Rick Francona is a retired United States Air Force officer who specialized in defence intelligence and in the Middle East.  He speaks Arabic, and, during the Gulf War, he served as personal interpreter to General Schwarzkopf and as a liaison officer with Saudi intelligence.  Before the war, in 1988, he was present in Iraq as a member of a group of United States officers who were co-operating with the Iraqi forces as part of the American tilt towards Iraq, which was a feature of the closing months of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.  In his book Ally to Adversary: An eyewitness account of Iraq ‘s fall from grace, he concentrates on describing his own experiences and impressions and does not, in general, engage in discussion of high policy.  The interest of his account is in the detail, and the greatest interest is in what Francona writes about intelligence and rivalries between the services.

     A particular undercurrent is the rivalry between different intelligence agencies. Francona makes no secret of his belief in the superiority of defence intelligence over the CIA.  In his account of US intelligence assessments of the likelihood of an Iraqi attack on Kuwait, he, unsurprisingly, gives the impression that military intelligence provided good warning which others chose to ignore.  Francona also suggests that the CIA lacks men of sufficient military experience, and shows how control of intelligence could be used to push the Administration into the desired paths.  Francona was a member of a group sent to brief President Bush on the plans for an invasion of Kuwait.  Everyone, including the Iraqis, knew that the obvious line for the main attack was by an armoured thrust from the west, but the plans envisaged an expensive frontal attack on the Iraqi positions.  Possibly, these were never serious, and the whole briefing was arranged to induce Bush to send massive reinforcements to Schwarzkopf.

    Some of the most interesting comments concern the struggle between the services. The apparent success of the initial air offensive was a matter of concern to the US Army and Navy, which both feared lest air power should win the war unaided, and which agitated for a ground campaign.  After the war, Francona was employed as one of the team of writers who compiled the Defence Department’s report to Congress on the war.  This, he declares, was “the real war”, in which each branch of the services fought for recognition of its contribution, in the knowledge that the perceived contribution would be reflected in future budgetary allocations.  It would be interesting to sit in on the present argument about the Kosovo campaign.