The Commanders

by Bob Woodward

  Typical crap out of Sununu’s office, Cheney thought. He felt that Sununu had adopted an imperial role for himself as chief of staff. When Cheney had held the job under Ford, he had worked assiduously to stay in the background and avoid the mantle of assistant President. Sununu had donned it. Once, Bush had been late for a cabinet meeting, and Sununu had plunked himself down in the President’s chair—a small impropriety, but to Cheney it symbolized the self-importance Sununu brought to his post.

  As Secretary of Defense, Cheney had control of more helicopters than anyone. He ordered Owens to use their own choppers for the flight.

  • • •

  Bandar called King Fahd to report. Fahd wanted to be assured the threat from Iraq was real. They both knew that Kuwait had delayed asking for assistance from the United States because the Kuwaitis suspected the Iraqi threat was being used as a guise to get American troops on their soil.

  The satellite photos supported the case that the kingdom was in serious trouble, Bandar told Fahd. The threat was genuine.

  “Have you seen—with your own eyes—have you seen the overheads?” Fahd asked.

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then tell them to come and bring the overheads.”

  * * *

  I. The direct quotes are from an Iraqi translation of the meeting made from a tape recording. A U.S. official said Ambassador Glaspie’s own official report of the meeting to the State Department corresponds with the Iraqi version, but Glaspie later said that only 80 percent of the meeting had been published by the Iraqis.;

  * * *

  18

  * * *

  ON AN OVERCAST SATURDAY MORNING, August 4, Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Schwarzkopf and several of his top commanders flew up to Camp David.

  Cheney was comfortable with Operations Plan 90–1002. It was the only one they had and he did not want to reinvent the wheel in the midst of a crisis.

  They all went into the retreat’s big lodge, with its modern conference room. Bush, Quayle, Cheney, Sununu, Webster and Wolfowitz sat on one side of the 25-foot conference table. On the other side were Baker, Scowcroft, Powell, Schwarzkopf, Fitzwater and Richard Haass. Five small model airplanes were arranged down the middle of the table.

  Webster opened with an intelligence update. The CIA director did not usually receive a lot of attention in such meetings because most senior officials felt his briefings were a mere summary of the various classified reports and analyses that had already circulated to them.

  This morning his report spoke for itself: an unnecessarily large Iraqi force of more than 100,000 was in Kuwait. Some of these Iraqi soldiers were approaching and massing near the Saudi border—a possible grim foreshadowing of what happened before the Kuwait invasion. The only thing standing between Saddam and the vast Saudi oil fields was a battalion of the Saudi National Guard, fewer than 1,000 men.

  Cheney called on Powell, who said that General Schwarzkopf would give an expanded version of the Tier Two option discussed earlier, Operations Plan 90–1002. “The plan is do-able,” Powell said. “It will achieve the mission of defending or repelling an attack. Should there be a subsequent decision to move north to Kuwait” under the same plan, that would be “do-able but expensive.” Under any circumstance, “some [Reserve] call-ups would be required to sustain this force over the long term.”

  Summarizing, he said: “There’s a deterrence piece and a warfighting piece. The sooner we put something in place to deter, the better we are. What we can get there most quickly is air power. The Navy’s in position. There’s more moving. Within a month, we could have a large field army in Saudi Arabia. It would be hard to sustain, though, for a long period. There is not much left for elsewhere” in the world should a new crisis develop.

  The Chairman reminded them that, given the size of the force that would be necessary to meet the threat, and the distance it would have to travel, this was not another Panama.

  What about the Iraqi Air Force versus the Saudi Air Force, asked Sununu, who was sitting between Quayle and Webster.

  Iraq has 1,127 aircraft, Schwarzkopf replied. Limited quantities of good ones. The Iraqi Air Force is predominantly used for defense.

  Schwarzkopf’s Air Force commander, Lieutenant General Charles Horner, said the Saudis had 60 U.S.-supplied F-15s and 115 older F-5s. He noted that during the invasion of Kuwait, the Saudis had refueled but refused to rearm the small Kuwaiti Air Force, which had put up a futile day-long fight.

