IN GENEVA THE NEXT DAY, January 9, Baker held a six-and-a-half-hour meeting with Tariq Aziz at the Intercontinental Hotel. The Secretary of State presented Bush’s eight-paragraph “brink-of-war” letter. Aziz read it and left it on the table. He declined to accept it or to carry it to Saddam.
Baker appeared afterward at a press conference, his face drawn and solemn. “I heard nothing that suggested to me any Iraqi flexibility whatsoever,” he said. Watching on television back at the White House, Scowcroft knew that negotiations were now really over.
The Secretary of State flew on to Saudi Arabia to meet with King Fahd. Under the secret agreement with the United States, Fahd had to give his permission for any offensive military operation that might be staged from his country. Baker now asked for that permission. Fahd quickly gave his approval, asking only that he receive advance notification prior to war.
Baker promised that he would personally pass the word to Prince Bandar in Washington before any attack.
They agreed that very careful communications arrangements between Bandar in Washington and Fahd in Saudi Arabia had to be worked out to prevent a leak. So they would not have to worry about transmitting messages or finding secure phones, Fahd and Bandar arranged to use a codeword, “Suleiman,” the name of an employee of the royal family when Bandar was a child. If Bandar mentioned Suleiman in a phone call to the king, that would mean war.
Though Cheney had cautioned against seeking a resolution of support from the Congress, he lobbied hard for its approval. He was sent to the Hill to lobby his own constituency, the Republicans; the White House did not send him to talk with wavering Democrats. He spoke to a closed-door caucus of all House Republicans and then a similar session with all Senate Republicans. He did not tip off anyone that a war was imminent. But he did say that they should have no illusions: don’t vote for this resolution if you are reading it as another diplomatic lever.
Bush and the White House leaned hard, however, on the argument that the resolution was the last, best chance to persuade Saddam to withdraw.
On Saturday, January 12, after three days of sober debate, the Congress granted Bush the authority to go to war. The resolution it passed included the “all necessary means” language of the United Nations resolution, but also specifically authorized “use of military force.”
The vote was close in the Senate—52 to 47. The House approved it 250 to 183.
Cheney decided he had to eat a little crow. He called the President and congratulated him. Cheney acknowledged that he had been wrong, the President had read the Congress better.
Bush told reporters: “This clear expression of the Congress represents the last, best chance for peace.” Asked if this made war inevitable, Bush said no.
“Have you made the decision in your mind?” one reporter asked.
“I have not because I still hope that there will be a peaceful solution.” He added that “an instant commencement of a large-scale removal of troops with no condition, no concession, and just heading out could well be the best and only way to avert war, even though it would be, at this date, I would say almost impossible [for Saddam] to comply fully with the United Nations resolutions.”
Eagleburger and Wolfowitz had been dispatched to Israel that weekend. Israel was still the wild card. The previous month, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had made an extraordinary pledge directly to Bush. Despite Iraq’s obvious preparations to attack Israel, and the Iraqis’ public assurances that they would, Shamir said Israel would not launch a preemptive attack on Iraq. This would be a departure from the traditional Israeli emphasis on surprise attacks, which had obvious military advantages. Israel would not start the war.
Among other things, Shamir did not want to discourage immigration, which would fall off if Israel became directly involved in the war and began looking like a dangerous place.
But no one on the U.S. side was sure what Israel would do when it was attacked by Saddam, as was now certain to happen. Wolfowitz and Eagleburger tried to sound out the Israeli leadership. Shamir said that he naturally could not make promises about what Israel would do. No state could make such a pledge, particularly not Israel, with its long tradition of answering any and every terrorist incident. But he agreed to consult with the United States before acting, and promised it would not be just a perfunctory notification after the cabinet had decided to respond. It would be a genuine consultation. Shamir said he saw the advantages of staying out of a war, but the tried and tested principles of state survival might dictate unilateral action.
Eagleburger and Wolfowitz offered to improve Israel’s defenses through an expansion of a deployment of U.S. Patriot missiles that was already under way. These ground-to-air anti-missile missiles could be used against Iraqi SCUDS. It was not a proven system, but it was the best system available. The Israelis were skeptical, but they agreed to accept the offer, which would eventually include U.S. operation and maintenance crews.
