In My Time - Dick Cheney [112]
The president spoke to the nation from the Oval Office at 9:00 p.m. to announce the beginning of military operations. At 9:30 p.m. General Powell and I appeared in the Pentagon briefing room to hold a brief press conference. I noted that great care was being taken to minimize U.S. casualties and focus on military targets and that we were hitting targets in both Iraq and Kuwait. We couldn’t say a lot at this early stage, but I wanted to establish the precedent of the American people hearing information about our military operations directly from the Pentagon briefing room. General Schwarzkopf would also conduct briefings from Riyadh.
Before the war my assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, Pete Williams, had gone to see Lieutenant General Tom Kelly, the director of operations for the joint staff. Pete told Tom we wanted to hold daily briefings for the press once the war started and said that he, Pete, thought Tom ought to conduct the briefings. Tom resisted mightily. He told Pete there was absolutely no way, given his responsibilities in the upcoming conflict, that he had time to brief the press every day. It just wasn’t going to happen, he said. Pete came to see me with the suggestion, and I backed him up. I thought it made tremendous sense to put senior guys such as Tom Kelly and Rear Admiral Mike McConnell, the director of intelligence for the joint staff, out in front of the press each day. These were the same officers who briefed General Powell and me in the morning. They were knowledgeable enough to answer tough questions and experienced enough to know what they could and couldn’t tell the press. When Pete went back to see Tom a few days later, he said, “You know, Tom, the secretary would really like you to give the daily briefings.” Kelly replied, “That’s an excellent idea, Pete. I’d be thrilled to do that.”
We had given a good deal of thought to ensuring the most accurate coverage of the war. Before Desert Storm began, Pete put together a plan that would have embedded reporters directly with our military units, an early version of the plan the Pentagon followed twelve years later. I supported Pete’s concept and one evening had him come to my office to brief General Powell and me on it. General Powell was decidedly unsupportive. There was absolutely no way we could embed reporters without compromising operational security, he said, expressing robust views on the subject in very strong terms. As Pete was leaving I told him not to worry about it. “Good briefing, Pete. We’re gaining on him,” I said with a smile.
At the end of the day, though, it was clear that our commander in the field, Norm Schwarzkopf, shared Powell’s strong resistance to having reporters embedded with the troops. Both Powell and Schwarzkopf and many of our senior officers had developed a deep distrust of the press based on their experiences in Vietnam. It was understandable, and I did not want to add to the already considerable pressure Schwarzkopf was under by insisting on the embed concept. So we agreed the war would be covered using a pool system, which ultimately had mixed results. Some reporters ended up with commanders who included them in key meetings and operational briefings. Others could barely get the time of day from the officers assigned to mind them.
It was also the case that most of the prewar action had taken place in Saudi Arabia—a country