As a military man, Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should have insisted to President Bush that halfway measures don’t work in war. Gen. George Marshall told President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the outbreak of World War II that the goal had to be unconditional surrender and the destruction of enemy military capability. It’s impossible to imagine him agreeing to stop the fight when the Nazis left France. George Bush’s generals should have made the same demand. The president could then have told the United Nations that only the elimination of Saddam Hussein would justify allied soldiers climbing out of their foxholes.
But as in all U.S. conflicts since Marshall’s day, the military solution was compromised by political tap dancers. The gulf war was Korea revisited. On the day of the cease-fire, the 101st Airborne Division was ready to launch an air assault on “Objective Thomas,” northwest of Basra, and close the back door. It would have set the stage for the 24th Mechanized Division and other units to whip what was left of the ragged Iraqi formations. Then Bush and Powell called off the war.
This is exactly what happened in Korea in mid-1951. The U.N. forces there had defeated the Chinese and North Korean armies and could have marched back to the Yalu River or even farther. There was nothing to stop them. Truman halted the advance to talk peace. The war went on for two more years, during which U.S. casualties doubled. And for almost four decades afterward, the north-south confrontation in Korea required a costly American presence to keep the peace.
The Vietnam War was more of the same. Victory was never defined. Would it have been preservation of the South Vietnamese regime in a permanently divided Vietnam? Rollback of the communists in the north? Without a clear statement of the political objective, there could be no military strategic plan, no way of knowing when you had won. As a result, the other side won.
America has not had a clear-cut military victory since Marshall ran our armed forces. Since the mid-1950s the military leadership’s emphasis has been not on war fighters, but on soldier-statesmen. Very bright military men like Adm. William Crowe Jr., Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell have become the principal military advisers to our presidents. All know how to operate smoothly within the “E” Ring of the Pentagon and at the highest levels of government, but they have confused the black and white of warfare with the grays of polities. As a result, from Truman to Bush, not one senior officer has told a commander in chief that his strategy won’t produce a clear win. Following the corporate style of military management, they have ail gone along to get along.
And they all got along after the gulf war. Americans love a parade and politicians like to throw them. The air was filled with self-congratulation for a “spectacular victory.” And then reality set in. Saddam was still in power. Sgt. Charles Miller, a rifle platoon sergeant whose battalion captured 339 enemy soldiers without losing a man, said, “When we first got back to the United States, everyone was patting us on the back. And now they say: why didn’t you finish the job?”
It is critical that the Pentagon and Congress take a hard look at the gulf campaign, as it did at the Vietnam War. This critique of the war must go beyond looking at how well the tanks, aircraft and missiles did their job. It must examine the top military decision makers’ performance as well, and find out why warrior leaders don’t make it to the top anymore. It is time for America to learn that it must not go to war unless it intends to win on the battlefield. Bush and his generals were haunted by visions of casualties. The guidance from the president down to Sergeant Miller was to keep the body bags empty. But if you fight to win, a lot of people are going to get hurt. The generals should have been willing to tell him not to risk any lives unless total victor was attainable.
Once launched, war must be total. This is not an argument in favor of total war. In fact, it is a reason for avoiding it if at all possible. One reason I opposed the military solution in the gulf from the beginning is that I am convinced that in modern warfare no one wins. It is too destructive. It is too costly in dollars. And for all the expense and sacrifice in Iraq, there was no strategic victory. That will come only from an unrelenting, airtight blockade. Economic punishment is the cannon and missile of future conflicts. In Iraq, the tyrant’s country must be deprived of sustenance like a plant cut off from water. Then the people will pull the tyrant’s plug, and accomplish for themselves the result that all the bombs and bullets of Desert Storm failed to reach.
