Powell: Well we'd established a date for the beginning of the ground campaign and General Schwarzkopf came back and asked for the date to be slipped for a couple of days and he gave us the reasons for that. And we took that to the President and got his approval. But we have a President who is anxious to get this on and I've got a Secretary of Defense who is anxious to get this over with, and he's trying to convey the President's desires.

So when General Schwarzkopf came back again and said he had a problem with the date it was a little bit difficult to see his problem while I was having my problem.

And I went and talked to Secretary Cheney and said "Look, Norm's thinking about changing the date again." Dick was not happy to hear that.

And so then I went down to talk to Norm on the phone and said "Norm look, this is getting hard to explain." And I took him through why it was getting hard to explain and he exploded and said "You know, you do not understand my problem, you're talking in political terms. If you don't care about the lives of young people well I do".

That did it. I exploded and I started shouting back at him. You know "I care as much as you do but there's a limit. And I have to work in both the political world and the military world. I am not privileged to be isolated over there where I don't have to consider these political implications and that's what the Chairman does."

And we got into a pretty good row. But then we have the utmost respect and affection for each other. I think the world of Norm. And we knew we'd better stop talking. And so I said, "Look Norm, we got a problem, we'll work our way through."

He said "Colin, I think I'm losing it. I feel my head's in a vice." I said "You're not losing it. You have our total confidence but you got a problem. We'll work our way through this problem. You know, at the end of the day, I will carry your message forward. You're the guy in the field."

And so I just hung the phone up, and saw Cheney and told him just, we've got to wait a little while. And then about thirty minutes later Norm called and said "Weather's fine. We can go."

This is what crisis in the war is all about. People argue, people fight, people disagree, people apply motives to other people. You argue, you shout, he's for sanctions he's not for war, he's for war he's not for sanctions. This is part of the normal process of going through a crisis together.

These are not simple matters and that's what we went through during this six-month period. And at the end of the day, when it was time to go to war, we were all knitted up, civilian leaders, military leaders, commanders in the field, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we were all knitted up and knew what we had to do, with a great coalition from around the world, and we went and we did it. But it's never simple or easy, there are always these kinds of debates and disagreements and fights.

Q: The land war starts. Didn't you overestimate the Iraqis totally. Why was that? Does it matter?

Powell: I don't know that it matters and I'm not sure how bad the overestimate was. I think at the height of the Iraqi build-up they had probably had close to the amount of force there that we thought they did, whether it was four hundred or four hundred and fifty, five hundred thousand. People will quibble it wasn't five fifty it was five twenty five, we didn't know. The only way we'd know is by looking at units on the ground with satellites and then estimating what level of strength is within those units and then adding it up.

I never worried about the number particularly. There were about forty-four divisions and I knew where they were and it was those divisions that had to be defeated.

I suspect that by the time the ground war started, as a result of defections, deserters, the air campaign, an intense air campaign, that that forty-four division force was a lot, lot smaller and much less capable than it had been at the beginning. I'm not sure how much less capable, but certainly much less capable.

And in different ways the front line units were pretty much I think shattered by the time the ground war started. The second echelon units, a little bit better, heavier units, not quite devastated, and the Republican Guard further to the rear still capable of putting up some kind of fight.

But it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me whether there were four hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, five hundred thousand. There was an army in the field with forty-four divisions that had fought for eight years against the Iranians and had some capability, and we put in place a force that would deal with that.

I was asked once, "Well, you know, you overestimated--they only wanted four aircraft carriers and you gave them six. Why did you give them six?"

And my answer was "'Cause I didn't have time to go get the rest of them." I mean, the Cold War was over. We had this enormous power. We could put insurance policy on top of insurance policy. Why not? I would never apologize for that.

So we put in place one hell of a force with our coalition partners and the Iraqis may not have been as strong as we thought they were and they probably deteriorated enormously during the time they were out in the desert, but that doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me. We put in place a force that would deal with it-- whether they were three hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand.

Q: When the land war started, what was your nightmare scenario? What was the thing at three in the morning that...? Powell: Biological weapons, chemical weapons...would be a major political and public relations problem. But I did not see them as a military problem. We could fight in a chemical environment. Out in the wide expanses of the desert, you can get out of chemicals. We had equipment, we knew how to deal with that.

