bombings only made him stronger.
In the end, however, they agreed to a strike if the U-2 was fired upon. Despite their serious questions about the benefits of the U.S. air strikes, they always came through with their support (contrary to U.S. media reports), but preferred to keep the extent of their support private.
The U-2 flew as scheduled on November 10. During the flight, Zinni sat with senior Saudi leaders in the Saudi Ministry of Defense in Riyadh, but in direct communication with CENTCOM’s air operations center, ready to give the order to strike at the first indication that the plane was threatened.
As had often happened before, Saddam’s threat turned out to be hollow. The flight was uneventful.
On November 14, in the face of the Iraqi demand to remove the Americans, Butler evacuated the entire contingent of inspectors; but after several days of intense diplomatic activity, they were all able to return — though, once again, with less freedom to operate than before. Every “diplomatic solution” lessened UNSCOM’s ability to get the disarmament job done.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi lies and threats did not stop; and over the next months, Saddam raised the stakes again and again — always probing for weaknesses, always trying to limit UNSCOM’s effectiveness.
In response, CENTCOM built up forces in the region to be ready to strike if the inspectors were no longer able to do their business. This operation became known as “Desert Thunder.”
In February, Secretary of Defense Cohen and Zinni conducted a four-day trip to eleven countries to gain support for a major air strike if Butler’s inspectors were unable to carry out their mission. By February 17, when a confrontation with Saddam seemed imminent, President Clinton announced in a televised speech that the U.S. would act if he did not cooperate with the inspectors. Zinni briefed the President and key cabinet members on the planned strike and defense of American allies in the region.
But once again Saddam made a last-minute retreat. A February 20 visit to Baghdad by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan got an agreement from Saddam to resume cooperation with Butler; yet it was clearly only a matter of time before this cooperation would collapse.
Meanwhile, the U.S. forces that had been added to the units already in the region remained in the Gulf, poised to strike.
During the target selection process for Desert Thunder, the President had injected a new and unprecedented element into the planning — he had clearly begun seriously to face the question raised by the likelihood that Saddam would finally block UNSCOM’s work. “Can we militarily eliminate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction program?” the President asked Zinni. Previous air strikes had simply punished the Iraqis in the hope of forcing their cooperation. Now he was asking whether bombing could accomplish militarily what the inspectors seemed no longer able to do on the ground.
Zinni’s answer at that point was negative. “We don’t know enough about the WMD program,” he said, “much less where the components of the program are. That’s why the inspectors are in there.”
But Clinton persisted. “What can be done militarily about the WMD?” he kept asking. “To what level can we take them out?”
As time went on, Zinni began to come up with answers.
Once they are built, WMD are relatively easy to hide. But the facilities and processes that are used to build them are much harder to conceal. Zinni’s people knew quite a lot about these. The delivery systems and the fuels that powered them were vulnerable, as were the security systems and personnel that protected the programs; the various documents, information, materials, and the research-and-development operations; and the special and difficult-to-acquire machinery required to fabricate high-tolerance parts (such as centrifuges needed to separate fissile uranium from its more stable forms).
Whenever an air strike was imminent (normally tipped off by a buildup of CENTCOM forces in the region as tensions mounted), the Iraqis would move the more vulnerable elements of their WMD programs out of harm’s way. These were the elements that could be taken out… if they could be hit before they’d been moved to safety.
“The Iraqis are allowed to have certain missiles,” Zinni reported to the President. “But within that capability, they can research and develop an expanded capability, which at some point can be turned into a delivery system. We can eliminate that. We can bomb their missile facility.
“They also have experimental, developmental programs on fuel for missiles and rockets. We can take these out.
“We know the security forces charged with protecting WMD program information, documents, materials, and R & D studies. The Special Republican Guard is charged with these missions. We can hit them.
“We know the facilities where they keep high-tolerance machinery that is necessary for a nuclear program. We can hit those facilities.
“And we can add targets vital to the regime, like their intelligence headquarters and the Ba’ath party headquarters. Taking out such targets will do serious damage to their command and control capabilities.
“Taking out all these things will not end forever their WMD program,” Zinni said in conclusion. “If the strike goes well, if we are really lucky, the best we can do is set back their programs for two years. It will take about that much time to reconstitute and replace what we’ve destroyed.”
With the President’s approval, Zinni was given the go-ahead to plan for striking these targets.
DESERT VIPER
Butler and his UNSCOM inspectors soldiered on, but with ever-increasing difficulties. From May 1998 to the end of that year was a time of almost constant crisis.
Though UNSCOM was intended to be a verifying and not an investigative body, the Iraqi obstacles to its proper functioning had required the creation of an investigative and forensic unit. In June 1998, the UNSCOM investigations discovered long-sought smoking guns — stores of Scud-specific propellants and incontrovertible evidence of VX production (one of the most vicious of the nerve agents[4] ).
Because the propellants could be used only for Scuds, there was no reason for the Iraqis to have kept the stuff around
The Iraqis were later proved to have produced close to four thousand liters of VX long ago — after claiming far lower estimates. “But of course,” they told UNSCOM, “we’ve destroyed all that we made during the years they had actually made the stuff.”
The UN resolution demanded UNSCOM verification, but the Iraqis always blocked UNSCOM from verifying anything significant.
Naturally, UNSCOM successes did not sit well with the Iraqis.
On August 5, the battle entered its final phase, when the Iraqis officially suspended UNSCOM’s disarmament work. Though Kofi Annan and others shuttled to all the usual capitals in an effort to attain another “diplomatic solution,” by October 31 no one serious doubted that the work of UNSCOM was finished. No one knew how the end would come — whether the Iraqis would throw the inspectors out, or the inspectors would give up and walk out — but one way or another it was certain that the UNSCOM operation in Iraq was untenable.
When that happened, the heavy air strike would inevitably follow.
As that moment approached, Secretary of Defense Cohen, communicating through General Hugh Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, directed Zinni to prepare two attack plans — a heavy option, and a lighter one. The heavy option would attack many targets over several days. The lighter option would be shorter, and hit fewer targets.
Though he could have lived with either option, Zinni preferred the heavier. “If you’re going to hit him, hit him,” he told the Joint Chiefs.
On the seventh of November, he flew up to Washington to brief the plan.
If he thought the briefings would be easy, and followed by an automatic approval of his plan, he was wrong.
A briefing with the Joint Chiefs was held in the small Pentagon conference room called “the Tank.” When
