Authors: Dick Cheney
WHEN THE NSC MEETING broke up, the president prepared to depart for Aspen, Colorado, where he was scheduled to give a speech about America’s post–Cold War military force. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet position in Eastern Europe, there was growing pressure in Washington to modify our national security strategy and defense budget. At the Defense Department we had focused on a new force structure called the “base force” and a regional strategy that would enable us to deny any adversary the ability to control a part of the world that was vital to our interests.
Powell and I went to Capitol Hill to brief members of Congress on the base force concept, but all anyone was really interested in was what was happening in Kuwait. After the session on the Hill, Powell and I headed back to my office, where we got an update from General Tom Kelly, head of operations for the joint staff, on the Iraqi invasion. When he had finished, I turned to Powell. “What options do we have
to respond?” I asked. Powell said the options were being worked and began discussing domestic political concerns, public opinion polls, and the American public’s view of Kuwait. It was a tiny nation, a monarchy six thousand miles away, he said, and the American people would not support military action to put the emir back on his throne.
Powell seemed more comfortable talking about poll numbers than he was recommending military options. Part of it was just Colin, the way he was attuned to public approval, but listening to him also made me think about how Vietnam had shaped the views of America’s top generals. They had seen loss of public support for the Vietnam War undermine the war effort as well as damage the reputation of the military. There was a view in the Pentagon, for which I had a lot of sympathy, that the civilian leadership had blown it in Vietnam by failing to make the tough decisions that were required to have a chance at prevailing.
I understood where Powell was coming from, but I couldn’t accept it. Our responsibility at the Department of Defense was to make sure the president had a full range of options to consider. No one else in the government could provide him with these options. He had plenty of people who could give him political advice. I brought the meeting to a close, and afterward, although we normally operated on a first-name basis, I addressed Powell formally. “General,” I said, “I need some options.” The business we were about was deadly serious, and I wanted him to understand he was receiving an order. “Yes, sir, Mr. Secretary,” he replied.
As Powell walked out the door of my office, I picked up the phone, punched the extension for Admiral Owens, and asked him to step in for a moment. “I want you to pulse the system,” I told him. “Find out what the navy’s got, what they’re thinking, how we might respond.” A few minutes later I had the same conversation with my junior military aide, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Garry Trexler, tasking him to pulse the air force planners. I wanted to know what carriers could be deployed, what air wings sent, how soon they could get there. General Powell wasn’t pleased when he learned my military aides were working their own services, and he chewed both of them out. But the president
needed options, and I wanted to send a message that I intended for him to have them.
Sitting at my desk that afternoon, I filled several pages of a yellow legal pad, going over the consequences of Saddam’s move and listing questions I had about it. “Shouldn’t our objective be to get him out of Kuwait?” I wrote. “Isn’t that the best short and long term strategy?” I went over nonmilitary options, from diplomatic condemnation to economic sanctions, and concluded, “No non-military option is likely to produce any positive result.” The key to the situation, I wrote, was “U.S. military power—the only thing Hussein fears.” The key to our success would be “determination to use whatever force is necessary.”
At the next NSC meeting, on Friday, August 3, it was clear that Scowcroft was about where I was. There was simply too much at stake, he said, for us to acquiesce in the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. We needed forces in the area, and Saudi Arabia was the logical place, but, as I noted in the meeting, they had been traditionally reluctant to have an American presence on their soil.
But that might change if the Saudis understood that our forces were essential for their protection, and Scowcroft asked me to arrange a briefing for Prince Bandar, Saudi ambassador to the United States, on the threat to Saudi Arabia and what we could do to defend the Kingdom. A former fighter pilot, Bandar was a gregarious, larger-than-life presence in Washington, a uniquely effective ambassador known for his sense of humor, his cigars, and his friendships with everyone from George Bush to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys. Scowcroft said the president wanted Bandar to have a full brief on Operations Plan 90-1002, the plan prepared by Central Command for defense of our interests in the Gulf. It hadn’t been completed and, like all war plans, would be modified by events on the ground, but it would convey to Bandar how strong a response we were contemplating.
