The Commanders

by Bob Woodward

  Bandar felt that Saddam appreciated the assistance, but he also sensed that Saddam hated the dependence.

  Four days after his early April meeting with Saddam, Bandar was in the Oval Office to see Bush.

  “His Majesty,” Bandar began, “sent me here to give you a message that I got from President Saddam to you, which is he assures you he has no intention of attacking Israel.” It was a direct message, Bandar said, not a Saudi interpretation, not King Fahd’s thoughts but exclusively Saddam’s. Saddam was saying he would respond if attacked by Israel but he would not initiate an attack on Israel.

  Bush seemed flabbergasted. “Well, if he doesn’t intend it, why on earth does he have to say it?”

  Bandar reminded Bush of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor. Saddam’s been hit before, Bandar said. Some Israelis were saying a new Iraqi reactor that had been built should be hit, that it would have to be done sooner or later. So there were grounds for nervousness.

  Bush was skeptical.

  Saddam is suspicious there is a conspiracy against him, Bandar said.

  Bull, Bush said. There is no conspiracy against him. It’s his behavior that worries people.

  Saddam is paranoid, Bandar said, like most military, security-conscious dictators. Little things mount up. Bandar told Bush that the British journalist Bazoft had the telephone number of an Israeli official in his pocket when he was arrested and he had been seen outside the Palestinian Liberation Organization headquarters before the Israelis attacked it. Bandar reported on Saddam’s other points—his worry about the Arab summit, not wanting to be embarrassed. Bandar said that in his view, Saddam had been shaken by the reaction in the West and by President Bush’s own statements, and the Iraqi now was just trying to calm everything down and do the right thing.

  Bush said he would think about it all, but the bottom line was Saddam should not have made the verbal attacks he did.

  Two days later Saddam contacted King Fahd and the Iraqi ambassador to the United States, Mohamed Mashat, asking if there was any response from Bush. The Iraqi leader, having given his assurances that he would not attack Israel, wanted explicit assurances from Bush that Israel would not strike Iraq.

  It was mid-April when King Fahd told Bandar to go back to Bush again.

  Bandar requested an immediate meeting that day. Bush was very busy, but he could always give Bandar a few minutes.

  At the White House, Bush only had a little time to talk between meetings so the two stood off to the side.

  “You know, Mr. President,” Bandar said, “they really are serious about this and they want to assure you.” Saddam and the Iraqis would not attack Israel. “And they would like to have assurance that Israel will not attack them because they’re getting nervous.”

  “I don’t want anybody to attack anybody,” Bush said. He just wanted people to settle down, in the region and elsewhere, he said. “We will talk to the Israelis and I will get back to you. But everybody must just cool it.”

  Bush also indicated that he was baffled by Saddam. “If this guy really doesn’t mean it, why the heck does he go around saying these things?”

  The White House then contacted the Israelis, who said if Iraq did not launch anything against them, Israel would not launch anything against Iraq. The United States then passed that Israeli assurance directly to Saddam.

  Bandar also passed along his understanding of these assurances to King Fahd, who called Saddam with the report.

  * * *

  17

  * * *

  THREE MONTHS LATER, early in the week of July 16, 1990, in a second-floor office in the innermost ring of the Pentagon, a stocky, balding, well-dressed man was working the phones like a bookie. The red, gray and green secure phones allowed him to discuss top-secret codeword material with the National Security Agency, CIA, National Photographic Intelligence Center and other U.S. intelligence units in and out of the Pentagon.

  Walter P. “Pat” Lang, Jr., a 50-year-old retired Army colonel, was the Defense Intelligence Agency’s national intelligence officer for the Middle East and South Asia, the senior Pentagon intelligence civilian for the region. He reported to the head of the DIA, a three-star general overseeing about 5,000 civilian and military personnel who coordinate intelligence for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The agency is charged with bringing unified intelligence summaries to the JCS and the Secretary of Defense, free of service bias. Lang was one of the people who directly received and evaluated raw intelligence, then relayed it in digested form to the highest level in the Pentagon, including Cheney and Powell. Lang not only had hands-on knowledge of satellite photos and communications intercepts, but was a Middle East expert fluent in Arabic. He had traveled to Iraq half a dozen times and had served in the early 1980s for three years as the defense attaché in Saudi Arabia.

