Known and Unknown - Donald Rumsfeld [237]
On November 26, 2002, two days before Thanksgiving, Franks came to Myers and me with what he called the “mother of all deployment orders.” It would have authorized the flow of 450,000 troops to the Persian Gulf region as envisioned by the TPFDD. Franks’ proposal would have put the switch to full “on.” The problem was that from a diplomatic standpoint, the timing was not good. The next day, UN inspectors were reentering Iraq for another round of inspections. This was a critical component of the President’s diplomatic approach. If I approved sending several hundred thousand U.S. troops to the Gulf at that moment, Bush would be accused of being intent on war no matter the result of the inspections. Though it might help convince Saddam Hussein of the President’s seriousness of purpose, it could rattle potential allies.
Another consideration was the effect of the proposed deployments on military families, active duty and reserves, as we moved into the Christmas holiday season. I was concerned about having tens of thousands of our soldiers shipping out and leaving their families right before Christmas and New Year’s Day if there was no need to do so, which at that moment there was not.†
I asked Franks if the plan could be adjusted to enable him to send troops to the region more selectively. This would help the troops and their families and be more supportive of the pace of the President’s diplomatic efforts. It fell to General John Handy, the commander of U.S. Transportation Command, to improvise, by breaking up the TPFDD into smaller pieces and flowing the forces in at a more measured pace. Handy recognized the problem and deftly managed the task. Redesigning the flow of forces, rather than simply turning on the TPFDD, had its costs. Some logisticians complained about having their hard work scrapped in favor of a different flow. I could understand their frustrations. There was an important lesson to be learned, though: Military deployments not only needed to be more sensitive to the lives of those being called up, but they also needed to be more flexible so as to combine military considerations with presidential diplomatic initiatives.
To gain broader international support if the President were to decide in favor of military action against Iraq, he knew it would be desirable to have the backing of the United Nations Security Council. Though the irony was missed by most people, it was the Security Council’s own resolutions on Iraq that the supposedly unilateralist Bush administration and its allies were seeking to enforce. As diplomatically and politically useful as a Security Council use-of-force resolution might have been, it was not a necessary precursor to military action. American-led coalitions had used our military abroad without the UN Security Council’s approval on many occasions under both Democratic and Republican presidents dating back to the 1948 Berlin airlift.*
There was little doubt that at least some of the nations on the UN Security Council would not take part in an effort to dislodge Saddam. Russia and China, in particular, were often opposed to American proposals. France sometimes joined them.25 Saddam’s agents actively worked to cultivate their friends in Paris, Berlin, and Moscow by offering lucrative oil and other contracts. The French had an especially close, longstanding relationship with him. “France in particular,” as Saddam put it when I met with him in