THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Sunday, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409180049 SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
As his emissaries in Haiti made a final bid for peace, President Clinton on Saturday joined senior military officials in making final preparations for war.
Among the men whose counsel Clinton sought was Adm. Paul David Miller of Norfolk, who has masterminded the Haiti mission as head of the U.S. Atlantic Command. Miller flew to Washington for consultations at the Pentagon with Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and Defense Secretary William Perry.
The sessions included a video teleconference with field commanders aboard the Norfolk-based command ship Mount Whitney, just off the Haitian coast. The rare visit to the Pentagon by a president and vice president seemed calculated to underscore the administration's resolve; military officials usually brief the commander in chief at the White House.
In congratulating the leaders on the thoroughness of their planning, Clinton said he was particularly impressed ``by the jointness of the operation.''
The largely untested ``adaptive force packaging'' he referred to could begin to unfold as early as today. Credit for this blending of forces from the Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force goes to Miller, 52.
At his direction last week, the aircraft carriers America and Dwight D. Eisenhower were stripped of their fighters, bombers and other planes and loaded instead with Army helicopters.
Both ships are now in position near Haiti. At Clinton's order, the helicopters are to ferry the Army troops on board to targets ashore. Paratroopers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division will be flown in from their base in North Carolina to join the assault, and 1,800 Marines aboard the amphibious ships Wasp and Nashville are expected to wade ashore on Haiti's north coast.
Defense Secretary Perry and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Carl Mundy flew to the Wasp on Saturday after their meeting with Clinton and Gore.
In each of the last two years, Atlantic Command carriers have conducted training exercises with Army or Marine units aboard. Military leaders have pronounced those exercises successful, but the Haiti invasion would mark the first time Army troops have operated from a carrier in combat.
Miller is among a growing number of uniformed leaders who argue that such joint operations are essential if the military is to remain strong in an era when shrinking budgets mean none of the services can continue to go it alone.
``Conceptually, we can look at blending the capabilities of those forces into sort of a joint force,'' Miller said in an interview last year. In the future, ``We might be able to sail only eight ships versus 16. . . . We need to get on with doing it so that when you have the Navy, Army and Air Force of the future, we can wring as much value out of it as we can.''
Skeptics worry that ship-based Army forces will end up doing jobs that traditionally have belonged to the Marines. And the placement of Army helicopters aboard carriers, they say, strips the big ships of Navy fighter jets that are essential to their defense.
Carrier vulnerability is not a concern off Haiti, where the enemy has no navy or air force. And though the troops now on the Eisenhower and the America could be flown to Haiti from U.S. land bases at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico, a carrier launch will substantially shorten their travel time.
Miller also has advocated military involvement in non-traditional humanitarian and peacekeeping missions like the one he would supervise after troops are ashore in Haiti. ``Using our forces for so-called `soft' missions does not dull the warrior's sword,'' he argued in a Wall Street Journal essay published in January. ``Skills exercised are skills enhanced; capabilities used and tested are capabilities honed and strengthened.''
If it works, the Haiti plan would be a stunning capstone in Miller's career. A native of Roanoke who graduated from Norfolk Catholic High School, he has announced plans to retire at the end of the year.
Miller was considered a leading candidate last year to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a job Clinton ultimately gave to Army Gen. John A. Shalikashvili. This year, Miller decided not to seek appointment as chief of naval operations, a job that went to Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda. The decision left him with few if any career options in the service.
As head of the Atlantic Command and as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic since 1992, Miller has been responsible for all allied military resources from the Tropic of Cancer to the North Pole and from the eastern coast of North America to Europe and Africa. His command oversees the training of about 1 million service members in all four military branches. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Clinton leaves the Pentagon on Saturday with Gen. John A.
Shalikashvili, left, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Defense
Secretary William Perry, after a meeting on Haiti.
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB