Other generals, including Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of Desert Shield, have talked openly about their plans for defeating Iraq without losing their jobs. Dugan revealed no real secrets. So why was he fired? At the time, Cheney said Dugan showed “poor judgment.” The Defense secretary was reported to feel that Dugan had been a little too explicit about the targets he wanted to bomb, such as Saddam’s family, his personal guard and his mistress, as well as “culturally very important” sites that might include Islamic mosques.
But the main reason Dugan was sacked, NEWSWEEK has learned, was because he took public an argument he had lost in private–in the inner councils of the Pentagon. According to Pentagon sources, President Bush rejected Dugan’s arguments for a sudden airstrike after a war council in late August. Bush’s political counselors, national-security adviser Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, wanted to give diplomacy more time. Gen. Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued that air power was not enough. The only sure path to victory, he said, was on the ground.
Powell may have been influenced by the color of his uniform as well as strategic calculations. The Joint Chiefs chairman is supposed to represent the views of all the services. But Powell is an Army man. As the Pentagon’s budget shrinks over the next five years–by a scheduled 20 percent–the big loser is expected to be the Army. By making the Persian Gulf a showcase for the Army’s M-1A1 tank, Powell stands to protect his service’s “rice bowl,” its share of the shrinking defense dollar.
Getting the tanks and troops necessary to defeat Saddam into the desert takes time. Meanwhile, Saddam’s forces have been able to dig in. That has required the Pentagon to send more troops, doubling the initial commitment of 200,000. The result has been more delays. Now the Desert Shield commanders have informed Bush that they will not be ready to fight until mid-February. Bush has been left with a very narrow window in which to defeat Iraq. By mid-March, the heat and desert storms will have arrived, along with the Islamic observance of the holy month of Ramadan.
Is it too late to go back to General Dugan’s original plan? Citing Israel’s air blitz of Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War, some national-security experts, including longtime statesman Paul Nitze and House Armed Services Committee chairman Les Aspin, argue that the air option deserves a second look. Before Christmas the deputy commander of British forces in the gulf–told reporters that air power alone could win–if it were given enough time.
The first target would be Saddam’s communications (and probably Saddam himself), as well as Iraqi missiles aimed at Israel. The next to go would be Iraq’s power plants and air defenses. The allies could wipe out Saddam’s meager Air Force in a day or two. Unopposed, B-52s and other strike planes could rain bombs down on Iraqi troops exposed in their fixed positions in the open desert. Breaking them, however, would take weeks if not months. One reason that Bush embraced the all-out option is that he wants to win quickly by overwhelming the enemy. The president fears that he would face enormous international pressure for a cease-fire after a week of combat. An air war would take longer, and inevitably it would claim civilian casualties. But it would cost far fewer American lives.
