How they missed that story; the first casualty of Desert Shield was a skeptical press.

• Author: Bennet, James
• Position: Operation Desert Shield

HOW THEY MISSED THAT STORY

It's hard to recall now that in the first days after Iraq invaded Kuwait, sending any American troops--much less 430,000 of them--to the Middle East never seemed inevitable. In fact, it didn't even seem probable, since many lawmakers didn't like the idea. The New York Times reported on August 3 that "Senator Sam Nunn ... expressed the prevailing view on Capitol Hill when he said that the proper response should be economic and political pressure and not military action." When reports did discuss the possibility of military action, the emphasis was always on air power, as in The Washington Post the following day: "'Carpet bombing is the phrase being used,' said one Pentagon official familiar with the planning.... Military leaders have recommended against sending U.S. ground forces to the Mideast." Why? Because "any plan for using American troops on the ground in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iraq chills military experts," explained a Los Angeles Times story on August 5. "I think an economic boycott can be effective," said Caspar Weinberger on "Nightline" the next day. "I think it would have to be backed up by a naval blockade to be sure that that was working."

Even in the early hours of the deployment, there was more than a whiff of potential disagreement over the type of force we should apply. The New York Times again called on Nunn: "'My hope is that we'll continue to confine our role to protecting air bases' and perhaps using American troops to mine highways from Kuwait on which Iraq might send tanks into Saudi Arabia, he said." But by the following day (same paper) "congressional opinion swung solidly behind the president's action," and none of the three national dailies mentioned above was able, evidently, to find someone to criticize either the president's goals or the means he'd chosen to achieve them--although 40 percent of Americans disapproved of the deployment. Just two days before, the Los Angeles Times had explained that "Bush and his advisers are wary of any military option involving a confrontation with the Iraqi armed forces because they realize that it would run the risk of an enormous loss of life, not only of U.S. military personnel but also of U.S. civilians in the region." But now, and for the next crucial weeks of the buildup, the notion of "an enormous loss of life" almost vanished from that paper's pages.

You don't have to oppose the American troop deployment in the Middle East to worry about the singular absence of public debate--in the House and Senate, in the major papers, on TV--during those first few weeks. You just have to believe that good debate makes good policy. The initial deployment and its subsequent spectacular growth came as surprises: We progressed almost magically from a projected ceiling of 50,000 troops to nine times that number. Likewise, we faded from "The mission of our troops is wholly defensive" (George Bush's words) into trying "to ensure that the coalition has an adequate offensive military option" (George Bush's words). Meanwhile, the national dailies and "Nightline" provided blow-by-blow accounts and occasionally ran some tougher stories analyzing U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf and the president's goals--whether we were preparing to fight only for oil, whether it was feasible to push for Saddam Hussein's ouster. On the op-ed pages, there was some grumbling back and forth as to whether those goals were worth chasing. But there was almost no discussion in any of these influential, supposedly adversarial sources of news about the means the president had chosen and what human cost they'd entail.

For example, the Post editorialized in early September that all those American troops have to be in Saudi Arabia because "the circumstances in Iraq's case would make complaisance there intolerably costly. Suppose that the United States and the others had not sent troops and ships or shut off Iraq's trade." OK, let's suppose. If the Post had bothered to distinguish among those muddled alternatives, it might have found that they don't have to add up to "complaisance." Imagine that the U.S. had cut off Iraq's trade and, to contain Saddam (we were originally aiming for "wholly defensive" measures, remember), had sent ships and a) sent only a small "tripwire" force to Saudi Arabia, as other nations have done, or b) sent planes to Saudi Arabia, and only enough troops to protect them, since that nation has poor defenses. Or imagine that the U.S. had sent "no troops," but had relied on the naval embargo and on air power based on carriers and in Turkey, which has strong defenses of its own. It's easy if you try. For some reason, our national dailies and "Nightline" never did.

When Bush announced in early November that he was sending another 200,000 troops to the Gulf, the validity of the deployment--instead of the deployment itself--abruptly became news. Why were we risking so many lives? How could Bush be talking about taking the offensive? Congressmen were worried, columnists troubled, and reporters finally interested. But by then, we already had a quarter-million troops practicing offensive maneuvers in the desert who, according to the debate we were suddenly having, shouldn't have been there at all. Doing what many people now recognized was the right thing--reneging on Bush's new commitment and withdrawing some of the already deployed troops--would send dangerous signals to Saddam. As Al Haig, Henry Kissinger, and others pointed out, the horses had fled months before the press got excited about the idea of shutting the stable doors. Judging by a close reading of their coverage in the crucial first six weeks of the crisis, reporters for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and "Nightline" never asked the questions-- Are any troops needed? If so, how many are enough? How many dead would be too many?--that would have jump-started the national discussion that we at last began in November, maybe too late.

Of the three dailies, only one--the Los Angeles Times--published an editorial in the first six weeks that evaluated the size of the deployment. It's a doozy. "An anonymous Defense Department source is widely quoted as saying that contingency plans for the Persian Gulf 'could result in the insertion of up to 200,000 to 250,000 [U.S.] ground forces before it's all done,'" began the editorial on August 11. "These are sobering, not to say mind-boggling, thoughts. Before they gain too much currency, it would be a good idea to freeze the frame and take a clear and realistic look at just what's being talked about." Ah, the omniscient voice of editorial reason, poised at last to tell it like it is. Read on:

Predictions about world events are best avoided, especially in an area as volatile as the Gulf, but here's one anyway: Hundreds of thousands of American fighting men...