Pace Brings Combat Street Smarts to War Planning

As a Marine lieutenant fresh out of the Naval Academy in 1968, Peter Pace recalls, he saw firsthand what can happen when senior military officials lose touch with the needs of troops on the ground.

He was shipped to Vietnam without urban combat training, then promptly found himself in Hue, fighting in the worst street battle of the war.

Years later, as deputy commander of U.S. forces in Somalia after the Battle of Mogadishu, where American soldiers were assaulted from all sides in fierce street fighting, Pace was overcome with frustration at what he considered the lack of resolve and backup by senior commanders afraid of taking risks.

Today, Pace, a general and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a member of the inner circle plotting a war in Iraq, has sought to ensure that infantrymen near the borders of Iraq are given all the backup firepower they need.

Indeed, he sometimes refers to himself at top strategy sessions as “Pfc. Pace,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz says. “He has this wonderful joking way of referring to Pfc. Pace as a sort of all-purpose grunt.”

Says Pace, “It goes through your mind -- your fellow Marines, your fellow soldiers are in combat and you feel like you should be too. That’s the heart. The mind says you have a very important job in Washington and you got it for a reason and you are better applying all your experience and all your memory of what you did when you were younger to make sure that what bothered you doesn’t bother these guys.”

Precisely how much influence Pace has will necessarily remain opaque for years to come. The meetings on war strategy, typically held in a Pentagon room called “The Tank” and consisting of Pace, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard B. Myers, among others, are highly classified. On the rare occasions when Pace gives extended interviews he works hard to cast his role as that of dutiful deputy.

But coincidentally or not, the decisions in those meetings on conducting war in Afghanistan and now, potentially, in Iraq, seem to be leaning Pace’s way.

In interviews with more than a dozen civilian and military officials, a picture emerges of Pace, 57, as an advisor who, consistent with the lessons he learned in Vietnam and Somalia, has successfully advocated for positioning a heavier force around Iraq than Rumsfeld had envisioned. The idea is to minimize the risk to American troops by maximizing the force.

For a deputy chief nominated 13 days before the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a position that traditionally has existed in the shadows and been largely concerned with bureaucratic budget battles, Pace appears to have surprising influence in debates over the purely military decisions demanded by the war on terrorism.

“Pete brings to the discussion a life cycle of experiences as an infantry officer that is value-added to Secretary Rumsfeld’s experience as a former Navy pilot and the chairman’s as an Air Force pilot,” said Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, the new supreme allied commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Europe and a friend of Pace’s since their days as junior officers in 1970. “He brings a perspective to a very small group that only someone who had those experiences can really communicate very well.”

The existence of such a war council at the highest levels of the Pentagon is in itself controversial.

In previous administrations, battle plans were drawn up by the regional commanders of U.S. forces around the world and submitted to the Joint Chiefs for review. Only when the package was complete was it shown to the Defense secretary. Rumsfeld has turned that process upside down, involving himself and his circle of advisors, Pace among them, in war planning at the earliest stages.

In the months after the Sept. 11, attacks, Pace, Myers and Rumsfeld, along with Wolfowitz and senior Rumsfeld advisor Doug Feith, met for up to five hours a day during workdays that stretched regularly to 15 hours, seven days a week, going over intelligence findings and planning the war that toppled Afghanistan’s Taliban.

“Rumsfeld treats Wolfowitz, Myers and Pace as kind of his council of the best and the brightest. The four of them are there for almost everything when they are discussing major issues,” one military official said. “That has drawn Pace into the day-to-day decisions across the board.”

Inside the Pentagon, Pace has become a point man for Rumsfeld -- some say a strongman -- in the Pentagon battle over the military’s long-term strategy and weapons acquisition policies.

The Defense secretary is widely resented in the higher echelons of the services for his campaign to pare the military of obsolete weapons systems and trim its force structure. That effort has toppled programs and hurt careers, and Pace has been dispatched to carry out much of the dirty work.

In his rise from lieutenant to commander of U.S. forces in Central and South America and the Caribbean and then to the first Marine in the vice chairman’s post, Pace has gained a reputation as a smooth political operator who is careful not to be seen as disagreeing with his superiors. Some senior officers say that makes him a yes man.

“In a world where the military ought to be giving hard advice, whether it’s appreciated or not, I don’t think they’re going to get it out of Pete, nor out of Myers,” said one recently retired military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We’re dealing with essentially a generation of officers who have come up by being nice guys.”

Said a military officer who has worked with Pace: “Obviously, the guy connects with Rumsfeld and [Rumsfeld] needs guys who are going to carry out his wishes. The question is whether or not Rumsfeld respects him enough. It’s one thing to be a lackey. It’s another thing to be a trusted advisor.”

Wolfowitz says Pace is indeed respected by him and by Rumsfeld, not only for his views, but because he does not hesitate to answer questions and respond to concerns from the Pentagon’s civilian leadership.

“He has the grasp of detail to dig back in and sort things out and the respect for civilian authority to believe that civilian officials are entitled to answers, which is not always true of everyone in the military,” Wolfowitz said.

Jones said Pace’s tendency to agree with Rumsfeld on matters of long-term military strategy and direction makes him anything but a follower.

“When Pete Pace accepted the job to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Pete Pace bought into what [Rumsfeld] was trying to do,” Jones said. “I don’t think that makes him a chameleon. If anything it reinforces the fact that he’s a man of integrity. If he didn’t buy into what Rumsfeld was trying to do, then he wouldn’t have accepted the position.”

Adm. William Fallon, who as vice chief of naval operations meets with Pace regularly, said the latter’s close relationship with Rumsfeld has enhanced his ability to make his views heard.

“He has terrific rapport with [Rumsfeld] and the fact that everybody knows that gives him professional confidence,” Fallon said.

That emerges in his tendency to wisecrack, officials said.

Last year, when Rumsfeld had arm surgery on a Monday morning and had uncharacteristically missed half a week’s work, he regaled Pace, Myers, Wolfowitz and aides on his return with tales of the excruciating operation, the pins in his arm and the painkillers he was taking.

“Well, that explains why you didn’t come in on Monday afternoon,” Pace interjected, according to one aide who was there. “But what’s your explanation for Tuesday and Wednesday?”

At another meeting, when a briefer made a confusing presentation Pace didn’t understand, he said: “This reminds me of a dog watching color television. There’s something happening here, but I just can’t see it.”

Pace said the jokes help dispel the tension that has pervaded the Pentagon since a plane piloted by terrorists slammed into it. When he took office on Oct. 1, 2001, the halls of the building still reeked of smoke and the remains of the people killed were still being sorted not far from Pace’s new office.

Since then, his family has been protected by a military security detail and Pace has felt the pressure of a father who knows his son, Peter, a Marine captain, could be assigned to fight in any war with Iraq. He has a plan to meet up with his family at a specified location in the event of an attack on Washington, but he says he dwells far more on what’s at stake for U.S. forces than on what’s at stake for him.

“What I do every day now is probably a lot more along the lines of what my experience has taught me to do,” Pace said. “ ... [I]t’s rewarding, that’s the word I can use. People say, is it fun? No, it’s not fun; how can it ever be fun when your nation is being attacked? But I appreciate the fact that after 35 years of service as a Marine I am in a position to use my experience the best that I can for my nation.”