from gas attack also provided a measure of protection from biological weapons.
Biological agents could possibly have damaged Coalition armies and even terrorized many of the troops, but they would have been far more effective in terrorizing and killing civilians in large cities. In cities are herded men, women, and children who don’t have available the gas masks and impregnated clothing needed to counter harmful agents. Because people are packed closely, small numbers of weapons offer effective coverage. Because the diseases can take several days to harm their victims, terror and confusion have ample time to get out of control. And because cities are usually dependent on centralized sources of fresh food and water, these sources are easy to contaminate. One scenario imagined Iraqi infiltrators entering Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries and releasing anthrax or botulism spores into water supplies.
Though air defenses and counter-ballistic missile operations could shield against most aircraft or missile- dispersed biological agents,[57] and Saudi border guards were doing a superb job picking up Iraqi infiltrators, such measures could only suppress delivery of biological agents. Total prevention could not be guaranteed.
That left storage as the best place to attack. And intelligence information pointed to Salman Park, just south of Baghdad, where botulism and anthrax spores were stored in Teflon containers in massive, well-constructed, environmentally controlled bunkers.
Yet bombing these bunkers posed a dilemma for Horner and his planners. Would that destroy the spores, or would it release them into the atmosphere, where they could spread and contaminate the entire Arabian Peninsula? The choice then was this: To blow up the bunkers and kill every living thing on the Arabian Peninsula — a position given authoritative voice in a pair of scientific white papers published in England and the United States.[58] Or to let Saddam Hussein release the spores himself, which might also kill every living thing on the Arabian Peninsula.
As he was currently stationed on the Arabian Peninsula, Horner took the warning seriously, and there was no clear answer about the best course of action.
A solution to the dilemma came from an unexpected source.
One day in early December, an Army major, a biological-warfare expert from Fort Meade, Maryland, appeared at Horner’s door and presented his credentials (Horner never actually learned his name). “I understand you are concerned about Iraqi biological agents,” he said. Interested, Horner listened: “While the white papers often lead readers to conclude that any minute exposure to anthrax or botulism will be lethal,” he explained, “anthrax and botulism spores are not in fact as deadly as many so-called experts fear. In fact,” he noted, “we are often exposed to anthrax, perhaps every day; the spores live for years in the soil. Exposure itself is not a problem. It is the amount of exposure that constitutes the danger. And it takes a lot. Or,” he bluntly put it, “the best way to die from anthrax is to kiss a sick sheep.” He then pointed out that while heat, sunlight, and water — especially chlorinated water — killed the spores, these were no guarantees. Therefore, at the risk of fallout (primarily in Iraq), the most reasonable course was to destroy the agents and deny the enemy their use.
That seemed like a good idea to Chuck Horner.
Already, plans for the destruction of the bunkers had been made to minimize fallout. The idea was to crack open the bunkers when the wind was calm just before first light, then put cluster-bomb units on the stored agents to create the maximum heat with the minimum blast. For good measure, the attack would be ended by dropping randomly exploding land mines, in order to prevent the Iraqis from scavenging undamaged Teflon bottles of agents.
? “Chuck,” Secretary Cheney asked, with deceptive simplicity, “what about attacks against the biological weapons storage areas?”
Horner described the target, summarized the Army major’s position, and then described the attack sequence proposed by his planners and weaponeers.
While Schwarzkopf kept silent and Cheney asked questions to better understand the issues, Powell and Wolfowitz offered counterarguments, citing the white papers condemning such attacks.
It was difficult for Horner to argue with Colin Powell, his military superior, in front of Powell’s superior, the Secretary of Defense, even when he believed he was correct. Nevertheless (diplomacy not being one of Horner’s strong suits), he set forth his reasons, and Powell and Wolfowitz disagreed. For a time there wasn’t much progress, since Cheney was withholding judgment, and Schwarzkopf continued to maintain his silence (though Horner remembers a gleam in his eye that said he enjoyed watching the Air Force general sweat).
The impasse continued until Horner recalled the larger issues. “Yes,” he told himself, “this is a war against aggression. But it is also a war against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And while our calculations may be in error, and some innocent Iraqi civilians may die from the fallout resulting from our attack, that would serve a useful purpose. The contamination of Iraq would send a signal, provide a lesson, to any nation contemplating building and storing those horrible weapons.” It didn’t take Horner long to lay out this new line of reasoning. Paul Wolfowitz quickly picked it up, and now began to find reasons to attack the storage bunkers.
As support for Horner’s position waxed, Powell’s opposition waned, until Cheney finally turned to Schwarzkopf and asked, “Norm, what do you think?”
“I think we ought to do it,” Schwarzkopf answered.
Nothing more was said, and the bunkers remained on the target list.
As it turned out, they proved to be a difficult nut to crack, buried as they were under extensive layers of dirt and concrete. The munition selected for the job was the I-2000 bomb (Mark 84 bomb class), which was designed for that kind of job. The I-2000 Mark 84 had a steel nose that would not fracture when it hit reinforced concrete, and its time-delay fuse was in the tail, so the bomb could penetrate before it exploded. Finally, unlike most bombs, which are dropped on a slant, the I-2000 was dropped from medium altitude (which gave the bomb enough kinetic energy to penetrate the reinforced concrete and its earth overburden) directly over the target (which allowed its laser to guide it to a near-vertical angle). The force this generated was sufficient to penetrate most reinforced bunkers.
In the event, when the I-2000 penetrated the biobunker, its explosion touched off an enormous secondary explosion, with a vast fireball and prodigious quantities of billowing smoke. What was stored in that bunker will probably never be known, but it turned night into day.
After the war, Horner researched the available sources to see if there was evidence of fallout of biological agents. Though he found reports of Iraqi guards killed during the bombing attacks, no evidence of deaths from biological fallout appeared (there have been reports of postwar civilian deaths due to disease, but these cannot be connected to the bunker attacks).
After the bunker issue was settled, Horner’s briefing was over, and he returned to his seat between John Yeosock and Stan Arthur at the back of the room. The meeting ended with a brief discussion of ground operations.
COUNTDOWN
The final weeks were a jumble. The buildup and beddown, as well as plans and training, were proceeding satisfactorily, though with lurches and hang-ups. To ensure that the executors of the plan had a say in its planning, Buster Glosson took the ATO around to the bases, briefed the commanders and crews, and ran one last sanity check on the tactics, the timing, and the force packages of various bomb droppers and electronic-combat support aircraft. Anything that looked unworkable was changed on the spot. Horner continued working his role as cheerleader and team builder, visiting the bases and the units, giving encouragement, laying on hands. Yet he always managed to find time to keep up his own flying skills, by combining visits to the bases with training sorties (he averaged four to six F-16 sorties per week).
Surprisingly, not every second was filled with demands. During free moments, he read military history (provided by Dr. Dick Hallion, the USAF historian) to see how others had done the job he was now doing. Two he especially remembers were
