Schwarzkopf: On the question of going to Baghdad. If you remember the Vietnam war, we had no international legitimacy for what we did. As a result we, first of all, lost the battle of world public opinion and eventually we lost the battle at home.

In the Gulf War we had great international legitimacy in the form of eight United Nations Resolutions, every one of which said "Kick Iraq out of Kuwait", did not say one word about going into Iraq, taking Baghdad, conquering the whole country and hanging Saddam Hussein. That's point number one.

Point number two, had we gone on to Baghdad, I don't believe the French would have gone and I'm quite sure that the Arab coalition would not have gone, the coalition would have ruptured and the only people that would have gone would have been the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

And, oh by the way, I think we'd still be there, we'd be like a dinosaur in a tar pit, we could not have gotten out and we'd still be the occupying power and we'd be paying one hundred percent of all the costs to administer all of Iraq.

Thirdly, I don't think we could have found Saddam Hussein if we'd done that. We forget the lessons of Panama. We had ten thousand Americans on the ground in Panama before we went into that very small country, we still couldn't find a fellow named Noriega, so what makes you think that we would go into a nation the size of Iraq and be able to find one person who has all the ability in the world to escape and hide and fly out of the country.

But I think, more importantly, there's a strategic consideration. Saddam Hussein portrayed that war from the very beginning as "This is not a war against Iraqi aggression against Kuwait. This is the Western colonial lackey friends of Israel coming in to destroy the only nation that dare stand up to Israel, that is Iraq".

Had we proceeded to go on into Iraq and take all of Iraq, I think that you would have millions of people in that part of the world who would say Saddam was right, that that was the objective.

Instead we went in, we did what the United Nations mandate asked us to do and we left and we didn't ask for anything. We didn't leave permanent military forces over there, we didn't demand territory, we didn't demand bases, and the Arabs became convinced that the West was willing to deal with them evenhandedly which has led directly, in my mind, to the progress that's going on at the peace table an.. between Israel and the Arabs and the Palestinians. It never would have happened if Desert Storm hadn't occurred.

So the bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that sure, emotionally I would have loved to have gone to Baghdad and grabbed Saddam Hussein, but this was not an emotional decision, it was a strategic decision, and strategically we were smart enough to win the war and win the peace.

Q: Safwan. Did you get any guidance from Washington as to how you were going to conduct Safwan?

Schwarzkopf: Fundamentally, no. Colin and I talked about the objectives that we thought we wanted to accomplish there. Because I didn't have any terms of reference I wrote my own. I sent them back to Washington and basically got them back unchanged saying "Go to Safwan and do that!"

So I went to Safwan and the President announced that we were going to discuss the terms of the ceasefire and so therefore, I went to Safwan with my own instructions which, basically, number one was to get our POWs back, and then number two to make sure that we had very very clear lines drawn so that we didn't have any inadvertent battles after that.

Q: White House gossip says "You know, we tried to offer Norman Schwarzkopf lots of advice about Safwan but he wouldn't hear it. He wanted his own ceasefire" ......

Schwarzkopf: That's absolutely bogus. I mean, anyone who would say that they offered Norman Schwarzkopf anything going into Safwan, that's a blatant lie.

Q: You'd won this incredible victory and now you were having a look at what the place looked like. I mean, do you have any strong memories of that journey...?

Schwarzkopf: Well, my strongest memory of the journey to Safwan was when my aircraft flew in to Kuwait City because we were up above the clouds in the beautiful sunlit blue sky and then as we started to descend, you had this feeling that something is terribly wrong, something is very different here.

And I realised that we were coming down into this black black smoke and as we got closer to approaching the airfield, the smoke got very very dark, it was almost night like outside and then suddenly you looked down and bef.. below you you see these huge balls of flame. And that's when I made the comment that this looks like what I'd always imagined hell would look like. We landed at the airfield and it was under this pall of black smoke, we got into the helicopter and we started to fly north and out on the horizon I can remember seeing just oil well after oil well after oil well in flames and my reaction then was "This is absolutely stupid! This is nothing more than.. than the act of a madman ..."

