100/F-4 drones for shoot-down aerial targets.
Bill Creech retired during Horner’s tour in that command, to be replaced by General Jerry O’Malley. Soon after he took over, however, O’Malley and his wife were killed in a plane crash, and Bob Russ became the new TAC commander.
Then, as a major general, Horner replaced Tony McPeak as the TAC Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans at Langley (where he had worked at TAC as a major). He was responsible for the beddown of the forces and for preparing input on such matters as the budget, manpower, doctrine, war plans, studies and analysis, and joint matters. He also worked closely with the Army at nearby Fort Monroe, where their doctrine effort was centered.
From there he moved to command of Ninth Air Force and CENTAF, where one bright day in August he was ordered out of the sky and to Shaw AFB, ready to begin the biggest challenge of his life…
II
Shield in the Sky
4
Mission to Jeddah
Saturday, August 4th: it was time to fly to Camp David to brief President Bush and his chief advisers.
Well past midnight, Horner, Schwarzkopf, and the other Camp David pilgrims boarded a C-21 Learjet, the Air Force transport normally used by VIPs, for the flight to Andrews AFB. The trip was tense and uncomfortable. The seats were small and the jet was full, so legs cramped, necks and rear ends ached. Everyone was exhausted, on edge. Horner himself was anxious; the thought of briefing the President was unsettling… not because it frightened him, but because he wanted to get it right, and that made it difficult to relax.
The CINC eased his great bulk into the tiny seat and tried to sleep; he was so large, he seemed to take up the entire plane. Horner slipped into a backseat next to Admiral Grant Sharp, the CENTCOM J-5 (Director of Plans), and reviewed his slides.
Sharp, a tall, gentlemanly, naval surface officer with gray hair and glasses, was a quiet man who spoke in well-constructed, thought-out phrases. Though he was old Navy and loved the service (his father, also an admiral, had been the Commander in Chief, Pacific Forces), he seemed more academic than military, which put him at a disadvantage when dealing with the fiery and mercurial Schwarzkopf. Sharp liked order and thoughtful discourse and hated the CINC’s tirades, while Schwarzkopf never warmed to scholarly types.
After a 4:00 A.M. touchdown at Andrews, they were driven across town to Wainwright Hall, the Distinguished Visitors Quarters at Fort Meyer on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and a five-minute drive from the Pentagon. At Wainwright, Horner grabbed a twenty-minute nap and a shower, which took away some of the cobwebs and grunge of the previous day and night.
Despite the antipathy of the ejection-seat technicians in the Life Support shop to storing clothes where they didn’t belong, Horner habitually kept a shaving kit and blue, short-sleeve uniform tucked up in the canopy of his F- 16. Pilots normally used an underwing baggage pod for carrying personal baggage, but the pod limited maneuvering to only three Gs; and since he’d set out Friday morning to fight F-15s, there was no way he was going to stand for that.
He took advantage of the kit and the uniform now and, looking as put together as circumstances allowed, everyone regrouped and got in the cars that were to take them to the helicopter pad on the south end of the Pentagon.
By the time they reached the pad, it was about 6:00 A.M. Shortly afterward, they were joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and Horner’s old National War College classmate), General Colin Powell, who radiated the warmth and humor that make everyone acquainted with him think of him as a best friend. After the greetings, Powell drew General Schwarzkopf aside for some last-minute coaching, to head off the chance that Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney or President Bush might reach conclusions at the briefing that he didn’t approve.
In Chuck Horner’s view, Colin Powell was a decent, honorable, intelligent, and genuinely likable man with unquestionable integrity who was also a brilliant schemer, manipulator, and political operator… and he had one serious flaw: he was Army through and through. He had never been able to admit the ascendancy of airpower. In Powell’s mind, it all came down to a zero-sum game, expressed in a simple syllogism: if airpower was growing in importance, then land power must be decreasing. That was bad for the nation, however; consequently, he had to make sure that brakes were applied to the growth of airpower.
Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, wearing cowboy boots, walked up to the pad a couple of minutes after General Powell, and immediately introduced himself to Horner with a warm handshake and a smile. The Secretary of Defense was of medium height and build, balding, neat, friendly, and, Horner quickly learned, a good listener. Until this morning, the two had never met.
As for Cheney, this was just another general, not even a slim or handsome one, whose shy Iowa mumblings were not likely to inspire a powerful first impression. “What do you call the Secretary of Defense?” Horner kept asking himself. “Mister Secretary? Boss? Dick? Your Honor?” Yet, for his part, Horner liked what he saw: this man was smart, selfless, and straightforward.
Everyone soon piled into a fancy Marine helicopter for the trip to Camp David.
The low man on the totem pole has some advantages. For starters, he can observe; he doesn’t have to show off who he is. So Horner relaxed in the helicopter and watched Schwarzkopf and Powell do a power dance together, as they worked to establish their territory and power base, and made sure that they were recognized for their expertise in military matters and that, in the meeting to come, the Defense Secretary wouldn’t take off on his own. Though Cheney was in charge, the senior uniformed types (as always) did their best to keep the civilian leadership from making military decisions on their own.
Thus, Schwarzkopf ’s body language said to Powell, “You may be the Chairman, Colin, but the Middle East is my theater and I work for Secretary Cheney.” Thanks to Goldwater-Nichols, the CINC had a direct, unmediated working connection with the Secretary of Defense, making the Chairman hardly more than an adviser — though an extremely powerful and influential one. Powell’s body language, on the other hand, said to Schwarzkopf: “Norm, let me guide you through this political maze.” And to Cheney: “Dick, don’t reach any conclusions about using military force until I get a chance to convince you about what should be done. And for God’s sake, don’t go to Norm direct”…
CAMP DAVID
Camp David turned out to be comfortable, but not luxurious — it had earth-tone colors, a musty odor (like a mostly vacant summer cabin), government-issue hardwood tables, overstuffed brown vinyl sofas, and brass lamps. Since the windows were small and looked out onto the surrounding forest, and their light was only partially supplemented by lamps on end tables, it was dim inside.
Soon after their arrival, Horner and Schwarzkopf went into the conference room to check it out before they had to perform — to reconnoiter the battlefield. As Horner remembers it, the room was wood-paneled, with a neutral-colored office-style carpet on the floor. The meeting table could hold about twenty to thirty people around it,
