Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

slithered through his brain. I can’t do it, he told himself. I’m not adequate. I won’t get it right. No one’s capable of meeting these challenges.

Until it came to him: I don’t have to succeed. John Yeosock, Bill Rider, and a host of others are here. I’m not alone. More important, none of us is alone. God’s always present. So I’ ll trust in God. Inshallah.

5 CENTCOM Forward

When they arrived at Riyadh Air Base, on the afternoon of Tuesday the seventh of August, Chuck Horner and the other Americans were greeted by Major General Harawi, the base commander and a friend of Horner’s since his initial visit to the Kingdom in 1987. In their three years working together, he and Harawi had learned to solve issues “offline” that might have gotten stuck in both countries’ bureaucracies if they’d been handled more formally. Meanwhile, Harawi spread the word that Horner could be trusted, which helped cement Horner’s already growing friendship with General Behery, the RSAF chief, and a close friend of Harawi’s. Among Arabs, friendship is everything.

The air base, now perched on the northeast corner of the city, had once served as the international airport, but modern hotels, apartment buildings, and shops spreading out of the old city center had crowded it, requiring the construction of a huge new facility, King Khalid International Airport, out in the desert well to the north.

General Harawi’s base housed the Saudi Air Force E-3 AWACS aircraft, a C-130 squadron, and the Air Force academy, with its collocated flight training school. For almost ten years it had also hosted the USAF ELF-1 AWACS aircraft and tankers that flew out of Riyadh twenty-four hours a day, and had provided early-warning radar coverage for the Saudi’s eastern province during the Iran-Iraq War and the oil tanker convoy operation in 1988 and 1989.

During those years, Harawi had cared for a TDY family of about 1,000 U.S. Air Force men and women. If any of them had a run-in with the police or the Mutawa, the religious police force, Harawi got them out of it and sent them back to the United States. Alternatively, if the hotel contractor tried to skimp on food or room services, Harawi paid him a call to remind him that the Saudi government was spending a great deal of money to make sure the USAF AWACS people were well taken care of during their stay in the kingdom. He had a major operation at Riyadh, and owing to its proximity to town, many VIPs used it, yet he looked after the American troops as if they were his own sons and daughters.[31]

Yeosock, Kaufman, Horner, and Harawi sat down in the elegant VIP reception lounge, with its cool, scented air, easeful light, splendid chandelier, and what seemed to be acres of blue-and-white Persian rug, while a tall, impassive Sudanese steward served gaua and sweet tea. In the coming months, the presidents and prime ministers, congressmen and parliamentarians who flocked to the Gulf to cheer and be seen with the troops of the coalition would all pass through this same impressive space. There they’d be served gaua and tea by the same impassive steward and be given the opportunity to make the transition from the rushed intensity of the West to the more measured pace of Saudi Arabia.

After a decent interval for small talk, Harawi probed Horner about events in occupied Kuwait and the other countries (many of them unfriendly) that bordered the Kingdom. What was happening in occupied Kuwait? Who’d gotten out and who’d gotten killed? What were the Iraqi forces doing? Would they attack or not attack? What was going to happen in Yemen and Sudan? On the adjacent seas? Like most Saudis, Harawi’s primary source of information was rumors; the entire Kingdom lived on rumor. Information there was on very close hold, which meant that accurate information was truly valuable, and having such information gave the possessor great power. Even a two-star general such as Harawi was not in the top-level information loop, which meant that he had access to more rumors than news.

News was particularly important, because, unlike Americans, who think of threats from far away, Saudis thought of threats from a tight, immediate circle — Iraq, Iran, Yemen, or even Sudan. Their sensitivity was very acute, their fears very immediate.

Practically, in his capacity as Saudi AWACS commander, Harawi needed an accurate assessment of Iraqi intentions. His AWACS aircraft were maintaining twenty-four-hour coverage over the northeast. His immediate problem was that the single E-3 they had airborne (out of the five they owned[32] ) could cover only a small sector at any one time (approximately one-fourth of the border), and the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia was very long. This left gaps in the low-level radar coverage. If the Iraqi air force came south anywhere but in the east, the RSAF would have to depend on ground-based radar to pick up the attack. Harawi was worried that the Iraqis would take advantage of this weakness and make an attack on the kingdom — and Riyadh Air Base was a prime target.

After Horner had filled him in as best he could, and assured him that enough E-3s were on the way to fill his gap, the two friends said their goodbyes; then Kaufman, Yeosock, and Horner packed into a waiting car for the trip to MODA (the Ministry of Defense and Aviation) and a meeting with the heads of the Saudi military forces and their chairman, General Muhammad al-Hamad. Hamad, the Kingdom’s only active-duty four-star general, was Colin Powell’s counterpart.

Horner had known the tough but amiable soldier for well over three years, and made sure to call on him first thing whenever he visited the Kingdom. Their previous encounters had always been friendly, yet challenging. He wondered how this one would turn out.

Unlike Horner’s counterparts, Behery and Harawi, who’d worked closely with him to solve practical, military cooperation problems, the job of the head of the Saudi military was to work the larger political-military picture. Specifically, he had to raise a modern military in a part of the world where there were real, immediate threats. For that, he needed U.S. help, though he was not always comfortable admitting it, or rather, he needed to be able to buy up-to-date American military equipment and training. Since the U.S. government had traditionally been acutely sensitive to the wishes of those who saw U.S. cooperation with Saudi Arabia as inimical to the best interests of Israel, the history of U.S.-Saudi military cooperation at Hamad’s level had not been rosy.

As a result, whenever Hamad and Horner met, Hamad would welcome the American three-star warmly in English, a language he spoke perfectly. Gaua and tea, and talk of family and friends, would follow. Then he would switch to Arabic, to make sure his words were accurate, and, through a translator, give Horner a savage tongue-lashing — usually because the Congress was not acting on a military case of vital interest to Saudi Arabia. After the chewing-out, the talks would resume in English, with the tough Arab soldier wearing a broad smile and a twinkle in his eye. He would then wish Horner well and send him on his way. The routine never varied. Though he was dead serious, it was not personal. It was role-playing.

Why did he take shots at Horner? Because he was the closest American just then; and in the American setup you never knew who could really get things done. Hamad didn’t know Horner from Adam in those prewar days, but he did know Horner outranked the two-star he had in his building who was the USMTM commander.

The car carrying the Americans passed through the air base’s main gate, beyond which was a traffic circle. In the center of the circle was a large fountain. At one time the water had flowed out of the lip of a huge gaua pot, with four smaller gaua pots on the sides, and it thus became known as Teapot Circle. In 1989, the Saudis had torn the gaua pots down and put in a tiered water fountain with spray shooting out of the top — but it was still called Teapot Circle.

After swinging around the circle, the car headed south down Airport Boulevard toward the old city. Along this major artery was a complex of buildings that housed the Saudi military headquarters. Two blocks from the base was the MODA officers’ club — rooms for guests, dining areas, athletic fields, and gyms for men and women. Although it was much larger than its American counterparts, it had all the features an American military officer might expect to find, save one. There was no bar.

Next to the MODA club was the United States Military Training Mission (USMTM) compound. This covered a city block, and was walled. Within the walls were offices, a club (also no bar), a soccer field, some small houses, and two high-rise apartment buildings where John Yeosock and Chuck Horner would room together for the next nine