  Schwarzkopf began his presentation by saying that though the Iraqis had a large army, “They’re not ten feet tall.” He said their forces included:

  • A total land force of 900,000, consisting of 63 divisions; but only 8 of them, the Republican Guard, are really the focus of our concern.

  • In all, 5,747 tanks, of which 1,072 are the Soviet-supplied T-72s. Most of the T-72s are in Kuwait now.

  • About 10,000 lightly armored vehicles, of which only 1,600 are the advanced type.

  • Some 3,500 pieces of artillery, but only 330 are self-propelled; the rest have to be towed.

  • A total of 3,000 heavy-equipment transporters for moving tanks. This is a remarkable number, he said. The whole U.S. Army has only 500.

  “We would not have to worry about the air force after a fairly short period. The navy’s not a problem.”

  Summing up, the general said that the Iraqi strengths were obviously the size of their land force, and their chemical weapons, which they had used in the Iran-Iraq War and in 1988 against some of their own citizens, Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

  Their weaknesses included: centralized command and control; dependence on foreign countries for spare parts; and lack of experience in deep operations away from the front in battle because they were accustomed mainly to frontal attacks like those used by Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.

  Schwarzkopf said it would take 17 weeks to get the full deterrence piece of Plan 90–1002—totaling some 200,000 to 250,000 Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines—into the region.

  The warfighting piece or offensive capability, he warned, was something very different. Army commanders traditionally speak of desired attacker-to-defender ratios of 3 to 1, 4 to 1, even 5 to 1, he said. In an offensive mode the United States would be the attacker, and in this case the plan called for six and two-thirds divisions on the ground, about 150,000 on the U.S. side. Against the Iraqi force of 100,000, this wouldn’t yield the traditional ratio, but better U.S. equipment, as well as better tactics, control of the air and sea, and many other factors—an economic blockade, possible forces from other nations—would make an attack possible.

  On this warfighting piece, Schwarzkopf said, it would take 8 to 12 months to put in place the U.S. force needed to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.

  Powell reflected to himself that it was crucial to state these long timelines. For all practical purposes, Saddam’s whole army of 900,000 was available to fight anything the United States might put on the ground in the region. So the deterrence piece and the warfighting piece would both be difficult, perhaps more than difficult. The President had to know that up front. Powell didn’t want the military presenting any pipe dreams about how easy it would be.

  Schwarzkopf continued to underscore the U.S. limitations. Sixty percent of the Army’s logistics support personnel are in the reserves, he said. The United States would be dependent on supplies of fuel from the nations in the Middle East. Munitions shortfalls could be expected if shooting started.

  Discussion briefly turned to a possible air campaign—going in with nothing but airpower, the obvious U.S. advantage. Hundreds of planes could be made available for this, Schwarzkopf said, describing how those forces could be moved in within days and weeks.

  Cheney and Powell made it clear they were not at all comfortable with airpower only.

  Powell felt that he had accomplished one thing at least: Cheney had become an absolute believer in the need for ground power.

  In his own mind, Cheney saw ground power as the key back-up to airp
ower. It was necessary, he felt, to adopt a skeptical approach to all the components of any deployment. Defensive or offensive U.S. air superiority might do what was needed right off the bat, and he hoped it would, but no one could be sure. Of course, the Air Force would say it could take care of everything, but Cheney knew he couldn’t buy into that view, or present it to the President. In any event, any defense or offense would have to include ground combat forces.

  Cheney turned their attention back to a possible ground defense. What about Iraq’s chemical weapons? What would it be like to try to operate in the chemical protective gear U.S. forces would have to wear in the Saudi desert during the month of August? he asked.

  Schwarzkopf said that the units that might be deployed had all trained at the National Training Center in the California desert, in summer conditions that were somewhat equivalent. “The equipment is very uncomfortable,” he said. “It degrades fighting ability. But we have practiced with it a lot.”

