bush so interested in reversing the invasion of Kuwait?

2. Who is driving the policy process in the Bush Administration?

3. What are U.S. objectives in the Persian Gulf War?

4. What is the Vietnam Syndrome and what role does it play in this case?

5. Why does Colin Powell make the case for sanc- tions?

6. What is the United States committed to doing after January 15?

7. What role does Colin Powell play in the Gulf War?

8. Why doesn’t Dick Cheney want to push back the date for starting the ground war?

9. Why does Colin Powell want to end the war “sooner than later”?

10. Who won the Gulf War?

20 Howard Diamond

NOTES

1. “Transcript of President Bush’s News Conference,” Washington Post, 17 April 1991, pp. A26–27.

2. The purpose of freezing Kuwaiti assets was to prevent them from falling into Iraqi hands.

3. Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 225.

4. Secretary of State James A. Baker III was in Russia at the time of the invasion and stayed there to work out a joint statement condemning the Iraqi invasion with his counter- part, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze.

5. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 235. 6. The Weinberger Doctrine comprises (1) “The United

States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest”; (2) the commitment should only be made “with the clear intention of winning”; (3) it should be carried out with “clearly defined political and military objectives”; (4) it “must be continually reassessed and adjusted if neces- sary”; (5) it should “have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress”; and (6) it should “be a last resort.”

7. Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Gen- erals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1995), p. 33.

8. Ibid., p. 34. 9. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 233–234.

10. Ibid., pp. 236–237. 11. Gordon and Trainor, The General’s War, p. 37. 12. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 237. 13. Ibid., p. 240. 14. Ibid., p. 244. 15. By way of comparison, the entire U.S. Army had only

500. 16. Woodward, The Commanders, pp. 248–249. 17. Ibid., p. 249. 18. Ibid., p. 253. 19. Ibid., p.254. 20. Press conference transcript in New York Times, 6

August 1990, p. A7. 21. President Bush, “The Arabian Peninsula: US Princi-

ples,” Current Policy No. 1292 (Washington D.C.: Depart- ment of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Office of Public Communication, August 1990). Bold in original text.

22. Based on a Peter D. Hart and Robert M. Teeter poll done for NBC News-Wall Street Journal, reprinted in “Opin- ion Outlook,” National Journal 22, no. 39 (29 September 1990): p. 2360. Approvals were 72 percent, disapprovals 16 percent, and not sure were 12 percent.

23. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 281. 24. Ibid., p. 282. 25. Ibid., pp. 287–288. 26. Thomas Friedman, “Baker Foresees a Long Stay for

U.S. Troops in Mideast; Urges a Regional Alliance,” New York Times, 5 September 1990, pp. A1, A14.

27. Ibid., p. 289. 28. Thirty-four countries besides the United States con-

tributed forces to the coalition, totaling more than 205,000 men, 100 ships, 1,200 aircraft, and 1,700 tanks.

29. Friedman, “Baker Foresees,” p. 42. 30. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 127. 31. Ibid., p. 137. 32. Ibid., p. 139. 33. Henry S. Rowen, “Inchon in the Desert: My Rejected

Plan,” The National Interest (Summer 1995): pp. 36–37. 34. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 131. 35. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 324. 36. Ibid., pp. 316–318. 37. Ibid., p. 318. 38. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 153. 39. Woodward, The Commanders, p. 320. 40. “What They’re Saying,” Congressional Quarterly 48,

no. 46 (17 November 1990): p. 3881. 41. Data from the USA Today poll is recorded by Wood-

ward, The Commanders, p. 325. 42. Hearings were held in the House Foreign Relations

Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the Sen- ate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Senate Armed Ser- vices Committee.

43. The President’s letter is reproduced in “Bush’s Letter to Congressional Leaders,” New York Times, 1 January 1991, p. A6.

44. Public approval data is taken from a poll conducted on January 6, by the Gallup Organization, and reprinted in “Opinion Outlook,” National Journal 23, no. 6 (9 February 1991): p. 356.

45. “Excerpts From Briefing at Pentagon by Cheney and Powell,” New York Times, 24 January 1991, p. A11.

46. The Chairman’s testimony is excerpted in “Testimony by Cheney and Powell,” New York Times, 4 December 1990, p. A12.

47. The President’s remarks are printed in “Text of Presi- dent Bush’s Statement and Transcript of News Conference on Persian Gulf,” Washington Post, 1 December 1990, p. A26.

48. Cheney’s remark is cited in Woodward, The Com- manders, p. 307.

49. Rick Atkinson, Crusade (Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Co., 1993), p.60.

50. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 98. 51. Conduct of the Persian Gulf Conflict, An Interim Report

to Congress (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, July 1991), p. 1–1.

52. Ibid., pp. 1–1, 1–2. 53. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 107. 54. Douglas Craft, An Operational Analysis of the Persian

Gulf War (Carlisle Barracks, Penn.: Strategic Studies Insti- tute, U.S. Army War College), p. 32. Col. Craft served as Chief, Policy and Strategy Division, and Chief, Plans Division in CENTCOM’s Directorate of Plans and Policy, J-5, during

The One-Hundred Hour War 21

the Persian Gulf War. 55. Conduct, pp. 2–6. 56. The President’s statement is reprinted in “Transcript

of the Comments by Bush on the Air Strikes Against the Iraqis,” New York Times, 17 January 1991, p. A14.

57. Eliot Cohen, “The Mystique of Air Power,” Foreign Affairs 73, no. 1 ( January/February 1994): p. 110. Eliot Cohen was coauthor of the Air Force’s nine-volume Gulf War Air Power Summary Report.

58. The data is from the Gallup Organization poll done January 6, 1991, and is printed in “Opinion Outlook,” National Journal 23, no. 6 (9 February 1991): p. 356.

59. Ibid. The data comes from a Gallup poll conducted 16 January 1991.

60. Ibid. The data on how long to continue the war comes from a NBC-News-Wall Street Journal poll conducted 23 Janu- ary 1991.

61. “Excerpts From Remarks by Cheney and Powell on War Effort,” New York Times, 18 January 1991, p. A9.

62. “Bush: Oil Dumping ‘Looks Last Gap . . . It’s Kind of Sick’,” Washington Post, 26 January 1991, p. A17.

63. “The Persian Gulf War, Excerpts From President Bush’s News Conference,” Washington Post, 6 February 1991, p. A21.

64. “Excerpts from 2 Statements by Bush on Iraq’s Pro- posal for Ending Conflict,” New York Times, 16 February 1991, p. A5.

65. David C. Morrison, “Escalating Goals in the Persian Gulf,” National Journal 23, no. 7 (16 February 1991): p. 395.

66. “Forces Committed,” Military Review LXXI, no. 9 (September 1991), p. 81; and Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, Desert Shield and Desert Storm; A Chro- nology and Troop List for the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf Crisis (25 March 1991), p. 5.

67. Based on estimates given in “Table II: Accounting for Iraqi Troops: A Rough Estimate of Enemy Strength,” in Les Aspin and William Dickinson, Defense for a New Era (Wash- ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 33.

68. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 335. The information is taken from the Gulf War Air Power Survey. The variation in estimates reflects the differing opinions of the JCS staff/CENTCOM, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in a brief- ing given to the President by CIA Director William Webster on February 23. The numbers (percent) of destroyed equip- ment according to the JCS/CENTCOM estimates were tanks 1,688 (39 percent), APCs 929 (32 percent) and artillery 1,452 (47 percent); CIA estimates were tanks 524 (12 percent), APCs 245 (9 percent), and artillery 255 (8 percent); DIA esti- mates were tanks 685 (16 percent), APCs 373 (13 percent), and artillery 622 (20 percent). On February 23, the day before the ground war began, Iraqi front line units were judged to by CENTCOM to be at 33 percent of strength, second echelon units at 55 percent, forces in Kuwait at 78 percent, and the Republican Guard forces at 66 percent.

69. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 270. 70. Rick Atkinson and Ann Devroy, “Bush Gives Iraq

Until Noon Today To Begin Withdrawal From Kuwait,” Wash- ington Post, 23 February 1991, p. A12.

71. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 344. 72. Maureen Dowd, “Bush Moves to Control War’s End-

game,” New York Times, 23 February 1991, pp. A1, A5. 73. “President’s Statement To the Nation,” Washington

Post, 24 February 1991, p. A21. 74. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 149. 75. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 406. 76. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 386. 77. “White House Response,” Washington Post, 26 Febru-

ary 1991, p. A6. 78. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 449. 79. R. W. Apple, “Allied Units Surge Through Kuwait;

Troops Confront Elite Force in Iraq; Bush Spurns Hussein’s Pullout Move,” New York Times, 27 February 1991, p. A1.