Because anybody who knows anything about Kuwait's economy knows that over fifty one percent of their assets are in.. foreign investments, that you could blow up every oil well in Kuwait, they could never pump another drop of oil and it wouldn't effect the country. I mean this was just an act of vengence and ecological disaster that was unforgivable.

Q: At Safwan--the planning for what would happen there-- What did you want to achieve?

Schwarzkopf: When the Iraqis arrived at Safwan I wanted to make very sure that they completely understood the overwhelming military power that their armed forces had faced on the ground and I also wanted to make it very clear to them that we were completely capable of resuming hostilities at any given time and quitely frankly, inflicting great damage upon them if we chose to do so.

I didn't want them to arrive thinking this was a meeting of equals, I wanted them to clearly understand that this was the victor over the vanquished when they sat down at that table.

Q: What do you remember about your encounter with them? Do you remember asking about the POWs?

Schwarzkopf: Well, my first order of business was the POWs and we knew exactly how many people were missing and we wanted an accountabilityof how many were alive, how many were dead, how many were POWs and this sort of thing.

So he sat down and said "I'm prepared to give you that information" And I said "Would you give it to me now?" And they reeled off the status of each one and how many bodies they had and this sort of thing.

And at that point I said "OK, I want to now talk about the return of the dead bodies."

And he interrupted me and said "Wait a minute, how about our POWs? I want to know the status of our POWs." And I said to him "Well very good. We have fifty thousand," I believe the number was I gave him, "we have fifty thousand and we're still counting."

And his whole face just changed. Up until that time they had been a little bit arrogant I think, but I think at that moment they came to understand the magnitude of their defeat.

I don't think they had the slightest idea how many people they had had captured and when I told them fifty thousand, their whole demeanor changed. And then subsequently, when we were.. I was showing them the demarcation lines on the maps, and they said "Well, you know, why is it that our troops have to draw all the way back to these demarcation lines?"

And I said "You don't understand, my troops are considerably forward of these demarcation lines! We're the ones that are drawing back to establish these buffer zones so that we are not going to shoot each other".And again this was the subject of a great deal of conversation and murmuring. I think, once again, they were shocked at how far we had advanced.

Q: Why did you let the helicopters fly?

Schwarzkopf: Because we had just gone through a long discussion about aircraft and I had said that you know, the Iraqis could fly none of their military aircraft over the area and we would make absolutely sure that any vehicles that went through were clearly marked and in essence, I told them if they tried to fly into their fighter planes, you know, they'd be shot down.

And then this fellow looked at me and said "Well can we fly our helicopters because," he said "frankly, you all destroyed so many bridges and highways between here and Baghdad, it was very difficult to get here today," or words to that effect "and you realise that the same kind of helicopter that flies military missions also is a administrative transport helicopter".

The same thing is exactly true in our military. The Black Hawk helicopter can fly military missions but it also is a transporter, you know, can be of administrative use.

And so he said "We'd like to be able to use our helicopters for administrative purposes, to fly around".

And I knew the great devastation we had inflicted upon their roads and their bridges and that seemed like a very reasonable request to me. So I said "Fine, you may fly your helicopters." And then we got into a long discussion about how they would be marked, etc etc so there would be no question of mis-identification. It was purely and simply that.

Quite frankly I think I've revised my position on this. At the time I said I felt like I was snookered but I don't think I was snookered at all, I think the request was meant in the spirit exactly which he asked for it and then subsequently, when they went ahead and used the helicopters to suppress the rebellions around Basra, I think that they used the agreement as a ploy to do that. Because when we went back to them later and I told them at another meeting that I was upset by their use of their helicopters they got very, very defensive about the whole thing.

