THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601090034
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
IN A TWO-PART PBS series on the Gulf War that begins tonight at 9, the producers of ``Frontline'' suggest it was a hollow victory for the Allies who drove Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait five years ago.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor, one of more than a dozen military and political figures who did on-camera interviews for ``Frontline,'' calls it a modest and incomplete victory ``snatched from the jaws of triumph.''
Trainor's reason for saying that: After the Allied coalition led by the United States sent Hussein's troops back to Iraq bloodied and battered, Hussein was, and still is, in power, with much of his elite Republican Guard left to support his regime.
The ``Frontline'' cameras pick up President George Bush saying after the cease-fire in 1991, ``I haven't felt the wonderfully euphoric feeling that came with the definitive end to World War II.''
No, indeed, comments Trainor, who add: ``Yeah, the war went right for us. But in the end, something was missing. Saddam Hussein is still there.'' Were the Allied armies expected to march on Baghdad, root out Hussein in his bunker and put him before a firing squad? No. Because that was not the United Nations's mandate.
But at war's end, wasn't it reasonable to expect Allied commander Norman Schwartzkopf to reduce Hussein's firepower so he could not use his troops and helicopter gunships against his own people? The ``Frontline'' producers say the Allies blew it in hammering out the cease-fire with Hussein.
They allowed him to keep the helicopters which were used to put down revolts by Shias and Kurds - an overthrow called for by Bush when he said, ``I want to see the Iraqi people put Saddam aside.''
With no help from the Allies, the Kurds and Shias were crushed by Hussein's soldiers including those who ran and hid just before the cease-fire took hold. ``Frontline'' shows how the Republican Guard was about to be cut off and destroyed when the word came to stop the war.
Those troops survived to make life hell for the Kurds.
There is much to learn from watching this four-hour ``Frontline,'' which concludes on WHRO Wednesday at 9 p.m. Did you know that the Allies launched more than 260 missions against places where Hussein had been seen, but never came close to destroying him?
The man tooled around Baghdad untouched in a Winnebago.
He hid his Scud missiles in hollowed-out school buses.
When the cease-fire left him with the men and muscle to stay in power, Hussein celebrated by firing a pistol into the air and saying, ``We won! We won!''
While Bush was taking bows before a joint session of Congress, and U.S. troops marched in parades under a confetti shower, Hussein's troops were retaliating brutally against those who wanted to overthrow the Iraqi leader.
``Frontline'' brings those disturbing scenes into your living room. They are not easy to watch, nor are the pictures of Kuwaitis taking out their anger on fellow countrymen suspected of aiding the Iraqi invaders.
``There was much more to the Gulf War than the now familiar television images of gun-camera footage and cross-hairs marking a bomber's target,'' said ``Frontline'' senior producer Michael Sullivan.
It was Sullivan's intention to go backstage in the war in this ``Frontline'' special. And as the ``Frontline'' producers did so, they uncovered what they call the ``Vietnam poltergeist,'' the spectre of a war lost.
The Pentagon wanted not another Vietnam, but rather a swift, neat victory - in and out of the desert as quickly as possible. Attack Baghdad? Get bogged down deep inside Iraq? Occupy that country for who knows how long?
No thanks, said the generals Colin Powell and Schwartzkopf.
Powell is heard to say it would have been ``un-chivalrous'' to totally wipe out the Iraqi army in retreat. Tell that to the Kurds and Shiites. You have to wonder how many times that subject would have come up in a presidential campaign if Powell had decided to run for the White House.
In looking back to the cease-fire, said Bush's national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, Hussein himself should have been brought to the table at Safwan and made to look humble in defeat.
``That was our mistake,'' says Scowcroft in Part 2 of ``The Gulf War.''
``We allowed Hussein to blame the generals for the defeat.''
Margaret Thatcher, who as Britain's prime minister helped Bush forge the coalition that fought against Hussein, agrees with Scowcroft. ``When you are dealing with a dictator, he's got to be defeated well and truly, and he's got to be seen as defeated by his people.''
The Allies, including hundreds of men and women in uniform from commands in Hampton Roads, fought bravely and fought well in the Gulf War. Who can forget the image of the Norfolk-based battleship Wisconsin steaming to the Persian Gulf to train its 16-inch guns on Iraqi troops threatening to march into Saudi Arabia from Kuwait?
The Norfolk sailors, Langley Field airmen and North Carolina-based Marines helped to defeat Hussein in Kuwait and almost tumbled his regime.
Almost.
``What did we win?'' asks Thatcher. Cheap oil. Gasoline. We prevented Saddam Hussein from taking control of one-fifth of the world's oil. That's something. ILLUSTRATION: The two-part PBS series begins tonight at 9 and concludes
Wednesday.
by CNB