The Commanders

by Bob Woodward

  Bush continued his personal diplomatic activity. He spoke with President Turgut Ozal of Turkey and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, two leaders who had already voiced strong opposition to Saddam’s invasion.

  The President also spoke with the Kuwaiti Emir, Sheikh Jabir al Ahmed al Sabah. A taciturn man who has headed Kuwait’s large ruling family since 1978, the emir had escaped by car to Saudi Arabia just minutes before invading Iraqi soldiers arrived at his palace to take him prisoner or kill him.

  With the emir, Bush was sympathetic and emotional. He made a vow to the exiled Kuwaiti leader: the United States would help win back his country and would ensure that he was restored to power.

  • • •

  When Powell heard about the Bush-Fahd conversation concerning a “team,” he immediately saw Bandar’s hand. The prince had been working overtime. Bush’s inclination to help and Cheney’s suggestion that Schwarzkopf be used to coordinate a possible operation had been transformed into a “team” to make a presentation to the king. Powell called it “convenient confusion” on Bandar’s part. Bandar had once again cleverly moved the two nations into each other’s arms.

  The question for Bush remained not only whom to send, but what exactly to offer Fahd. The king had already stated a disinclination to accept U.S. ground forces, a key part of Schwarzkopf’s Operations Plan 90–1002.

  Scowcroft worried that the team might be doomed to failure. He had a series of conversations with Bandar. If the team wasn’t going to get results, he told Bandar, the President would send a lower-level State or Defense official. But if it had a chance of succeeding, if some U.S. official could persuade the king or provide the margin of difference, Bush would send someone senior like himself or Cheney. At the same time, he wanted to know if it was possible for the king to agree to accept the U.S. forces before the President selected someone to send. In other words, could they make sure it was a done deal before the President sent his man?

  Bandar said the king was not yet ready; intense discussions were going on within the royal family. He himself was leaving for Saudi Arabia that afternoon to join them and add his arguments for accepting U.S. forces. He promised that after he had arrived in the kingdom and talked with the king, he would call Scowcroft.

  Meanwhile, Bush decided that Cheney should head the team if the Saudis would accept him. He was senior enough to act as the President’s personal representative; and as Secretary of Defense, he could speak with complete authority on military matters.

  At about 3 p.m. Scowcroft called Cheney at home and explained how the early Bandar discussions had been molded and stretched by Bandar into the notion of a team. But this might help the situation by forcing the king’s hand, Scowcroft said, and the President wants you to head the team. There was, however, some doubt for the moment about whether the king would accept someone as highly placed as Cheney because it would make it almost impossible to say no.

  Stand by, Scowcroft told the Secretary of Defense. Saddam might help force the Saudi hand by continuing the buildup on the border and by refusing to supply the Saudis with an explanation of his intentions. Saddam’s silence was scaring the Saudis to death.

  About an hour later, Cheney called his spokesman, Pete Williams, who was at home waxing his car. He told Williams to pack his bags, they were going to Saudi Arabia the next day. “I’m not certain we’re going, but it looks like it,” Cheney said. “We’ll know for sure at ten a.m. tomorrow.”

  • • •

  Williams packed and went to the Pentagon Sunday morning to be ready for the 10 a.m. decision. He read the morning papers and watched the Sunday talk shows.

  Schwarzkopf, summoned from Florida again, arrived in the Secretary’s office. As they were awaiting word from the Saudis, Scowcroft came over to the Pentagon. Cheney, continuing his education on Iraq, had invited a group of experts up for a briefing. They included DIA intelligence officer Pat Lang, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq David G. Newton, and two other experts.

  Lang focused on the Iraqi military, while Newton talked about the internal situation in Iraq.

  “If anyone is telling you the Iraqis are not capable,” Lang said, “don’t believe them. They are tough as hell. They can go clear to Dhahran [an oil city on the Saudi Gulf coast]. Saddam is not bluffing.” Saddam had a lot of late-model military equipment.