Later that day, before Bandar arrived, I had another private meeting with Powell. I wanted to be sure he understood that the purpose of our meeting was not to debate what the American public would accept, not to discuss strategic alternatives. “Our purpose is to give Bandar the full
laydown on Op 1002,” I said. “We want him to know the scale of the military commitment the president is willing to make.”
Bandar was skeptical during the first part of our meeting. He reminded us of the story of the time when the Shah of Iran was overthrown and President Jimmy Carter provided the unarmed squadron of F-15s to the Kingdom, humiliating the Saudis and leaving a bitter memory of America as an unreliable ally. “We’re serious this time,” I told Bandar.
We showed him the satellite imagery of Iraqi troops now massing near the Saudi border. Then Powell briefed him on what the United States was prepared to do to defend the Kingdom, laying out divisions, tanks, artillery, ships. “How many forces are we talking about?” Bandar asked when the brief was done. One hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand, we told him. He was taken aback, but we had convinced him we meant business. This wouldn’t be a rerun of the unarmed F-15s. I emphasized that we needed to begin deploying the force as soon as possible. We didn’t have time to wait while Saddam gathered strength and planned his next move. Bandar said he would leave that night to brief King Fahd on the plan. He said he would support the deployment and convey a sense of urgency to his king.
The president called another meeting of the NSC for Saturday, August 4, at Camp David. We met in Laurel Lodge, a gathering place built by President Nixon. The main room, overlooking the woods, has a fireplace, TV, piano, backgammon board, and bar. There is also a dining room, a small study for the president, and a conference room for larger meetings. During George H. W. Bush’s presidency, the conference table had aircraft models displayed down its center.
General Schwarzkopf briefed on Op Plan 90-1002—which forces we would use and how long it would take them to deploy. He stressed that it would be months before we had an effective force in place, which underscored a concern shared by many of us: that Saddam would move on Saudi oil fields before we had sufficient troops in place to stop him. Over the next few days, there would be several reports that Saddam was on the verge of moving across the Saudi border. Having missed Saddam’s
invasion of Kuwait, our intelligence analysts now seemed to see signs everywhere of his invading Saudi Arabia.
It became clear pretty quickly that if the Saudis didn’t agree to accept U.S. forces, we had few options. Israel would likely have accepted our troops, but we couldn’t launch military action against an Arab country from Israeli territory. Turkey was another option, with the large U.S. base at Incirlik, but the distances involved would have provided real logistical challenges. We got word while we were at Camp David that the Saudis were uncomfortable with the idea of U.S. forces in the Kingdom. As our meeting broke up, President Bush got on the phone to speak directly to King Fahd.
Several hours later, I was back at home in McLean when Scowcroft called to say we needed to send a team to brief the Saudis on the possible troop deployment. Scowcroft said he would lead the team and planned to take General Powell with him. “Brent, I want to lead that team,” I told him. “The deployment of forces is my responsibility, and I ought to be the one to lead it.” “Okay,” Scowcroft said. “I’ll take that to the president.” As national security advisor, Scowcroft was an honest broker. I knew that even though he may have wanted to lead the trip himself, he would faithfully carry my request to the president. He called back awhile later to say the president agreed. I should lead the team.
I also had concerns about Powell’s participating as the senior military official. He had been hesitant in discussions of military options, and we needed to convince the Saudis to accept troops—and accept them now. I wasn’t sure Powell would deliver the strong message they needed to hear. Additionally, Powell and I tried not to be out of the country at the same time. I decided Powell would stay home, and General Schwarzkopf would provide the military brief to the Saudis.
It wasn’t clear the Saudis would accept such a high-level team. Scowcroft worked the phones with them all afternoon and through the night. “If we send Cheney,” he told them, “the answer better be yes.” It would be a clear setback to have the U.S. secretary of defense make the trip and get turned down. Finally, on Sunday morning, they agreed to receive me.
