Interview with Lieutenant General Walt Boomer, MEF (Marine Air-Ground) Commander

Boomer: I think he was trying to achieve two things. One of course was to liberate Kuwait, we never lost sight of that, and I don't think that he lost sight of it, and the second thing that was very clear from the briefing was that he wanted to destroy the Republican Guard. Two elements. And they both went hand in hand from my perspective.

Q: What at that briefing was the mission he was giving the Marines...a fixing attack?

Boomer: Well he gave us the mission of supporting attack, I never heard General Schwarzkopf use the term fixing attack. There was some Army planners who became fixated on, fixing attack, I never looked at it that way. And he never talked to me in those terms, he said you're the supporting attack. Incidentally you're going to go in Kuwait. And I said I understand that. But we had a conversation later on, and he said you know Walt, sometimes, the supporting attack, becomes the main attack. And I said, you're exactly right General, sometimes it does.

Q: How concerned were you at this early stage in November, about the casualties you'd take getting to Kuwait City?

Boomer: I was overwhelmingly concerned about casualties, particularly in the beginning, you know when we didn't understand all that we later came to learn about the Iraqis. We were outnumbered. We were outnumbered when we attacked into Kuwait sometimes people have lost sight of that. But in addition to being outnumbered there was this overriding concern about chemical warfare. This just occupied, most of my waking moments, how were we going to get to Kuwait, I'd already made up my mind, we were going to get to Kuwait, how do I get to Kuwait, without having a lot of casualties, how do we do this. And how do we do this, if they use chemical weapons. We haven't experienced chemical warfare, since 1917. Much deadlier today. So, we just began to train on the basics, as pertaining to chemical warfare, and...

Q: In terms of that attack, what was the nightmare scenario that you ran through in your head, at 3 a.m. in the morning?

Boomer: The nightmare scenario was that, we would somehow execute this poorly, get hung up in one of these mine fields, get bogged down, and they would drop chemicals on us. Before we really had a chance to gain any momentum. We were very much the leaders in the manerver warfare and all all of the people that were sort of carping at me about this frontal attack that I was going to conduct. We intended to do it very quickly. We intended to move as fast as we could on the battlefield, but my fear was that, this was a big attack, something would break down. You know, maybe we hadn't thought of something, maybe we hadn't rehearsed something well enough. And that would leave us vulnerable, to chemical weapons. And despite all of the work that we had done, in this area, all of the training, all the rehearsing, I don't think any of us knew, if if we could really handle large numbers of those, wounded by or affected by chemicals.

Q:- Your intelligence was that they had chemical weapons and they were going to use them.....?

Boomer: All of our intelligence indicated to me that they had them, and that they were going to use them. In the beginning I couldn't understand why they wouldn't use them, so that's where I was coming from, they are going to use them. So how do we work our way through this.

Q: Were you concerned that the Marines were going to be used as, bluntly, cannon fodder?

Boomer: No there was no concern on my part, that we were going to be used as cannon fodder, I mean, I wouldn't have allowed us to be used as cannon fodder.

Q: But , when one looks at the attacks that were planned, if there was one that was going to go wrong, in terms of casualties, it was yours.....

Boomer: That's true. I think from a casualty perspective we were in most danger. But at the same time we were working day and night, to figure out how to do this, without a lot of casualties. Ultimately that planning, paid off but no there was no no fear that we were going to be, used that way, as a matter of fact, General Powell expressed concern to me, as did General Schwarzkopf about this whole issue of casualties, we were all concerned about it, and their fear was exactly the opposite of what you expressed, and that is, not that we were going to be used as cannon fodder. But that we would be so aggressive, as Marines, that we would get ourselves, hurt. When in fact we were the supporting attack and it might not be necessary, so ....

Q: But there are some rules where you would say, if that's what it takes, fine. That's what we're here for. Why not casualties in this case?

Boomer: The whole issue of casualties has become one that needs to be studied and talked about because we have raised up in the world, people who have come to believe, that we can go to a war, and fight it and win without casualties, that places a tremendous additional burden on the commander who's always been concerned about casualties, any commander worth his salt has been concerned about his casualties, but it becomes a little bizarre when people say oh go do this, and, and by the way, we don't want you to have anybody hurt.

Well that that imposes quite a burden and it affects your tactics and your strategy too, as a matter of fact. But, I anticipated that we would have some people killed. As a result of this attack into Kuwait. But I felt very strongly that it was my job to ensure that this was kept to an absolute minimum, commensurate with the task that we had been assigned and that's the way I sort of worked, through it.

Q: Amphibious attack. How much pressure was there on you to launch an amphibious attack for political reasons?

Boomer: Let's talk about the amphibious attack and we can start with General Grey. General Grey has a very strong sense of morality and, while he might have been politically concerned about the outcome of the war and its effects on the Marine Corps ten years down the road in Washington, he never said to me that I recall, you need to conduct an amphibious assault for that kind of reason.