Peter Arnett and a group of other western journalists, now allowed back in the country, had gone on a tour of the “baby milk plant” on Thursday. While they were out, they saw and recorded on video six cruise missiles on the way to Baghdad, sailing along unconcerned at about 500 mph. Two of the six landed in civilian areas; Arnett stated that there was no way of telling if they had been badly aimed or if they had been brought down or diverted by antiaircraft fire, audible during the footage.
Back in Baghdad, they were shown the damage in civilian areas. They were shown injured children, and at one site they were accosted by an irate woman, dressed in a jogging suit. “Mea culpa!” she screamed at the camera. “All of you are responsible, harming the people for the sake of oil! As if we were red Indians! We are human beings! Who made this area like this? The planes in the area! It’s the West! Mea culpa!”
Official Iraq echoed the woman’s sentiments. The official radio stated that captured pilots should be treated as war criminals and accused them of targeting residential neighborhoods.
It was no surprise that official Iraq echoed the lady’s sentiments. The same lady, CNN later reported, showed up on French TV with the same lament. She was just as distraught in French.
Army Major General Bob Johnston gave the Saturday CENTCOM brief: There had been 300 vehicles of the Republican Guard which had come out of their holes. Allied aircraft had attacked them as targets of opportunity, with a high success rate. A total of 54 SCUDs had been fired to date, 27 at Israel, 27 at Saudi Arabia. Two friendly aircraft had been shot down by optically sighted Iraqi antiaircraft artillery. The last reported contact between friendly forces and the Iraqis retreating from Khafji had been at 4 PM that day: five tanks had been engaged by Qatari armor, four of them destroyed. The Iraqis were in a tight spot, caught between the rock of the coalition forces and the hard place of their own barriers.
There was more emphasis placed on naval operations. There had been attacks on Exocet-capable patrol boats by the Nichols, more naval EPWs. One had stated that Iraqi ships had been directed to try and reach safe haven in Iran. The allied assessment was that the Iraqi navy, never much to start with, had been rendered combat ineffective, just as had the air force.
Niall Irving’s Sunday British briefing had similar content. RAF strikes were concentrating on supply lines. 16 Tornadoes had struck a crude oil pumping station in western Iraq, and a strike at Al Amahdi, south of Kuwait City, by Jaguars had hit an ammunition storage facility. An airfield in western Iraq had received forty 1000-pound bombs, and Jaguars had taken out six revetted gun emplacements on Failaka. Once the Jags were finished, A-6’s had come in to take out antiaircraft artillery. Most of the antiaircraft artillery the allies were seeing was from optically sighted systems. Most of Iraq’s SAMs were mobile systems, but they were vulnerable to radar suppression.
The RSPCA was sending volunteers to bathe birds caught in the oil slick. No, Irving had no information as to whether they would fall under military command. If Irving doesn’t receive a medal for keeping a straight face, there is no justice in the British military system.
And finally, Irving’s assessment of how the campaign was going: “[Saddam Hussein is] in a hopeless situation from the military standpoint.” He had no air force left, he had no navy left. The allies had air supremacy, B52 raids were intensifying, and Iraqi ground forces, when a ground war came, would be at the mercy of the allies. The pounding was already having a severe effect; the Los Angeles Times was reporting that Pentagon sources were saying that half of the enemy military machine would be destroyed in 10-20 days. Once that was done, the ground war could begin.
Saddam Hussein was reported to have developed the habit of hauling out his pistol and shooting people.
IRNA, the Iranian official press agency, reported that the allies could not defend Saudi Arabia from Iraqi missile attacks, despite claims to the contrary. It quoted a traveler arriving in Beirut from Riyadh who said that the Patriots “either collided with one another or fell into the city, resulting in further suffering.” Military experts in the Saudi capital were reported to be bewildered at their missiles’ behavior.