Bush had also authorized a special top-secret, secure, voice communications link between the Pentagon operations center and the Israeli Defense Force headquarters in Tel Aviv. U.S. personnel in Israel would monitor and operate the cryptographic equipment that was part of the system. Cheney would be able to plug into this secure line, given the codename HAMMER RICK, from his office. President Bush promised that Cheney would give the Israelis advance notice before any offensive operation was commenced. HAMMER RICK would also be used to pass the very latest and best intelligence to the Israelis about any possible attacks on Israel.
The system became operational on Sunday, January 13.
That night, Bush met with Cheney, Scowcroft and Powell at the White House residence. Baker was still traveling. Having made the crucial decisions, the group now just had to keep the operation on track. Schwarzkopf’s preferred date and time for the attack, an H-Hour of 3 a.m. Saudi time on January 17, was still good. The question was when and how to make the necessary notifications to the allies and the Congress. Soon enough but not too soon, they agreed. An hour or two before the operation in most cases.
Cheney also reviewed the target list with the President, to make sure Bush was aware of potential points of controversy. He wanted Bush to be happy with all of it.
The President was concerned about one set of targets and asked that it be dropped. It included statues of Saddam and triumphal arches thought to be of great psychological value to the Iraqi people as national symbols.
• • •
On Monday morning, January 14, Cheney and Powell spent an hour in the STOC going over the targets for the air campaign one final time. Special task forces made up of hundreds of intelligence officers and planners had coordinated all the information—satellite photos, intercepted communications and anything else available—to make sure that a crippling blow would be dealt to Saddam’s communications and air defenses in the first 24 hours. Thereafter, the air campaign would be a systematic juggernaut that would reduce the Iraqi war machine more each day.
Bush invited Air Force chief of staff McPeak, Cheney and Scowcroft for lunch that day in the White House residence. McPeak had just returned from 10 days in the Gulf visiting Air Force units, and Bush, a Navy pilot in World War II, wanted a firsthand account.
McPeak still felt that the operation could be done with much less force. He believed in air power as much as the departed General Dugan, and felt the other services had gone way overboard in their deployments. The Marines were too willing to build another Iwo Jima Memorial for their dead comrades. The Navy didn’t need six aircraft carriers for the operation, and the Army certainly didn’t need the VII Corps. Ground forces would be needed so someone could walk into Saddam’s office with a bayonet and make him sign the surrender papers, but not for much more. But McPeak was keeping his mouth shut. He had quickly grasped Powell’s doctrine of maximum force and was not arguing.
The Air Force chief told Bush that in order to satisfy himself about his own service’s readiness, he had visited 16 of the air bases in the Gulf and gone out with the air crews in elaborate rehearsals over the Saudi desert. Routes had been created to duplicate the distances and conditions the air crews would encounter inside Iraq.
“These guys are ready to go,” McPeak told Bush. “I’ve been out there. I’ve been flying with these guys. They are very good. They’re peaked up.” He said that if the President decided to launch the offense, his recommendation was to do it as soon after the January 15 deadline as possible. In the first weeks of the deployment in August, McPeak said, there had been lots of fighter pilot talk: “We’re going to rip his head off” and so forth. Now there was no bravado. The pilots were calm and cool. It reminded him of the experienced gunfighters in the movie Shane, knowing there would be a shootout but not eager for it.
Bush wanted details.
I went out with a flight of four F-15s, McPeak explained. I flew in position number two, which is where they always put the weak guy. Carrying live 2,000-pound bombs, I flew six sorties. Combat conditions were duplicated. Radio silence. We flew in an armada with electronic jamming aircraft and tankers to refuel. It looked like the movie Star Wars.
The pilots could not withstand much more delay, he told Bush. Any substantial delay past tomorrow would really let the air out of their balloons psychologically, he said. It would be ruinous.
Congressional leaders were summoned later in the day to an urgent meeting at the White House. Asked when the United States would attack, Bush replied, “Sooner rather than later.”