  Cheney said he wanted to know what Iraq was like, and what Saddam was like. “I want to know how this looks from the Iraqi side.”

  Ambassador Newton spoke for about 30 minutes. He had served as ambassador in Iraq from 1984 to 1988 and knew quite a bit about the country. He was well aware that Cheney and other U.S. policymakers lacked firsthand reports on Saddam’s decision making. U.S. intelligence had one source in Saddam’s inner circle, but he was not at the regular meetings of the Iraqi president’s advisers. There was no true inside knowledge.

  The invasion had taken Newton by surprise. When other Arab leaders like King Hussein and Mubarak had said categorically, Look, Saddam told me he’s not going to do this, there was good reason to believe they were right. The Arabs had a kind of heads-of-state club whose members tended to believe one another’s personal statements as absolutes. Newton had concluded that the massing of Iraqi forces on the border had been coercive diplomacy. Now he was concerned that the United States would fall victim to its own “rational man syndrome,” a tendency to analyze foreign leaders as completely rational decision makers. In a one-man operation like Iraq’s that was not the way to make predictions.

  Newton told Cheney that Saddam was “a tough, ruthless, hardnosed, intelligent and sometimes brutal leader who is used to getting his own way.” Saddam’s political history emphasized physical survival. He would not tolerate political opposition, and had killed opponents—although Newton was of the opinion that some of the stories about Saddam’s executions were exaggerated. Since most Iraqis believed Kuwait was part of Iraq, Newton said, Saddam’s smash-and-grab job would be popular, but in any case, public opinion would not determine what Saddam did.

  Saddam was a believer in the practical use of force, Newton added. He was indifferent to the suffering of others and justified his actions as serving the higher purpose of the Iraqi state. He was cold-blooded.

  Iraq might be exhausted by war and desirous of a kind of peace dividend, and the citizen army full of draftees with ten years of service who wanted to return home, but the Iraqi Army was no pushover.

  Newton, who had met four times with Saddam, said that the Iraqi president thought he was tougher than the United States, and did not respect democracies.

  The experts also told Cheney and Scowcroft that Saddam did not have a Masada Complex, he was not suicidal. His objective was power, and he had the flexibility and manipulative skills of a person who tries to maximize power.

  • • •

  Scowcroft talked on the telephone to Bandar, who was now back in Saudi Arabia. The national security adviser felt that it was crucial to get a high-level team over there. It must succeed. If it failed, that would amount to an invitation for Saddam to invade. It would demonstrate conclusively to the Iraqi leader that the United States and Saudi Arabia were not standing together, that the United States would not support or defend the Saudis, that the Saudis did not want a U.S. protective umbrella.

  About noon, Bandar indicated to Scowcroft that the king would not accept someone at Cheney’s level. The king wanted someone at a lower level, apparently to make it easier to say no. It was precisely what Scowcroft had feared.

  But Bush decided what the hell, let’s send someone anyway. It was agreed they would dispatch General Schwarzkopf. Since the general was now going to head a team, not support a Cheney mission, he would have to bring along some of his senior officers and planners. He would fly back to Florida for the third time in four days, pick them up, and leave straight from there for Saudi Arabia on his own plane.

  The intelligence that was coming in showed that Saddam was not withdrawing his forces from Kuwait. Instead, m
ore and more Iraqi troops were arriving there.

  • • •

  In Saudi Arabia, Bandar was told that the king had ordered Saudi scouts to cross the border into Kuwait to see if they could see the Iraqi troops that Bandar had reported. The scouts had come back reporting nothing. There was no trace of the Iraqi troops heading toward the kingdom.

  Bandar explained again to the king that he had seen the overheads. There was a debate among the king’s advisers. Much doubt was expressed. Bandar said the king ought to see for himself. The doubt was all the more reason to give the okay for the American team to come make their presentation, Bandar argued, and they might as well accept Cheney, not some lower-level representative.

  King Fahd finally agreed.