  This morning, Lang was hunched over the morning satellite photos of his region. Where there had been empty desert in southeastern Iraq, north of Kuwait, the day before, he saw the beginning of a brigade of an Iraqi tank division of T-72 tanks, the top-of-the-line heavy tanks supplied to Iraq by the Soviets. The photos also showed all kinds of equipment being loaded on rail lines, equipment that could only belong to the Republican Guard, the most elite units of President Saddam Hussein. These units existed primarily to protect the regime in the capital of Baghdad, and normally stayed nearby, in central Iraq. Why had the tanks been moved hundreds of miles? The photos from the high-resolution satellites were so detailed that Lang could identify the tanks as belonging to the Hammurabi Division, named after the Babylonian king who devised the first formal legal system. He knew, from following the battles of the eight-year Iran-Iraq War, that there was no more potent division in all of Iraq.

  Iraq had been complaining bitterly that Kuwait was exceeding its oil production quotas set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), driving the prices down. Though Kuwait had once been part of Basra Province in Iraq, it had been granted independence in 1961 by the British. Various border disputes and animosities continued, but for practical purposes Iraq had acquiesced to Kuwait’s status as a nation when it permitted Kuwait’s admission to the Arab League in 1963.

  To Lang, the military logic was overwhelming: the movement of this unit meant Saddam intended to use force somehow. But Lang needed to see more. One day’s photos were not enough to start raising alarms.

  The next morning’s photographs were even more disconcerting. The whole of the Hammurabi Division, all 300 tanks and more than 10,000 men, was in place near the Kuwait border. A second division, the Medina Munawwarh, or Medina Luminous Division—another crack armored unit of the Republican Guard—was showing up on the border. The third day, a third division—the In God We Trust Division—could be seen moving into the region above Kuwait.

  By July 19, more than 35,000 men from the three divisions were within 10 to 30 miles of the Kuwait border. The tanks were in the classic coiled pattern, all facing outward for maximum defense; the coil also made refueling and administration easier.

  Over the years, Lang had closely followed Iraq. In 1986, during the Iran-Iraq War, he had seen Iraq turn a major corner militarily. The sprawling nation of nearly 18 million people in an area larger than the state of California was no longer a Third World military power. Its 1-million-man army was the fourth largest in the world. Iraq was now a major conventional power.

  Most of the other Middle East experts in the CIA and other intelligence agencies had disagreed. DIA had a reputation for extravagant puffing of the military threat posed by other nations. But in 1987, Lang saw his view confirmed as Iraq waged increasingly sophisticated warfare, killing as many as 20,000 to 30,000 Iranians in a single battle. In the last major ground battle of the war, the Iraqis killed 65,000 Iranians. At that point, Lang felt, Iraq could have moved its army anywhere into Iran. The Iraqis had chosen to consolidate their gains and had made peace in 1988, wisely so, in Lang’s view.

  The sudden placement of three divisions on the
Kuwaiti border was perplexing to Lang. In the fall of 1989, a secret National Intelligence Estimate representing the assessments of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, including the DIA and CIA, concluded that, while Saddam wished to dominate the Gulf region, he was unlikely to employ his military to do so because the eight-year war had so severely strained the country’s economy.

  There was something else that did not make sense. During the Iran-Iraq War, U.S. satellites had revealed that Iraq conducted scrupulous rehearsals of operations and battles in vacant parts of the desert. Lang could find no rehearsal indicating Saddam would take the three divisions just moved to the Kuwaiti border to battle, or anything resembling it. This suggested to him that Saddam did not intend to commit the forces to immediate battle. So, the intelligence summaries forwarded up the chain of command at this point stressed the extraordinary nature of the troop movements but did not forecast they would be used.

