The wishful thinking was that Gen. Tommy Franks would give a final blowout briefing that would hail the end of the war. But the Central Command daily briefings came to a quiet close Tuesday with no final appearance by the general and a lingering sense that there would be a rolling end to this war.
Franks had been cautioning his staff in Doha all along not to celebrate. The only exception he made was when the Iraqis–aided by the Marines–tore down that giant Saddam statue in central Baghdad. After watching television in delight along with his staff as the statue came down, he broke out the good smokes. There were rare cheers and high fives in the top-security Joint Operations Center–the high-tech “brain” of CENTCOM. Franks stopped in the JOC to hand out a few cigars, shake a lot of hands and say, simply, “Thanks.”
He is not a particularly loquacious general. During the war, the lanky Franks did just two briefings and three TV interviews, in which he often gave one-word answers. Maybe that’s the way they grow them in Midland, Texas, the hometown he shares with President George W. Bush. Like Bush, Franks’ country-boy style belies a shrewd political instinct. His low-profile persona deflects glory up and down the chain of command, making him a particular favorite of the commander in chief, who already extended Frank’s stint as head of CENTCOM once.
When he returns to CENTCOM’s Tampa, Fla., headquarters in the next few weeks, Franks will probably be able to shop at the supermarket unnoticed. But like it or not, Franks is gaining fame for his war plan–one that was once derided back in Washington. Nothing made Franks’s tongue bluer (he might be the nation’s top soldier but he curses like a sailor) than the retired generals who went on TV to criticize a plan they hadn’t seen. At one point early in the war, it even seemed like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was distancing himself from the plan. “This plan is Tom Franks’s plan,” Rumsfeld said.
Now Franks is getting all the credit for that plan. Working with many of the same “band of brothers”–as he calls his generals–he nearly perfected the “joint” approach they practiced in Afghanistan. In Franks-speak, the idea is to “deconflict” the military services so they work well together. Despite being an old artilleryman, Franks stripped down his ground forces to make them faster and relied on air support for heavy firepower. Although he had a reputation for being uncreative, Franks pushed the envelope on special forces and psychological operations, which have never gotten such equal billing in a war.
Franks was also willing to throw out parts of the plan if necessary. When credible intelligence came in before the war started that Iraqis planned to blow up the southern oil fields, Franks moved up the ground war by 36 hours. He didn’t ask permission. He called Rumsfeld to say: “We’re going.” For all the talk of timing, the war plan was “effects based.” Stars marked certain key decision points on the war plan: if X happens, than Y. Franks had been working with his commanders on potential war scenarios for a year. He’s a details man, but he doesn’t micromanage. After he ordered the daring rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, for example, he went to bed and let special ops do their thing. “This has been the most joint campaign in our history,” Franks said during a trip with his commanders to Baghdad.
Franks’s tour last week of the Abu Ghurayb North Palace, one of Saddam Hussein’s many abodes, was all the victory parade he wanted. His heavy boots crunched on broken glass as he surveyed the opulence. Upon seeing the gold sink fixtures, gold soap dish, gold toilet-paper dispenser and even a gold handled toilet-bowl brush in one bathroom, Franks cracked: “It’s the oil-for-palace program.” He and his “band of brothers” looked out of place convening a war council on love seats in a marble-floored room. But Franks got in the spirit, passed out cigars and puffed away during a video teleconference with Rumsfeld from the plush environs.
He had joked that he had given up giving up smoking for Lent. On the plane ride back to CENTCOM, Franks took a can of Skoal chewing tobacco out of his pocket and tucked a pinch in his gums. The war was over and soon Lent would be, too. Time to try giving up smoking again.
