POWELL WAS UP EARLY ON SUNDAY, September 16. He had just returned the night before from Saudi Arabia and was jet-lagged. During his whirlwind tour, the troops had bombarded him with questions in front of reporters about when they would be going home, and he wasn’t happy that he did not have a satisfactory answer. At 6 a.m. he heard a report on CNN about statements Air Force Chief General Michael Dugan had made about the plans for war against Iraq. The report, based on a story published that morning in The Washington Post, sounded weird. Powell went looking for his Post on the doorstep outside Quarters 6, but it hadn’t arrived yet.
About 40 minutes later the paper came, and Powell began reading the story, prominently stretched across the entire top of the front page. Under the headline, “U.S. to Rely on Air Strikes if War Erupts,” Powell read: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff have concluded that U.S. military air power—including a massive bombing campaign against Baghdad that specifically targets Iraqi President Saddam Hussein—is the only effective option to force Iraqi forces from Kuwait if war erupts, according to Air Force chief of staff Gen. Michael J. Dugan.”
With mounting surprise and alarm, Powell read that Dugan said the other chiefs as well as General Schwarzkopf shared Dugan’s view that “ ‘air power is the only answer that’s available to our country’ to avoid a bloody land war that would probably destroy Kuwait.
“Until two weeks ago,” Powell read, “U.S. target planners had assembled a somewhat conventional list of Iraqi targets which included, in order of priority: Iraqi air defenses; airfields and warplanes; intermediate-range missile sites, including SCUD ground-to-ground missiles; communications and command centers; chemical, nuclear and munitions plants; and Iraqi armor formations. . . .
“ ‘That’s a nice list of targets, and I might be able to accept those, but that’s not enough,’ Dugan said. He asked his planners to interview academics, journalists, ‘ex-military types’ and Iraqi defectors to determine ‘what is unique about Iraqi culture that they put very high value on. What is it that psychologically would make an impact on the population and regime in Iraq?’ The intent, he added, is to find ‘centers of gravity, where air power could make a difference early on.’
“Israeli sources have advised that ‘the best way to hurt Saddam’ is to target his family, his personal guard and his mistress. Because Saddam is a ‘one man show’ in Iraq, Dugan said, ‘if and when we choose violence he ought to be at the focus of our efforts’—a military strategy known as decapitation.”
Powell read Dugan’s comments about Iraqi capabilities. “Their air force has very limited military capability,” “they did not distinguish themselves in the war against Iran” and they have “an incompetent Army.”
The predominance of airpower was the overriding theme, a kind of one-service, Victory-Through-Airpower approach. While Dugan admitted that “there are a lot of things that air power cannot accomplish,” and that the Air Force had “great difficulty in driving people out of the jungle” in Vietnam, he added that “there’s not much jungle where we’re going.” The article said that “Marine and Army ground forces could be used for diversions, flanking attacks and to block an Iraqi counterstrike on Saudi Arabia. . . . Ground forces may be needed to reoccupy Kuwait, Dugan added, but only after air power has so shattered enemy resistance that soldiers can ‘walk in and not have to fight’ house-to-house.”
The piece closed with comments Dugan had made to an F-15 squadron about American support for the operation: “ ‘I think they’d support this operation longer than you would think. . . . The American people will support this operation until body bags come home.’ ”
To Powell, the story read as a public shot across his bow during a most sensitive phase of the deployment, and against the joint consensus Powell had worked so hard to maintain among the services and the chiefs.
It gave a status report on the deployment of U.S. forces to the region and their general readiness for battle, including numbers and types of specific aircraft—details Powell had worked hard to keep out of the media.
This is going to be bad, Powell thought. He noted that the Post said Dugan and five of his generals had been interviewed for some ten hours “during a trip to and from Saudi Arabia last week.” Talking to reporters for so long in such close quarters was a dangerous and foolish thing to do, Powell knew, and any junior public relations officer knew it. He couldn’t believe Dugan had done it. Powell was well aware that Dugan had put a premium on mending Air Force relations with the media, which he felt had been hurt by his predecessor Welch. As part of the campaign, Dugan had had his public affairs people print up laminated Rolodex-size cards with an “on TARGET CONTACT LIST” of the phone numbers of 31 top Air Force officials, “to assist reporters and editors to prepare accurate stories on Air Force issues.” In recent weeks, Powell had congratulated Dugan several times about his media policy, but he’d also repeatedly cautioned him to remember that the President was the decision maker. The Air Force chief obviously had been swept up with seeing the troops, and had gone seriously overboard with his new age of openness.
Powell called Cheney at 7 a.m., knowing the Secretary was up early even on Sundays.
“Have you read the Post?” Powell asked.
Cheney said he hadn’t.
Powell told him about the story, and said he thought it was bad.
Cheney retrieved his copy of the newspaper and read the story twice. Furious, he called Pete Williams at home.
Cheney also talked to Scowcroft, who was going to do a taping of the talk show “Face the Nation” at 10:30 a.m.
Scowcroft was not prepared to say airpower could win a major conflict. It never had. He was aghast that the Air Force chief was pushing that line, particularly in such a rambling way, showing a lack of self-discipline. Scowcroft could hear that Cheney was angry, and rightly so, he thought.
“At a minimum,” Scowcroft told Cheney, “I think I have to say, at this point he does not speak for the administration.”
Cheney agreed.
On “Face the Nation” Scowcroft made his point: “General Dugan is not in the chain of command and does not speak for the administration.” Meanwhile, Cheney went out for a two-hour walk along the C & O Canal, which runs next to the Potomac. He had been a runner, but was forced to give it up when his knees went bad. A daily walk was his main form of exercise.