  Powell read the intelligence summaries showing the Iraqi movement of 35,000 troops in three days. Troubling but not alarming, he concluded. General Kelly and the JCS intelligence analysts were saying it looked as if Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was using the deployment as a threatening lever in the ongoing negotiations over oil. They thought that Iraq might seize a single Kuwaiti oil field or take two small islands in the Persian Gulf it coveted.

  Earlier in the month, the Chairman had spent six days visiting Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and Israel. The heads of state and other senior officials all had downplayed the prospect of Middle East hostilities in the near future, and Powell had returned reassured of continuing stability in the region.

  But he still had some concerns about Iraq. Saddam had just had himself declared President for Life by the powerless legislature. It was reminiscent of Noriega having himself named Maximum Leader. Powell wanted to take some preliminary planning steps. During his three years as Weinberger’s military assistant, one of the constants in crisis management was the JCS’s unpreparedness. They never seemed tuned in, fully ready, certainly never enough on top of the situation to meet the Secretary’s needs and answer his questions.

  Powell called Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, 55, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, the CINC responsible for the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Because the Gulf countries did not wish a visible U.S. presence in the region, Schwarzkopf’s CENTCOM headquarters was at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. CENTCOM was largely a paper command. Its commander had a staff of 700, but in a crisis fighting units would have to be assigned to him from all over the world.

  A burly, aggressive and outspoken former West Point football player (class of 1956), Schwarzkopf was known as “The Bear,” and “Stormin’ Norman.” At 6 foot 3, he looked like a taller version of the actor Carroll O’Connor of the old TV series “All in the Family.” Army Chief Vuono called him “H. Norman Cigar”—Vuono felt there was as much smoke as fire behind his fierce exterior.

  He was a terror as a boss, often furious when unhappy or dissatisfied, infamous for shooting the messengers who brought bad news. Schwarzkopf also sometimes exploded when Pentagon civilians with little or no military experience made proposals he found militarily unsound. When the Army undersecretary had proposed robot infantrymen and radio-controlled armored cars several years earlier, Schwarzkopf had launched into a desk-thumping tirade.

  He was familiar with the Middle East, having spent two years as a teenager living in Teheran. His father, a two-star Army general, had been sent there by General George Marshall to set up an Iranian national police force.

  Powell had come to know Schwarzkopf about five years earlier when they both had quarters at Fort Myer, Virginia. They had grown close two years later when Powell was the national security adviser and Schwarzkopf was the Army’s operations deputy, or “little chief.” The CINC for the Central Command was a post held alternately by Army and Marine generals by agreement of the chiefs. But in 1988 the Navy had attempted to put an admiral in, arguing that since 1987, when it had begun escorting Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf, the Navy’s maritime mission had been the command’s centerpiece. Having a general in Florida running operations thousands of miles away at sea was absurd, they argued.

  Powell thought it would be a mistake to let the Navy take over. CENTCOM had been created to coordinate and command a rapid deployment of ground forces to the Middle East. In a real crisis the problem would be on the ground. He carefully lent his support to the Army’s candidate, Schwarzkopf.

  Schwarzkopf was one of the dozens of four-stars Powell had leapfrogged to become Chairman, but since then he had become one of Powell’s favorite CINCs because he had adjusted to the twin realities of a diminished Soviet threat and a smaller U.S. force. Powell also appreciated Schwarzkopf’s glandular qualities. When he felt Powell was wrong or had pissed someone off, he said so.

  Now Powell asked Schwarzkopf for an evaluation of the Iraqi troop buildup, and the general said it looked at most as if Iraq was poised to launch a punitive but limited strike into Kuwait. Powell said that he wanted Schwarzkopf to draft a two-tiered plan for possible U.S. responses to any Iraqi move against Kuwait, which held 10 percent of the world’s oil reserves. The first tier was what U.S. forces could do to retaliate against Iraq; the second was what the United States might do defensively to stop any Iraqi move. Powell promised to “pipe”—send directly and immediately—to Schwarzkopf any special high-level intelligence or information he learned in Washington. They agreed to schedule a day soon for Schwarzkopf to come to the Pentagon to brief the chiefs in the Tank.

  At a press breakfast on July 19, before the intelligence about the Iraqi troop buildup had leaked, Cheney was asked about Iraq’s threats to Kuwait over the oil question. “We would, in fact,” Cheney replied, “take seriously any threat to U.S. interests or U.S. friends in the region.”

  In the meantime, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the small Persian Gulf oil state which also was being bullied by Iraq for overproducing oil and driving down prices, asked the United States secretly to supply two large KC-135 aerial-refueling tankers. The tankers would allow the UAE to keep patrol planes in the air around the clock. Schwarzkopf, Powell, policy undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz and Cheney recommended that the United States agree to the request. The State Department was initially opposed but finally was talked into approving it on Saturday night, July 21, and the White House gave a final okay.

  A short-notice U.S. Navy exercise with the United Arab Emirates was announced, pulling two U.S. ships out of port to join four other ships in the Gulf. This exercise was basically a cover for the KC-135s. On July 24, Pete Williams publicly confirmed the presence of the KC-135s, as well as the naval exercise, portraying the actions as a signal of support for the UAE and Kuwait. The UAE was furious and cabled Washington that it had wanted the actions kept secret, with no public declarations. Evidently the Arab states were still jumpy about getting too close to the U.S. military.

  • • •

  Meanwhile, Pat Lang continued to monitor Iraq. At the rate of almost a division a day, Saddam had moved five additional divisions—four infantry and one special operations division—to positions north of Kuwait. Within 11 days, eight divisions had been amassed. Each had moved 300 to 400 miles. Giant heavy-equipment transport trucks carried the tanks, protecting their delicate tracks for use in battle. In all, Saddam had 100,000 troops on the border. Moving that many men and troops would have been a considerable military achievement for any nation. Since these were the maneuver units normally kept in the center of Iraq for use in any contingency at any border, Saddam was accepting some risk by using them for this single mission.

  • • •

  With one hour’s notice, on July 25, Saddam summoned the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, to his office. Glaspie, a career diplomat, did not have time to obtain any new instructions from the State Department.

  U.S. policy toward Iraq was muddled. Bush administration officials had been talking tough about Saddam’s threats against Israel, the movement
of Iraqi SCUD missile launchers closer to Israel, and Iraq’s efforts to illegally import components for nuclear weapons. At the same time, the administration had blocked congressional efforts to impose economic sanctions on Iraq or cut U.S. food assistance. Baker’s most recent public comment on U.S-Iraq relations was optimistic, saying there was a “possibility of improvement, and we want to encourage that possibility.”

  Glaspie, 48, who had been ambassador since 1988, was suspicious of Saddam. She had claimed to colleagues that she intended to keep the “thug” in place.

  “What can it mean when America says it will now protect its friends?”I Saddam asked, in an apparent reference to Cheney’s statement that the United States would stick by its friends in the Gulf. “It can only mean prejudice against Iraq. This stance plus maneuvers and statements which have been made has encouraged the UAE and Kuwait. . . .

  “The United States must have a better understanding of the situation and declare who it wants to have relations with and who its enemies are.”

  Glaspie said, “I have direct instruction from the President to seek better relations with Iraq.”

  “But how?” Saddam asked.

  Glaspie said that more talks and meetings would help. She remarked that she had seen an ABC News profile of Saddam and his interview with Diane Sawyer. “That program was cheap and unjust,” Glaspie said. “And this is a real picture of what happens in the American media—even to American politicians themselves. These are the methods the Western media employs. I am pleased that you add your voice to the diplomats who stand up to the media. Because your appearance in the media, even for five minutes, would help us to make the American people understand Iraq. This would increase mutual understanding. If the American President had control of the media, his job would be much easier.”