  When the talk turned again to the possibility of an air campaign, Cheney warned, “From previous history, air campaigns have frequently not achieved the results predicted for them.”

  “I’m not an airpower-only advocate,” Schwarzkopf said, but added, “There are four favorable factors that suggest air may be particularly important here. One, it’s a target-rich environment—easy to see things. Secondly, Iraq has no experience operating under air attack.” During the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iranians had had no substantial air force to use, so the Iraqis were used to operating under clear skies.

  “It could cause great disorder and disarray,” Schwarzkopf continued. “Three, we have sophisticated munitions with more precision than ever before. Four, there could be quite a significant morale effect on the Iraqis in the rear who have never been subjected to danger in the past.”

  But there are no guarantees, Schwarzkopf said.

  Powell said he saw the issue as deterrence—stopping Saddam from coming into Saudi Arabia. “If you want to deter, don’t put up a phony defense, don’t create a phony deterrence,” he said. This was one of the largest land armies in the world; it had to be met with a land force. “If you do it, do it real and do it right.”

  There was concern expressed that any fighting would endanger the holy Muslim sites in Saudi Arabia, a development that would rock the Arab world. Islam’s two most revered places were both in Saudi Arabia—Mecca, the birthplace of Mohammed, and Medina, his burial site.

  Where is Mecca? Sununu asked.

  It was pointed out that Mecca was on the other side of Saudi Arabia, some 700 miles southwest of Kuwait.

  “The Saudis worry whether we’re really serious,” Scowcroft told them. “We can do a lot in the air but what we really need is a ground force. Air can bug out in a hurry. This plan is very heavy on air up front.”

  Prince Bandar had been worried about the United States just sending one fighter squadron, Cheney said, but he reported that Bandar had been impressed that the plan outlined the day before had seemed serious.

  Bush entered the discussion. “My worry about the Saudis,” he said, “is that they’re going to be the ones who are going to bug out at the last minute and accept a puppet regime in Kuwait. We should be asking them how committed they are.”

  “It’s a chicken-and-egg problem,” Scowcroft said. “They can’t go out front until they know whether we can be counted on.”

  “But this is like if your homeland is about to be invaded,” the President replied, “you grab a pitchfork and go to the border.”

  “But this is the Middle East,” Scowcroft said. He reminded them that the Kuwaitis hadn’t mobilized when they were threatened.

  “What about this withdrawal announcement?” the President asked, referring to a statement issued by the Iraqis the day before claiming their forces were going to begin leaving Kuwait in two days.

  Everyone at the table seemed to agree this announcement might be enough to get the Arab states circling the wagons, saying everything is going to be fine, and insisting that the United States butt out.

  “Don’t underestimate Saddam Hussein,” Scowcroft said. “He’s capable of pulling out a brigade and giving the Saudis an excuse.”

  This led the discussion back to the unanswered questions: What did Saddam really want? What were just his tactical moves? What were his ultimate objectives?

  “There are three things the Iraqis want from a puppet government,” Sununu said. “One, the assets; two, debt forgiveness; three, control of oil.”

  Schwarzkopf corrected him slightly, saying that the conditions before the invasion boiled down to: adjustments of the Iraq-Kuwait border in favor of Iraq, debt forgiveness, payment of $4 billion and control of two tiny Kuwaiti-controlled islands, Warba and Bubiyan, at the northwest corner of the Gulf. Saddam wanted the uninhabited islands because they blocked Iraqi access to the Gulf.

  On the question of whether Iraq would withdraw, Schwarzkopf said, “They sent in lots of Iraqi special forces in civilian clothes they might be planning to leave in behind.”

  “Even if the Iraqis go all the way back,” Powell said, “it’s going to be a different emir and a different situation.” Powell’s point was that the head of the Kuwaiti state would be a changed man, and the status quo in Kuwait and elsewhere in the region had been forever altered.

  “This is all designed to be attractive to the Arab League,” Scowcroft said. Arab League meetings were generally designed for the purpose of showing Arab unity, kissing and making up. “Kuwait is not popular among the Arabs,” Scowcroft added.