  Bandar called Scowcroft. The Cheney mission was approved, he said. “Come ahead and send him.”

  Scowcroft was pleased, but he also wondered about the Saudis’ change of heart. Bandar felt that Scowcroft had panicked. These things always took time to work out. There was always some back and forth.

  The two agreed that this did not necessarily mean the king had made the more important decision to accept the U.S. forces. Bandar could not provide absolute assurance on that. But by the end of the conversation, Scowcroft felt that they should take the risk of sending Cheney.

  The President agreed.

  Scowcroft called Cheney again. “They will accept you,” he said. “It’s a go.”

  Departure time was set for 2:30 that afternoon. Cheney was taking Gates, General Schwarzkopf and half a dozen others.

  Before he left, Cheney spoke to Bush, who was still at Camp David. There was no time for formal, written instructions. The President outlined the mission verbally. Get the king to agree to accept U.S. forces, he said, get that invitation, persuade him. Prove that the administration will commit fully to a defense and will not back down. If King Fahd invited the U.S. forces in, Bush would send them en masse and they would stay as long as necessary, but not longer than the Saudis wanted.

  Powell didn’t get word that Cheney was off to Saudi Arabia until Cheney was almost in the air. As he ran over the events of the past several days in his mind, the Chairman was unable to pinpoint precisely when the President had decided that this major deployment was what he wanted to do. There had not been a piece of paper that laid out the decision or the alternatives, or the implications. There had been no clear statement about goals. The one thing that was clear was that the President was deeply, even emotionally, concerned about the fate of Saudi Arabia.

  Powell felt he had played his proper role, laying down the necessity of doing it right—ground troops, airpower, Operations Plan 90–1002. Schwarzkopf was en route to Saudi Arabia with Cheney and with his copy of “Ten-oh-two,” which outlined the deployment of 250,000 troops, airmen and sailors.

  That afternoon, Powell was watching CNN as Bush returned from Camp David and stepped off his helicopter on the White House lawn. Bush went to the microphones to comment on the diplomatic activity—talks with the leaders of Turkey, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, and with the now deposed emir of Kuwait. “What’s emerging is nobody seems to be showing up as willing to accept anything less than total withdrawal from Kuwait of Iraqi forces, and no puppet regime,” the President said.

  “Are you going to move militarily?” he was asked by one reporter.

  “I will not discuss with you what my options are or might be, but they’re wide open, I can assure you of that.” Bush was clearly angered. “Iraq lied once again. They said they were going to start moving out today, and we have no evidence of their moving out.”

  When he was pressed by the reporters, Bush snapped, “Just wait. Watch and learn.”

  Waving his finger, growing visibly hot, he said, “I view very seriously our determination to reverse out this aggression. . . . This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.”

  “Uh-oh!” Powell said to himself. The President had now clearly, categorically, set a new goal, not only to deter an attack on Saudi Arabia and defend Saudi Arabia but to reverse the invasion of Kuwait. Powell was stunned. He had not been consulted. He had not spoken with Bush since the Camp David meeting the previous morning.

  It was true that Bush had said the first day after the invasion that he wanted it reversed, but it had not been set in stone. Now here it was, a personal and emotional declaration.

  Powell had seen presidents get off helicopters and pop off like this before. At times it was an accident, at times it was intentional. Maybe Baker, Scowcroft or Cheney or someone had advised or recommended this. Maybe it was something the President had been brooding about. But Powell knew that he certainly had not been part of it. There had been no NSC meeting, no debate. The Chairman could not understand why the President had laid down this new marker, changing radically the definition of success. It was one thing to stop Saddam from going into other countries like Saudi Arabia; it was very much another thing to reverse an invasion that was accomplished. In military terms, it was night and day. A defense of Saudi Arabia might be accomplished without a fight. Schwarzkopf had told Bush that it would take 8 to 12 months to build U.S. forces up to a level adequate to kick Saddam out of Kuwait. Reversing an invasion was probably the most difficult military task imaginable, and Powell, the number-one military man, had been given no opportunity to offer his assessment.

