Killing the peace

Abstract

Norman Schwarzkopf reveals in his new book It Doesn't Take A Hero that he was pressured during the Gulf War by Bush administration “hawks” to start the ground war before diplomatic efforts were exhausted. Schwarzkopf refers specifically to eleventh‐hour attempts by the Soviets to head off a costly ground assault in mid‐February 1991. These peace proposals have been virtually forgotten, largely because they were instantly abandoned by mainstream media, especially the television networks. With’ peace efforts stifled, the ground assault proceeded. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers—many of them young conscripts—were killed while in full retreat from Kuwait. Dozens of U.S. soldiers also died. When the Soviets proposed five weeks into the air war that the Iraqis withdraw from Kuwait shortly after a cease‐fire, NBC's Fred Francis insisted, “It is the Pentagon's worst fear that a cease‐fire takes place.” But Schwarzkopf gives a different military view. After Washington rejected a Soviet plan, Schwarzkopf says his chief...