Q & A GEN. COLIN POWELL, USA (RET)

Marines bound for Operation Desert Shield board a commer- cial aircraft chartered by the Military Airlift Command.

With the CRAF activated and pro- viding additional lift, we were able to put it all in place. Success in war often is a matter of logistics. How to get it all there, clothe and feed the troops, provide water, fi eld hospitals. How do we move that corps north, all the way up the pipeline road almost to the Iraqi border? How do we position them in the western area of operation? We had the genius of one logisti- cian, [Army] Lt. Gen. William G. “Gus” Pagonis. I had served with Gus many times over the years. He was a two-star, and as soon as we saw what he was doing, we promot- ed him to three stars.

So goals were to protect Saudi Arabia, build up forces for liberating Kuwait, expand alliances. What were the challenges to overcome? Almost all of the challenges were not related to how to fi ght the war, al-

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though that got controversial, but to the logistics, complicated by patriotic Americans. Nice people in the Unit- ed States wanted to send ice cream to the troops. Well, ice cream melts in the desert. Frozen pizzas thaw. My friend Arnold Schwarzenegger called to say troops have to stay in fi t condi- tion, so he was sending a truckload of exercise equipment. By late fall, America’s response to

troops preparing to fi ght was so over- whelming that they were bombarding us with gifts and food and cookies

and all kinds of things, most of which we did not need. Schwarzkopf called and said, “You’ve got to do something. All this stuff is stopping the fl ow of things we need.” I said, “Norm, I will give you

more resources. But we can’t tell the American people they can’t do this.” It meant so much to them and was part of our eff ort to maintain morale and esprit de corps. So logistics was a serious problem. But the thing on my mind all the time, and on Norm’s, was the ques-

The thing on my mind all the time, and on Norm’s, was … what will this war cost in casualties?

PHOTO: DOD