On February 4th, an article in al-Thawra said Iraq planned to launch more incursions like the one against Khafji. One aim, it said, was to prolong the war. Propaganda broadcasts from Baghdad taunted the allies, accusing them of lacking the courage to fight a land war where casualties would be high. “Iraq’s victory will be achieved with our hands,” the army newspaper al-Qadisiya said on February 2nd.
There were those—many of them the same people who had favored fighting Iraq with sanctions alone—who were hoping to avoid ground war, counseling against a ground offensive. A group of at least 21 Democratic House members signed a statement circulated by Rep. Ron Dellums, who had been “outraged” by the start of the war, urging President Bush not to escalate. “We should not significantly increase the level of combat operations at this time,” said Dellums.
“If we are winning, and winning in such an overwhelming fashion, then why go to another level, which will risk many more thousands of lives?” asked Rep. Major R. Owens, of New York.
“It is time for this House and this country to stand united behind our troops,” said Rep. Jolene Unsoeld, of Washington. To Unsoeld, that meant doing “everything in our power to minimize the casualties in this tragic war.” In other words, to stop the war before someone got hurt.
Rep. Les Aspin was not a signatory to Dellums’ document, but he cautioned against rushing into a ground war, adding that getting rid of Saddam Hussein should not be one of our war aims; the cost of a push to Baghdad would be too high.
Neither did Rep. George Miller sign, but he stated that “It is obvious that moving to a ground war will be very costly and that we should take into very careful consideration a continuation of a targeted air war.”
There were a few political surprises, however. Anne Lewis, a dyed-in- the-wool liberal Democratic activist, had founded the Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf, to rally Americans in favor of Bush’s policy. “Saddam is the perfect villain,” she told Time, “and he keeps on proving it... Having been quick to criticize Administration policy in the past, I wanted to weigh in when I thought what they were doing was right.”
Lt. Gen. Charles Horner, the Air Force commander, was asked by a CNN interviewer if we could win the war by air alone. Horner pointed out that if the embargo had worked, then the Navy would have been the “hero” of the campaign; if Iraq folded and withdrew from Kuwait as a result of the air campaign, then the Air Force would be the “hero.” Whether or not the enemy folded, each of the services was playing a part in the campaign. Without the Army and the Marines on the ground, Iraq would have been free to move into Saudi Arabia early in the war, so they had been playing their part from the first.
General Schwarzkopf was asked for his opinion of the rash of experts-for-hire infesting the networks and the print media:
“The analysts write about war as if it’s a ballet... like it’s all choreographed ahead of time, and when the orchestra strikes up and starts playing, everyone goes out there and plays a set piece.
“What I always say to those folks is, ‘Yes, it’s choreographed, and what happens is the orchestra starts playing and some son of a bitch climbs out of the orchestra pit and starts chasing you around the stage.’ And the choreography goes right out the window.”
A reported 300,000 people in Morocco demonstrated against the allies, even though there was a small contingent of Moroccan troops with the Coalition. In Jordan, CNN showed us Saddam memorabilia for sale in the shops, evidence of support for the Iraqi dictator there. One man showed a portrait of Saddam and stated with evident relish, “This man! He will kill the Americans and the Jews!”
Saddam’s men were still practicing on Arabs. Around 4 a.m. in the morning on February 5th, Iraqi soldiers dropped off the bodies of Shaker, Mansour, and Musaid Saad in the parking lot of their housing complex in the Rowda neighborhood of Kuwait City. Shaker’s head had been cut open, apparently with a knife, and his brains were seeping out. Mansour’s testicles had been lopped off. All three were blindfolded and the bodies were frozen stiff. The Iraqis, apparently, were making room in their freezers for more resistance fighters.