Biological weapons, if they had been delivered in some way, not so much at the troops in contact, but against the Saudi population, that could have caused--I don't know what we would have done at that point. I don't think it would have affected the troops on the ground but it may have fundamentally changed the political and public relations environment.

I never thought they had a nuclear weapon. I wasn't worried about a nuclear weapon. They just were not that far along. I still don't think they're that far along.

Q: What is your estimate as to what would have happened if they'd started throwing around non-conventional weapons?

Powell: I think we would have greatly expanded the strategic campaign. We would have put things in the target list that we might not have had otherwise, things that went to the heart of their ability to survive as a nation.

In my memoirs I make note of a list of things that I started to jot down as a warning: infrastructure, highways, airports, anything that would destroy them as a nation without causing, you know, unnecessary loss of civilian life.

And one of the things we actually kicked around was knocking off the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which would have caused enormous destruction downstream. I'm not sure that's one we ever would have done because the loss of civilian life would have been terrible and we really had not thoroughly analysed. We knew how to hit the dams but I don't know if we analysed what the effect downstream would have been. But, nevertheless, it would have been a good one to threaten the Iraqis with.

And of course there was always the implicit threat of nuclear weapons. I don't think we ever would have used them but, nevertheless, the Iraqis didn't know that and we could have if provocation was serious.

Q: The morning of February the 27th--and Walt Boomer is parked outside Kuwait City, about to take a pleasure ride through the city. Franks, the evening before, has made contact with the Republican Guard, and they'd been fighting through the night. It's clear you thought the time was coming to end this war. Why?

Powell: We pretty much saw the entire Iraqi army leaving Kuwait. They had ordered a withdrawal and they were fleeing out North in any conveyances they could get on. We owned Kuwait City. That part of the mission clearly had been achieved.

We were fighting well along the Western flank and large numbers of Iraqi units were being overrun. We had prisoners of war totalling something like seventy thousand. And so the fundamental objectives were well on their way to being achieved. The question was, "How much additional destruction do we want to inflict upon the Iraqi army that was in the Kuwait theatre?"

And that's what I saw on the morning of the 27th. General Schwarzkopf and I had talked about it and I told him that I sensed that we were approaching end game on this. He agreed. He had the same view of the battlefield that I did, or I had his view because the reports essentially are coming from him.

We also were starting to see some scenes that were unpleasant. The 'highway of death'...it may be a horrible name to give it and sort of gives it an emotional contact, but that's what the press was calling it. At the so-called 'highway of death' where people were just being slaughtered as our planes went up and down.

Q: Isn't that what armies do?

Powell: You don't do unnecessary killing if can be avoided. At some point you decide you've accomplished your objectives and you stop. And on that morning both General Schwarzkopf and I thought that we were on the verge of accomplishing our objectives and we were in the window of putting an end to it so there was not unnecessary additional loss of life on the part of American and coalition forces or on the part of Iraqi youngsters and shi'ite conscripts.

Q: Could I just ask--I'm still unclear in my mind what the war aims were.

Powell: They were in the campaign plan we wrote and they were the objectives that the President used publicly to get public support.

One--the ejection of the Iraqi army from Kuwait. Notice the word I use, the 'ejection of the Iraqi army from Kuwait.' Second--there is restoration of the legitimate government in Kuwait. Third--providing for the release of all third country nationals who are in danger or who are hostage and fourth--achieving a level of strategic stability in the region. An objective that we had within our campaign plans was destroy the Republican Guard.

And so on the morning of the 27th the strategic political objectives were all on the verge of accomplishment. We had no objective that said go to Baghdad. We had no objective that said, split apart Iraq.

It has to be remembered our Arab friends were not going to go into Iraq, their soldiers would not step foot in Iraq. They were going into Kuwait to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. That was the resolution passed by the United Nations and that's what the Congressional resolution provided for.

So there was no doubt in my mind or in General Schwarzkopf's mind that we were close to accomplishing the assigned objectives given to us by our political leaders.

And so on the morning of the 27th these things were coming together. After talking to Schwarzkopf and having our common view of the battlefield, I went over to the White House with Dick Cheney, and Dick I had briefed by this time, and we briefed the President as we'd been doing every morning and the gang of eight....

