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War Termination in the Persian Gulf Problems and Prospects - Operation Desert Storm
Aerospace Power Journal, Fall, 2001 by Mark Garrard
Editorial Abstract: Did President Bush prematurely declare a cease-fire in Operation Desert Storm, before we met our political objectives? According to Colonel Garrard, as soon as a war has begun, one must immediately consider terms for termination and peacemaking If not, an untidy conclusion is inevitable.
IN PREPARING FOR Operation Desert Storm, President George Bush formed an extraordinary coalition that decisively trounced Saddam Hussein's forces. Yet, a decade later, many people in the United States voice a growing dissatisfaction with the political results of that conflict. Indeed, some assert that the conflict has not yet ended. [1] As we will see, the president publicly recognized the seeds of that discontent shortly after the cease-fire.
What went wrong? Did our objectives lack clarity? Did the coalition lack the means or will to achieve them? Were the objectives incompatible with each other? Did they change during the war? Should they have been modified? Did the National Command Authorities give adequate guidance, to Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief (CINC) of US Central Command (CENT-COM)? Did the CINC give adequate attention to war termination?
Perhaps one can illuminate the answers to these questions by examining war termination in the Persian Gulf through the prisms of interest, fear, and honor, which Thucydides identified 2,400 years ago as the three causes of war. [2] War and war termination are indeed inseparable, and, although no two wars are identical, the strategy for waging and ending conflict remains eternal. [3]
Background
During the predawn hours of 2 August 1990, Iraq fulfilled its territorial objectives by quickly invading and seizing Kuwait. The international community faced the prospect of losing one of the world's major oil producers and witnessing the annexation of a sovereign state--the first such occurrence since World War II. To liberate Kuwait, a coalition authorized by the United Nations (UN) and led by the United States gradually built up forces in Saudi Arabia. Consisting of a diverse group of 28 nations' forces, which included over 650,000 troops, the coalition remained intact despite Saddam's best efforts to shatter it.
When the Iraqis refused to withdraw from Kuwait by January 1991, allied air forces destroyed key targets in and around Baghdad and bombed Iraq's armed forces entrenched within and around Kuwait, after which coalition ground forces quickly overran the remaining enemy troops. [4] In military terms, the Gulf War was an overwhelmingly one-sided event and a clear coalition victory.
On 27 February 1991, President Bush unilaterally declared a cease-fire, proclaiming that "Kuwait is liberated. Iraq's army is defeated. Our military objectives have been met." [5] He did not allude to the nation's political objectives. Soon, however, nagging questions arose about the "premature" termination of the war. [6]
The War-Termination "Process" in the Persian Gulf
If one intends any conflict to advance long-term interests, one must consider the essential question of how the enemy might be forced to surrender or, failing that, what type of bargain might work to terminate the war. Such questions combine both the political and military realms. Not only the military contest but also domestic and foreign-policy developments contribute to the war's outcome. Although the question of terminating a war should arise as soon as the war has begun or in the course of advanced planning, it tends to receive little or no attention in war plans. [7] This element of premeditation with respect to war termination seems largely absent from the Gulf War. Gordon Brown, CENTCOM's chief foreign-policy advisor admitted, "We never did have a plan to terminate the war." [8]
Why? Neglecting war termination was likely due, at least in part, to the unexpectedly rapid pace of the ground war. President Bush and Brent Scowcroft, his national security advisor, acknowledged that "the end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking." [9]
General Schwarzkopf describes a telephone conversation he had with Gen Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), on the final day of the war. Powell informed the CINC that he (Schwarzkopf) would participate in a formal cease-fire meeting with his Iraqi counterparts. According to Schwarzkopf, "It had never crossed my mind that I'd have to sit down opposite Iraqi generals--and we spent a couple minutes discussing how this might be arranged." [10] The president gave the CINC only 48 hours to prepare for the meeting. Powell directed Schwarzkopf to prepare "terms of reference" for the meeting. The CINC spent an hour dictating the terms, focusing exclusively on immediate military issues. He sought immediate release of all coalition prisoners of war; exchange of information on people missing in action; return of the remains of people killed in action; and exchange of information on mines and booby traps, as well as on any storage sites the enemy had established for weapons of mass destruction in th e Kuwait theater of operations (KTO). He also sought to establish a demarcation line to physically separate the coalition and Iraqi armies. He transmitted the draft document to Washington, D.C., where the JCS and State Department reviewed and approved it. The terms of reference were thereafter sent to Iraq via Moscow. [11]