80. Rick Atkinson and William Claiborne, “Allies Sur- round Republican Guard, Say Crippled Iraqis Are Near Defeat,” Washington Post, 27 February 1991, p. A1.

81. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 452. 82. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 405. 83. “Schwarzkopf: Strategy Behind Desert Storm,” Wash-

ington Post, 28 February 1995, pp. A35–37. 84. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 469. 85. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 416. Bush

was referring to the dramatic surrender of Imperial Japan to allied forces aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay at the end of World War II. Incidentally, the same U.S.S. Missouri was on station in the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War.

86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. Atkinson, Crusade, pp. 473–474. Gordon and Trainor

record the conversation between Schwarzkopf and Waller in more colorful terms: W: “You have got to be shitting me. Why a cease-fire now?” S: “One hundred hours has a nice ring.” W: “That’s bullshit.” S: “Then you go argue with them” (The Gen- erals’ War, p. 423).

89. “Transcript of President’s Address on the Gulf War,” New York Times, 28 February 1994, p. A12.

90. Ann Devroy and Guy Gugliotta, “Bush to ‘Move Fast’ on Mideast Peace,” Washington Post, 2 March 1991, p. A13.

91. President Bush’s remarks are printed in “Excerpts From Bush’s News Conference on Postwar Moves,” New York Times, 2 March 1991, p. 5.

92. Atkinson, Crusade, p. 9. 93. Ibid., pp. 8–9. 94. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, p. 429. 95. See, for example, Evan Thomas and Ann McDaniel,

“Where Was George This Time?” Newsweek, 15 April 1991, p. 31.

96. “Transcript of President Bush’s News Conference,” Washington Post, 17 April 1991, p. A26.

22 Howard Diamond

APPENDIX: A CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS LEADING UP TO, INCLUDING, AND FOLLOWING THE PERSIAN GULF WAR

1990

28–30 May

At Arab League Summit in Baghdad, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein complains of oil overproduction by Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) and says that “We cannot tolerate this type of economic warfare being waged against Iraq.” He demands $270 billion from Kuwait.

31 July

Kuwait and Iraq meet in Jidda to discuss differences. Iraqis say Kuwait is not negotiating seriously. Kuwait says Iraq demanded cession of disputed territory and $10 billion. Iraq walks out and talks collapse.

2 August

(2 A.M. Gulf time) Iraq invades Kuwait, occupies Kuwait City, and installs “provisional government.” U.S. freezes Iraqi and Kuwaiti assets. United Nations Security Coun- cil (UNSC) passes Res. 600 condemning the invasion and demanding withdrawal. President George Bush meets with the National Security Council (NSC) and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

3 August

Iraqi forces mass on Saudi border. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. release a joint statement condemning the Iraqi invasion. Bush meets with the NSC; administration pol- icy begins to coalesce.

4 August

Bush meets with advisors at Camp David, decides to pursue Oplan 90–1002 to protect Saudi Arabia, and sends Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to Riyadh to seek Saudi agreement.

5 August

Bush returning to the White House announces, “. . . This will not stand. This will not stand this aggression against Kuwait.”

6 August

Cheney informs Bush of Saudi agreement to U.S. deployment, requests and is given authority to begin deployment right away. UNSC passes Res. 662 impos- ing a worldwide embargo on trade with Iraq.

8 August

Bush announces movement of U.S. forces to Persian Gulf on national television, spells out four U.S. princi-

ples to guide policy in the region. Iraq announces it has annexed Kuwait.

9 August

Iraq seals borders preventing exit of foreign nationals. UNSC passes Res. 662 declaring the annexation of Kuwait “null and void.”

18 August

UNSC passes Res. 664 demanding that Iraq release all foreign nationals being held hostage.

22 August

Bush calls up reserves for Operation Desert Shield.

5 October

The NSC meets, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS) General Colin Powell makes the case for main- taining pressure on Iraq through sanctions. Bush decides to look into offensive options. Central Com- mand (CENTCOM) commander General Norman Schwarzkopf receives first briefing from his staff on possible offensive options.

10–11 October

CENTCOM briefers sent to Washington to explain the “one corps” offensive option. Senior officials in the Pentagon and White House are upset by the weak CENTCOM plan.