Baghdad was admitting to 320 civilian dead and 400 wounded. Gasoline and fuel oil sales to civilians had been cut off. Ramsey Clark was there on a “peace mission,” and was expected to talk to Saddam Hussein. Clark and his party toured the country, meticulously cataloguing damage to civilians and accusing the allies not of “collateral damage,” but of deliberately targeting civilians in preference to military targets. There was no running water, electricity or telephone service anywhere. There was not adequate gasoline for transportation. Mohammad Said, the Minister of Health, drew attention to the pollution of the public water system and predicted hundreds of thousands of deaths. Scores of homes in the city of Diwaniya had been destroyed, hundreds in Basra. “We saw no evidence of military presence in any of the bombed areas we visited...” Clark stated flatly.
The day after Clark and his party left off their tour of inspection, four civilians were killed and fifteen were wounded when an allied plane bombed the dormitories of Adan Hospital, about 20 miles south of Kuwait City shortly after 2 p.m. on February 9th. Two of the dead were Indian medical workers, one the wife of an Egyptian doctor, and one the two and a half-year-old son of a Filipino nurse. Most of the wounded were Filipinos or other foreigners. The Iraqis had invited the air strike by installing a half-dozen antiaicraft guns on the grounds of the hospital and at least one on the roof of its main building. Once the place was bombed, the gun on the roof was withdrawn.
The battleship Missouri had been firing on positions in Kuwait for the past three days. She was expected to be joined shortly by the Wisconsin. F-16s were being fitted with Maverick air-to-ground missiles instead of bombs. A-6s from the 3rd Marine Air Wing were flying missions that were unequivocally described as battlefield interdiction.
In Jordan, the wing of a downed allied plane was auctioned off, a show of solidarity with Iraq.
King Hussein appeared on Jordanian TV with an uncharacteristically sharp-tongued address on the war, attacking the coalition with words, answering Saddam’s call for a holy war. The war in the Gulf, he stated, was “against all Arabs and Muslims, not only against Iraq.” Its real purpose was to destroy Iraq and put the “Arab nation” under “direct foreign hegemony.” The U.S. was going too far, exceeding the limits of the UN resolutions. The king again called for a cease-fire.
Not only was the cease-fire call ignored, but both the U.S. and the Saudis were outraged at the “moderate” king’s openly siding with Iraq. King Hussein expressed the political and diplomatic equivalent of wide-eyed surprise. A writer named Ghazi al-Qusaibi wrote an exquisitely contemptuous retort to the speech in the Saudi daily Sharq-al-Awsat, ridiculing the fact that
His Majesty King Hussein was evidently shocked to find that people understood the first part of his speech—the bit about fighting jihad alongside the atheist of Baghdad—but not the second—about reaching an understanding with the victors. So he had to issue statements that transformed the cry of a Hashemite struggler for holy war into the apologetic whispers of a lowly opportunist... In the cry for holy jihad, he proclaimed, while describing the policy of the Iraqi despot: ‘Truth will be victorious!’ But in the lowly whisper, he turned 180 degrees and declared how surprised he was that his call for peace had been so misunderstood! If this was a call for peace, what does a war- cry sound like?
Neither the Jordanian king nor his new-found Palestinian supporters could have seen some sort of Iraqi move toward a diplomatic solution as being very far off, and the first rumblings were to come in a day or two. For the moment, there were signs and portents: four more Iraqi planes were shot down Thursday, the 7th of February. They were running for Iran, not opposing the allies. An estimated 134 aircraft had fled already. And Powell and Cheney were heading for Saudi Arabia to confer with Gen. Schwarzkopf on the ground war. “CBS This Morning” told us that President Mitterand had said that a ground war would start in February.
On Friday, the 8th of February, we saw footage of Cobras seeking out ground targets. B52s were continuing to fly their heavy bombing missions. The Wisconsin was on station, firing on enemy artillery positions on shore. The bombing had continued overnight. One SCUD launcher was confirmed destroyed and three were either damaged or destroyed. Two more enemy aircraft had been shot down. Our own losses stood at twelve dead, eleven wounded, 24 MIA, and eight POWs. Richard Threlkeld showed us footage of Khafji after the fighting, Saudis using loudspeakers to coax the few remaining Iraqis out of their holes, footage of burnt-out armored vehicles.
