وثيقة

النص الإنجليزي لخطاب قائد القوات المركزية الأمريكية

إلى صاحب السموّ الملكي الأمير سلطان بن عبدالعزيز

في شأن الدفاع عن الخفجي، وعدم تأييد اقتراح تدميرها

الصادر مع خطاب نائب قائد القوات المشتركة ومسرح العمليات

HRH Prince Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz Al Sa’ud

Second Deputy Prime Minister

Minister of Defense and Aviation

Peace be unto you:

1.       In response to your inquiry concerning the military justification for not putting forces in Al Khafji, I most respectfully offer the following information:

a)    His Royal Highness, Lieutenant General Khalid, and I discussed this question on numerous occasions in preparing our defensive plans. We both realized that Al Khafji had great political importance, but we also both realized that Al Khafji was in a position that would be impossible to defend in modern warfare.

b)    In modern warfare the enemy can move very quickly and unless there is a strong barrier system, including mine fields along the border, the enemy launch a surprise attack and be into Al Khafji even before any kind of defense can be made. It is for this reason that along the border between North and South Korea, in all villages and towns evacuated except those that are behind very heavy obstacle systems, there are thousands of land mines. Lieutenant General Khalid and I discussed putting land mines along the border, but we both understood that due to the movement of Bedouins in that area we would kill many innocent civilians if we did so.

c)    The best defense that we have against a tank attack is our air forces. However, in order to use our air forces we must have some space between friendly forces and enemy forces. Al Khafji is so close to the border that if there were an attack the enemy forces would be mixed among the friendly forces before any air force could arrive to help and, therefore, air forces would not be effective.

d)    Al Khafji has a large swamp directly behind it and only one road out of the area. Militarily, you never set up a defense with a large obstacle behind you. You always set up your defense with the obstacle in front of you. In modern warfare you must be able to maneuver in order to properly defend. Because of Al Khafji's position on the ocean, and with the swamp behind it, the force in Al Khafji would not be able to maneuver and, therefore, would not be able to put up an adequate defense.

e)   The only way Al Khafji could even begin to be properly defended would be to place a very large number of troops into deeply dug defensive positions. Even under these circumstances, that very large number of troops would be subjected to constant enemy artillery fire and would suffer many casualties even if Al Khafji was never attacked. Considering the size of the Saudi Arabian armed forces as compared to the Iraqi armed forces there were not enough Saudi Arabian forces available to place them in the defense of Al Khafji without causing severe danger to other cities that were even more politically and militarily important to the Kingdom.

2.       For all of the above reasons, I told LTG Khalid that it was not a good military decision to put forces permanently in Al Khafji. I also stated that I had no knowledge of the political importance of Al Khafji and such decisions of that nature had to be left in the hands of the government of Saudi Arabia.

3.       I would not recommend that we use coalition military forces to destroy the city of Al Khafji for the following reasons:

a)    As I said above, militarily it is unimportant that a few Iraqi troops are in Al Khafji

b)    To destroy the city would take large amounts of ammunition and we would be wasting valuable resources for no military purpose.

c)    World public opinion would never accept that there was a sufficient reason for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to completely destroy one of its own cities.

d)    The Iraqis have had unbelievable damage done to their entire nation and a great deal more will occur in the future. We must expect that they will do something to try to retaliate against the Kingdom. There are many other border towns and it will be impossible for them all to be defended; however, even if another border town falls it will be liberated very soon. I know it is very hard for any of us to accept the loss of one centimeter of our sovereign soil, but history will record that we did not save a country by destroying it. Instead, we saved it by liberating it.

4.       For the above reasons I vrey respectfully submit to you that Prince Khalid made a correct military decision when he did not put forces in AL Khfji to defend it.

5.       Please accept my continued highest esteem.

H. NORMAN SCHWARZKOPF

General, U.S. Army

Commander in Chief