We departed from Andrews Air Force Base that afternoon, Sunday, August 5, on one of a fleet of 707s I used as secretary of defense. Some of these planes had been used as Air Force One by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. One of them, tail number 26000, was the plane that flew President Kennedy to Dallas on November 22, 1963, and flew his body back to Andrews Air Force Base at the end of that tragic day. After more modern aircraft were brought into the fleet to serve as Air Force One, 26000 and the other 707s were used to transport cabinet secretaries.
Just before taking off I received word of the strong statement the president had made to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait,” he had said. Sitting in the cabin of the 707, I wrote notes for a presentation to King Fahd that echoed the president’s words and laid out the dangers of acquiescence. Saddam Hussein “must not be permitted to get away with his aggression,” I wrote in longhand on a yellow legal pad:
He will grow stronger—especially if he has all that Kuwaiti wealth. He will dominate the Gulf. He will dominate OPEC. He will acquire more, deadlier armaments—the kind that will allow him to totally dominate the region. At some point we will have to deal with him—it will be easier now—together—as part of an international effort.
During the flight, I went back to the staff section of the plane and asked the CIA briefer to make the presentation he had prepared for the king. It was technical and equivocal, and it did not convey the urgency of the situation. I scrapped that part of the brief and decided that Schwarzkopf and I would handle it. Later I had our ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman, up to the cabin to brief me on what to expect. You have to be cautious, he told me. If you are too aggressive or talk about too large a force, you will scare the Saudis and they won’t commit. Also, he said, you have to be prepared to wait around in Riyadh for hours or even days. They don’t make up their minds quickly and certainly won’t make a quick decision on something this important.
We landed in Jeddah at around 2:00 p.m. Saudi time and went to one of the king’s guest palaces. Bandar came to see me while we waited for our meeting with the king. He had undergone a transformation, no longer wearing one of the Savile Row suits he was known for in Washington, but dressed in the traditional robes of a Saudi prince. “It’s very important,” he said, “that you demonstrate to the king that you are serious.” He wanted me to make sure the king knew we would commit a large force and do it fast. I couldn’t seem cautious or unwilling to do what was necessary, Bandar said. I was asking the king to take a big risk by allowing U.S. forces onto Saudi soil and had to convince him the United States was a worthy ally. In other words, Bandar was giving me advice 180 degrees different from the advice I had received hours earlier on board my plane from the U.S. ambassador. I decided to go with Bandar’s guidance.
At about 7:00 p.m. we were ushered into our meeting with the king. Crown Prince Abdullah was there, along with Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal and Deputy Minister of Defense Abdul Rahman. Prince Sultan, the minister of defense and Bandar’s father, was out of the country but would return the next morning. We sat in overstuffed chairs arranged in an L shape, my team—including General Schwarzkopf, Paul Wolfowitz, Ambassador Freeman, and Bob Gates, a future secretary of defense who was then Scowcroft’s deputy—along one arm of the L and the Saudis on the other. The king and I sat in the center, with Bandar between us and slightly back to do the interpreting. Servants wearing holstered guns, carrying silver pots in one hand and tall stacks of small cups in the other, made their way around the room, pouring Arabic coffee for each of us.
Unlike all the other meetings I’ve ever had with Saudi royalty, there was no small talk. It was clear the king wanted us to get right to the business at hand, and I began by affirming the United States’ commitment to Saudi Arabia and emphasizing the danger Saddam represented. The president was personally working to build international support for economic, diplomatic, and military action against the Iraqis, I said, but in the meantime we had to prevent an attack on Saudi Arabia. Military
deterrence would be critical, I said, “as economic measures began to bite and Saddam, feeling the pain, might be tempted to lash out.”
I asked General Schwarzkopf to brief our hosts in more detail on the forces Saddam had deployed along the border between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Saddam was in a position to launch in one or two days, Norm said. He also briefed on what the United States was prepared to do, the F-15s that would be deployed immediately and the air and ground divisions that would follow.