America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan (38 page)

In front of and behind these fortifications, Saddam’s general established two lines, or belts, of men and machines. The first line, nearest the border with Saudi Arabia, consisted of second-tier infantry units. The second line of defense was made up of better equipped armored divisions and artillery brigades. The infantry’s job was to slow down and disrupt the invaders, who then, mired in the obstacles constructed, would be destroyed by the firepower of the second line. In reserve, behind the tanks and artillery pieces, were the Republican Guards. These elite troops would be directed to spots where needed and would finish off any of the enemy who somehow survived the devastation wrought by the network of Iraqi defenses.

As the Iraqis concentrated on strengthening their position in Kuwait and Norman Schwarzkopf assembled a force capable of defending Saudi Arabia, President Bush and his Secretary of State, James A. Baker, in Washington, focused on diplomacy. Their efforts had two targets: the United Nations and those countries that might join the United States in ousting Saddam from Kuwait. In these efforts, Bush and Baker displayed great skill and met with considerable success.

At the United Nations the Security Council acted promptly. It passed a resolution on the day of the invasion itself condemning the Iraqi action. In time, fourteen additional measures would be agreed to. These resolutions tightened the pressures on Iraq, which found itself increasingly isolated. Iraq’s standing in the world was hardly helped when Saddam Hussein announced that Westerners in Iraq would be held hostage and placed next to possible military targets as “human shields.”

The most significant Security Council resolution was passed on November 29. Frustrated by Iraq’s intransigence, the U.N. council authorized the use of force to eject Saddam’s troops from Kuwait if the Iraqis did not leave the country by January 15, 1991. With this resolution Bush and Baker had the international community’s permission to go to war.

The president and the secretary, however, realized that should the United States be the only nation besides Saudi Arabia to do battle with Iraq, the Arab world might well view the Americans as Westerners typically taking advantage of Arab nations, all for the sake of oil. To counter this interpretation, Bush and Baker worked hard to build a coalition of nations allied to rid Kuwait of the Iraqis.

They started with Egypt, whose president was more than willing to help, given the blatant lie Saddam had delivered. Other Arab states in the region also signed up. These included Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Also joining the Coalition were two nations whose borders touched those of Iraq. These were Syria and Turkey. The former’s participation was a surprise as it traditionally had (and still has) little love for the United States. Syria actually provided troops to Schwarzkopf’s command, though at the last minute it declined to have them participate in the Coalition’s offensive operations.

Turkey’s participation in part was made possible by James Baker’s visit to Ankara, where he enlisted the Turks’ support. A key aspect of this support was permission for the Americans to use the air base at Incirlik, which meant that Saddam had to watch his northern borders and not fully commit military assets to either southern Iraq or Kuwait.

Of course, Bush and Baker targeted America’s traditional allies as well. The result was that Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom joined the Coalition. So did Czechoslovakia and Poland, Morocco and Pakistan. In total, the two men, again demonstrating considerable skill, assembled a coalition of thirty nations intent on responding to the Iraq invasion. One of these nations was France, which deployed an armored division to the Gulf.

Perhaps the most important American ally willing to fight alongside the United States was Great Britain. Then possessing a first-rate military, Britain sent tanks, troops, and aircraft of the Royal Air Force. Eventually, British personnel in the Coalition would number some forty-five thousand men and women.

The British also committed naval vessels to the Coalition. Among these were ships essential to success in confronting the Iraqis, but in an arena of warfare that the U.S. Navy had neglected. This arena was mine warfare. The vessels were the Royal Navy’s Hunt class boats, perhaps the most sophisticated coastal mine-hunting ships in the world. As the Iraqis had laid more than twelve hundred mines in the confined waters of the Persian Gulf, the British boats became indispensable.

***

By the fall of 1990, it had become apparent that diplomatic efforts to have the Iraqis leave Kuwait peacefully were not succeeding and likely would not be successful. The Americans began to plan an offensive strategy to remove Saddam’s troops by force of arms.