  This angry statement was much more than Powell had expected from Bush. Powell marveled at the distance Bush had traveled in three days. To Powell, it was almost as if the President had six-shooters in both hands and he was blazing away.

  • • •

  Powell went to the White House that evening for an NSC meeting. Bush, he saw, was still one determined President. He was worked up, his mind made up. If Cheney obtained an invitation, the President was going into Saudi Arabia. Powell attempted to tailor his comments and advice to this obvious given. At the meeting, he made four points:

  • Saddam did not want and could not withstand a war with the United States. He was ruthless but not irrational. He would be able to see that he would lose a full-scale shootout with the American superpower. In any event, it was important to make Saddam think he did not want a war with the United States, so they had to get forces there.

  • As he had said before, sufficient force had to be sent, no phony defense, no phony deterrence. Operations Plan 90–1002 would guarantee control of the air and sea. Ground forces had to include several heavy divisions to be both a credible deterrent and a credible fighting force.

  • A token force—elements of the 82nd Division Ready Brigade—had to be sent immediately as a demonstration of commitment.

  • The deployment had to be visible so Saddam could see it and know that any attack into Saudi Arabia would put him in ground combat with Americans.

  Bush seemed to like Powell’s points and had no quarrel with them. Whatever it takes to do the job, he said.

  The reports from the intelligence agencies were becoming more and more hysterical, Powell felt. As they showed more concern, he found himself becoming less concerned. Powell believed Saddam was gambling. The Iraqi leader thought he could get away with Kuwait, thought it was worth the gamble. Kuwait was his target—small, unpopular and an afterthought in the region. Its riches were a source of resentment to the have-nots in the Arab world. Saddam would know that Saudi Arabia was another matter entirely. Attacking Saudi Arabia would be overreaching; it would be a direct assault on the oil-dependent West.

  Baker, like Powell, realized that there had been no debate on whether to make the deployment. Likewise, there had been no discussion about the level of force. The deployment had been decided by George Bush; the level of force was being decided by Operations Plan 90–1002.

  Baker liked to solve problems with negotiations and deal-making. He was well on the road to negotiating away the Cold War, and he hoped there soon would be an opportunity to use diplomacy in this new crisis.

  Later, Baker worried to several of his closest ai
des that the White House was speeding, not thinking through what it was doing. Saudi Arabia was a vital national security interest, he believed, and the intelligence showed it was threatened. But Baker knew about moving troops. The first arrivals would be only several thousand. He had grave reservations. “These young men could be slaughtered if Saddam Hussein attacked,” he said.

  * * *

  19

  * * *

  CHENEY’S PLANE, a comfortable modern jetliner very like the Vice President’s Air Force Two, had left Andrews Air Force Base about 2:30 p.m that Sunday. Accompanying Cheney were General Schwarzkopf, who had made his fourth trip to Washington from Florida in five days; Bob Gates of the NSC; Paul Wolfowitz, the undersecretary for policy; Pete Williams; Charles W. Freeman, Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, a career foreign service officer who spoke Arabic; and a CIA expert from the National Photographic Interpretation Center with the latest top-secret satellite photographs.

  The CIA man was so concerned about security he acted as if he’d surgically bonded the pouch of photos to his knees.

  Cheney said he wanted to walk through a practice run of their presentation to King Fahd. He would open with general remarks, then the CIA man would brief the king on how Iraq had accomplished the invasion and on the Iraqi capabilities assembled near the Saudi border. Schwarzkopf would give his presentation on what the United States could do to help to deter and defend, and he himself would close with a summary.

  Cheney said he planned to say the following: The United States has a longstanding relationship with Your Majesty and the Saudi Kingdom. We will only come in if you want us. We will only come in for as long as you want us. We are not coming to establish a permanent military presence. But we will stay as long as we can do the job. This will not be a weak or partial presence. It will reflect the President’s commitment to the full defense of your country. We won’t pull and run on you.