Schwarzkopf Book Lacks Substance About Gulf War

'It Doesn't Take a Hero'

by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Peter Petre Bantam, $25

Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, in his eagerly awaited autobiography "It Doesn't Take a Hero," writes the way you would expect a career military man would: straightforward, more than a little corny in places and chock full of the "can-do" spirit that pervades the general's public image. The story, though, is almost as fascinating for what it leaves out as for what it includes.

The 500-page book, for which the charismatic commander of the Gulf War received a multimillion dollar contract, is a cradle-to-retirement overview of Schwarzkopf's life. He describes a childhood shattered by an alcoholic mother and an absent military father. Like many children of alcoholics, Schwarzkopf took refuge in withdrawal and, in the sixth grade, a military boarding school. He later joined his father, then stationed in the Middle East, and recalls meeting kings and princes in the area in which he would later lead many of the world's armies.

After graduating from West Point, his military career began in earnest. At least 200 pages of the book are devoted to a description of each of his various assignments. At each, it seems, he arrived to find the situation in disarray and, one or two years later, departed with things firmly in control.

Schwarzkopf served two tours in Vietnam - one early in the war and another toward the end. He describes well the frustration of those in the military who felt scorned for serving their country, even though politicians, not officers, had "chosen the enemy and written the orders."

But he reserves his harshest criticism for pompous or incompetent officers. His description of surreal poetry recitals held in colonial mansions by officers who were being served by drafted soldiers highlights many of the war's absurdities. At the same time, his compassion for his troops and commitment to equality shines through. He routinely required his officers to dine with their troops and, in one poignant passage, describes waiting for dinner in the rain with his troops rather than eating in an officers' mess hall.

Schwarzkopf was also present during the Grenada invasion. He describes in some detail the awkward conduct of the invasion. In one remarkable instance a Marine colonel refused to fly Army troops in Marine helicopters until forcefully ordered to do so - all because of interbranch jealousy.

By the time of the Gulf War, Schwarzkopf had been promoted to the top ranks of the military. Despite his obvious familiarity with the Middle East and its politics, Schwarzkopf's discussion of the war is remarkably incomplete. Not a word in the book is devoted to the recurrent allegations that the Bush administration had been supplying military hardware and components even after it became aware of Iraq's hostile intent and determination.

Schwarzkopf includes at the end of the book a short and rather defensive section posing and then answering the four questions he is most commonly asked. It is astonishing that not one of them is: Couldn't this war have been avoided entirely by a more competent foreign policy?

(In answering one of the four questions, he says the allied forces did not continue on to Baghdad in search of Saddam Hussein because it was not authorized by the United Nations, nor was it an objective.)

Schwarzkopf does devote a large portion of the book to the war. His description of the behind-the-scenes action is fascinating. At one point a high-ranking British official took notes of a detailed briefing on ground war strategy on a laptop computer. The officer gave the computer to his assistant, who left it in his car while shopping and it was stolen. It was only two days later that the contents of the hard drive were reconstructed and the loss was determined to be not as significant as feared.

Perhaps most significant, Schwarzkopf notes the pressure from Washington to launch the ground war prematurely. The passage from the book, reported widely when it was leaked last week, describes a heated discussion between Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Schwarzkopf. Powell, informed by Schwarzkopf that a two-day delay may be necessary because of weather conditions, responded by arguing, "I've already told the President the twenty-fourth. How am I supposed to go back now and tell him the twenty-sixth? You don't appreciate the pressure I'm under . . . . My President wants to get on with this thing. My secretary wants to get on with it. We need to get on with this."

Schwarzkopf responded: "What if we attack on the twenty-fourth and the Iraqis counterattack and we take a lot of casualties because we don't have adequate air support? And you're telling me that for political reasons you don't want to go in and tell the President that he shouldn't do something that's militarily unsound?" Fortunately, the weather cleared before the confrontation had to be resolved.

The book is entertaining and does succeed in describing events from Schwarzkopf's perspective. But his failure to include a more complete and balanced description of the Gulf War, its context and its aftermath, distort the book.

It was certainly not Schwarzkopf's task in the military to question policy judgments. But it is precisely because of his policy position in the book that makes what he does not say as telling as what he does.

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