Memo to Stormin’ Norman: Just the Facts : Gulf War: His fellow Desert Storm commander questions some revisionism in Schwarzkopf’s book.

It is not unusual after a war for generals to magnify their own achievements and belittle those of others. I regret to say that Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, my comrade-in-arms during the Gulf War, has succumbed to this temptation.

My quarrel with his book, “It Doesn’t Take a Hero,” is that he gives himself all the credit for the victory over Iraq while running down just about everyone else. Above all, Schwarzkopf wants to be seen as the sole supreme commander and finds it hard to acknowledge that this was not the case. In the Gulf, as in every war, “victory has a thousand fathers.” It is unfortunate that more of those thousands cannot be found in his book.

Schwarzkopf commanded the U.S. and British forces. I commanded the forces of Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, of France (during the defensive phase), of Egypt, Syria, Senegal, Niger, Morocco, Pakistan, Czechoslovakia, Poland and all the other contingents that made up the coalition.

It was a difficult task, as each of these forces came with its own values and traditions, its different types of armaments and missions. But Schwarzkopf and I had a successful and friendly partnership, and I would like to think we both acquitted ourselves well. There are, however, so many inaccuracies and slanted remarks in his book that I feel I must set the record straight.

In objecting to Schwarzkopf’s account of the campaign I am not, of course, questioning the crucial role of the United States. Without the United States, Kuwait would not have been freed and quite possibly Saudi Arabia would have been invaded. This would have had catastrophic consequences for the region’s stability and the world’s economy.

Nor can one deny Saudi Arabia’s effective role. Without Saudi Arabia--its harbors and airfields, military bases, housing, transportation systems, money, fuel and friendly environment--the war would have been far more difficult and dangerous to wage, if it could have been waged at all.

What Schwarzkopf says about our town of Khafji, close to the Iraqi border, is of particular interest to me. He claims that it was he who pointed out to me that Khafji was indefensible and that its garrison should be pulled out. “Khalid had wrestled with that . . . but finally he’d agreed,” he writes.

In fact, I made an evacuation plan for Khafji’s civilians two weeks before Schwarzkopf arrived in Saudi Arabia. It took no genius to recognize that the small community, well within range of Saddam’s artillery, was a sitting duck that could not be defended.

Schwarzkopf asserts that, after the Iraqis seized Khafji, he and I were in contact during the battle to retake the town. In fact, I had no secure means of communication with him during the battle and did not call him at all. I can now reveal that the reason Iraqi forces managed to take the town in the first place was because of delays in giving our forces the American-controlled close air support they had called for.

Nor does Schwarzkopf mention that I delayed my counterattack for 24 hours to evacuate 12 members of two U.S. Marine reconnaissance teams hiding in the city.

A theme Schwarzkopf returns to time and again is that we Saudis were less concerned with the military threat from Saddam than with the possible cultural and religious “pollution” caused by foreign troops on our soil.

Never in its history has Saudi Arabia been occupied by a foreign power. But contrary to Schwarzkopf’s allegation, this does not translate into lethargy in the face of a genuine threat. Had we not, from the first moment, been fully alerted to the grave danger from Iraq, King Fahd would not have taken the swift, difficult and momentous decision to call in Western troops. Our people, in turn, would not have supported that decision had they not agreed.

But yes, we were also concerned, and rightly so, about the destabilizing impact of more than half a million foreign soldiers. Cultural problems could have posed an internal danger. The last thing we--or our allies--wanted was civil unrest in the midst of fighting a war.

Would not President Bush have been concerned had the Los Angeles riots taken place during the Gulf conflict? We in Saudi Arabia made sure that reasons for unrest never occurred.

A telling example of Schwarzkopf’s attitude is the story he concocts about T-shirts. He alleges that I was greatly distressed by a T-shirt showing a map of Saudi Arabia on which its major cities were marked.

“The location of our cities is classified,” his book has me saying.

“But every atlas has maps of . . .”

“We don’t allow them inside Saudi Arabia,” I am supposed to have replied--which is obvious nonsense. Maps showing our cities are easily found in Saudi bookstores and throughout the world.

What I had objected to, and I believe with reason, was a T-shirt showing a map of Saudi Arabia with the Stars and Stripes right in the middle of it. I felt this might suggest, to the man in the street, that the Americans saw themselves as occupiers of Saudi Arabia. Such a perception would have been harmful to U.S. interests and to Saudi Arabia. In his book, Schwarzkopf says I had stated publicly, “The best approach to war would be an offensive launched out of Turkey.” He comments that I was “voicing the old Saudi unease at attacking fellow Arabs,” and that we had a heated exchange that resulted in our not speaking for 24 hours.

In fact, I made no public statement about Turkey, as scrutiny of media records of the period will confirm. In a confidential staff comment on war plans, I had asked a classified question as to whether consideration should be given to contingency plans for a second front north of Iraq.

I suspect the real reason for our row was Schwarzkopf’s irritation at my questioning some of his troop deployments in the first draft of the Desert Storm plan, which he may have considered interference with his command.

Schwarzkopf contends he “orchestrated the liberation of Kuwait City.” The facts are otherwise. As my Arab forces reached the outskirts of the city, I organized them into two task forces, one to attack from the south, the other from the west The troops were drawn from all the Arab contingents, so that no one country could later claim to have done the job alone.

The book alleges a New Year’s Eve conversation in which I said Syria had decided not to attack once the ground war started. In fact, Syrian commanders made no such statement and neither did I. When the time came, the Syrians acquitted themselves with distinction, joining Saudi forces in breaching Iraqi lines and providing valuable artillery and reserve support.

Many other events described in “It Doesn’t Take a Hero” will be remembered differently in Riyadh and in the capitals of other coalition partners. I will be addressing some of these issues in my own book in due course.

History is the product of those who write it as well as those who make it. Schwarzkopf and I have the privilege of doing both. It seems to me we have an obligation to make the detail of our writing fit the reality of our actions.