The plan of attack was to be called Desert Storm. However, the number of U.S. troops then in the Gulf, approximately two hundred thousand, was deemed by Schwarzkopf to be insufficient. He wanted more soldiers and greater firepower. The four Americans making the decisions in Washington—Bush, Baker, Cheney, and Powell—gave him what he sought. Reserves were called up, and combat units stationed in Germany were dispatched to Saudi Arabia.

Among these units were two U.S. Army armored divisions. They were equipped with the finest tank in the world, the M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. Previous American tanks had been outclassed by enemy machines. Not so with the Abrams. It was a high-tech wonder. The tank’s armored protection was highly advanced, its gun and ammunition were extremely lethal, and its fire control system unequaled. The M1A1 was a superb weapon of war. Its only drawback was fuel consumption. An Abrams tank got 1.8 miles to the gallon.

Joining the two armored divisions from Germany were additional units, including one, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, that we shall hear of later in this narrative. Together, these forces, soon to include a British tank division, were called VII Corps (in U.S. Army terminology, a corps is two or more divisions and is commanded by a lieutenant general). Eventually, VII Corps would comprise 146,000 men. Its job was to smash the most powerful units of the Iraqi military, the Republican Guards.

A second U.S. Army corps also was assembled. This was XVIII Corps. It too was a powerful unit. As with VII Corps, it was equipped with artillery, infantry, tanks, and helicopters. Placed to the left of VII Corps, this strike force would have a different task, one calling for a quick flanking operation rather than a head-on direct assault.

Of course, the buildup of forces was not limited to ground troops. Aircraft too were deployed. These included the most advanced machines the United States Air Force possessed. One of these, the F-117, was an extraordinary tool of aerial warfare. True, it was small and not very fast. But by the use of exotic materials and radical design, the aircraft was invisible to radar. This meant that at night the F-117 was able to fly undetected to its target and back. In the plan General Schwarzkopf and his air commander, Lieutenant General Charles Horner, were devising, that target was Baghdad.

Also included in the air campaign being put together were aircraft belonging to the United States Navy. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait conjure up images of desert sand and oil derricks, not of ships at sea. Yet Kuwait has a coastline and the Saudi Kingdom is flanked by two bodies of water, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Both would host American aircraft carriers.

The warships ordered to the region were not limited to carriers and minesweepers. They included cruisers, destroyers, frigates, and the always essential supply ships as well. They also included one type of vessel that all navies, save one, had long retired from service.

On October 14, 1990, the USS
Missouri
departed Long Beach, California, and steamed toward the Persian Gulf. She was a battleship, first commissioned in 1944. Heavily armored and packing nine enormous guns, the
Missouri
was the one of four Iowa class boats that had been modernized and returned to sea during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Each had served its country well. Sent to the Gulf, the
Missouri
and her sister ship the USS
Wisconsin
would provide fire support to Coalition forces attacking Iraqi positions.

As Schwarzkopf received the troops and firepower he needed to conduct offensive operations, the ever present problems associated with assembling, maintaining, and training a large military force became critical. Logistics, the military art critical to battlefield success, was a constant concern to the Central Command leader. Troops arriving by air had to be reunited with their equipment that had come by sea. Tanks painted in dark green had to be repainted in desert sand. Soldiers had to be fed and housed. Medical facilities had to be established and sustained. Everyone in Saudi Arabia had to be issued gas masks and protective gear. By the time Schwarzkopf went on the attack, Central Command personnel numbered approximately six hundred thousand. Keeping them healthy and training them for desert warfare was a logistical challenge of the highest order. Fortunately for the American general, he had on his staff a little known officer who was a genius in the field of logistics.

