As Allied Troops Depart, the War Room Falls Silent

Three floors underground, the legendary war room is silent.

The two dozen telephones do not ring. The seven-foot satellite maps are erased bare. Once the nerve center for U.S.-led allies fighting the Persian Gulf War, scene of sleepless nights, tense days and unending commotion, the war room today sits empty and locked shut.

As troops depart steadily for home, this now-dormant room symbolizes the fact that, indeed, for American servicemen and women, the war is over.

Reporters on Tuesday were given a tour of the room, which was off-limits during the fighting.

From this windowless space, the Operation Desert Storm commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, conducted the sweeping offensive that stunned and then crushed the Iraqi army.

Long tables ring the room, with the largest facing a wall of maps. At this front table, Schwarzkopf led the charge and, on a red “hot line” telephone, communicated the latest news to Pentagon honchos back in Washington.

Eye-catching technology highlighted the war. But by comparison, the war room almost seems rustic. The chamber has no computer modules, radar screens or high-frequency radios--those were secreted in other places.

What it does have are floor-to-ceiling maps sitting on tracks so they can be moved. The maps showed the constantly changing position of troops and sites of skirmishes; one is a blowup of Kuwait city on which Schwarzkopf and his aides charted the progress of allied troops as they drove the Iraqis out of the capital.

The war room, no larger than a classroom, is beneath the Saudi Arabian Defense Ministry, deep enough to protect its occupants from the feared blasts of Scud missiles or bombs. It was outfitted from scratch after Iraq invaded Kuwait.