The Generals
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according to another 1987 survey: Lt. Col. Bruce Malson, “Tarnished Armor: Erosion of Military Ethics,” Army War College, Carlisle, PA, March 23, 1988, 27.
“As a rule . . . general officers”: Clay Buckingham, “Ethics and the Senior Officer: Institutional Tensions,” Parameters, Autumn 1985, 26.
“It would be much better” . . . “beyond our scope”: Starry, interview by Spruill and Vernon, in Sorley, ed., Press On!, 1043.
“The Army gained tactical”: Suzanne Nielsen, “An Army Transformed: The U.S. Army’s Post-Vietnam Recovery and the Dynamics of Change in Military Organizations,” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, September 2010, viii.
“We were trying to change the Army”: Sinnreich, interviews by Fox, 47, 51.
William DePuy’s legacy lived on: Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers, 209–14.
“I figured it was my obligation”: “Oral History: Richard Cheney,” Frontline: The Gulf War, Public Broadcasting System, WGBH, III-4.
“Let me use the example first”: “Statement of Gen. William E. DePuy, USA (Ret.),” Crisis in the Persian Gulf: Sanctions: Diplomacy and War, Hearings Before the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, December 1990, 461–62.
PART V: IRAQ AND THE HIDDEN COSTS OF REBUILDING
24. COLIN POWELL, NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF, AND THE EMPTY TRIUMPH OF THE 1991 WAR
“We were confident”: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 221.
“Eighteen months of hard work”: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 222.
“Democracy did not always function well”: Colin Powell with Joseph Persico, My American Journey (Random House, 1995), 173.
“always felt a special affinity”: Powell, My American Journey, 312.
“perpetual optimism”: Powell, My American Journey, 347.
“If it hadn’t been for Iran-Contra”: Henry Louis Gates Jr., Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man (Random House, 1997), 78.
“Cars, unlike people”: Powell, My American Journey, 219.
“DePuy alumnus”: Powell, My American Journey, 240.
“I had long since learned” . . . “considered vital”: Powell, My American Journey, 220.
“the higher you rise”: David Barno, interview by author, November 2010.
“And that,” Powell stated: Powell, My American Journey, 383.
“fighting the war in Vietnam” . . . “stick to military matters”: Powell, My American Journey, 464–66.
According to a staff log he quotes: Frank Schubert and Theresa Kraus, eds., The Whirlwind War: The United States Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm (U.S. Army Center of Military History, 1995), 99.
But Cheney decided: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 419, 437.
“For the benefit of the Vietnam vets”: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 444.
Schwarzkopf would begin his counteroffensive: Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War (Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 59.
“It will be massive”: State Department transcript of meeting of Secretary of State James Baker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, Geneva, Switzerland, January 9, 1991, archives of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, Houston, 5.
“I found the plan unimaginative”: Dick Cheney interview, “The Gulf War,” Frontline, WGBH, January 9, 1996, I-3.
“the charge of the light brigade”: Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Little, Brown, 1995), 144.
“hey diddle diddle”: Atkinson, Crusade, 111.
“I was pretty appalled”: Brent Scowcroft interview, “The Gulf War,” III-4.
“sent the signal to everybody”: Cheney interview, “The Gulf War,” I-4.
“In a single story, Dugan made”: Powell, My American Journey, 478.
“I don’t give a damn”: Atkinson, Crusade, 15.
“We assumed with respect to the air war”: Cheney interview, “The Gulf War,” I-7.
“fully understood the importance”: Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (Threshold, 2011), 215.
“The guy supposedly has read Clausewitz”: Atkinson, Crusade, 119.
“I needed to be able to say”: Cheney interview, “The Gulf War,” II-7 and III-2.
in order to find and destroy Scud launchers: This point is made in Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 247.
“designed to humiliate the Saudi army”: Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 288.
One rattled member of Iraq’s 5th Mechanized Division: Paul Westermeyer, “The Battle of al-Khafji,” Marine Corps History Division, Washington, DC, 2008, 32.
