just had, but if you read about it in a newspaper, you'd likely come to the conclusion that it had been like shooting fish in a barrel — an un-American way to fight a war; and so the sooner ended, the better. If I had known that this was the impression people were getting in Washington, I would have realized at the time that the war would not go on much longer. The impact was too powerful.
I wanted the CINC to get a good look at all of this, and especially at what VII Corps units had done.
Farther north, where the British and 1st INF were across the highway, we had seen combat vehicles, tanks, and BMPs, damaged, abandoned, or destroyed. When we cleared the road later, we had to use both the 1st and 9th Engineer Battalions. Following that cleanup, until the mess on the roads around Kuwait City got cleaned up, we used half the four-lane divided highway for about two weeks as a C-130 strip for resupply. Otherwise, in order to reach the 1st INF, they drove all the way through the desert.
As we made our way toward Kuwait City that morning, we flew by other burning oil wells. Hundreds were visible. It was fortunate for us that we were west of the oil fields, since the wind generally blew from west to east, and the smoke stayed out over the Gulf (years later on a trip to India, I learned that they had gotten some of the smoke even that far away). On some days, the wind did blow the other way, and it was like night where we were.
(I even asked our doctors about it, but they predicted that the greasy air would not cause any long-term effects for our troops. Breathing the stuff was about the same as breathing big-city smog, they told me.)
We also flew over the destruction in the desert that had been delivered by the 1st INF as they cut a swath through the Iraqis to Highway 8.
Finally, we came to the coast and passed over the elaborate defenses the Iraqis had built to stop the amphibious landing that never came. On the beaches they had laid out complex obstacles: wire entanglements, concrete tetrahedron blocks, steel tangles, and probably mines (although I could not tell that from the air). To prevent helos from landing, they had erected thousands of telephone poles.
On a later visit to Kuwait City, we visited the abandoned Iraqi III Corps HQ (it was this corps that had been meant to defend against the Marine landing). I saw an elaborate twenty-by-thirty-foot terrain board set up, in color, with terrain relief, and a scaled replica of the beach area, complete with overlaid military grid. I could just picture the commander and all his subordinate commanders and staff going over their defense in precise detail. That deception by our Marine and Navy forces afloat essentially tied down a whole Iraqi corps. It was masterful.
Since all of this was on the eastern part of the city, we would not fly over it with the CINC on the way to Safwan.
We landed at Kuwait City International Airport. As you might expect, it looked as if it had been in a war. Hangars were wrecked, their roofs caved in; there were holes in the walls of other buildings; and wrecked Iraqi vehicles. Except for pitted marks here and there, apparently from cluster bomb munitions, the runway itself was not damaged. But we were careful to stay on the runways or taxi aprons and off the grassy areas in between, because there still might be unexploded ordnance in there.
At 0930, General Schwarzkopf arrived in a modern civilian Gulfstream jet. It taxied over to our command Blackhawk and stopped, then the CINC came out and down the stairs, and I saluted.
I was a bit uneasy; not only was this a big day, but just the day before he had accused me of disobeying an order; and he had expressed displeasure to John Yeosock at our VII Corps attack tempo early in the war. Despite all that, I was determined to leave the personal stuff out of it and to focus on the day's mission and show him as much as I could of what we had done out here. I figured the last thing we both needed was for me to be taking up time with personal business between the two of us… though if he wanted to talk about it, I was ready and more than willing.
Neither issue came up, not then, not ever, in any of our meetings or correspondence.[54]
FOR the flight up to Safwan, we had arranged a visible show of force. I had a company of Apaches (from our 2/6 CAV 11th Aviation Brigade) to escort us, three on each side of our Blackhawk. We also had ordered Tom Rhame to do the same at Safwan. We wanted to demonstrate to the Iraqis that we had plenty of combat power left if they had a mind to restart anything. From what I had seen of 'Moreno' tactics, the Iraqis respected a credible show of force.
As we took off, I let the CINC know I wouldn't bother him with a lot of chatter, since I knew he had a lot on his mind, and that we would fly lower and slower than usual, so that he would have a chance to look around. The conference site was ready, I added, and described the general setup.
'The Iraqis better not ask for much today,' he said, 'because I'm not in a charitable mood. I'm not in a position to give them much, and they're not in a position to demand much.' From that I concluded that he and Washington had the day's events pretty well figured out. I made no attempt to question him on any of it, since it was none of my business unless the CINC chose to discuss it. He did not.
As we flew over the burning oil wells, he was as shocked as the rest of us by that tragedy. 'What would possess a people to do something like that?' he wondered aloud.
Shortly after that, we circled to get a closer look at the 'Highway of Death.' He had nothing to say. Then we went a little west of Highway 8, so that I could point out the destroyed Iraqi equipment. It stretched as far as we could see, and it impressed him. When we reached it, I pointed out the area of the 1st INF division attack, and explained how they had come out of the west after their night attack and laid waste to the Iraqi army all the way to Highway 8. The scene was the same behind the British and the 1st and 3rd ADs, I added.
He was clearly pleased. 'Just like we planned it, Fred,' he said.
After the CINC said that, I figured that all the problems and confusions of the previous four days had gone away; and I never expected to hear of them again.
SAFWAN 3 MARCH 1991
We landed on the airstrip about 500 feet down from the tents where the meeting would be held, so that we would not blow them away. General Schwarzkopf quickly got off the helicopter. We drew a crowd of maybe a hundred media people, with cameras and microphones at the ready.
To my surprise, there was Gus Pagonis, in complete combat uniform, to greet the CINC. Not Tom Rhame, not Bill Carter, not Tony Moreno. Then, as the cameras rolled, Gus and General Schwarzkopf strolled to the tent area, with Gus carefully explaining the largely VII Corps, mostly 1st INF, setup. I quickly fell in on Gus's left.
I was shocked to see Gus grab the CINC and squire him away. Though 22 SUPCOM had certainly supplied some equipment, this was not a 22 SUPCOM (that is to say, a Gus Pagonis) mission. The Big Red One and VII Corps had taken the site from the Iraqis; they'd organized it and set it up; they'd done the work. VII Corps had fought through the RGFC to get here. First INF had fought all night through Norfolk, and had captured Safwan just the day before. It did not seem right to me. I wanted the spotlight to shine that day on our troops who had fought through more than 250 kilometers of desert and destroyed the better part of eleven divisions to get to this site. I flat missed that one.
Under Tom Rhame's orders, Bill Carter and the troops had done a magnificent job. We had our show of force. Meanwhile, the 1st INF had arranged to meet the Iraqi delegation at a designated pickup point. They then put them in our HMMWVs, and drove them on a route that took them through a canyon of M1A1 tanks and Bradleys, spaced about twenty meters apart, with soldiers at their crew positions in full battle dress. The airfield was ringed with tanks and Bradleys, also with soldiers at crew stations (two battalions and the cavalry squadron were there). Apaches and CENTAF A-10s were flying overhead, and an additional Apache company was parked on the airstrip. We wanted to be sure that the Iraqi delegation and any other Iraqi units watching got a firsthand look at our combat power.
