WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who topped an illustrious military career by commanding the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991 but kept a low public profile in controversies over the second Gulf War against Iraq, died Thursday. He was 78.
Schwarzkopf died in Tampa, Fla., where he had lived in retirement, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to release the information publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A much-decorated combat soldier in Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was known popularly as "Stormin' Norman" for a notoriously explosive temper.
He served in his last military assignment in Tampa as commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, the headquarters responsible for U.S. military and security concerns in nearly 20 countries from the eastern Mediterranean and Africa to Pakistan.
Schwarzkopf became "CINC-Centcom" in 1988 and when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait three years later to punish it for allegedly stealing Iraqi oil reserves, he commanded Operation Desert Storm, the coalition of some 30 countries organized by President George H.W. Bush that succeeded in driving the Iraqis out.
"Gen. Norm Schwarzkopf, to me, epitomized the 'duty, service, country' creed that has defended our freedom and seen this great nation through our most trying international crises," Bush said in a statement. "More than that, he was a good and decent man — and a dear friend."
At the peak of his postwar national celebrity, Schwarzkopf — a self-proclaimed political independent — rejected suggestions that he run for office, and remained far more private than other generals, although he did serve briefly as a military commentator for NBC.
While focused primarily in his later years on charitable enterprises, he campaigned for President George W. Bush in 2000 but was ambivalent about the 2003 invasion of Iraq, saying he doubted victory would be as easy as the White House and Pentagon predicted. In early 2003 he told the Washington Post the outcome was an unknown:
"What is postwar Iraq going to look like, with the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites? That's a huge question, to my mind. It really should be part of the overall campaign plan," he said.
Initially Schwarzkopf had endorsed the invasion, saying he was convinced that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had given the United Nations powerful evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. After that proved false, he said decisions to go to war should depend on what U.N. weapons inspectors found.
He seldom spoke up during the conflict, but in late 2004, he sharply criticized then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon for mistakes that included inadequate training for Army reservists sent to Iraq and for erroneous judgments about Iraq.
"In the final analysis I think we are behind schedule. ... I don't think we counted on it turning into jihad (holy war)," he said in an NBC interview.
Schwarzkopf was born Aug. 24, 1934, in Trenton, N.J., where his father, Col. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., founder and commander of the New Jersey State Police, was then leading the investigation of the Lindbergh kidnap case, which ended with the arrest and 1936 execution of German-born carpenter Richard Hauptmann for stealing and murdering the famed aviator's infant son.
The elder Schwarzkopf was named Herbert, but when the son was asked what his "H'' stood for, he would reply, "H." Although reputed to be short-tempered with aides and subordinates, he was a friendly, talkative and even jovial figure who didn't like "Stormin' Norman" and preferred to be known as "the Bear," a sobriquet given him by troops.
He also was outspoken at times, including when he described Gen. William Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, as "a horse's a**" in an Associated Press interview.
As a teenager Norman accompanied his father to Iran, where the elder Schwarzkopf trained the country's national police force and was an adviser to Reza Pahlavi, the young Shah of Iran.
Young Norman studied there and in Switzerland, Germany and Italy, then followed in his father's footsteps to West Point, graduating in 1956 with an engineering degree. After stints in the U.S. and abroad, he earned a master's degree in engineering at the University of Southern California and later taught missile engineering at West Point.
In 1966 he volunteered for Vietnam and served two tours, first as a U.S. adviser to South Vietnamese paratroops and later as a battalion commander in the U.S. Army's Americal Division. He earned three Silver Stars for valor — including one for saving troops from a minefield — plus a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart and three Distinguished Service Medals.
While many career officers left military service embittered by Vietnam, Schwarzkopf was among those who opted to stay and help rebuild the tattered Army into a potent, modernized all-volunteer force.
After Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Schwarzkopf played a key diplomatic role by helping to persuade Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to allow U.S. and other foreign troops to deploy on Saudi territory as a staging area for the war to come.
On Jan. 17, 1991, a five-month buildup called Desert Shield became Operation Desert Storm as allied aircraft attacked Iraqi bases and Baghdad government facilities. The six-week aerial campaign climaxed with a massive ground offensive on Feb. 24-28, routing the Iraqis from Kuwait in 100 hours before U.S. officials called a halt.
Schwarzkopf said afterward he agreed with Bush's decision to stop the war rather than drive to Baghdad to capture Saddam, as his mission had been only to oust the Iraqis from Kuwait.
But in a desert tent meeting with vanquished Iraqi generals, he allowed a key concession on Iraq's use of helicopters, which later backfired by enabling Saddam to crack down more easily on rebellious Shiites and Kurds.
While he later avoided the public second-guessing by academics and think tank experts over the ambiguous outcome of Gulf War I and its impact on Gulf War II, he told the Washington Post in 2003, "You can't help but... with 20/20 hindsight, go back and say, 'Look, had we done something different, we probably wouldn't be facing what we are facing today.'"