“After the operations of al Khafji”: Kevin Woods, David Palkki, and Mark Stout, eds., The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime, 1978–2001 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), 215.
“about as significant as a mosquito”: John Newell III, “Airpower and the Battle of Khafji: Setting the Record Straight,” School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, June 1998, iii.
a failure of generalship: This paragraph relies heavily on the conclusions of Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 288–89.
“My responsibility is the lives”: Atkinson, Crusade, 345.
a remarkably revealing exchange: Most of this account of their conversation is drawn from Powell, My American Journey, 515–16; Schwarzkopf’s final comment comes from Atkinson’s Crusade, which largely agrees with Powell’s account.
25. THE GROUND WAR: SCHWARZKOPF VS. FREDERICK FRANKS
destroyed roughly 30 Iraqi tanks: Estimate of Capt. H. R. McMaster, quoted in Tom Clancy with General Fred Franks Jr., Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq (Berkley, 1998), 357–58.
“a brilliant slaughter”: Atkinson, Crusade, 467.
“What the hell’s going on with VII Corps?”: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 527.
“I was thinking forty-eight hours ahead”: Frederick Franks interview, “The Gulf War,” II-4.
In his memoir, Franks would criticize: Clancy and Franks, Into the Storm, 367, 380. See also pages 294, 339, 367–68, 440–42, 455, and 522 for additional comments about Schwarzkopf’s misapprehension of the movements and performance of VII Corps.
“overly elaborate plan”: Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 380.
“more like he belonged in a morgue”: Atkinson, Crusade, 392.
In fact, Gordon and Trainor concluded: Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 380, 431, 464.
“Schwarzkopf’s great shortcoming”: Richard Swain, “Lucky War”: Third Army in Desert Storm (U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press, 1994), 340–41.
He misleadingly told the world: This paragraph relies heavily on “The Gate Is Closed,” chap. 19 of Gordon and Trainor’s The Generals’ War, 400–432. The second Schwarzkopf quotation, about “surrender or destruction,” is from Atkinson, Crusade, 470.
“As long as it is not over the part” . . . “where we are not located”: Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 446.
“They fell down on their job”: Robert Goldich, e-mail message to author, February 26, 2012.
“the U.S. war effort split open”: Gideon Rose, How Wars End (Simon & Schuster, 2010), 223.
They viewed it through the prism of the Vietnam War: Scales, Certain Victory, 383.
Powell and Schwarzkopf even discussed the feasibility: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 548.
“in case they ever wanted to recreate”: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 560.
“We were fighting a limited war”: Powell, My American Journey, 519.
“For once,” he concluded: Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero, 580.
“Its underly
ing concepts”: Antulio Echevarria, “Toward an American Way of War,” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, March 2004, 16.
“The confusion surrounding the termination”: Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan, “Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy,” Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, September 2009, 69.
“The assumption was that Saddam”: Cheney interview, “The Gulf War,” II-4.
Saddam Hussein’s view of the ending of the war: Woods, Palkki, and Stout, eds., The Saddam Tapes, 39, 43, 211.
“As a mechanism to advance the cause”: Andrew Bacevich, “The United States in Iraq: Terminating an Interminable War,” in Moten, ed., Between War and Peace, 415.
the effect of the 1991 campaign: Andrew Bacevich, “The Revisionist Imperative: Rethinking Twentieth Century Wars,” 2012 George C. Marshall Lecture of the American Historical Association, American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, January 7, 2012, 7. On the issue of the effects of the 1991 war, one question about which surprisingly little is known even now is whether the way in which the war ended gave Iran entrée into Iraqi affairs, with its Revolutionary Guards also encouraging Iraqi Shiites to rise against Saddam. On the captured tapes of his meetings, Saddam complains that the Iranians “imposed on our land” after the 1991 war, especially in Diyala Province. Woods, Palkki, and Stout, The Saddam Tapes, 206.
the United States imposed a no-fly zone: Michael Knights, “The Long View of No-Fly and No-Augmentation Zones,” in Michael Knights, ed., Operation Iraqi Freedom and the New Iraq: Insights and Forecasts (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2004), 41.