30 October

Powell, returning from a visit to Riyadh, briefs the NSC on what forces CENTCOM would require for an offen- sive option; Bush accepts Powell’s list of forces without objection.

8 November

Administration announces doubling of U.S. forces to ensure an offensive option, one day after congressional elections.

20 November

Forty-five members of the House of Representatives file suit to force the administration to seek congressional approval before authorizing an attack to liberate Kuwait. The suit is ultimately thrown out by the Supreme Court.

26 November

Four congressional committees (SASC, SFRC, HASC, HFAC) open hearings on the Gulf crisis.

The One-Hundred Hour War 23

24 Howard Diamond

The One-Hundred Hour War 25

26 Howard Diamond

The One-Hundred Hour War 27

28 Howard Diamond

The One-Hundred Hour War 29

30 Howard Diamond

The One-Hundred Hour War 31

29 November

UNSC passes Res. 678 authorizing member states to use “all necessary means” to force Iraq out of Kuwait.

1991

8 January

Bush submits letter to Congress requesting approval of a resolution approving the President’s use of “all neces- sary means” to remove Iraq from Kuwait.

9 January

Secretary of State James Baker meets in Geneva with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz. Baker presents a let- ter from President Bush warning Iraqi President Sad- dam Hussein of the consequences of war. Aziz refuses to accept the letter and promises that Iraq will attack Israel if attacked by the coalition.

12 January

Congress authorizes the President to use the forces nec- essary to liberate Kuwait.

17 January

(2:30 A.M. Gulf time) allied air strikes against Iraq begin Operation Desert Storm. Bush addresses the nation (16 January 7 P.M. EST) to announce “the liberation of Kuwait has begun.” Iraq launches SCUD missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia.

30 January

Iraqi forces attack the Saudi town of Khafji with three tank battalions. The attack is repulsed and Saudi forces reclaim Khafji the next day.

22 February

Bush Administration responds to a Soviet plan for Iraqi withdrawal with a 24-hour ultimatum for Iraqi with- drawal to begin and be completed in seven days. Bush submits to Congress an estimate for the costs of the war of $77 billion, $54 billion of which would be contrib- uted by allies.

24 February

Coalition ground operations begin 4 A.M. (Gulf time). Bush tells the nation “the liberation of Kuwait has now entered a final phase.” Two Marine divisions and Arab forces attack toward Kuwait City, and XVIII Airborne Corps and VII Armored Corps conduct huge left flank- ing movement in Iraq. Objectives are to take Kuwait City and to seal off and destroy Iraqi forces in the Kuwait theater of operations (KTO).

25 February

Allied forces continue rapid, easy movement, reaching outskirts of Kuwait City and driving 75–90 miles into Iraq on the left flank. Soviets and Iraqis announce Iraq will withdraw its troops; the administration promises the coalition will not attack unarmed soldiers in retreat, but will consider retreating combat units as legitimate targets.

26 February

Allied forces reach Euphrates River Valley, nearly encir- cling retreating Iraqi Republican Guard divisions. Kuwaiti resistance celebrates end of Iraqi occupation. Coalition air power devastates Iraqi forces fleeing Kuwait.

27 February

Kuwaiti troops raise national flag over Kuwait City. VII and XVIII corps continue to press Republican Guard. General Schwarzkopf gives victory briefing from Riyadh, says “the gates are closed.” Bush announces (9 P.M. EST) the suspension of offensive combat and lays out conditions for permanent cease-fire.

28 February

(8 A.M. Gulf time) coalition forces suspend offensive operations. Iraqi Foreign Minister Aziz notifies the UNSC that Iraq has accepted all twelve UNSC resolu- tions dealing with the invasion of Kuwait.

3 March

U.S. General Schwarzkopf and Saudi General Khalid meet with Iraqi military representatives to negotiate terms of the cease-fire. Reports of growing political tur- moil and anarchy in southern Iraq intensify.

6 March

Bush addresses a joint session of Congress announcing, “Aggression is defeated. . . . The war is over.” Kurds in northern Iraq claim victories, revolts continue in south.

19 March

Rebel fighting still heavy, with rebels claiming progress in the north while government said to be gaining in south. U.S. says reports of heavy casualties and execu- tions in Basra are accurate. Iraqi armored forces begin to move north.

16 April

Bush announces the expansion of Operation Provide Comfort to provide assistance to Kurdish refugees who have fled into the mountains of northern Iraq.