“Hit ’em in secret, offer a way out in public.”
Green nodded. The President’s phone buzzed.
“Secretary Belk and General Warner have arrived, sir.” Roger Belk, the Secretary of Defense, and Tom Warner, the four-star who ran Central Command.
“Thank you.” He hung up. “I overreacted before, Donna. I know the sacrifices you make for this place. The hours you work.”
Green clasped her hands. She seemed to be deciding if he was offering her another chance to talk over the first possibility she’d raised, that Iran wasn’t involved with the uranium. He hoped she realized he wasn’t.
“Sir. I can’t even imagine the pressure you’re under.”
“I’m so glad to have you on my team.”
“Yes, sir.”
The President reached for his phone. “Send them in.”
For twenty minutes, Belk and Warner walked the President through what both men insisted on calling the “positioning of assets.” Pentagon-speak for moving the soldiers and Marines who might be fighting and dying at his command.
Within a week, all three of the 82nd Airborne’s brigade combat teams, with about six thousand soldiers each, would be encamped in Turkey. At the same time, four Marine regiments, totaling more than ten thousand Marines, would reach their forward operating bases in southwestern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the 75th Ranger Regiment was en route to Kurdish-controlled territory in northeastern Iraq. Finally, the Saudis were allowing Delta, SEAL, and Marine Special Operations units to operate out of their giant air base in Khobar, on the condition that the United States never admit their presence.
“Basically, sir, the positioning is on schedule,” Belk said. “Not entirely surprising, considering these are mostly elite units and don’t have a huge amount of armor, which is what really screws up the logistics.”
“So we’ll have forces to the east, north, and south by the time my deadline hits?” the President said.
“Correct, sir,” Warner said. Four-star generals fell into two categories, the President had discovered. The bantamweights compensated for their lack of size with doctorates in operations research and an incredible devotion to fitness. The heavyweights were solid and strong, with chests full of medals and decorations. At six feet and two hundred pounds, Warner belonged in the second camp. He had gray Prussian eyes and a private’s quarter-inch haircut. “The three carriers will also be in place, so we’ll have the ability to fly hundreds of sorties a day. And six guided-missile destroyers. That’s the good news.”
“And what’s the bad news?”
“The bad news, sir, is that our options will still be somewhat limited. We’ll have roughly thirty thousand soldiers and Marines around Iran at your deadline. Now, those are elite units with a high tip-to-tail ratio. But you may recall that we invaded Iraq with a force closer to one hundred fifty thousand. And we judge Iran’s forces to be more capable than Saddam Hussein’s and more likely to fight for the regime.”
“So a sustained ground invasion is unrealistic. Much less an occupation.”
“Correct, Mr. President. For that, we’d need heavy armor. Three divisions at least. 1st Cav, 1st Armored, 1st Infantry. Even then we’d be stretched. Our planners would be more comfortable with four or even five.”
“And the Iranians are aware of this?”
“They can do the math as well as we can. The only possible way we could win a ground war with a force this size would be if the Iranians were foolish enough to mass their units near the border. Then we could decimate them with airpower. But none of our planners think they would make that mistake.”
“So their strategy would be to let us advance?”
“Most likely. Fall back, engage us with irregular forces, attack our supply lines as they get stretched. Force us to thin our air cover over larger and larger territory. Hit back hard as we approach Tehran, and the heavy civilian presence limits the advantages of our airpower. That’s what I’d do, sir.”
“So what options do I have on deadline day?”
“That depends how much risk you’d like to take,” Belk said. “The most realistic options are limited strikes, discreet locations.”
“You know what I want. The nuclear sites.”
Warner lifted his meaty right hand. “If I may, sir.”
“Please.”
“We won’t have the advantage of surprise, and Natanz and Fordow are large and well-defended installations. We would start with missile and bomb strikes to soften the targets, degrade defenses. I believe the 82nd and the Marines are capable of taking those two sites even in the face of sustained Iranian opposition, especially if they have help from the Special Forces.
“But understand, the longer they stay, the greater the risk. We estimate the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guard have sixty thousand men within one hundred kilometers of both those installations. That is a serious edge in manpower, and they have substantial air-defense capabilities, too, that will blunt our edge there. We’ll be facing an army, not an insurgency, with artillery and tanks and helicopters.”
The President stared into his glass of club soda as if it held the answer.
“You’re starting to make me nervous, General.”
“I don’t mean to say we’ll be overrun. The casualties will be significant. And once we’re done, we have to get them out.”
“I can see where this is going. It’s always the same. You always want more. You never want to go in without the entire army.”
“I’m sorry if that’s how this is coming across, sir.”
“Right now I am not even going to consider a full-scale invasion. But if I did, how long would it take to deploy the divisions you say we need?”
“Ten to twelve weeks, depending on how much the host countries will help. That’s the absolute best case without any language or scenario training.”
The President turned away from the men on the couch, looked out through his bulletproof, bombproof windows. He wanted to feel both angrier and calmer. He was the most powerful man in the world and yet now he feared he couldn’t control the avalanche he’d started. The only way out is through. He couldn’t back down. Not now.
“That’s unfortunate. Since the deadline I set is not even nine days away. I want to see both of you back in this office exactly twenty-four hours from now. I want you to look like you haven’t slept. I want a viable plan to hit those nuclear facilities. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Belk and Warner said simultaneously. The men stood to leave.
Green cleared her throat. “Sir. Shall I stay?”
He shook his head. She followed them out. And then he was alone in the Oval Office.
8
EIGHT DAYS…
Two platoons of National Guardsmen watched Wells overnight. In the morning, a dozen armored Humvees convoyed him to Abdullah’s palace on highways that police had closed to all other traffic. Barn door closed with the horse long gone.
The King’s palace was in northern Riyadh, close to the airport, convenient for meetings with visiting dignitaries. Wells couldn’t begin to guess at its size. He’d seen smaller malls. Two attendants led Wells through the formal stateroom where the King usually met Western visitors, into a private sitting room decorated in a tropical theme. Brightly colored couches overlooked a glassed-in interior courtyard where parrots and macaws flitted among hanging vines that seemed to have been imported straight from the Amazon.
“Coffee? Tea?”
Wells shook his head.