Late in the afternoon, Baker and Bob Kimmitt went to the Pentagon and spent an hour in the STOC reviewing the targets. Cheney wanted Baker to apply his political eye to the air campaign, to see if he spotted any unforeseen consequence. No other changes were made in the target lists.
• • •
Bush spoke with Baker by phone at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, January 15, then went for a solitary walk around the White House south lawn.
The President called two clergymen that morning. One was the head of Bush’s own church, Bishop Edmond Browning, the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Browning had led a peace vigil the night before outside the White House.
Bush also phoned the Senate chaplain, the Reverend Richard C. Halverson, who joined him in a prayer for the nation.
At 10:30 a.m. Bush met in the Oval Office with his inner council: Quayle, Baker, Cheney, Scowcroft, Powell, Sununu and Gates. Bush had the two-page draft of the top-secret National Security Directive (NSD) before him.
It had been modified to include two conditions. It now authorized the execution of Operation Desert Storm, provided that: (1) there was no last-minute diplomatic breakthrough, and (2) Congress had been properly notified. The document basically laid out the administration’s case for launching the offensive soon after the deadline. It stated that it was the policy of the United States to get Iraq to leave Kuwait; all peaceful means, including diplomacy, economic sanctions and a dozen U.N. resolutions, had failed to persuade Iraq to withdraw; waiting would be potentially damaging to U.S. interests because Iraq was continuing to move additional forces into the Kuwaiti theater of operations, and was improving its fortifications in occupied Kuwait; Iraq continued to pillage Kuwait and brutalize its people; Iraq’s military had to be attacked in order to defend U.S. and allied forces. It also directed that civilian casualties and damage to Iraq should be minimized consistent with protecting friendly forces, and that Islamic holy places should be protected.
The President signed it. The NSD was intentionally not dated. The date and time would be added when and if the two conditions were met.
Bush authorized Cheney to sign a formal execute order and send it to Schwarzkopf that day.
Cheney went to have lunch with the Senate Republicans. At a separate meeting with Democratic senators, he was asked, “When the deadline expires, are you going to wait or will you move fairly rapidly?”
Operational security was foremost in Cheney’s mind, but he did not want to mislead them. “Sooner rather than later,” he replied, using the phrase Bush had used the day before in speaking to congressional leaders.
By 5 p.m., Cheney was back in his office. Powell arrived with a top-secret folder containing the execute order. The Chairman had written it out himself. He went over it with Cheney. An orange cover sheet explained that the order was authorizing Schwarzkopf to execute Desert Storm pursuant to the warning order of December 29.
If it had been a normal execute order, Cheney would have just initialed a block on the front to indicate he had approved it. Powell would then formally release it, under his authority to transmit communications between the Secretary and the CINC.
But both men knew this was a historic document. They signed their full names.
Powell had a copy faxed “Eyes Only” to Schwarzkopf on the top-secret fax circuit. In about 26 hours, Operation Desert Shield was to become Desert Storm.
Until now, Powell had kept the decision secret from his staff. Now he called Tom Kelly in. The war begins tomorrow night, Powell said. Kelly, the former journalism major, would be the daily briefing officer for the press at the Pentagon, as he had been for the Panama operation. There was no telling how many daily briefings might be required. Answer questions but don’t make any news, Powell instructed him.
Yes, sir, Kelly said. Though Kelly had not known for sure, he had become convinced over the last several weeks that there would be a war. The intelligence showed that Saddam was preparing. He was still extending his fortifications, digging in, sending in more troops. There was more oil in the Iraqi trenches for burning American tanks, more barbed wire, more mines, more bunkers. Kelly was amazed by Saddam’s apparent expectations. He seemed to think that the United States planned to let this become another Iran-Iraq War, with two ignorant armies throwing themselves directly into each other’s defenses for eight years. Imagine, Kelly thought, what Saddam and his generals would think if they glanced at the unclassified U.S. Army operations manual, with its emphasis on maneuver warfare.
