From what I could see, here in Port-au-Prince, Cedras hadn’t connected with the reality of his disenchanted forces. Like Saddam Hussein, he seemed incapable of grasping that they had no fire in their bellies and wouldn’t fight to save his gang. Cedras had taken to giving Churchillian We-will-fight-them-on-the-beaches speeches on the radio that didn’t play well to the few soldiers left in the nearly empty barracks. Surely he couldn’t believe that the supernatural signs – the aircraft that kamikazied on the White House’s South Lawn, the U.S. coastal patrol boat that ran aground in Port-au-Prince Bay, the big black moth that landed on a rug in the Presidential Palace before a fiery speech by Emile Jonassaint, the junta’s puppet president – offered proof that a U.S. invasion would fail.
Yet someone in charge must’ve put his faith in black magic, because there seemed to be no preparation for a U.S. assault. I scouted all the key installations – airfields, ports, TV/radio stations, military headquarters and camps – and there were no sandbags, no bunkers, no trenches or barbed wire, and no weapons laid and zeroed in. The hastily formed militia was turning in their World War II weapons and heading home. The city was quiet, as if waiting for a party. I had the same gut feeling I had just prior to the gulf war’s ground attack: “These cats aren’t going to fight; they’re runners.” I reckoned this show wouldn’t last Desert Storm’s 100 hours. It would be over by the time our paratroopers climbed out of their chutes and our Marines knocked the mud from their boots.
So why was the Pentagon coming in with overwhelming firepower – using a sledgehammer when a tap with a ball peen would do the job? The invasion plan was the result of military lessons extracted since Vietnam: overkill has become the standard drill. Grenada (October 1983) was a circus comedy from beginning to fumbling end. Everything went wrong. Navy SEALs drowned, Green Berets performed like recruits, U.S. Navy aircraft fired on troopers from the 82d Airborne Division. U.S. Army Rangers received new orders along the way, causing them to “chute up” while they were airborne – which is like changing into a tuxedo while you’re riding a bucking bronco.
By the time Panama came along (December 1989), the Pentagon had shaken off its Vietnam hangover – and learned from the Grenada fiasco. The services worked well together and kept U.S. casualties low (23 killed, 324 wounded). During the gulf war, U.S. forces hit hard and fast, mopping up in a record four days. Desert Storm proved that the U.S. military is the world’s finest, and has only honed its tricks since then. In Haiti, the plan called for stealth, the discriminating use of firepower – and staying away from the costly city fighting that made Somalia such a nightmare.
Still, you always have to expect some casualties. You can’t drop 20,000 well-armed teenagers anywhere – a potential hostile land or on a maneuver at Fort Bragg, N.C. – without parachutes failing to properly deploy, airplanes crashing and heavy equipment running over someone in the dark. That horrible scourge of warfare also looms: friendlies shooting friendlies. Accidents come with the dangerous game of soldiering, regardless of how well trained the troops are and how many safety lectures they’ve heard. Even if the majority of the Haitian military gave up easily, a few diehards would undoubtedly take potshots. Some, having shed their uniforms, would be indistinguishable from ordinary civilians and that much more difficult to target. But one thing that will help U.S. troops when they’re patrolling Port-au-Prince is that most Haitians despise their own military. “I hope you fix their ass good,” a young man on the street yelled to me. No problem.
