Powell & Schwarzkopf: the Diplomatists
Capital charisma. Colin Powell emerged as the perfect avatar of a military determined to keep itself attuned to political realities. He combined the sensitivity and charm of a charismatic politician with the bearing and crisp efficiency of a soldier. A brigadier general by age 41, Powell savored troop duty but would find himself in Washington jobs for most of the last half of his career. Ronald Reagan made him national security adviser in 1987; George Bush named him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989. He was then 52, younger than all previous chairmen, and the first black and first ROTC graduate appointed to the post. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 had enhanced the chairman's powers, ending diffused lines of authority that had complicated the Vietnam effort. Theater commanders now reported directly to the chairman, who had full control over the JCS and was the president's "principal military adviser."
In the gulf war, it fell to Powell to play Marshall to Schwarzkopf's Eisenhower. Powell watched the military's back in Washington, coming to each meeting armed with more facts than anybody else at the table possessed. Schwarzkopf, meanwhile, in frequent consultation with Powell by secure phone line, directed in Saudi Arabia the biggest buildup of U.S. and allied forces since Vietnam. Schwarzkopf, a natural as coalition commander, had a soldier's expertise and a diplomat's fluent tongue. He could speak French to the French and he even schmoozed easily with the Arabs, once showing them respect by donning Arab dress like a latter-day T. E. Lawrence. Bearlike, 6 foot 3 in his desert fatigues, an Ike-like smile on call, Schwarzkopf played in Peoria, too. As did Powell. Superstars of the massive TV blitz inspired by the gulf crisis, the two generals projected a tough-but-tender quality that reassured Americans that the troops (median age 27--with more females than ever now serving) were in good hands.
Schwarzkopf and Powell were as one in their determination to minimize allied casualties; they remembered the protracted procession of body bags out of Vietnam. As Schwarzkopf mapped strategy, he watched tapes of Ken Burns's Civil War series, recently aired on public TV. He was chilled by its portrayals of mass slaughter. "At least now people know what war is about," Powell said in one of their daily chats. "It is damn good they do," Schwarzkopf replied. Notoriously excitable, "Stormin' Norman" feared he would be pushed into combat before he was ready and with too few troops; he vented his worries in shouting matches with Powell, who was no less resolved to keep civilians from dealing the military another losing hand. As it happened, George Bush was not inclined to override his generals. As FDR had trusted Marshall, Bush trusted Powell.
Bunkermates. The Iraqis, by contrast, were led by a halfpenny Hitler who repeated the German chancellor's mistake of reserving key battlefield decisions for himself. Saddam Hussein compounded that error by failing to secure routes of withdrawal for the 500,000 men, more than half his army, he had sent into Kuwait. After Operation Desert Storm bombed Iraqi military targets relentlessly for 38 days, 400,000 coalition troops crossed over the Saudi border. As the Iraqis either fled Kuwait or were overrun, mechanized U.S. units scurried through Iraq's unguarded expanses to the west to cut off the retreat. Bush called a halt after just 100 hours of ground action when television reports on the bombardment of enemy convoys leaving Kuwait City made it appear that U.S. forces were engaging in "wanton killing"--Powell's words to Schwarzkopf.
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