Kelly was astonished at the calm in the Pentagon. The Panama operation had seemed more chaotic to him. There was one similarity to Panama, however. Even with the months of preparation and the uncountable advantages of the U.S. and coalition forces, he was still not sure there wouldn’t be a screw-up. The old fear of failure had taken hold.
Prince Bandar came to visit Cheney that afternoon.
“Any word?” Bandar asked. “Are we days or weeks away?”
Cheney smiled obliquely. It looks like a good week, he said.
Bandar took this to mean soon, but as he later went over the conversation he could not be sure.
• • •
After many meetings and consultations with the news media, Pete Williams that day released the ground rules for reporters in the event of hostilities in the Persian Gulf. The 12 rules, listed on a single page, banned publication or broadcast of specific information the department wanted kept secret, including numbers of troops, aircraft, weapons, equipment and supplies; future plans and operations; locations of forces; and tactics. All combat reporting would be done by groups of reporters in pools, whose work would be subject to security review before it was released. No reporters would be allowed to rove freely in combat zones as they had in Vietnam.
Kelly marveled at how Powell had controlled his piece of Desert Shield, the military planning and decision making. Much of the real business not done at White House meetings was conducted on “the magic telephone,” the latest generation of secure telephone. It linked only the President, the Vice President, Scowcroft, Sununu, Baker, Cheney, Powell and the CINCs, including Schwarzkopf. Powell’s big white console hooking him into this loop sat prominently on his office credenza. He made extensive use of it, ensuring that he was the military’s point man in Washington with the civilians. Using his own “magic” extension, Schwarzkopf played the same role in Saudi Arabia.
To avoid a repeat of the military’s Vietnam nightmare—President Lyndon Johnson leaning over maps in the White House, circling specific targets—Powell had kept as much air-targeting information as possible out of Washington. The most up-to-date target list for the first day’s air strike was not even available to Kelly or his staff. Kelly had been told he would receive it the day after, with reports on what had happened. And the daily air-tasking orders, laying out all the planned air strikes, were not going to come to Washington in advance.
Powell had used the service chiefs quite effectively, Kelly thought. He kept them informed so they did not feel out of it, but in fact they played almost no role in the decision making. Their influence hovered somewhere around zero, Kelly thought.
General Vuono had helped in one sense, making sure that Schwarzkopf had the latest equipment. Sometimes it had to be forced on him. Vuono had insisted that more than 1,000 of the latest modernized tank, the M-1A1, be sent to the Army units that had already been deployed without this state-of-the-art model. Schwarzkopf had at first resisted because he wanted to avoid the disruption of switching to new equipment that the troops would have to learn to use. But the new tanks improved combat effectiveness and the confidence of the soldiers. The effective range of the M-1A1 was about double that of the best Iraqi T-72 tank. It would make the United States like a boxer with a six-foot arm. Schwarzkopf agreed to take the tanks.
The Army chief had also pushed Schwarzkopf to accept a surveillance system called J-STARS (Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System). Brand new and untested in battle, J-STARS detected the movements of tanks and other ground vehicles, covering the ground the way AWACS planes covered the air. The two J-STARS units sent to Schwarzkopf provided a full ground radar picture of the terrain 100 miles into Kuwait and Iraq, virtually guaranteeing that the U.S. forces could not be surprised or outmaneuvered at the front by the Iraqis.
• • •
The next morning, January 16, before going into the Pentagon, Cheney packed a suitcase. He expected to spend several nights in his office. So as not to tip off his driver and security people, he decided to leave the packed bag at home. He could dispatch his driver for it as H-Hour approached.
By the time Cheney arrived at the office, B-52 bombers had been launched from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, flying to the Gulf. They were to be refueled in flight during the 18 hours it would take them to reach their targets. These planes could be recalled. The decision had not yet reached the point of no return.
Cheney had cleared his schedule, pushing budget and other matters to his deputy, Don Atwood. He picked up the hand-held remote-control unit for the television in his office and clicked it to CNN. He thought the first leak or hint that the air operation was under way would most likely come from the 24-hour news service.