Q: So what did you say to the President? What did he say to you?

Powell: I essentially set up my map as I would always do for those briefings, pull out my little laser pointer, which always amused the President, and I took him through the situation on the ground, where our units were, where the Iraqis were, how they were fleeing.

I pointed out they were starting to pick some bad vibes because of the highway of death and the fact that we were in the exploitation phase of the operation.

And after laying out the entire battlefield for them, I told them I thought we were approaching end game and I would expect that within the next twenty four hours--at our next meeting tomorrow morning--I would be bringing you a recommendation with respect to the cessation of hostilities.

The President then said "Well, if that's the case, we're within the window, why not end it now?"

And we thought about that, we kicked it around. He said, "We're picking up some unfortunate baggage right now, some public baggage, he was thinking also in political terms, and he said, "I'd like you to consider that. I'd like you all to consider that," talking to all of the civilian advisers in the room as well as to me.

And I certainly primed the pump on that by laying out the situation in the battlefield and giving him the view that Norm and I had of the status of the battle at that point.

And so I say, "It's certainly something to consider but obviously I've got to go talk to Norm."

And so I went and called Norm and told him of our conversation in the Oval Office and he said, "Yeah, I think that's probably the right thing to do," or words to that effect. "But let me check around, let me take another look and I'll get back to you."

Keep in mind while we were having this conversation in the Oval Office, Norm was giving the 'mother of all briefings' where, in effect, he said "I am essentially waiting for political leaders to say that we can end this". So it wasn't as if something was happening in the Oval Office that was totally foreign from Norm's view of the battlefield and what was happening in Saudi Arabia.

And so we talked about it some more, all the President's advisers had a chance to speak on it and none of them was negative to the idea.

We realised at the time we were talking about it that it wasn't going to be VE Day or VJ Day. It wasn't going to be a total capitulation, units would get out, Saddam would survive, but the President felt he had accomplished his objectives and, if that's the case, why not stop the killing.

We then took that under advisement and we all had other things to do. Mr. Cheney and I went up on the Hill to brief the Congress, other advisers went to start thinking about this and contacting coalition members, I guess, and also starting to write up the announcement.

And then Secretary Cheney and I came back to the Oval Office that afternoon. Meanwhile I'd had my Vice Chairman, Admiral Jeremiah, consult with the Joint Chiefs of Staff who concurred in stopping it.

Then at about three minutes to six that evening, back in the President's private study, and having talked to Norm again and gotten his concurrence, the President made a decision to stop the war, have a cease fire at that point.

Q: What did he say?

Powell: We returned from the Hill, Mr Cheney and I, and we joined the President in his small office. We had talked to Schwarzkopf, I'd gotten input from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and at five fifty-seven, three minutes before six, the President reaffirmed his decision and said, "I think this is the thing to do." And that was it, that was the decision.

We then adjourned back to the Oval Office, others joined and we had phonecalls with Norm Schwarzkopf. The President talked to Norm, got Norm's personal concurrence and satisfaction with the decision. The same thing with Cheney. He talked to Norm.

We then shifted the time a few hours from the original plan to make it midnight our time in Washington, which was eight o clock in the morning in the region, which essentially gave Norm a few hours of daylight in order to check things out and clean up the battlefield. And frankly, gives him the other day almost that he'd asked for.

So assuming that we were only planning to fight for another day, that was shortened by about twelve hours maybe. But I can't tell whether the war might have continued for another day or two. As it turned out, after the cease fire, Iraqi units did continue to challenge us and one of the big battles took place after the cease fire when Barry McAffery's division wiped out a large Iraqi force trying to go up the Euphrates River Valley.

So we killed another several hundred vehicles after the cease fire, and that's the decision the President made and I think it was the correct decision.

Q: Were you concerned about the reputation of the American forces who'd won this wonderful victory? Were you thinking that--we don't want to be seen to be slaughtering ...? Powell: What was going through my mind on that morning, was that we were on the verge of accomplishing the mission we had been assigned. The objectives were being achieved.

