for two reasons: The British apparently spent a lot of time over it, and it was not located on any American air map. The theory was floated that it might be a mishearing of KKMC, which stood for King Khaled Military City, a large Saudi base. This was discounted, and the search went on. Finally the Americans gave up. Wherever MMFD was located, it was simply not to be found on the war maps supplied to USAF squadrons by their planners in Riyadh.
Eventually the Tornado pilots admitted the secret of MMFD. It stood for “miles and miles of fucking desert.”
On the ground, the soldiers were living in the heart of MMFD. For many, sleeping under their tanks, mobile guns, and armored cars, life was hard and, worse, boring.
There were distractions, however, and one was visiting neighboring units as the time dragged by. The Americans were equipped with particularly good cots, for which the British lusted. By chance, the Americans were also issued singularly revolting prepacked meals, probably devised by a Pentagon civil servant who would have died rather than eat them three times a day.
They were called MREs, meaning Meals-Ready-to-Eat. The U.S.
soldiery denied this quality in them and decided that MRE really stood for Meals Rejected by Ethiopians. By contrast, the Brits were eating much better, so true to the capitalist ethic, a brisk trade was soon established between American beds and British rations.
Another piece of news from the British lines that bemused the Americans was the order placed by London’s Ministry of Defence for half a million condoms for the soldiers in the Gulf. In the bleak deserts of Arabia such a purchase was deemed to indicate the Brits must know something the GIs did not.
The mystery was resolved the day before the ground war started. The Americans had spent a hundred days cleaning their rifles over and over again to purge them of the all-pervasive sand, dust, grit, and gravel that endlessly blew into the ends of the barrels. The Brits whipped off their condoms to reveal nice shiny barrels gleaming with gun oil.
The other principal development that occurred just before Christmas was the reintegration of the French contingency into the heart of Allied planning.
In the early days, France had had a disaster of a Defense Minister called Jean-Pierre Chevenement, who appeared to enjoy a keen sympathy with Iraq and ordered the French commander to pass all Allied planning decisions on to Paris. When this was made plain to General Schwarzkopf, he and Sir Peter de la Billiere almost burst out laughing. Monsieur Chevenement was at that time also a leading light of the France-Iraq Friendship Society. Although the French contingent was commanded by a fine soldier in the form of General Michel Roquejoffre, France had to be excluded from all planning councils.
At the end of the year, Pierre Joxe was appointed French Defense Minister and at once rescinded the order. From then on, General Roquejoffre could be taken into the confidence of the Americans and British.
Two days before Christmas, Mike Martin received from Jericho the answer to a question posed a week earlier. Jericho was adamant: There had been within the previous few days a crisis cabinet meeting containing only the inner core of Saddam Hussein’s cabinet, the
Revolutionary Command Council, and the top generals.
At the meeting the question of Iraq leaving Kuwait voluntarily had been raised. Obviously it had not been raised as a proposal by anyone at the meeting—no one was that stupid. All recalled too well the earlier occasion when, during the Iran-Iraq war, an Iranian suggestion that if Saddam Hussein stepped down there could be peace had been broached. Saddam had asked for opinions.
The Health Minister had suggested such a move might be wise—as a purely temporary ploy, of course. Saddam invited the minister into a side room, pulled out his sidearm, shot him dead, and returned to resume the cabinet meeting.
The matter of Kuwait had been raised in the form of a denunciation of the United Nations for even daring to suggest the idea. All had waited for Saddam to give a lead. He declined, sitting as he so often did at the head of the table like a watching cobra, eyes moving from man to man in an attempt to smoke out some hint of disloyalty.
Not unnaturally, without a lead from the Rais, the conversation had petered out. Then Saddam had begun to speak very quietly, which was when he was at his most dangerous.
Anyone, he said, who let the thought of admitting to such a catastrophic humiliation of Iraq in the face of the Americans cross his mind was a man prepared to play the role of lickspittle to America for the rest of his life. For such a man there could be no place at this table.
That had been the end of it. Everyone present bent over backward to explain that such a thought would never, under any circumstances, occur to any of them.
Then the Iraqi dictator had added something else: Only if Iraq could win and be seen to win would it be possible to withdraw from Iraq’s nineteenth province, he said.
Everyone around the table then nodded sagely, though none could see what he was talking about.
It was a long report, and Mike Martin transmitted it to the villa outside Riyadh that same night.
Chip Barber and Simon Paxman pored over it for hours. Each had decided to take a brief break from Saudi Arabia and fly home for several days, leaving the running of Mike Martin and Jericho from the Riyadh end in the hands of Julian Gray for the British and the local CIA Head of Station for the Americans. There were only twenty- four days to go until the expiration of the United Nations deadline and the start of General Chuck Horner’s air war against Iraq. Both men wanted a short home leave, and Jericho’s powerful report gave them the chance. They could take it with them.
“What do you think he means, ‘win and be seen to win’?” asked Barber.
“No idea,” said Paxman. “We’ll have to get some analysts who are better than we are to have a look at it.”
“We too. I guess nobody will be around for the next few days except the shop-minders. I’ll give it the way it is to Bill Stewart, and he’ll probably have some eggheads try to add an in-depth analysis before it goes on to the Director and the State Department.”
“I know an egghead I’d like to have a look at it,” said Paxman, and on that note they left for the airport to catch their respective flights home.
On Christmas Eve, seated in a discreet wine bar in London’s West End with Simon Paxman, Dr. Terry Martin was shown the whole text of the Jericho message and asked if he would try to work out what, if anything, Saddam Hussein could mean by winning against America as a price for leaving Kuwait.
“By the way,” he asked Paxman, “I know it breaks the rules of need-to-
know, but I really am worried. I do these favors for you—give me one in return. How is my brother Mike doing in Kuwait? Is he still safe?”
Paxman stared at the doctor of Arabic studies for several seconds.
“I can only tell you that he is no longer in Kuwait,” he said. “And that’s more than my job is worth.”
Terry Martin flushed with relief.
“It’s the best Christmas present I could have. Thank you, Simon.” He looked up and waved a waggish finger. “Just one thing—don’t even think of sending him into Baghdad.”
Paxman had been in the business fifteen years. He kept his face immobile, his tone light. The scholar was clearly just joking.
“Really? Why not?”
Martin was finishing his glass of wine and failed to notice the flicker of alarm in the intelligence officer’s eyes.
“My dear Simon, Baghdad’s the one city in the world he mustn’t set foot in. You remember those tapes of Iraqi radio intercepts Sean Plummer let me have? Some of the voices have been identified. I recognized one of the names. A hell of a fluke, but I know I’m right.”
“Really?” said Paxman smoothly. “Tell me more.”
“It’s been a long time, of course, but I know it was the same man. And guess what? He’s now head of Counterintelligence in Baghdad, Saddam’s number-one spy-hunter.”
“Hassan Rahmani,” murmured Paxman. Terry Martin should stay off booze, even before Christmas. He can’t carry it. His tongue’s running away with him.
