formed, with Carl Roschelle from CNN as the designated leader. Carl was great to work with. But I soon learned that the news business is one of the most competitive in the world. A “can you top this” race between individual reporters, networks, and papers broke out.
The folks in the business are all trying to make a living involving extreme pressures to gather information and meet deadlines. They all want their own organizations to succeed, and that means getting the best, most exciting, most insightful information into the world’s TV sets before any of their competitors do.
This form of combat was brought home to me when ABC’s Sam Donaldson and NBC’s Tom Brokaw showed up at my doorstep in Riyadh. Each wanted an interview for that evening’s news in the United States. They flipped a coin to see who would go first, and Brokaw won. Unfortunately, his crew’s equipment, camera, and lights hadn’t arrived on the airplane with him. But when I suggested we set up with Donaldson’s crew and let the NBC team use that camera, it got very quiet in the room, and it instantly became apparent that Donaldson would do his interview, and if Brokaw wanted to videotape, his guys would have to go out and beg a camera.
As it worked out, we found a Saudi Military Public Affairs camera, so both interviews were done in time to send a satellite feed back to the States.
Our military often fails to understand the dog-eat-dog nature of the news business, or that each form of media has different time lines and communications requirements back to editors or studios. As a result, we often fail to assist and facilitate the media in ways that would be useful for both of us. Thus, the always cynical media personalities often lash out against the military, rail against what they perceive as news management, and complain bitterly that they are being censored. Sure, media guys have a lingering fear of the military, another hangover from Vietnam. But in reality, the fault is a simple misunderstanding on the part of the military about how to best support the unique requirements of different media.
One of the toughest interviewers for me was Michael Gordon of The New York Times.[36] He came on with all the warmth of a cobra; his questions were well thought out, difficult to answer, and tough; he clearly thought I was hiding things from him — specifically, that our situation was much worse than I was letting on, and I was an idiot who really didn’t have a grip on what was happening. (He was partially right on the last point.) Yet after reading his stories, I came to a different conclusion about Gordon than his interviews led me to. Media people, I realized, just like the military, live or die on their integrity. If a reporter deliberately strays from the truth, he or she is dead meat among their peers and editorial masters. Even though I might not like the particular story line he was creating, for all his flaws, Michael Gordon reported my words accurately.
During this period, a lot was going on, to say the least. While much of this had to be kept from the Iraqi intelligence-gathering system, it was important to provide reporters with a wide and deep background understanding of the current situation, so their reports were accurate and made sense. That meant they would inevitably learn data that, if reported, could endanger American lives or success on the battlefield. At the same time, we in the military prefer that some stories don’t appear in the media — because they make us look stupid. Or we think we have to keep information secret that’s in fact widely known back home. Trying to keep all of that in balance makes working with reporters a delicate operation.
From Michael Gordon’s New York Times teammate, Eric Schmidt, I learned you can trust the media. Schmidt has a dogged investigative streak. He finds out more about what’s going on than anyone I’ve ever met. But if the information he finds is truly classified — in order to protect lives or success in battle — you can depend on him to withhold it. Snow jobs will not work on Schmidt, so if you’re stupid, expect to read all about it under his byline. But if it truly needs to be protected, you can trust him. The same holds for 95 percent of the media, to whom integrity is job one.
Fear of the media seems to go with the job description of soldier, sailor, or airman. Why? God only knows. When you think about it, if you can trust the press and the TV commentator to tell the truth, and I do, then it’s not the media we fear but the American people… a sad commentary on our military mind- set.
Sometimes you… we… all of us do asinine things. If you are doing something stupid, pursuing a poor policy, or wasting taxpayers’ dollars, and the press or television paints you in an embarrassing light, that is probably a good thing. In the long run, the exposure, no matter how painful, is good for the military and the nation. If, on the other hand, you are getting the job done skillfully, pursuing a noble cause, or managing a military operation with efficiency (how rare that is!), then you have much to gain from media exposure. The American people are quite capable of judging good and bad for themselves.
I guess the bottom line is we have little to fear if we trust the judgment of the folks who pay the bills.
All the while, more units arrived daily, which meant that Horner and his staff would be neck deep sorting out additional difficulties, problems, and dilemmas, mostly about where to get more — more phones, more cars, more rooms, more food, more water, more everything.
Horner usually met with Khaled daily, often several times a day, mostly to work on logistical support to cover the beddown on incoming units. He also talked to Schwarzkopf two or three times a day. Since the CINC still felt strongly about not putting troops in hotels, these conversations were often strained. Unfortunately, there was simply nothing else to do. In those early days, until tent cities could be erected for the Army, or pre-positioned shelters for the Air Force, there was no other place to put people. Since the Navy and the embarked Marines slept on their ships, this was less of a problem for them.
Every night, Horner and his staff met with the Saudis to make sure everyone had the same intelligence view of the Iraqis and to sort out problems at the highest level. Then he and his people went over the day’s confusions and crises, after which they discussed how the various land, sea, and air forces were deployed and the amount of military power they could assemble if attacked.
About 10:00 P.M., the rumors would start. On at least three nights, there was reliable information that the Iraqis had attacked. Horner kept cool and waited out each report, looking for corroborating intelligence. It never came.
By 3:00 A.M., they’d have things pretty well nailed down for the night; and then it was off to bed for at least three hours of sleep.
Then the whole drill began again.
This is the way a typical day went for Chuck Horner during his time as CENTCOM Forward, as he reconstructs it:
0520 I wake up at the sound of the first prayer call in the apartment I share with John Yeosock. It’s still dark outside. A few moments later, in the shower, I can smell the desert through the open bathroom window.
0535 I eat breakfast with John Yeosock, Grr, my aide, and Major Fong, Yeosock’s aide. I have a fried-egg sandwich and orange juice from a can. Even before Fong fixes John’s breakfast, John is already through his first cigar of the day. We drink coffee in the living room and watch the evening news from the United States via the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service Satellite over the Mediterranean. There are no commercials, but there are spot announcements about how great it is to serve in Europe and enjoy the local culture.
0600 I drive with Grr to the Ministry of Defense and Aviation five blocks south along Airport
