By Patrick J. Sloyan, AlterNet
(http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14633)
November 25, 2002
Leon Daniel, as did others who reported from Vietnam during the 1960s, knew about war and death. So he was puzzled by the lack of corpses at the tip of the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Feb. 25, 1991. Clearly there had been plenty of killing. The 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) had smashed through the defensive front-line of Saddam Hussein's army the day before, Feb. 24, the opening of the Desert Storm ground war to retake Kuwait. Daniel, representing United Press International, was part of a press pool held back from witnessing the assault on 8,000 Iraqi defenders. "They wouldn't let us see anything," said Daniel, who had seen about everything as a combat correspondent.
The artillery barrage alone was enough to cause a slaughter. A 30-minute bombardment by howitzers and multiple-launch rockets scattering thousands of tiny bomblets preceded the attack by 8,400 American soldiers riding in 3,000 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles.
It wasn't until late in the afternoon of Feb. 25 that the press pool was permitted to see where the attack occurred. There were groups of Iraqi prisoners. About 2,000 had surrendered. But there were no bodies, no stench of feces that hovers on a battlefield, no blood stains, no bits of human beings. "You get a little firefight in Vietnam and the bodies would be stacked up like cordwood," Daniel said. Finally, Daniel found the Division public affairs officer, an Army major.
"Where the hell are all the bodies?" Daniel said.
"What bodies?" the officer replied.
Daniel and the rest of the world would not find out until months later why the dead had vanished. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers, some of them alive and firing their weapons from World War I-style trenches, were buried by plows mounted on Abrams main battle tanks. The Abrams flanked the trench lines so that tons of sand from the plow spoil funneled into the trenches. Just behind the tanks, actually straddling the trench line, came M2 Bradleys pumping 7.62mm machine gun bullets into the Iraqi troops.
"I came through right after the lead company," said Army Col. Anthony Moreno, who commanded the lead brigade during the 1st Mech's assault. "What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with people's arms and legs sticking out of them. For all I know, we could have killed thousands."
A thinner line of trenches on Moreno's left flank was attacked by the 1st Brigade commanded by Col. Lon Maggart. He estimated his troops buried about 650 Iraqi soldiers. Darkness halted the attack on the Iraqi trench line. By the next day, the 3rd Brigade joined in the grisly innovation. "A lot of people were killed,"' said Col. David Weisman, the unit commander.
One reason there was no trace of what happened in the Neutral Zone on those two days were the ACEs. It stands for Armored Combat Earth movers and they came behind the armored burial brigade leveling the ground and smoothing away projecting Iraqi arms, legs and equipment.
PFC Joe Queen of the 1st Engineers was impervious to small arms fire inside the cockpit of the massive earth mover. He remained cool and professional as he smoothed away all signs of the carnage. Queen won the Bronze Star for his efforts. "A lot of guys were scared," Queen said, "but I enjoyed it." Col. Moreno estimated more than 70 miles of trenches and earthen bunkers were attacked, filled in and smoothed over on Feb. 24-25.
What happened at the Neutral Zone that day has become a metaphor for the conduct of modern warfare. While political leaders bask in voter approval for destroying designated enemies, they are increasingly determined to mask the reality of warfare that causes voters to recoil.
There was no more sophisticated practitioner of this art of bloodless warfare than President George H. W. Bush. As a Navy pilot during World War II, Bush knew the ugly side of war. He once recounted how a sailor wandered into an aircraft propeller on their carrier in the South Pacific. The chief petty officer in charge of the flight deck called for brooms to sweep the man's guts overboard. "I can still hear him," Bush said of the chief's orders. "I have seen the hideous face of war."
Bush was badly stung by the reality of warfare while president. After the 1989 American invasion of Panama - where reporters were also blocked from witnessing a short-lived slaughter in Panama City - Bush held a White House news conference to boast about the dramatic assault on the Central American leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega. Bush was chipper and wisecracking with reporters when two major networks shifted coverage to the arrival ceremony for American soldiers killed in Panama at the Air Force Base in Dover, Del.
Millions of viewers watched as the network television screens were split: Bush bantering with the press while flag-draped coffers were carried off Air Force planes by honor guards. Dover was the military mortuary for troops killed while serving abroad. On Bush's orders, the Pentagon banned future news coverage of honor guard ceremonies for the dead. The ban was continued by President Bill Clinton.
Shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Bush summoned battlefield commanders to Camp David, Md., for a council of war. Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, chief of Central Command with military responsibility for the Persian Gulf region, flew from Tampa, Fla. He and Central Command's air boss, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Horner, were flown from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., by helicopter to the retreat in the Catoctin Mountains near Thurmont, Md. Horner said golf carts took them to the president's cabin. Bush was wearing a windbreaker.
According to Horner, he took a number of steps to limit the use of anti-personnel bombs used during more than 30 days of air attacks on Iraqi army positions. Schwarzkopf's psychological warfare experts littered Iraqi troops with leaflets that warned of imminent attacks by B52 Strategic Bombers. Arabic warnings told troops to avoid sleeping in tanks or near artillery positions which were prime targets for 400 sorties by allied aircraft attacking day and night."The president was very concerned about casualties," Horner recalled. "Not just our casualties but Iraqi casualties. He was very emphatic. He wanted casualties minimized on both sides. He went around the room and asked each military commander if his orders were understood. We all said we would do our best."
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