Decision Points

seen a man who resembled Saddam being carried out of the rubble at Dora Farms. But as the days passed, the reports changed. The operation was a harbinger of things to come. Our intent was right. The pilots performed bravely. But the intelligence was wrong.

    The day after the opening shot at Dora Farms, a flurry of military activity commenced. From Iraq’s southern border with Kuwait, the V Corpsand First Marine Expeditionary Force started their parallel charge to Baghdad. Meanwhile, our air forces bombarded the capital. In the initial wave of the strike, more than three hundred cruise missiles—followed by stealth bombers—took out most of Saddam’s military command and government headquarters. Unlike the firebombing of Dresden, the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the use of napalm on Vietnam, our attack spared much of Baghdad’s civilian population and infrastructure. It was not only shock and awe, but one of the most precise air raids in history.
    In southern Iraq, Marines deployed to protect key oil fields. Polish Special Forces and U.S. Navy SEALs secured offshore oil infrastructure. A British armored division liberated the southern city of Basra and the vital port of Umm Qasr. The oil fires and sabotage we feared never materialized, and we had cleared a path for humanitarian aid to flow into Iraq.
    In northern Iraq, paratroopers seized key transit points and helped build an air bridge for supplies and humanitarian aid. With support from Kurdish forces, the Zarqawi camp was destroyed. In western Iraq, American, British, and Australian Special Forces patrolled the desert for Scud missiles and made sure Saddam never had the chance to attack Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, or other allies in the region.
    By the end of the second week, our troops had reached the outskirts of Baghdad. They had endured blinding sandstorms, searing heat, and heavy hazmat gear to protect against the biological or chemical attack we feared. They faced fierce resistance from Saddam’s most loyal forces, who attacked from civilian vehicles and hid behind human shields. Yet they completed the fastest armored advance in the history of warfare. Along the way, they handed out candy and medicine to children and risked their lives to protect Iraqi civilians.
    On April 4, Sergeant Paul Ray Smith and his men were securing a courtyard near the Baghdad airport. Saddam’s Republican Guards ambushed them, wounding several of Sergeant Smith’s men. Exposed to enemy fire, Sergeant Smith manned a machine gun and kept shooting until he suffered a mortal wound. The Army’s after-action report revealed that he had killed fifty enemy soldiers and saved as many as one hundred Americans. For his act of bravery, Paul Ray Smith became thefirst soldier in the war on terror to earn the Medal of Honor. In April 2005, I presented the medal to his widow, Birgit, and young son at the White House.
    The day after Sergeant Smith gave his life to secure the airport, the Third Infantry Division entered Baghdad. The First Marine Division arrived two days later. At the NSC meeting on the morning of April 9, Tommy Franks reported that the Iraqi capital could fall at any moment. My next meeting was with President Rudolf Schuster of Slovakia. His young democracy, one of forty-eight countries that had pledged military or logistical support in Iraq, had deployed a unit trained to manage the impact of a WMD attack. President Schuster had tears in his eyes as he described his nation’s pride in helping liberate Iraq. I kept that moment in mind when I heard critics allege that America acted unilaterally. The false charge denigrated our allies and pissed me off.
    When the meeting ended, Dan Bartlett told me I ought to take a look at the TV. I didn’t keep one in the Oval Office, so I went to the area outside where my personal assistants sat. I watched as a crowd of Iraqis in Baghdad’s Firdos Square cheered while a Marine vehicle dragged down a forty-foot-tall statue of Saddam.
    For twenty days I had been filled with anxiety. Now I was overwhelmed with relief and pride. I was also mindful of the challenges ahead. Saddam’s forces still controlled parts of northern Iraq, including his hometown of Tikrit. There were pockets of resistance from ruthless Baathist fighters called Fedayeen Saddam. And Saddam and his sons were on the run. As I told José Maria Aznar when I called to share the news, “You won’t see us doing any victory dances or anything.”

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