The anti-American demonstrations continued unabated in Amman, seemingly thousands of people shouting “Death to America!” There had been a Palestinian attack across the Jordanian border into Israel; three Fundamentalist Palestinian “heroes” had crossed and attacked traffic on a highway. There were a few wounded on a bus. Israeli troops had killed the attackers. It was another pinprick, the more usual kind of warfare seen in the area.
It was estimated that the 50 percent point in destruction of the Iraqi war machine was a week or ten days away. 900 tanks had been damaged or destroyed so far, 200 hardened aircraft bunkers.
General Powell addressed the troops in Saudi Arabia, and his message was upbeat: “We tried to give them some good advice a few months ago,” he stated. “We told them, ‘Move it or lose it.’ They wouldn’t move it. Now they’re going to lose it.” It was the kind of talk the troops wanted to hear.
The Iraqis didn’t want to lose it, but they had ranted themselves into a corner. Now they began slowly and gingerly to try and back out. On Thursday, February 7th, Nabil Negim Takriti, Iraq’s ambassador to Egypt and a relative of Saddam Hussein, speculated to the BBC Arabic Service in Cairo that, “If the allied forces stopped their bombardment of civilians, then a cease-fire could be achieved, and the prospects of bringing a political settlement to the Gulf could be improved through an international conference.” An international conference might resolve Iraq’s disputes with Kuwait, and an independent Kuwaiti state might emerge after the war. It would, of course, have “good ties” with Iraq, perhaps linked to that country the way Lebanon was linked to Syria. “Either way,” he said, “the current differences cannot be resolved simply by defeating Iraq in a war.”
Saddam himself had not wavered in his statements that Kuwait was Iraq’s 19th province, but setting fire to Kuwait’s oilfields implied that the Iraqis figured eventually they might not have possession of them. The question remaining was, at what point could they declare victory, get out, and still save face? It would have to be soon, as irreparable damage was being done to the country.
The Iranians seemed to think it was right away. The allied successes were too one-sided; the Iranians had probably settled back expecting to watch the two sides bleed each other for the next eight years. A prostrate Iraq and a resurgent America were not on the Iranian wish list. On Saturday, the 24th day of the war, Iran’s deputy prime minister delivered a peace proposal to Baghdad while the bombing continued, the 23rd night in a row.
The Soviets probably had something of the same feelings, especially the military establishment. It was Soviet equipment and Soviet training that was being so severely drubbed. President Gorbachev warned that the military action underway risked exceeding the UN’s mandate; he was sending an envoy to Baghdad to meet with Saddam Hussein. That did not mean he was ready to scuttle good relations with the United States: “At this critical moment,” he stated, “I am making a public, insistent appeal to the president of Iraq that he weigh once again all that is involved for his country and to show proof of realism which would allow him to work toward a sure and fair settlement.”
The three moves together were the first in what was to prove a last-ditch diplomatic offensive that lasted up until the start of the ground war. The Iranians were the wrong agents; they had long since forfeited any influence on the U.S. Gorbachev was the logical person to haul the Iraqi ashes out of the fire. The Iraqis had been Soviet clients for years and they respected them, or at least they respected the Soviets' old line factions. The U.S. was still enjoying the first bloom of post-Cold War romance, so would think twice before snubbing them. And the Soviets also had veto power on the Security Council.
On the home front, Charles Krauthammer had a good time in his column, pillorying officials of the University of Maryland for forbidding the display of American flags and pro-war banners by students from their dormitory windows. “We have a big population to be sensitive to,” said Julie Field, director of a group of dormitories. “The [university] does not want our public spaces to show people’s opinion.” This represented an apparent sea change from the usual policy, in which fashionably left displays were protected and encouraged. The student newspaper broke the story on its front page, and the Washington Post picked it up. The university, with self-inflicted pie on its face, decided upon consideration that it “supports strongly such displays as expressions of freedom of speech.”
