★ It is now 0200 in the morning, and Tom is fully in charge. Things have quieted down, and I am very, very tired. I’ve already fallen asleep twice in my chair, but this is not an uncommon sight when things are slowing down and you have someone next to you who can fill in if needed. It’s not like guard duty.

It’s time to haul my tail upstairs, put on the pistola and bulletproof vest, and head back out through the wall, talking calmly to all the guard posts en route. I do not want to get killed in this war.

The apartment is dark, but I don’t bother to turn on the lights or hang up my uniform. I just place it over the chair and crash into the bed. Fortunately, there will be a clean bed and fresh underwear, thanks to the house boy, Chris from Sri Lanka. He is never there when I come and go, but he always picks up after me and keeps the laundry clean and ready.

I will change fatigues in the morning, so I’ll get up a little earlier than usual. But then, since John is not sleeping here tonight, at least the phone won’t be ringing. I am asleep in seconds.

Chapter 13 - The Ten Percent War

13

The Ten Percent War

IN February 1991, during the waning moments of the war, a debate went on in the White House about choosing a moment to cease hostilities. As Colin Powell reports in his autobiography, the debate ended when John Sununu suggested 0500 on February 28. That way the “war” would have lasted a hundred hours and could be plausibly named “The Hundred-Hour War.” And so it came about. It was a brilliant idea. The name had PR pizzazz.

There was only one problem: the war did not last one hundred hours. The duration of the war—from mid-January to the end of February—was closer to a thousand hours. Sununu and the others in the White House were thinking of the ground war, of course—an easy misconception, but maddening to Coalition airmen, who bore such a large part of the burden of winning this war. To them, the ground effort was not a Hundred-Hour War, it was a Ten Percent War.

This is not to say that the ground war was a waste or unnecessary—far from it—and as January turned into February, and February wore on, Coalition air devoted an ever-greater portion of their effort to preparing for it. The ground invasion of Kuwait was to come soon, everyone knew, but when? When was G day?

The decision to start the ground war was based on the answers to three questions:

1. Were the Iraqis beaten down enough to allow Coalition ground forces to attack with a minimum of casualties?

2. Would the weather be favorable enough to allow air support?

3. Were Coalition troops trained and logistically ready, and at their assigned starting-out locations?