The Secretary wondered how well the U.S. forces would perform. At what cost? At what casualty level? He had received the estimates produced by various computer models, but he had concluded they were no more than guesses. There was no knot in his stomach. It was out of his hands.
• • •
That morning Baker summoned Bandar to the State Department to say it was a go that night: 7 p.m. here, 3 a.m. in Saudi Arabia.
Bandar called King Fahd. After they’d chatted for a few moments, Bandar, trying to make it sound like an afterthought, said, “Our old friend Suleiman is coming at 3 a.m. He’s sick and I’ll ship him out, and he’ll get there at 3 a.m.”
Bandar was amazed that it looked like the U.S. and the coalition forces were going to be able to achieve surprise. The reason, he concluded, was probably that the message to Saddam had been so mixed and confused over the months. George Bush apparently had been unreadable to Saddam. The ironic truth, Bandar felt, was that the war had been sealed by cultural misunderstanding.
At 4:50 p.m., the first F-15 Eagles were taking off for their targets. They too could be recalled. Air-refueling tankers were up. More and more of the air war was moving toward the brink. Cheney saw that no one in the press was picking up on it. The news reporters were so bottled up by the rules, and there had been so much air activity over the previous months, that it all looked routine.
The White House had assigned Cheney the responsibility of keeping the Israelis plugged in, but not so plugged in as to make them de facto members of the coalition. It was a delicate assignment. Saddam had promised to attack Israel in some way if the coalition attacked him, and the Israelis were entitled to a warning. But any Israeli participation in the war would have negative reverberations in the Arab world, and might weaken the coalition. At around 5 p.m., Cheney picked up the HAMMER RICK line, to call Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens with the first notification that the offensive was being launched.
• • •
At precisely 5:30 the U.S.S. Bunker Hill, an Aegis-class cruiser in the Persian Gulf, fired a Tomahawk missile to its designated target inside Iraq. This unmanned cruise missile could not be recalled. There was no turning back now.
About 20 Tomahawks were preprogrammed to hit Saddam’s presidential palace, the main telephone exchange and Baghdad’s electrical power-generating stations at H-Hour. Nine U.S. Navy ships were assigned to fire 106 Tomahawks in the first 24 hours of the war. Since the missile had never been used in combat, there were Air Force bombers assigned as back-ups for all the Tomahawk targets. The air campaign would involve more than 1,000 sorties in the first 24 hours, and expand after that.
At 5:31 the U.S.S. Wisconsin launched its first Tomahawk.
An intelligence unit embarked on the Wisconsin dispatched a report of the firing on the military’s CRITIC emergency alert system, designed to send out a flash message whenever there were “strong indications of the imminent outbreak of hostilities of any type.” CRITIC was created to make sure all U.S. forces worldwide would receive the earliest alert of possible hostilities, especially an attack by the Soviet Union. The message overrode all other message traffic, automatically ringing bells on teletype machines at thousands of commands worldwide.
“Why did those dumb bastards do that?” Kelly said. “The Navy did it again.” He notified Powell at once.
My God, Powell thought, we are going to blow operational security on ourselves.
The Wisconsin was ordered to cancel the message. The cancelation message went out with equal speed. Military men and women throughout the world know that the first report on any incident is frequently wrong, so no one had jumped to conclusions. Operational security held.
Cheney and Powell ordered that the CRITIC system be temporarily disconnected. Powell tried to find out who had been stupid enough to activate it, so he could disconnect them.
Cheney continued to watch CNN. Anchorman Bernard Shaw was in Baghdad interviewing former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite in New York about covering wars. Cronkite was reminiscing about his experiences going back to World War II. Shaw explained that he had gone to Baghdad to interview Saddam, but the interview had not worked out and therefore he was leaving on a flight the next afternoon.
There weren’t going to be any flights out the next afternoon, Cheney knew. He felt a strange sensation watching this conversation, knowing that hundreds of attack missions were heading for Kuwait and Iraq, unbeknownst to the media and almost all Americans.
As H-Hour approached, the Secretary sent his driver to McLean for his suitcase. Someone in the office was dispatched for Chinese food.