Pete Williams talked to Powell. The Chairman wanted to know what Scowcroft was going to say. What was Cheney going to say? What had Williams heard? What was Williams going to say? It was obvious Powell was worried.
Back home from his walk, Cheney read the story again. He was still steaming; he called Williams, who came over with a copy of a Los Angeles Times story, written by another reporter on the trip. Cheney and Williams compared the two stories and saw that they tracked very closely. There was little possibility Dugan had been misunderstood or misquoted.
Cheney called Camp David where Bush was playing tennis. Don’t pull him off the court, Cheney said, leaving a message. Bush called back after the match. He had already seen the story in the Post. It seemed a little bizarre, but Bush thought it might be an intentional, crafty attempt by the Pentagon to scare Saddam.
No, Cheney said, unfortunately it was not a ploy. Cheney said the comments were so extreme that he might find it necessary to relieve General Dugan. “Do you have a problem with that?” Cheney asked.
No, Bush said, whatever Cheney wanted to do, he would have Bush’s support.
Bush still wasn’t too upset about it, but he could tell that Cheney was hopping mad.
That night Cheney called his new military assistant, Rear Admiral Joe Lopez. Have General Dugan in my office in the morning at 8 a.m., Cheney directed. He then called Williams and said he was thinking about firing Dugan.
“If I did it, think about what I should say and what the reaction might be,” the Secretary told Williams.
Williams had always thought it was a very bad idea for Dugan to take such a strong personal role in working the press. “I’m the top Air Force public affairs guy,” Williams remembered Dugan saying. Senior people like the Air Force chief needed public affairs professionals to provide insulation. He had argued, to no avail, against Dugan bringing reporters with him on the Saudi Arabian trip. Williams was also amazed that there had been no heads-up in the system. Neither Powell, Cheney nor Williams himself had been alerted in advance that these stories were coming. That, he realized, was part of the problem—someone in the Air Force should have seen the potential danger and made a discreet call of notification.
• • •
Cheney thought long and hard. Policing the four-stars was part of his ongoing job managing the building. Dugan was not the first, nor would he likely be the last, officer to step out of line. Dugan was a good man who had been off to a great start as chief. It would be a hell of a way for him to end his distinguished career. But Dugan’s comments were way over the boundary. The new chief was obviously a loose cannon.
Cheney filled two yellow legal pages with key excerpts of the articles, then turned to a third to summarize his reasoning. Under the heading “Problems,” he jotted down the following:
1. You displayed egregious judgment.
2. The discussion of operational plans and a priority listing of targets.
3. It makes you the self-appointed spokesman for the JCS and the theater commander.
4. A bad example for others, especially in the Air Force.
5. Treats the prospect of casualties in a cavalier manner.
6. You said we would violate the executive order banning participation in assassinations.
7. The potential revelation of classified information about the size and disposition of our forces.
8. You denigrated the role of the other services.
9. Raises sensitive matters of diplomacy, including obtaining targeting information from Israel.
Before 8 a.m. the next morning, Cheney had Deputy Secretary Don Atwood and Powell in his office. It is my intention to relieve Dugan, Cheney said.
There followed some discussion of the downsides and impact. A firing certainly would draw attention to some Dugan statements in the articles that had not been picked up by other major news organizations that morning; real scoops tended to die unless backed up by official reaction.
Cheney made it clear that he was convinced he had to act. Neither Atwood nor Powell offered any strenuous arguments against it.
Powell left, but Atwood stayed in Cheney’s office.
When Dugan arrived, Cheney went through the major points in the articles point by point, asking Dugan if he’d actually made the statements attributed to him.
Yes, Dugan said, he had basically said those things.
Cheney told Dugan he would have to relieve him of his responsibilities as Air Force chief. So that there was no ambiguity about the reasoning, Cheney read out his list of nine reasons why he was taking this action. Cheney also said that Dugan’s remarks and tone had suggested disdain for the quality of the Iraqi forces.
If you, the Air Force chief, don’t take them seriously, then you’re not the right guy to lead the Air Force in the future, Cheney said. You’re relieved.
Dugan said little.
Neither the Secretary of the Air Force, Donald Rice, nor General Schwarzkopf had been consulted on the decision.
Cheney put in a call to Bush, who was in a meeting. He asked Bush’s secretary to carry to the President at once a message that Dugan had been relieved. Cheney did not want Bush to be surprised.
Later that morning Cheney went to address a meeting of the Air Force Association, a private group with 200,000 members nationwide. Cheney decided not to announce the firing to this group; he wanted Dugan to have a few hours to tell people before word leaked out.
It was a moment of supreme awkwardness for Cheney when he walked into the association meeting and received a big cheer.
• • •
Previously scheduled to participate in a 12:30 p.m. press briefing at the White House, Cheney arrived early and took over Bob Gates’s closetlike office so he could use the desk there to write out a statement on the firing. At the White House and later at the Pentagon, he carefully summarized his reasons. Cheney aimed no harsh rhetoric at Dugan, opting to let the act of firing speak for itself. During the Pentagon briefing, he used the colorless word “inappropriate” four times to characterize Dugan’s actions. Although Cheney made it clear he had spoken to Bush and others, he said he’d ultimately made the call. “It’s basically my decision, my responsibility, and I’ve exercised it.”
• • •
In retirement, General Welch heard from retired and active-duty officers. It was clear that the service had been damaged. Welch was not worried about how the rest of the Air Force would treat Dugan. No one would say anything to hurt him, Welch was sure. The old blues would make sure Dugan was taken care of.
No one in the Air Force had said “that damn Cheney” about the firing. But Air Force people were asking one big question about the incident: Had Cheney’s decision to relieve the chief somehow discredited airpower?