After retiring from the Army in 1992, Schwarzkopf wrote a best-selling autobiography, "It Doesn't Take A Hero." Of his Gulf war role, he said, "I like to say I'm not a hero. I was lucky enough to lead a very successful war." He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and honored with decorations from France, Britain, Belgium, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain.
Schwarzkopf was a national spokesman for prostate cancer awareness and for Recovery of the Grizzly Bear, served on the Nature Conservancy board of governors and was active in various charities for chronically ill children.
"I may have made my reputation as a general in the Army and I'm very proud of that," he once told the AP. "But I've always felt that I was more than one-dimensional. I'd like to think I'm a caring human being. ... It's nice to feel that you have a purpose."
Schwarzkopf and his wife, Brenda, had three children: Cynthia, Jessica and Christian.
JUST BECAUSE SISSY SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO...BUT HE THINKS IT DOES!!!!! JUST BECAUSE MC1 SAYS SO DOESN'T MAKE IT SO!!!!!
Norman's Father was accused of helping the Shah coup
Quoted Text
August 20, 1953
Moscow Says U. S. Aided Shah's Coup
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
OSCOW, Thursday, Aug. 20 -- Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's overthrow came at a moment when Soviet policy was strongly oriented toward rapprochement with Teheran and coincided with Soviet charges that United States intrigues and finances had lain behind the earlier stages of the Shah's coup.
There was little doubt, in view of Pravda's open charges that the United States was implicated in the first stages of the coup, that it would be linked by the Russians with the later stages.
Yesterday Pravda, in a lengthy commentary on Iran, asserted that orders for the Shah's coup were brought to Iran by Brig. Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, former New Jersey police official and one-time trainer of the Iranian Gendarmerie.
The charges against the United States have had wide dissemination in connection with a series of private and public diplomatic moves designed to demonstrate the Soviet's desire to make relations between Moscow and Teheran the model of "good neighborliness."
A Soviet-Iranian mixed commission, which was set up in Teheran to negotiate the settlement of outstanding territorial and financial questions as well as other matters affecting relations between the two nations, already has met twice in the Iranian capital.
Talks Widely Publicized
The Soviet press and radio have publicized meetings of the mixed commission, which is termed the model of correct relations between states. Simultaneously, through all propaganda media, the United States has been pictured as actively intervening in Iranian affairs and as the inspirer of the attempted coup by the Shah.
Pravda, in a special editorial today, signed "Observer," which was given the dominant position on the foreign news page, charged that the plot was financed out of funds that Congress had appropriated for what was called subversive work in other countries.
"This time the weapon of subversive activity was directed against Iran, which did not wish to become the submissive slave of American monopolies, said Pravda.
Pravda charged also that the United States had applied economic pressure to Iran and cited President Eisenhower's letter of June 29 refusing economic aid unless, according to the newspaper, Iran "agreed to accept proposals of foreign monopolies on the oil question."
[In his letter to Premier Mossadegh, President Eisenhower said: "The failure of Iran and the United Kingdom to reach an agreement with regard to compensation has handicapped the Government of the United States in its efforts to help Iran."]
When Iran refused, said Pravda, "American agents who operated within Iran hatched new diversionary plans directed toward the overthrow of the Government."
Foreign diplomats in Moscow, evaluating the current evolution of Soviet-Iranian relations, believe Moscow's moves have not been without result. They noted that the Soviet effort appeared to be timed at the moment when Iranian relations with the United States definitely were on the down grade and when the Iranians themselves were making charges of the United States' connections with the Shah's plot.
Visit Stirred Interest in U. S.
ASHINGTON, Aug. 19 -- There has been considerable speculation here over General Schwarzkopf's recent visit to Iran. He returned to the United States last week after a trip to Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran.
State Department officials said the department had arranged for General Schwarzkopf's visits to Lebanon, Syria and Pakistan, but that he had made the Iranian visit on his own initiative "to meet old friends" there.
Schwarzkopf Declines Comment
RENTON, Aug. 19 -- General Schwarzkopf, reached by telephone at his home in Maplewood, N. J., tonight, declined to comment on Moscow reports linking him with the present turmoil in Iran.
His visit to Iran was purely a personal one, he explained, adding:
"I went there to call on some friends whom I had struck up an acquaintance with during the years I was in Iran reorganizing the National Gendarmerie. I was not there this time in an official capacity and I conducted no business there."
Asked to comment on the present Iranian political situation, he explained that he preferred not to since he had been out of touch "for too long a period." He reorganized the Gendarmerie between 1942 and 1948 at the direction of the United States War Department.
The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans.
Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist.
The document shows that:
Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister. The C.I.A. and S.I.S., the British intelligence service, handpicked Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and covertly funneled $5 million to General Zahedi's regime two days after the coup prevailed. Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government. The shah's cowardice nearly killed the C.I.A. operation. Fearful of risking his throne, the Shah repeatedly refused to sign C.I.A.-written royal decrees to change the government. The agency arranged for the shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlevi, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander, to act as intermediaries to try to keep him from wilting under pressure. He still fled the country just before the coup succeeded.
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