'You already have nine thousand SOF over here,' Stiner continued, 'and I'm prepared to give you whatever you need. I know you have the greatest confidence in Jesse Johnson — and 1 do, too. But, considering the complexity of his operation, together with what SOF can do for you in the broader context, I would like to give you one of my best two-stars — maybe even two general officers — to run our part of things.' He had already told Johnson the same thing privately before the meeting.
'I'll think about it,' Schwarzkopf responded.
At this point, Stiner delivered Colin Powell's message about keeping terrorists off Schwarzkopf's back so he could focus his attention on Kuwait and Iraq.
'I intend to move one-third of my special mission forces to Europe,' Stiner said, 'but here would be better, so they can respond quicker.
'I would also like to establish a small tactical command post in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, so I can be more responsive to your needs. I'll even wear a plain flight suit with no rank. Nobody will know that I'm here.'
'I'll let you know,' the CINC replied.
Back in the States a week later, Stiner learned from Powell that he could forget about his small command post. According to Schwarzkopf, the Saudis didn't want another four-star command in their country. The offer of a general officer to run Schwrarzkopf's special operations activities never received an answer.
Stiner thought he knew the reason. As we have often seen before, the 'big' Army has traditionally been, at best, unfamiliar with special operations, and at worst, hostile. Such attitudes naturally derive from the normal machinery of internal politics, the sort of political infighting that springs up within any organization. Part of it comes from a distrust of unconventional warfare in general. In some cases, the image of Special Forces as 'can-do' guys actually hurts them. Highly trained elites called on to operate clandestinely in hazardous situations risk a bad reputation. It's not a big jump from there to thinking SF guys can be evil.
One Special Forces general recalled meeting a Navy officer who told him that sitting down with Special Forces planners was like encountering 'the princes of darkness.' Despite the success of Earnest Will and a concerted effort by the Special Forces Command not only to increase SOF professionalism but to make others aware of it, as the Cold War wound down, such attitudes — and others even worse — were far too common.
The SOF approach to warfare called for a high degree of cooperation between different branches of service. But that cooperation wasn't always forthcoming.
General Schwarzkopf himself apparently did not trust SOF units — or if he did, he did not want them inside Iraq before his conventional forces were in place and ready to fight.
Both General Schwarzkopf's CENTCOM and General Stiner's SOCOM were headquartered at the same base near Tampa, Florida. They were next-door neighbors. While the two men got along personally, there was plenty of friction between members of the two commands. 'Schwarzkopf was a good example of a senior officer who did not understand Special Operations and was afraid of it,' said Major General Jim Guest, looking back on the start of the Gulf War. 'Schwarzkopf's mentality was, 'I have a coiled cobra in a cage and if I open that cage, that cobra is going to get out and possibly embarrass me.''
Many SOF officers understood Schwarzkopf's decision not to allow Stiner to move his command to the Middle East. Two four-stars in the same battle theater could cause unnecessary confusion, no matter how carefully they orchestrated their command structures. But the CENTCOM CINC's resistance to SOF went beyond that. In the opinion of Stiner, Downing, and others, Schwarzkopf handicapped the utility of Special Operations in the Gulf War by insisting that the command be represented and managed in the theater by the colonel — no matter how able — instead of a general officer. He also allotted insufficient resources and priorities for SOF units, thus hampering planning and intelligence.
Though SEALs were among the first units in the Gulf, Schwarzkopf changed deployment priorities in favor of more conventional forces, which delayed the arrival of most of the 5th Special Forces Group. This meant that, when most needed, he did not have available his main Special Forces asset, the Army Green Berets, with its broad range of special operations expertise and capabilities. That left only a few SEALs to work with Saudi forces to provide intelligence, coordinate air support, and form an American trip wire at the border at a most critical time. Combat air support (CAS) was not generally considered a SEAL mission, but the unit's inherent flexibility and its interface with different branches and services helped it do its job.
After the 5th SFG finally arrived in late August and early September, Special Forces personnel began branching out as CSTs, serving initially with Saudi, Egyptian, and Syrian units. Some 109 CST teams were eventually formed, working at all levels of command.
During September, Green Berets replaced SEALs at the border, working with Saudi paratroopers and border police along the Saudi side of the berms separating the countries. Nine reconnaissance detachments provided around-the-clock surveillance and 'truth in reporting.'
'You've got three missions up on the border,' 5th SFG commander, Colonel James Kraus, told his men. 'See, Scream, and Scoot.' Special Forces units didn't always 'scoot.' Several snagged infiltrators and deserters during the early days of the buildup.
MEANWHILE, there was a justified fear of Iraqi-inspired terror attacks. National intelligence agencies had learned that as many as thirty Iraqi terrorist teams were positioning to conduct strikes against U.S. embassies and other allied facilities in other parts of the world. To counter this threat, SOF units provided security to vulnerable embassies and other facilities, and special mission teams were prepared to deploy instantly to handle unexpected situations.
As a result of these and other related efforts, no Iraqi terror attempts were successful — though at least two Iraqi operations, one in Jakarta and another in Manila, were foiled when terrorist bombs blew up while the terrorists were preparing or transporting them. 'Iraqi bad luck,' the JSOTF commander Major General Downing put it.
While all this was going on, Special Operations troops began practicing for PACIFIC WIND off the coast of Florida. They built a mock-up of the Embassy, and the Navy lent them an LPH. They worked out problems: For example, while the Army and Air Force people were used to working at night, the Navy wasn't. The assault ship's captain nearly freaked when Downing told him to turn off the deck lights.
'God, I can't do that,' protested the captain.
'Yeah, we can do it,' Downing responded. The lights were turned off.
Thirty helicopters, from Army Special Aviation, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel 'Doug,' crammed with Army special missions troops, peeled off from the deck in the dead of night without a hitch or scraped rotor blade. The Navy captain turned to Downing and said, 'If I didn't know I was awake, I would think I was dreaming this.'
A short time later, a pair of Air Force F-15 pilots flew in from the Gulf to help with a live-fire rehearsal at Fort Bragg. The Eagles came in low and hot; and windows broke in nearby Fayetteville. But a little broken glass seemed incidental.
Meanwhile, SOF planners were working up other missions. The most promising involved fomenting and supporting a guerrilla movement similar to the one that eventually kicked the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Intelligence analysts had noted that Kurds, in the north of Iraq, and Shiites, in the south, were displeased with Saddam's regime. Encouraging dissident movements there, as well as stoking guerrilla activity in Kuwait, would weaken and disrupt the Iraqi military, whose units would be tied down dealing with dissension. A pilot team of SOF ground and air personnel flew to Turkey soon after the invasion to examine the possibilities in northern Iraq. About half of the 10th Special Forces Group would be on the ground there by the end of September, ostensibly in Turkey to help provide search and rescue support for the U.S. Air Force pilots shot down over northern Iraq. The operation was headed by Brigadier General 'Richard,' himself a former commando.
At least four different dissident groups were active in Kuwait, estimated to consist of about 3,500 armed personnel. Though these could have been supported and encouraged in various ways, especially since SOF troops were already on the front line as 'trip wires' and well-equipped SEAL units were in the Gulf, the plans for assisting resistance movements and general sabotage failed to receive support from Washington or from Schwarzkopf, who worried about the political ramifications of losing Americans behind the lines.
As an alternative, which would also provide a source of intelligence in Kuwait City, a Special Planning Group was organized under SOCCENT, consisting of an SF lieutenant colonel, two SF warrant officers, and five SF NCOs. This group conducted specialized unconventional warfare training for selected Kuwaiti personnel, who were