At some point we have to decide when to end this war and I guess, once again, I'm the one who essentially is teeing up a decision rather than it just sort of floats around.

And so, on that morning, as I had done throughout Desert Storm, I made the President aware that some time in the next twenty-four hours we were going to be reaching the point where we'd probably be coming to you with a recommendation to stop the war because we'd accomplished all the objectives that had been assigned. I did not make a recommendation at that point to stop the war. I made a point to the President, that we would be coming forward within the next twenty-four hours more likely with a recommendation to stop.

So as I tried to do throughout this period, I gave the President forewarning of decisions that he would be asked to make.

Q: The other version has a slightly grudging Norm Schwarzkopf, left to his own devices--that's what he told me--he would carry on, go to the sea and encircle them and you say, "Well, do you think you could cease fire tomorrow morning?" in the first telephone conversation. And the Gates and the Scowcrofts and the Bakers, they all say, "Aah, the initiative came from Colin Powell. If it hadn't been for him we'd have just carried on." But the military guys told us, "We'd achieved everything, they were cut off, they were all destroyed," etc., etc. What's your take on that?

Powell: Everyone of the President's advisers was present and General Schwarzkopf was consulted. And if any of them thought it was the wrong thing to do they could have spoken up and we could have continued.

If Norm had said one word about "No, I've really got to keep going because I haven't inflicted enough damage on the Republican Guard, we want to go all the way to Basra and come around the other end," we would have continued. But none of them spoke out for it.

I think I faithfully reported Norm's input to me to the people in the Oval Office. I still think it was a wise decision. I don't shrink from it, and to the extent that they wish to put it all on my shoulders, I won't accept it.

Q: What price did President Bush pay in this end game for demonizing Saddam Hussein?

Powell: I think that the American people would obviously have preferred to see--bring me the head of Saddam Hussein. It would have made for a much much cleaner win. Even if we hadn't killed that many more members of the Republican Guard, if we'd got Saddam Hussein that would have made for a much more, you know, a much more decisive outcome.

But it has to be remembered that for months after the end of Desert Storm, President Bush was riding at eighty, even ninety-one percent popularity, with Saddam Hussein there.

It must be remembered that the President was anxious to bring all the troops home as quickly as possible and the President was anxious to turn his attention to domestic affairs. So even though it wasn't quite as clean as we might have liked it, I don't know that it hurt the President that much.

As I go around the countryside and talk to the American people as opposed to the analysts, it is still viewed as a very very successful conflict that we won and we did it in a way that minimized the loss of life.

It's easy to second guess it without remembering the panic that existed in the country, that's five, ten, fifteen...and some of the most respected analysts in town said twenty thousand casualties...one hundred and forty seven. There were parades all over this country welcoming the troops home and congratulating the President and those who participated in the operation.

And so even though it is subject to criticism, we're all, subject to some criticism for the way it ended, you have to step back and look.

The Iraqi army is not in Kuwait, the Kuwaiti government is. Saddam is still there, if he serves any purpose it's allowed us to keep the sanctions in place which we might not have been able to keep in place if say he had been replaced by H...Hamel Hussein or his son.

Sanctions have kept Iraq weak. They are not able to project power. The Iraqi army is about forty...thirty-five to forty percent of its original size. It is not a threat to Kuwait in my judgement. The principal reason it's not a threat to Kuwait is that Kuwait has a new strategic relationship with the United States and the Clinton administration has demonstrated twice in the last year that it's a good relationship that exists. Following the end of the war, the Madrid peace conference was held, which led to the Middle East peace progress we've seen in the last couple of years. Within a year afterward, the weakness of Yasser Arafat and others, allowed us to resolve the situation of our hostages in Beirut. They're all now out and we have no hostages in Beirut.

And so when I tally that all up, I think it was a pretty good outcome, and it was an outcome that was achieved with minimum loss of life.

We can grind our teeth forever as to whether we should have fought a day or two longer, we could grind our teeth forever as to who was for sanctions, who teed up what, who influenced somebody to do this, that and the other.

But while we're doing all that and having great fun with it, we ought to recognize the significant achievement that Desert Shield, Desert Storm was. President Bush said "This will not stand." That did not stand. The American people have continued to believe that it was a successful operation and that we did well.