So in hindsight, although I'd like to give them credit for being very clever, I don't think they were particularly clever, I think the decision..it was presented to me in exactly the way they meant it to be presented at that time.

Q: What was your advice as to what to do about the uprising, the Shi'ite uprising?

Schwarzkopf: Well I don't know that I was asked for any advice. And as a matter of fact, I'm quite sure I wasn't asked any advice....

I have said all along, with that regard, we need to be very careful about how much support we give the Shi'ites. Let's fact it, the Iranian government is predominantly behind the Shi'ites and the Iranian government has a policy of exporting its revolution to the entire rest of the world.

So I'm not too sure that's exactly who we should be supporting in a conflict between the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. Again, you know, we need again to look at this thing from a strategic standpoint and what's in the best interests of that entire part of the world. But I wasn't asked advice.... I'm quite sure in my own mind that.. supporting the Shi'ite revolution is not.....in the Iran/Iraq war that occurred before that time, OK, a lot of people were rooting for Iraq over Iran because they were concerned about the very same thing.

Q: What were thinking as you walked in that Washington parade?

Schwarzkopf: Well.. I was in Vietnan twice, 1965 to 1966 and 1969 to 1970 and I couldn't help but just think to myself this is the right way to come home to your country.

You know, the country was paying us this wonderful tribute for having served our country and it tended to exorcise a lot of ghosts and a lot of wounds that all of us who were in Vietnam carried with us.

So it was a glorious day, it wasn't a euphoric thing at all, it was just a very nice, warm experience, sort of what's supposed to happen when the war is over.

Q: Were you thinking of friends?

Schwarzkopf: Oh yeh, sure, but I was thinking more of my staff and their families and my troops and all the people that were with me over in Desert Storm, you know, my staff was marching with me and my fellow commanders were there and we were sort of running into each other at various places. As I say, it was just a very nice thing.

Q: What did the war, this fabulous victory you'd delivered, what did it achieve?

Schwarzkopf: Well, it achieved a lot of things. Number one I think that we have a far greater opportunity for peace in the Middle East than any of us have ever seen in our lifetimes.

Number two I think that we did show that a coalition of nations were capable of coming together and sending a messsage to ruthless aggressors anywhere that we will not tolerate that agression.

Certainly in our country it re-established the credibility of our military in the minds of our citizens of the United States like no other thing ever could re-establish it.

I think it returned a great deal of pride to our country that our country had lost as a result of the Vietnam experience.

But most importantly of all I think that this legacy that we've left behind that "Hey, you know, if some other ruthless dictator decides they're going to try the same thing, then perhaps they'll think twice before they do."

Q: Now pretty much the final question--you have a reputation as "the bear", as someone who's tough to work with, you know, big temper.

Schwarzkopf: Well, unfortunately, I have always regretted the fact that I have a temper, but I also have you know, have great love and respect for all of the people that have worked for me. I think like everything else, this is one of those things that has been blown out of proportion.

If you look at every single military person that I worked with during the Gulf War, not a single one of them ever had their career ruined, not a single one of them was relieved, all of them went on to have very very bright futures, most of them went on to have very very bright futures as all of my subordinates. I don't think that anyone can go back, at any time I was a Central Command commander and point to one person whose military career I ruined because of my terrible temper.

Do I have a temper? Yes, but I've been portrayed as having a terrible temper 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, that's simply not true. I've been accused of leading by intimidation. I don't think that you can lead by intimidation when you in fact had not relieved people, destroyed careers, left you know tattered, mangled bodies on the rocks. And I think my commanders, those people that really know me, know that to be the truth.

Q: And is your anger a deliberate ploy-- this is a way to make things happen?

Schwarzkopf: In some cases yes, in some cases yes. Particularly when you're dealing with very high ranking people you know, you have to get their attention, they are used to, by their rank, of having their own way and doing their own thing and when it's necessary to all work together on something, sometimes you have to hit the mule between the eyes of the two by four to get its attention.

