In My Time - Dick Cheney [104]
AS WE WERE BUILDING up forces in the operation we now called Desert Shield, many senior military officers traveled to the Persian Gulf. Air Force Chief of Staff Mike Dugan and several generals on his staff flew to Saudi Arabia during mid-September. General Dugan had been advised not to take press with him on the trip, but he ignored the advice and spent many hours on the way over and back talking with journalists.
On Sunday morning, September 16, 1990, I opened my front door and retrieved the Washington Post off my front porch. Before I got back inside, I saw the headline “U.S. to Rely on Air Strikes if War Erupts.” I read through the article, my anger rising. During the hours of plane interviews, Dugan had apparently talked to journalists about specific targets we would hit if war came—Saddam personally, his family, and his mistress. He’d talked about numbers and types of aircraft deployed in the region, declared “air power” to be “the only answer that’s available to our country” if we wanted to avoid a bloody land war, and said the American public would support the operation in the Gulf—“until body bags come home.”
I called Scowcroft, who was scheduled to be on CBS’s Face the Nation in a few hours. He would be asked about the story. We agreed that Brent would make clear Dugan did not speak for the administration. Then I left and went for a walk alongside the C&O Canal to cool down. A few hours later, back at home, I read the piece again. And I got angry again. I picked up the phone and called the president at Camp David. He was on the tennis court, but when he called back a short while later, I told him I had decided I might have to relieve General Dugan based on his comments in the piece. The president said I should do what I needed to do, and he would back me up.
I did not take the prospect of firing the air force chief of staff lightly. Dugan was a good man with a distinguished career, who had been in his job less than three months. But he had displayed terrible judgment. I worried that if I tolerated what he had done, other generals would step out of bounds, and as the nation prepared for the prospect of war, I couldn’t tolerate loose cannons in senior ranks. I made notes on the article and a list of the most serious problems arising from what Dugan had done. I decided I would call Dugan in and ask him whether the news stories were accurate. If they were, I would relieve him.
I asked Joe Lopez to have Dugan report to my office at eight the next morning. Just before eight I met with my deputy Don Atwood and General Powell. I told them I planned to relieve Dugan. I think Powell was surprised. He knew Dugan had made a mistake in sharing so much information with the press, but I don’t think he believed I would fire Dugan over it. He didn’t object. He left my office, but I wanted a witness in the room and asked Atwood to remain. General Dugan came in and took a seat. I went through the major points in the articles and asked the general if he’d been accurately quoted. He said he had. I told him I needed his resignation by the end of the day. He took it like a man, saluted smartly, and left. I placed another call to the president to inform him that I had indeed relieved General Dugan.
I recommended General Tony McPeak, an F-15 pilot, as Dugan’s replacement, and in short order the president nominated him and the Senate confirmed him. Some days later, McPeak introduced me to a group of retired air force four-stars. “This is Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney,” he said. “He wasn’t the president’s first choice, either.”
AS U.S. FORCES CONTINUED to flow into the desert, Colin Powell repeatedly pressed the case for long-term sanctions, for waiting and