Schwarzkopf Will Leave Saudi Arabia on Saturday

Closing the books on Operation Desert Storm, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and most of the U.S. Central Command staff will leave Saudi Arabia on Saturday as the number of American troops in the Persian Gulf dropped Wednesday to half its war-time strength.

Exactly three months after Schwarzkopf launched what became a devastating rout of the Iraqi army, U.S. military officials announced that the outspoken four-star general and most of his staff will return to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., site of the Central Command’s permanent headquarters.

Schwarzkopf, whose direction of the war made him a hero in the eyes of many Americans and brought him offers ranging from lucrative book deals to a potential political career, has said he plans to retire from the Army.

“I’m looking for another cause,” he recently told reporters in Kuwait when asked about his future. He added that he plans to go fishing, play with his dog and “enjoy being a father” to his three children again.

A staff of six officers in Riyadh is answering Schwarzkopf’s fan letters and handling the hundreds of offers he receives regularly. The affable but blunt general is credited with orchestrating the 100-hour ground war that tricked, surrounded and finally crushed the Iraqi forces.

Schwarzkopf, 56, will continue to command U.S. forces in the Gulf from Tampa, where he is expected to arrive Sunday morning.

With the general’s departure, the U.S. military mission here shifts to the largely logistical task of sending home tons of equipment and people.

As Schwarzkopf prepared to leave, the command also announced that the withdrawal of American troops from southern Iraq is almost completed.

Approximately 20,000 U.S. GIs from the 3rd Armored Division will stay behind to protect and feed thousands of Iraqi refugees until a U.N. peacekeeping force is in place, command officials said. Most of the troops will remain in a narrow buffer zone along the Iraq-Kuwait border.

Since a U.N. cease-fire went into effect last Thursday, the removal of American forces from the Persian Gulf, has accelerated dramatically. By Wednesday, more than 270,000 men and women had boarded planes and ships for home, leaving slightly less than half of the original 540,000 Americans deployed here.