The officer’s name was William “Gus” Pagonis. A major general in the army, Pagonis planned, bargained, and borrowed in such a manner that the massive American effort in Saudi Arabia never once ran out of gas, literally or figuratively. So well did Gus Pagonis perform his duties that during the Gulf War he received his third star, making him a lieutenant general. His was the only battlefield promotion made during the conflict.

During the time of the American buildup an amusing incident took place at Schwarzkopf’s headquarters in Riyadh. As noted earlier, the Saudis had agreed to pay for the stationing in country of American troops. One evening in late October the general was handed a piece of paper by a Central Command staff officer. It was a check from the Saudis drawn on an account at Morgan Guarantee Trust in New York. Signed by Prince Khalid bin Sultan al-Saud, the top Saudi military commander, the check was in the amount of $720 million.

While the buildup gained momentum, General Schwarzkopf wanted to concentrate solely on preparing the Coalition’s plan of battle. Of course, he was not able to do so. Other duties interfered, such as meeting with congressional delegations or heading off cultural problems with the Saudis.

The general was not alone in having to deal with distractions. The United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, cabled the State Department in Washington as follows:

We understand the need to build and maintain congressional support. . . . It does not necessarily follow that Washington should treat Saudi Arabia as if it were an exotic game park with a four-star general and an ambassador as park rangers. . . . There must be a pause in trekking to Saudi Arabi. . . . Give us a break.

By “Washington” both men were referring to political leaders who felt compelled to descend on Freeman and Schwarzkopf “to see for themselves” what the situation was in Saudi Arabia. These included U.S. senators and representatives whose support was essential to sustaining American involvement. Apparently, the visits paid off. On January 12, 1991, by which time Secretary Baker’s efforts to resolve the crisis diplomatically clearly had not succeeded, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq. The vote in the House of Representatives was 250–183. In the Senate the vote was much closer: 52–47.

Despite these forty-seven votes, and what they represented, most Americans strongly supported President Bush’s firm stand against the Iraqis, as did Colin Powell. He was pressuring Norman Schwarzkopf to come up with a detailed plan of attack.

In devising such a plan, the Central Command chief had to consider as well
when
an attack should be launched. Two factors affected the timing of an offensive. The first was Ramadan. This was to begin in March and last a month, during which time Arab troops in the Coalition might not fight. The second was that after Ramadan, the temperature in the desert would adversely affect the performance of both machines and men. So Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf, with the approval of the president and the secretary of defense, decided that unless a last-minute diplomatic solution was realized, Coalition forces would strike on January 16, one day after the deadline given to Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait had expired.

Such a diplomatic fix did not emerge. James Baker did meet in Geneva with the Iraqi foreign minister on January 9. But the Iraqi official made unacceptable demands, which the American secretary of state promptly rejected. That meant that eight days later, U.S. military forces in the Gulf, along with their Coalition allies, went to war.

***

Essentially, there were three ways to invade Kuwait. The first was to land troops on the country’s coast via an amphibious landing. The second was to attack directly north from Saudi Arabia. The third was to swing Coalition troops around to the west and strike eastward from inside Iraq.

General Schwarzkopf rejected the first approach. He believed that, given the extensive fortifications and minefields the Iraqis had put in place, an assault from the sea would result in heavy U.S. casualties. However, the general kept twenty-four thousand marines on ships in the Persian Gulf and had them practice amphibious operations. These exercises, along with the presence of two American battleships, convinced the Iraqis that Coalition forces would be storming ashore in a manner reminiscent of the Marine Corps’s World War II campaigns. Schwarzkopf wanted to deceive the Iraqis and he did. They kept seven divisions focused on an operation that never took place.

The second way to assault Kuwait, striking north from Saudi Arabia, was also an option the Central Command chief wanted the Iraqis to believe he was employing. Schwarzkopf placed a large number of Coalition troops, including those from Arab countries, on the Saudi-Kuwait border. These forces as well as an American unit in fact would conduct a direct assault into Kuwait, thereby reinforcing the general’s intent to have his enemy perceive that this was the principal avenue of attack.