Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 25, 1991 TAG: 9102250161
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTOPHER CONNELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Bush had something else in mind.
Indeed, by then Bush had already begun making his own calls to other allied leaders, setting into motion the countdown toward another, secret deadline: 8 o'clock EST Saturday night.
That was the hour selected almost two weeks earlier by Bush's field commander, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, to launch the counterinvasion to drive the Iraqi army back over its own border.
After 5 1/2 weeks of unrelenting aerial warfare against the world's fourth-largest army, the time had come for ground forces to finish the job.
Bush did not tell Gorbachev that. He did not reveal that the ground war would start that night. He told the Soviet leader the coalition was "firm and united" behind the ultimatum.
The decision had been made. The only question was whether - as military people put it - the American troops and the allies were "good to go."
They were, and they did.
Bush, in a flurry of phone calls he made from Camp David, was more forthcoming with leaders of other countries allied with the U.S. forces in the gulf region.
Six-and-a-half months after Saddam's tanks overran Iraq's oil-emirate neighbor, there would be no more delays for diplomacy.
On Friday, Bush had laid down his ultimatum: Iraq must start moving out by noon Saturday EST.
An Iraqi official had ridiculed Bush's tactic, accusing the president of rushing it out so as not to intrude on his weekend at the mountaintop retreat.
Bush knew all along that he would be returning to the White House Saturday night to announce that the ground war was under way.
At Bush's side at Camp David's Laurel Lodge was Secretary of State James Baker, an old friend and confidant from Houston. Bush began his workday there at 7 a.m. reading intelligence briefings.
Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, was back at the White House, monitoring the onrushing preparations for full-scale war.
Gorbachev's call came at 11:15 a.m. The two spoke for half an hour.
Afterwards, as the fateful noon deadline passed, Bush walked along the paths of his Catoctin Mountain retreat with Baker.
The ultimatum had been Gen. Colin Powell's idea.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday suggested giving Saddam one last chance, and the commander-in-chief readily agreed.
"That way, his [Powell's] forces would know how to plan for it," said White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. "It would be a precise yardstick to use in gauging [the Iraqis'] movements."
A fortnight earlier, Powell and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had returned from Saudi Arabia and presented Bush with "a general plan for the conduct of the ground war," White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said. It had been in the works for months.
But neither last-minute shuttle diplomacy between Baghdad and Moscow nor the fresh reports of executions and the torching of oil wells in Kuwait changed the timetable.
Bush, after listening to Cheney and Powell on Feb. 11, had given Schwarzkopf the leeway to set the final time for the offensive within a window of dates.
On Saturday, Bush spoke several times by telephone with Cheney at the Pentagon and Scowcroft at the White House, "and made it clear that there was no reason not to go ahead," said Fitzwater.
"Up until noon today, the president had the option to say, `Stop,' " Cheney said late Saturday. Diplomatic considerations or bad weather could have caused a last-minute delay, he said.
Around 9 p.m. the White House announced that Bush would address the nation within the hour.
By this time, the ground war had been under way - unannounced - for an hour.
When Marine One landed at the White House shortly after 9:30 p.m., Bush asked Fitzwater, "Is everything ready?"
At 10 p.m. Bush strode into the White House briefing room. Time had been too short to lay the television wires needed to deliver an address from the Oval Office.
The noon deadline had passed, said Bush, with no sign from Saddam except "a redoubling of [his] efforts to destroy completely Kuwait and its people. I have therefore directed General Norman Schwarzkopf, in conjunction with coalition forces, to use all forces available, including ground forces, to eject the Iraqi army from Kuwait."
"The liberation of Kuwait has now entered a final phase," he said.
by CNB