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By Root 2089 0

and a true gentleman, I was convinced he and his men had an important contribution to make to our effort to shut down the Scud attacks. They did not disappoint. Once we combined special operations raids with air patrols, the number of attacks fell dramatically, and although they increased slightly as the Iraqis adjusted to our tactics, the Israelis did what we asked of them and stayed out of the war. It wasn’t until after the war that I came to understand what a near-run thing it had been. A senior Israeli official told me that at one point Israeli commandos were loaded into helicopters ready to fly into Iraq, but their mission was canceled after one of the phone calls I made reporting on the extent of our efforts to go after the Scuds. I emphasized that since we already had people on the ground, Israeli intervention could endanger American forces.

THE SOVIETS HAD BEEN helpful in the early days after the Iraqis invaded Kuwait and had not opposed our efforts to liberate that country. However, once we launched operations, they began trying to arrange a cease-fire on terms we could not accept. They urged that we pause our bombing in response to a vague promise from Saddam to comply with UN Security Council resolutions. We knew that a pause would only give him time to rearm and regroup and we could not accept it. We had also been clear that Saddam had actually to withdraw from Kuwait, not simply make promises to do so.

On January 28, a little less than two weeks into the air campaign, the new Soviet foreign minister, Alexander Bessmertnykh, was in Washington for meetings with Jim Baker. I had the sense that the Soviets, their empire on its last legs, were desperate to make themselves seem relevant by attempting to negotiate a cease-fire between us and the Iraqis. It also seemed that they wanted to show the world they could prevent their former client state, Iraq, from being on the receiving end of a massive military defeat. To his credit the president bore the brunt of the Soviet efforts to negotiate a cease-fire, patiently responding to call after call from Gorbachev himself. But on January 29 Jim decided to issue a joint statement with Bessmertnykh on Iraq without clearing it with the White House or showing it to us at the Pentagon. The statement was a problem because it suggested that we would in fact agree to a cease-fire in exchange for a promise from Saddam to pull out. The statement also suggested a linkage between a cease-fire and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Although the language of the joint statement suggested this wasn’t a change in our policy, it was in fact a change and caught all of us by surprise. It was released on the day of the president’s State of the Union address, and it caused a flurry of questions from the press about our cease-fire conditions.

Jim, to his credit, apologized for the foul-up and said later it was one of his biggest mistakes as secretary of state. We all make mistakes. I had made my own with the Soviets two years earlier when I’d publicly predicted Gorbachev’s demise shortly after I became secretary of defense. I do think, though, that Jim was more willing to try to find a negotiated settlement than the president was. And the president held firm.

ON FEBRUARY 7 Colin Powell and I flew to the desert. The trip gave us a chance to see the troops—and what an inspiration they were. We visited the 101st Airborne Division, and the atmosphere inside the tent where we gathered was electric. Colin had once commanded the second brigade of the 101st, and when he reached in his pocket and pulled out his coin—a souvenir he still had from his time in command—the place just went wild.

We also had a session with pilots flying missions over Iraq. One pilot, who had been hit by Iraqi antiaircraft fire while flying an A-10, a 1970s-era tank killer, showed us the huge hole in his airplane’s wing and gave us a blow-by-blow of how he’d been hit and survived and made it back to base. I never tired of listening to the troops talk about their experiences. They were very, very good.

Killing Iraqi tanks