A homosexual rights group calling itself ACT UP invaded the set of CBS News, disrupting Dan Rather’s evening broadcast and having to be forcibly ejected. They were complaining that the war was diverting attention from AIDS and other domestic problems (and themselves).
Prowar sentiment had surged to the extent that Topps, the baseball card people, was bringing out a line of Desert Storm cards, featuring generals and hardware.
Niall Irving again gave Saturday’s British briefing. There had been 2,835 British sorties to date. The previous 24 hours had seen Tornado and Jaguar attacks on petroleum facilities, bridges, and SAM support areas. The American activity had been proportionate. So had the French, the Saudi, the Kuwaiti...
British army logistics operations were reported complete. There were 40,000 tons of ammunition, 3.5 million gallons of fuel in place. The 1st Armoured Division was the best-equipped, best-sustained force the British had ever fielded. Irving didn’t say where it was.
The enemy they faced was in constantly worsening shape. The relentless attacks on the infrastructure were having a “devastating” effect. At least 750 tanks had been destroyed. Iraq already had an army that was ready to bolt. Many of those called up had not reported for duty, even though the penalty was execution. Indications from EPWs were that more would come over if they had the chance. The Egyptians were reporting that the Iraqis were executing those who attempted to desert. Newsweek, in a special edition published after the war, ran grisly pictures confirming that statement, a firing squad set up at a tennis court on the beach in Kuwait, six men in civilian clothes bound and blindfolded, being mowed down by a firing squad. Then, in a blurry insert, the officer with his pistol, administering the coup de grace.
Iraq’s ineffective counterattacks continued: a SCUD fired at Israel had been damaged by a Patriot and the wreckage had fallen in a residential area. Egypt reported that it had arrested seventeen terrorists in Iraqi pay sneaking into the country. They had carried $42,000 and lists of people to assassinate. The Egyptians, perhaps recalling Anwar Sadat, weren’t smiling.
On CNN’s “Newsmaker Saturday,” Dilip Hiro, author of a book on the Iran-Iraq War, stated that the Iraqis were disposed in the same manner they had been when fighting the Iranians, and that Iraq would have the advantage in a ground war — the advantage of short supply lines and the willingness to use chemical weapons. Defense consultant Kenneth Brower begged to differ: the Iraqi general staff had put its forces in a bag, waiting to be closed up by a flanking attack. The coalition’s control of the air allowed it the mobility that Iraqis lacked. John Warner agreed with Brower, but added that the objective was not to destroy Iraq, but to get it out of Kuwait. There would be no separate ground war, but a combined military operation, an outgrowth of the current operation. The talk turned, as it was increasingly, to what to expect of a ground war; Brower stated that anything under 6,000 allied casualties would be a spectacular performance.
Warner made the further point that he expected to see an increased tempo of diplomatic activity, starting the next day, as the time for the start of ground operations drew closer.
The Iraqi ambassador to France was interviewed by CNN. Saddam Hussein had always been realistic, he explained lamely, sounding as though he didn’t quite believe it himself. The choice the Iraqis had been given was between unconditional surrender or fighting — the realistic course was to fight. They had wanted to negotiate, but the Bush administration wanted the destruction of Iraq; what we had been witnessing in the past three weeks had nothing to do with the liberation of Kuwait. Iraq’s objective there was to defend itself, and the destruction of Iraq or the liberation of Kuwait would not solve the problems of the region. Besides, the whole Iraqi and Arab peoples supported Saddam Hussein and the troops would fight “more strongly” because of the heavy civilian casualties the Coalition was inflicting. It was pretty lame stuff.
Gen. Powell’s position, as he addressed the troops in Saudi Arabia was clear, logical, and concise: “We’re going to get this thing over with quickly, using the simple process of ‘cut it off and kill it,’ and then we’re going to get home as fast as we can.”