| Sumario: | With so many books written about the Gulf War, one wonders if the world needs another. However, after reading Desert Warrior, one comes to the conclusion that this is a unique contribution which stands apart from the other books. First, it is written by an Arab general, who, unlike his American counterparts, was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, had a royal upbringing, and had never seen combat before the Gulf War. The American generals Powell and Schwarzkopf came from modest backgrounds, saw action in Vietnam and other lesser skirmishes, and commanded the world's greatest military power. General Khaled is the first Arab to share command with American generals and to share responsibility for such a large international assembly of fighting forces bent on liberating an Arab-Muslim country from the occupation of another Arab-Muslim country. Unfortunately, Khaled does not shed enough new light on how or why the war ended so abruptly, leaving nearly 100,000 Iraqi troops, including complete guard units, to escape to Basrah and flee along Shat el-Arab to al-Qurna. Khaled does not make reference to the merciful act of avoiding further killing by withdrawing Iraqi troops who were gunned down by American attack helicopters according to General Powell. In Khaled's view, the Gulf war was brought to an unsatisfactory conclusion because there was no agreement, nor even real discussion, among coalition members about how to end it“ (p. 421). According to the author, part of the problem can be traced back to the Safwan talks, “to the hurriedly convened and curiously inconclusive meeting on March 33, 1991.” This was the meeting where Schwarzkopf, along with some coalition leaders, met with two Iraqi generals at an Iraqi air strip some three miles north of Kuwaiti border. Chapter 22 gives a full account of this important, but uneventful, occasion. Here Khaled seems to agree with Schwarzkopf that there was no meaningful guidance from the State Department or the White House on the terms of the cease fire. Khaled could not give us definite answers as to why he and Schwarzkopf sat down with two unknown Iraqi generals or why Khaled's input to the Safwan “arrangement was limited” (p. 426).
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