One more group deserves recognition — the wives in Panama who were embroiled without warning in mortal combat, and who spent the night of December 19 and 20 huddled over their children in closets as the battles raged. These same women, two days later, opened and operated the Commissary and P.X. so families could get much-needed supplies. They were professionals of the highest order, most deserving of our deepest respect and gratitude.
YES, Operation JUST CAUSE was an occasion of deep satisfaction. We didn't rest on our laurels, though. We knew another major crisis could come any time, and we had to be prepared for it. Little did we know, however, just how soon that would be.
XII
SHADOWS IN THE STORM
At 1:00 A.M. on August 2, 1990, three divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard, equipped with nearly a thousand tanks, streamed across Iraq's border with Kuwait. Within half an hour, helicopters dropped Iraqi commandos on rooftops in Kuwait City. By dawn, the massive invasion of the small Arab country at the top of the Persian Gulf was well under way. By nightfall, it was nearly complete, and Saddam Hussein could declare that Kuwait was now his country's "19th province." By week's end, eleven Iraqi divisions had backed up his claim.
Though early on American satellites had detected the massing of Iraqi troops along the border, there had been mixed interpretations of Saddam's intent, and the initial U.S. approach had been uncertain and at times muddled. In the early hours of the invasion itself, the Bush administration seemed unsure about what to do. All that quickly changed, however, and on August 5, President George Bush made his famous "line in the sand" speech, declaring that the invasion "will not stand." Within hours, Bush had put together a powerful multinational coalition, including leading Arab nations, and American troops were en route to the Gulf. The massive buildup that followed eventually brought half a million U.S. troops to the region.
Among them would be nearly 9,000 special operations soldiers—7,705 in Saudi Arabia and 1,049 in Turkey. Special Operations Forces (SOF) would perform a wide variety of tasks, ranging from simple language interpretation to strikes against targets more than a hundred miles behind enemy lines. During the early stages of the American buildup, small groups of SOF operators would be posted on the front lines, both to gather intelligence and to serve as trip wires, symbolic sacrifices in the event Saddam chose to invade Saudi Arabia.
The range of SOF missions in the Gulf amply demonstrated the potential of special operations in the post — Cold War era. It would have done so even more if their initiatives had not been blunted for several reasons — including command attitudes that would have been familiar to the earliest special operators.
When news of the invasion came in, General Stiner, now the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), was sitting in a room at CIA's headquarters in Langley Virginia. Unlike some of the career intelligence officers around him, Stiner was not surprised by the news. Months before, his intelligence people had pegged Kuwait as one of the next geopolitical hot spots, and SOCOM had been working on contingency plans for possible SOF involvement since July. Even after national intelligence agencies declared that the Iraqi pre-invasion buildup amounted to mere saber-rattling, Stiner had begun mentally drawing up a list of SOF personnel who would be needed to augment the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Headquarters in the event of war.
In order to better support the warfighting CINCs in planning for the employment of SOF forces, each CINC had been given his own Special Operations Command (SOC), resident in his own headquarters, and commanded by either a brigadier general or colonel, with thirty to forty officers and senior NCOs. In time of crisis, it was SOCOM's responsibility to augment the Special Operations Command as necessary to fulfill its warfighting responsibilities. Colonel Jesse Johnson, a very capable and experienced SF officer, was Schwarzkopf's SOC Commander. He required at least two hundred augmentees right off the bat — and more later as the need for SOF capabilities became more clearly identified.
Under the U.S. military's regional joint command organization, CENTCOM was responsible for all operations in Southwest Asia. In many ways, Stiner's SOCOM functioned as a service agency to the different regional commands. With the exception of individual operations directly ordered by the President, CENTCOM's four-star commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, would direct SOF personnel in Southwest Asia, as Thurman had in Panama.
Available forces included the potent, highly trained special mission units, Army Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Army and Air Force special aviation units, Rangers, PSYOPs, and Civil Affairs units. At the time of the Iraqi invasion, selected SOCOM special mission units had just finished an exercise simulating a mission deep behind the lines of a Southwest Asian country. The training routine would prove an eerie prelude to what they would soon face in the Gulf.
When news of the Iraqi invasion came in, Stiner immediately placed SOCOM on alert, and SOF planning cells whipped into action.
Iraq's rapid invasion of Kuwait presented America with a number of immediate problems, not the least of which was the capture of the American Embassy in Kuwait City. Besides Embassy personnel, many Americans were caught by surprise by the invasion and were trapped in Kuwait and Iraq itself.
SOCOM was tasked by the National Command Authority to develop a plan for rescuing embassy personnel, should that become necessary.
Getting them out wasn't going to be easy, even though the Embassy in Kuwait City presented a classic target for hostage rescue; the building could be isolated and its layout was well-known. Major General Wayne Downing, the JSOTF commander, would later recall that the risks were great: "No one wanted to do this operation," he said later. There was a high potential for casualties and collateral damage. Just as important, the operation might provoke the Iraqis into attacking Saudi Arabia and the allied coalition forces still gathering there. General Schwarzkopf worried that it would precipitate war before he was ready to fight.
By mid-August the forces of nations joining the coalition began arriving in Saudi Arabia, and as they did so, Special Forces detachments from the 5th Special Forces Group (known as coalition support teams — CSTs) were assigned to each unit from division to company level. They spoke the language, advised on training and planning, facilitated the communications for command and control, prepared for effective combat operations, and would be the units' link to U.S. fire support. They lived with their coalition units, trained with them, and later went to war with them.
This was an unsung yet critical mission in the war, one made entirely possible by the evolution that had taken place in Special Operations since the days of Bill Yarborough. SF soldiers could speak the language both of the allies and the enemy, and this key ability would eventually be hailed by General Schwarzkopf as "the glue that held the coalition together."
In addition, special operators' cultural training had taught them not only how to secure a house without killing noncombatants — but also which fork to use at a diplomatic banquet at the Embassy Such assets made them invaluable as liaison troops.
To Carl Stiner, CSTs personified what made Special Forces special. It came down to a person "motivated by his inner strength, mature judgment, and technical competence. You put him out there maybe for four or five months or longer. And the image of the United States is resting on what he does. And you've got to know that he's going to do what's right when the time comes."