26. THE POST–GULF WAR MILITARY
“above average”: Linn, Echo of Battle, 229.
“Basking in the glow of victory”: Maj. Chad Foster, comment posted on author’s Best Defense blog, October 16, 2009.
“The thing that killed us”: Gen. Jack Keane, interview by author, January 16, 2008.
“shallow ‘bumper sticker’ concepts”: Huba Wass de Czege, “Lessons from the Past: Making the Army’s Doctrine ‘Right Enough’ Today,” Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the U.S. Army, September 2006, 21.
intellectually oriented programs: Harold R. Winton, interview by Mustion, 52. See also 47, Sinnreich oral history.
“defense conversion”: Bill Clinton and Al Gore, Putting People First: How We Can All Change America (Times Books, 1992), 10, 75, 148.
the size of the Army was cut: Priscilla Offenhauer, “General and Flag Officer Authorizations for the Active and Reserve Components: A Comparative and Historical Analysis,” Federal Research Division, The Library of Congress, December 2007, 49–50.
“Not all went right”: James Dubik, e-mail message to the author, December 6, 2011.
“It only took one boss” . . . “in the decade of war”: Col. John Ferrari, interview by author, October 25, 2009, and e-mail message to author, September 23, 2011.
“The overcontrolling leader”: Lloyd Matthews, “The Overcontrolling Leader,” Army Magazine, April 1996, 33.
Maj. Gen. John Faith wrote: John Faith, “The Overcontrolling Leader: The Issue Is Trust,” Army Magazine, June 1997, 7.
A study done at West Point: Don Snider, “The U.S. Army as Profession,” in Matthews, The Future of the Army Profession, 22–27.
“Departing from the tried and proven” . . . “immature, reckless”: Michael Cody, “Selecting and Developing the Best Leaders,” in Lloyd Matthews, ed., Building and Maintaining Healthy Organizations: The Key to Future Success (U.S. Army War College, October 2000), 96.
“felt that there was a high degree”: Lee Staab, “Transforming Army Leadership—The Key to Officer Retention,” U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA, April 2001, 8.
“relationships between junior and senior leaders”: Anneliese Steele, “Are the Relationships Between Junior and Senior Leaders in the U.S. Army Officer Corps Dysfunctional?,” School of Advanced Military Studies, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, April 2001, 48.
“self-serving, short-sighted”: Varljen, “Leadership: More Than Mission Accomplishment,” 75.
“short-term mission accomplishment”: Jones, “Improving Accountability for Effective Command Climate,” 18.
essays about generalship in Parameters: Walter Ulmer Jr., “Military Leadership into the 21st Century: Another ‘Bridge Too Far’?,” Parameters, Spring 1998; Montgomery Meigs, “Generalship,” Parameters, Summer 2001.
“When war is reduced to fighting” . . . “enemy who fights smarter”: Colin Gray, Fighting Talk: Forty Maxims on War, Peace and Strategy (Potomac, 2009), 33.
the nature and extent of his isolation: My language here is similar to that on page 334 of Karen DeYoung’s Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell (Knopf, 2006).
“My colleagues, every statement”: Ricks, Fiasco, 90.
“Who went to the United Nations”: Colin Powell, interview by Bob Shieffer, Face the Nation, CBS, August 28, 2011.
“I will forever be known”: “Colin Powell: ‘I’m very sore,’” London Daily Telegraph, February 26, 2005. For a more sympathetic account of Powell’s role in this matter, see Bob Drogin’s Curveball (Random House, 2007), which essentially argues that the CIA’s Tenet actively sought to mislead Powell.
“presented not opinions”: “Secretary Rumsfeld Address to the Munich Conference on European Security Policy,” Defense Department, February 8, 2003.
“But Tommy was confident”: “Remarks by General Colin Powell (Ret.),” Fort Leavenworth, KS, April 29, 2008, transcript by Federal News Service, 18.
