Schwarzkopf will, no doubt, play the good soldier in his public statements. In a radio interview with NEWSWEEK, he insists, “Not a single time, in the final analysis, did anyone from Washington turn around and order me to do something that I was opposed to do.” But a close reading of his memoir reveals that Schwarzkopf spent much of his time in the desert vexed by political meddling. He shows, again and again, that the civilian leadership was never clear on what it wanted to accomplish. And although Schwarzkopf never comes quite out and admits it, it is clear that he believes that the military accomplished less than it might have.
Bush’s aides will no doubt dispute this conclusion. But Schwarzkopf’s complaints are forcefully echoed by the British commander, Gen. Sir Peter De La Billiere, whose memoirs were just published in the United Kingdom. De La Billiere is critical of Schwarzkopf’s autocratic" style and intimidating temper. But he praises his steadfastness" in the face of what he clearly saw as “political meddling and muddling from Washington.” American politicians, De La Billiere muses, “feel they have a right to tell the generals how to run their campaigns.”
Schwarzkopf offers some telling examples of micromanagement from the White House, like the time the navy had to wait so long for instructions on how to stop a blockade-running Iraqi tanker that darkness fell first. “Jeez, we can’t see well enough to do that,” protested Schwarzkopf’s naval commander-“a classic illustration,” says Schwarzkopf, “of what happens when Washington tries to direct combat operations from afar.” For much of the rest of the time, however, Schwarzkopf’s problem was not too much input but too little. As the White House flip-flopped between playing hawk and dove, the Desert Shield commander complained of “a total vacuum of guidance,” moaning, “I’m working in the dark.”
Though he understood that occupying Iraq was out of the question Schwarzkopf was never quite clear if his mission was to liberate Kuwait or topple Saddam’s regime. He decided to target the Iraqi Republican Guard as the military “center of gravity.” To his commanders, he declared, “We need to destroy-not attack, not damage, not surround-I want you to destroy the Republican Guard.” Yet in the end he failed: half of the elite armored divisions escaped across the Euphrates River.
In his book, Schwarzkopf blamed the commander of VII Corps, Gen. Fred Franks, for his slowness to engage the enemy. In the army, however, the professional consensus is that Schwarzkopf is unfair. If Franks was no Rommel, then neither was Schwarzkopf. Ending the fourth day of the war, the commander knew he needed another 24 hours to destroy the Republican Guard. Yet when Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told him that the president wanted a cease-fire at midnight, Schwarzkopf replied, “I don’t have any problem with it.” Schwarzkopf’s own vanity may have been a factor in his quick fold. “You’ve got to remember,” he told NEWSWEEK, “I had just left the interview where I had told the entire nation, the entire world indeed, that we had destroyed the Iraqis as a military force, so I couldn’t very well say I have to have another half a day or the job’s not done.”
The reason for the hasty cease-fire, Schwarzkopf knew, was that the president and his men were watching television images of the " Highway of Death.“Though Powell said, " The reports make it look like wanton killing,” both generals " knew that wasn’t the case." It was not the first time that television influenced the policy makers. Schwarzkopf’s war diary recorded Powell telling him at one point that the mood in the United States was becoming " less bellicose" because everyone had been watching the Civil War series on PBS. The White House hawks, on the other hand, had begun muttering that Schwarzkopf was “just another McClellan” because of his reluctance to mount a swift attack. While an able warrior and diplomat, especially with his Arab allies, Schwarzkopf doesn’t quite emerge from his memoirs as a modern-day Ulysses S. Grant. But maybe that is impossible in an age when, as Schwarzkopf grumbles, the television set is always on in the White House Situation Room.