  “That’s why our defense of Saudi Arabia has to be our focus,” Bush finally said.

  Powell was delighted that the President seemed to agree with him, but he was still uncertain about what Bush might decide.

  The meeting was adjourned, but the top officials—Bush, Quayle, Sununu, Baker, Scowcroft, Cheney, Powell, Webster—were asked to stay behind for a “principals only” get-together. In this smaller group, some very sensitive intelligence on the Saudis was presented. Gathering intelligence on friends and allies of the United States is one of the most risky enterprises conducted by the various U.S. intelligence agencies. But today’s friend might be tomorrow’s enemy—friendships are a matter of degree. In any case, the intelligence agencies were under orders to cast a wide net. Information was often more available on friends than neutrals or enemies, because the United States supplied communications and cryptographic equipment to many allies, and because of the shared airwaves and the sheer proximity of U.S. intelligence operatives in friendly nations. To gather this intelligence, the agencies used everything from the simplest methods, like phone tapping, to the most exotic, such as electronically measuring window vibrations of buildings to pick up conversations inside, to human sources within friendly governments.

  The intelligence report showed that the Saudi leaders were getting cold feet, and as had so often happened in the past, it appeared they were giving some consideration to buying their way out of the threat by offering billions of dollars from their oil revenue to Saddam. The Saudis had been willing to pay blackmail before.

  Among those gathered, there was a pessimism about the Arabs in general. Everyone heaped blamed on them. They could not be relied on; they would pay off the thief at their throat. There was even some talk that this whole crisis be put on the backburner and downplayed; the United States, after all, had limited power and could not help those who did not want to help themselves.

  Despite this negative note on which the meeting ended, it was decided that the President would call King Fahd to take a sounding and make a pitch.

  Cheney and Powell left Camp David about lunchtime. Cheney stopped back at his Pentagon office, where some of his aides were hovering, eager to hear what had happened. “What the hell do you want?” he asked half-joking, declining to provide any details. He loaded up a bunch of papers and went home.

  • • •

  Scowcroft stayed on at Camp David with the President while he c
alled the Saudi king. It was time for some pressure. Bush told the king that Saddam was piling up forces near the king’s border. The Saudis had to act.

  Fahd said that Saudi Arabia did not need ground troops to defend itself. The Saudis only needed help with airpower and perhaps some equipment. He also said that Prince Bandar had reported to him on the previous day’s briefings from the Pentagon. I understand you are going to send a team to brief me on the latest overheads and on what your capabilities are to help us defend ourselves, the king told Bush. “Where’s this briefing team you’re going to send?” he asked.

  Bush did not have the foggiest idea what the king was talking about. He didn’t know anything about such a plan; it had not been discussed with any of his advisers.

  “I did not know you were expecting one, but we’ll put one together,” the President told Fahd.

  Fahd said, yes, he wanted a team, a low-level technical or management team.

  Afterwards, Bush and Scowcroft realized that the team idea was all the king and Bush had agreed on, and it was not clear what kind of team would be best. Who should be sent? For precisely what purpose? When? A round of telephone calls followed as Bush, Baker and Scowcroft conferred with others about the possibilities. Cheney replied that all he had offered to Bandar the day before was a coordination team so that U.S. forces, if invited in, would arrive in the right spots.

  Bandar thought that he had mentioned the idea of a team to Scowcroft. Scowcroft didn’t recall.

  “I want to do this,” Bush told Scowcroft. “I want to do it big time.” And later he added, “I want to send somebody personally. It has to be with the understanding they will not come back with no decisions having been made.” The President wanted to use the team to increase the pressure on King Fahd.

  Bush raised the possibility of sending Scowcroft. A low-level person would leave the Saudis in the comfortable position of not having to make a decision. But Scowcroft or a high-level, high-visibility team would make it more difficult for the king to delay, or say no. They decided they had to send an offer King Fahd could not refuse.