27. TOMMY R. FRANKS: TWO-TIME LOSER
“During the Vietnam War”: Tommy Franks, American Soldier (Regan, 2004), 441. Italics in original.
“His development approached”: Cushman, e-mail message to author, November 12, 2011.
“The American military is simply uncomfortable”: William Taylor, “Spin Machine,” Armed Forces Journal, August 2011.
The warning signs about Franks: Peter Bergen, The Longest War: America and al-Qaeda Since 9/11 (Free Press, 2011), 74.
certain he had bin Laden cornered: Bergen, Longest War, 72. For chronology and presence of bin Laden at Tora Bora, see also Special Operations Command, USSOCOM History, 1987–2007 (U.S. Special Operations Command, 2007), 93–97. For a notably more sympathetic account of Franks’s handling of Tora Bora, see Lester Grau and Dodge Billingsley, Operation Anaconda: America’s First Major Battle in Afghanistan (University Press of Kansas, 2011), 75–81.
“I thought it was a very successful operation”: Tommy Franks, transcript of Meet the Press, NBC News, March 24, 2002.
“That’s a great question”: Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Penguin Press, 2006), 127.
A document prepared for public release: Army War College staff, “ ‘Operation Enduring Freedom/Noble Eagle’ Initial Impressions Conference Report,” 1.
“the fifty-pound brains”: Franks, American Soldier, 362.
“this is the ultimate consequence”: Franks, American Soldier, 8.
“actually was going as I had expected”: Franks, American Soldier, 531.
“most tribesmen, including Sunni loyalists”: United States Central Command, notes from “Phase IV ‘Rule of Law’ Logical Line of Operation Operational Planning Team,” March 9, 2003, 59.
Franks had told him in June 2003: Ricardo Sanchez, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story (Harper, 2008), 212.
depicted himself as a maverick: Franks, American Soldier, 203, 367.
“The treatment of Army General Eric Shinseki”: “Voices from the Stars? America’s Generals and Public Debate,” American Bar Association National Security Report 28, no. 4 (November 2006), 9.
“didn’t provide anything”: Franks, teleconference with journalists, August 2, 2004, 18.
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the variety of ways he had devised: Franks, American Soldier, 410.
“basic grand strategy”: Franks, American Soldier, 340–41.
“The October 2002 Centcom war plan”: “Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations,” August 24, 2004, 11.
“post conflict stabilization”: RAND Corporation, “Iraq: Translating Lessons into Future DoD Policies,” attachment to letter from James Thompson, president and chief executive officer, RAND Corporation, to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, February 7, 2005, 6.
“There’s never been a combat operation”: Franks, American Soldier, 524.
“I just think it’s interesting”: Franks teleconference, August 2, 2004, 16.
“The guys who did well”: Telephone interview with American civilian official in Kabul who requested anonymity, December 2007.
“This was real leadership”: Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 118.
“We’re doing it in the Marines”: James Mattis, interview by author at Pentagon, August 12, 2009.
“Are you attacking?”: This and subsequent quotations are from Col. Joe D. Dowdy, interview by Gary Solis, Marine Corps History Division, January 24, 2004.
“Maybe General Mattis won’t do it”: This is the sole quotation in this account that is not from Dowdy’s oral history. It is from Christopher Cooper, “How a Marine Lost His Command in Race to Baghdad,” Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2004, 1.
“If we are to keep this great big experiment” . . . “then you have won”: James Mattis, “Ethical Challenges in Contemporary Conflict: The Afghanistan and Iraq Cases,” 2004 William C. Stutt Ethics Lecture, Alumni Hall, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, November 8, 2004, 7 and 19.
28. RICARDO SANCHEZ: OVER HIS HEAD
One dissent to this narrative: Philip Zelikow, interviews by author, April and May 2007, and e-mail message to author, June 6, 2011.
“I came away from my first meeting”: The quotations in this paragraph and the next are from interviews done by the author in 2007 and 2008 for Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (Penguin, 2009).