I think it's more the fact that I care so very much about.. the lives of our troops, I care so very much about the dignity of our nation, I care so very much about doing it right and you know, the fact that when human lives are on the line you can not be cavalier, you can't do enough, you cannot do enough, you must do everything you possibly can and leave no stone unturned and you can never settle for second best or a second class solution when you're dealing with enterprises of such magnitude that they involve the lives of literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people.

Q: And your soldiers, the people who fought out there? What have you got to say about them?

Schwarzkopf: Well I'll let my soldiers speak for themselves. I've had a lot of people come up and say "Thank you very much General Schwarzkopf for restoring my faith in my country." And I always say "You don't want General Schwarzkopf to restore your faith in your country, 541,000 magnificent American men and women who were ripped from the breast of their families on short notice and sent half way around the world to the most inhospitable environment imagined and ultimately had to face death, that's who restored their faith in their country."

And by talking about the 541,000 Americans I'm certainly not in any way ignoring the magnificent participation of the Brits and the Egyptians and the Arabs and all the rest of them.

I mean, it was a wonderful wonderful team effort, and I guess that's probably what bothers me more than anything else because about 99% of the time it was a wonderful collegial undertaking where we all worked together in the best of possible spirits and, unfortunately, there are those that tend to focus on the 1%.

Q: Actually I'm going to have to focus on the 1%, and it is the last question. Why do you get so annoyed over Safwan not being taken?

Schwarzkopf: Very simply, Safwan was a key road junction to the north of Kuwait City. Control of Safwan would have prevented the flow of a large number of forces through that area with ease.

When the decision was made to stop operations the following morning, that evening I looked at the front line traces and I called up my army component commander and I said "I want you to take Safwan! Can you take Safwan by tomorrow morning?"

And the answer I was given was "Yes, we can take Safwan by tomorrow morning".I went to bed, got up the next morning and here was a great big symbol on the map showing that US forces had taken Safwan. Three days later when we are casting about trying to find the final location I finally say "Well, gosh, since we can't find any place else, let's do it at Safwan because there's an airfield there, it's easy to get through and everything else". And I looked up on the map, and the symbol was still there, Safwan is taken. It's only then did I find out that Safwan was not taken.

Now.. you know, was I lied to? I don't know. I don't think so, I don't like to think so. But the fact that I gave a specific order to take Safwan and then I was told that Safwan had been taken and then I only find out three days later.....If I had never decided to hold the ceasefire talks at Safwan, to this day I probably would never know that in fact it was reported to me that Safwan was taken but it wasn't.

And, you know, the one thing that's more important than anything else as far as I'm concerned in the military, is this thing about honor. I told you, as commander I must believe what I'm being told by my subordinates and here I had.. I had sat there.. I mean I had told Washington "Oh well, no problem, we can go to Safwan, you know, Safwan's in our hands! I know because I specifically gave the order and I have been told that we took it and there is the symbol right up there on the may that says Safwan is taken."

It wasn't at all. And that's why Safwan was such a egregious problem as far as I'm concerned. OK?

Q: What do you say to these people who say "Ah, Saddam's still in power. He won the war".

Schwarzkopf: Well, of course he didn't win the war... First of all, Saddam did not win the war, even though he says he did, I mean, you know, that's a joke and everybody in the world knows it.

That's very important, face is everything in the Arab world. Saddam is impotent in the Arab world today. Saddam has no voice in the Arab world today whatsoever.

As a result we have things like the peace talks going on with the Palestinians and the Israelis. If Saddam were to be replaced tomorrow he would probably be replaced with someone who's just as bad or worse than he is.

But because this person did not insult the King of Saudi Arabia, did not insult Mubarak, because this person didn't do all these terrible things that Saddam has done, the doors would be opened of Arab diplomacy to this person s and Iraq would be brought back into the fold. So there's some people that would say we're better off with Saddam there than with somebody else in there. But the bottom line is-- Who's Saddam? What's he going to do?