MILITARY INTELLIGENCE

Military Operations

1990s

Desert Shield/Storm

G - Z

Goodman, A. Sue, comp. Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991: Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Special Bibliography No. 297a. Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Library, November 1991. [Gibish]

Gordon, Michael R., and Bernard E. Trainor [LTGEN/USMC (Ret.)]. The Generals' War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

Cogan, I&NS 10.3: "In this painstakingly researched (and not particularly tender) book, the authors pass out rations of blame to several of the generals" who ran the Gulf War. "One of those who does not escape the blunt pen of the authors is General H. Norman Schwarzkopf." The reviewer disagrees with one of the central theses of The Generals' War: "that the Gulf War was ended too soon."

On intelligence issues, the authors use documents and interviews to "thoroughly plumb the difficulties that the still-embryonic 'warning community' had in making the alarm bells heard." Basically, the National Intelligence Officer for Warning, Charles Allen, was a voice (one of a small number) crying in the wilderness. Despite "individual warnings, the intelligence community as a whole ... failed to give a clear, strong message to the White House of an impending Iraqi attack....

"In the war itself, the authors point out, the technical intelligence product was outstanding.... The problems were not of the quality of technical intelligence but rather of interoperability and communications." In addition, the quality of the human intelligence coming from inside Iraq was "less than satisfactory." The authors also deal with two other intelligence problems that came up at the end of the war: the future of Sadaam and the Shia uprising. On neither of these issues "did the intelligence community or American policymakers cover themselves with glory."

Robbins, DIJ 4.2: "Gordon and Trainor convincingly argue that there was a noticeable absence of 'jointness' in the planning and execution of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Each Service was permitted to develop its own war plans, provided they supported General Schwarzkopf's overall strategy.... In spite of the limited discussion of intelligence support to the warfighter, this is still a useful book for study by intelligence personnel. Most importantly, the reader of today will realize how much military operations and intelligence have changed since 1991."

Gregory, Shaun. Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence in the Gulf War. Working Paper No. 238. Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 1991.

Hammer, Joshua, and Douglas Waller. "Special Ops: The Top-Secret War." Newsweek, 18 Mar. 1991, 32.

Haselkorn, Avigdor. The Continuing Storm: Iraq, Poisonous Weapons, and Deterrence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.

Hansen, IJI&C 13.3, finds that two of the author's basic theses -- "that there may have been an unprecedented intelligence failure in Iraq" and that "President Bush ... stopped the war because he feared that Saddam Hussein would use biological weapons if coalition forces pushed on to Baghdad" -- are "just plain wrong."

Hoffman, Daniel M. "A Beltway Warrior Looks at Gulf War Intelligence." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 119.1 (Jan. 1993): 86-89.

Johnson, Richard D. PSYOP, the Gulf Paper War: Psychological Warfare Operations against the Iraqi Military and Civilian Establishments between November 1990 and February 1991. Titusville, FL: R.D. Johnson, 1992. [Gibish]

Jones, Jeffrey B. "Psychological Operations in Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Urban Freedom." Special Warfare 7, no. 3 (Jul. 1994): 22-29. [Gibish]

Leadbetter, Wyland F., Jr., and Stephen J. Bury. "Prelude to Desert Storm: The Politicization of Intelligence." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 6, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 43-54.

Didn't happen, folks. This is worth reading just for the authors' explanation of the events which fostered charges that "politicization" occurred in the CIA's reporting on the effects of economic sanctions against Iraq.

Nash, Douglas E. "Civil Affairs in the Gulf War: Administration of an Occupied Town." Special Warfare 7 (Oct. 1994): 18-27. [Gibish]

Rip, Michael Russell, and David P. Lusch.

1. "The Precision Revolution: The Navstar Global Positioning System in the Second Gulf War." Intelligence and National Security 9, no. 2 (Apr. 1994): 167-241.

"[T]he Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) [footnote omitted] and thermal night vision devices ... enabled Coalition forces to exploit the desert terrain with 24-hour-a-day freedom of maneuverability in all weather conditions, regardless of the lack of distinctive features and good roads." The article includes technical details of the system, pp. 179-194, and looks at use in aerial operations (fixed-wing and helicopter) (pp. 195- 201), air-breathing missiles (cruise and air-to-surface) (pp. 201-206), ground forces (pp. 206-216), and maritime operations (p. 216), as well as future military and civilian uses.

2. "The Navstar Global Positioning System in Operation Desert Storm." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 2 (Apr. 1995): 327-335.

This is a follow-up article, drawing on additional information. The authors conclude: "In the future, with the rapid reliance on GPS-guided precision weaponry, the efficacy of the US military's precision strike capability could well be dependent on the integrity of the 24-satellite Navstar Global Positioning System."

Russell, Richard L. "CIA's Strategic Intelligence in Iraq." Political Science Quarterly 117, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 191-207.

This article "traces the uses and limitations of strategic intelligence in major dimensions of the Gulf War to include the warning and waging of war. The article concludes with an assessment or balance sheet of the strengths and weaknesses of strategic intelligence during the Gulf crisis. It draws insights from this case study to inform the future evolution of American intelligence and its support of statecraft, particularly in situations where policy makers face dilemmas posed by the use of armed force."

Smith, Bruce A. "U-2/TR-1s Provided Critical Data to Theater Commanders." Aviation Week & Space Technology, 19 Aug. 1991, 60-61.

Smith reviews U-2/TR-1 operations during the Gulf War, and surveys the state of organizational (including the reactivation of the 2nd Air Force) and operational changes being made to ease the coordination and integration of reconnaissance and surveillance data.

Summe, Jack N. "PSYOP Support to Operation Desert Storm." Special Warfare 5 (Oct. 1992): 6-9. [Gibish]

Tanner, Marisa A. "U.S. Psychological Operations in the 1991 Gulf War." Defense Intelligence Journal 12 (2003): 41-65.

Towell, Pat. "Schwarzkopf Points Out Flaws in Wartime Intelligence." Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 15 Jun. 1991, 1603.

In 12 June 1991 appearances before the Senate and House armed services committees, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf criticized Washington-generated intelligence as too cautious to be useful during the Gulf War. He called for equipping field commanders to collect their own intelligence about specific targets. He argued that "we focus too much on what might be called 'national systems.' which respond more to national directives out of Washington."

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: 16 June 1997.

U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Armed Services. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Intelligence Successes and Failures in Operations Desert Storm/Desert Shield. 103d Cong., 1st Sess., August 1993. Supplement to Defense for a New Era: Lessons of the Persian Gulf War, published April 1992 by the House Armed Services Committee via Committee on Armed Services.

Surveillant 3.4/5: "Must reading!... Essentially a report card on the performance of state-of-the-art intelligence capabilities during the latest war in the desert."

Waller, Douglas. "Exclusive -- Behind Enemy Lines: The First Combat Photos of Green Beret Commandos on a Secret Mission Deep Inside Iraq." Newsweek, 28 Oct. 1991, 34.

Wickham, John A., Jr. [GEN/USA (Ret.)] "The Intelligence Role in Desert Storm." Signal, Apr. 1991, 12 ff. [http://www.us.net/signal]

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