title: “Here We Go Again” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-22” author: “Genevieve Mccray”
title: “Here We Go Again” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-26” author: “Harold Hajek”
The Haitian crisis – three years of mixed signals, diplomatic waffling and Haitian suffering – had come down to this bizarre discussion. It was not a “negotiation,” the White House insisted, but rather an ultimatum. On Sunday morning, General Powell called Clinton to give him an encouraging report on the progress of the Carter mission’s talks. But even if they were successful, there was no assurance that the departure of Cedras and the other members of the ruling junta would allow a peaceful transition to a newly democratic Haiti. Far from it: invasion or no, America faces a chaotic and difficult role as keeper of the peace in a land that has known nothing but violence for its 200-year history.
Even though the Haitian army is a pitiful foe, dropping thousands of men on top of a tense country in the middle of the night is fraught with risk. Helicopters can collide, while edgy troops tend to exchange “friendly fire” in the dark. Even a few defiant Haitians with World War II rifles can pick off a GI or two. The invasion of Panama five years ago was a walkover – but more than two dozen U.S. paratroopers broke their legs landing on the tarmac from 500 feet.
Better for American troops to arrive as peacekeepers by day, in orderly convoys of helicopters, hovercraft and lumbering C-130s. Safer – but in the long run, still dangerous. Under almost any scenario, America is committed to occupying Haiti this week. That means small groups of American soldiers scattered across a blood-soaked island on a mission for which they are ill prepared. Of the 14,000 or so American troops who will descend on Haiti in the days ahead, perhaps 120 will speak Creole, the local language (the army is considering calling up some reservists from Louisiana, even though American Creole is a different dialect). There will be some Green Berets and “civil affairs” troops trained to handle local unrest. But most of the American soldiers will be elite combat troops, trained to be killers, not cops. They will be armed with M-16s and grenades, not tear gas and rubber bullets. The Pentagon does not like to spell out the “rules of engagement” that determine when its soldiers can shoot, but in essence, the GIs will be expected to look as fierce as possible while not firing unless fired upon.
For a 19-year paratrooper faced with a machete-wielding mob, such rules may not mean much. Some young grunt, at once macho and frightened, is bound to use his M-16. If so, American soldiers welcomed as liberators may quickly turn into targets. It happened in Somalia, where U.S. forces were shot at by snipers and slaughtered in a bloody ambush. The last U.S. troops quietly slipped out of Somalia last week – just in time for America to take on its next perilous assignment as globo-cop.
Haiti will sorely test American tolerance for that role. “The United States cannot, indeed we should not, be the world’s policeman,” Clinton said last week. Maybe so, but for months, if not years, to come, it will be Haiti’s policeman. The American combat force will gradually be withdrawn in the weeks ahead, replaced by a multinational force from some 24 countries. But the United States may ultimately have as many as 20,000 troops in the country for months, and the last U.S. troops will not leave until the winter of 1996 – if then. President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has pledged to step down after his term expires in December of next year, and, if all goes well, America will leave behind a functioning democracy.
That is a very big if. Vengeance, not voting, has been the Haitian way. In Creole, the word for “state” – lena – is also the word for “bully.” Although Aristide has been preaching reconciliation, his supporters are likely to want revenge against the Haitian attaches who have been raping and murdering their families for years, as well as Haiti’s light-skinned, French-speaking ruling class. American troops will be in the awkward position of defending the enemy – the same troops they were meant to fight in the overthrow of Cedras. The troops will have thrown off their uniforms, but many will have kept their guns.
About the only good news is that the Haitians are not as well armed as the Somalis, whose ubiquitous “technicals” roamed in Jeeps armed with machine guns. Still, American soldiers may find themselves dodging machetes and various homemade bombs. One of the ironies of the U.S. embargo is that local villagers, unable to buy gas at the pump, hoard gasoline by the can and bottle, perfect for Molotov cocktails.
If a Ronald Reagan or George Bush committed American troops in such trying circumstances, he would be described by aides as “resolute.” President Clinton was described by a White House aide last week in more New Agey terms: “He is very centered.” Clinton’s speech did boost support for the invasion from an anemic 40 percent to 56 percent in one over-night poll, but support evaporated the next night. Indeed, Clinton was in the awkward position of trying to schedule an invasion before his own Congress could try to stop him. Congressional votes aimed at protesting, if not blocking, an invasion were expected this week.
The public and congressional uneasiness was one reason why Clinton dispatched his high-profile trio of envoys last week to talk to Cedras. Carter, who acts as a kind of self-appointed global troubleshooter for peace, has been talking on and off to General Cedras for several weeks. Clinton had at first rebuffed Carter’s offer to act as a mediator in the current crisis, but he changed his mind last week when Cedras indicated to Carter that he might be willing to step down. White House and State Department aides worried about Carter’s tendency to freelance – he had embarrassed the administration with his conciliatory statements to North Korean strongman Kim Il Sung last June. To strengthen the delegation – and keep an eye on Carter – Clinton picked General Powell and Senator Nunn. The two men, both wary of intervention in Haiti, provide political cover for Clinton. Powell is popular on both sides of the aisle, and Nunn is regarded as the premier congressional arbiter on military matters.
If it can avert an invasion, the Carter delegation will ease America’s entry into Haiti. As usual, the problem is getting back out again. Clinton has tied America’s prestige – and the lives of its soldiers – to a singularly difficult reclamation project. It’s all in the cause of democracy, but it is never easy and almost surely not bloodless.
Major military operations are hugely expensive and carry the risk of accident and civil disturbances.
Country/War/Date Total Friendly- Cost U.S. Troop Fire in Millions Deaths Deaths GRENADA Operation Urgent Fury $76 19 1 Oct.-Dec. 1983 PANAMA Operation Just Cause $164 23 2 Dec. 1989-Feb. 1990 IRAQ Operation Desert Storm $7,400 293 35 Jan.-June 1991 SOMALIA Operation Restore Hope $2,000 30 0 Dec. 1992-Mar. 1994
ARMY 885
Arms; a few mortars, machine guns, howitzers, and six light-weight personnel carriers. Ammo is scarce, as is routine military training.
LOCAL MILITIA 2,000-4,000
Armed mostly with WWII rifles, membership is divided by district and is informal – whoever shows up.
POLICE 1,300
Armed with pistols.
AIR FORCE
Two prop planes, one minus most of its engine.
NAVY
One seaworthy ship.
Navy SEALs and Army Special Operations forces make covert entry into Port-au-Prince and prepare to neutralize key targets such as garrisons and radio stations.
Army Rangers (from carrier America) parachute in to secure the airports.
Troops of the 82nd Airborne land at airports and fan out to secure the city. The 3,000 or so Americans in Haiti gather at predetermined locations after phone warning. U.S. troops go in to guard them.
Marines (from the Wasp) land and secure Cap Haitien.
Troops of the 10th Mountain Div. (from carrier Eisenhower) and 24th Infantry Div. (from the Whidbey Island) move to secure other Haitian towns.
title: “Here We Go Again” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-03” author: “Brittany Jones”
What’s the fight about? Ostensibly, TV news–something that declining numbers of Americans are yawning to see. More pointedly, it’s about Murdoch and Turner, who seemingly loathe each other. But most of all it’s about media mania gone haywire. Here, briefly, are the facts. Two weeks ago, Murdoch launched a 24-hour cable channel, Fox News, to compete against Turner’s (now Time Warner’s) CNN, the leading daylong cable news channel, and 100-day-old MSNBC, the Microsoft/NBC joint venture. Murdoch says he had a written, albeit unsigned, agreement with Time Warner, the nation’s second-largest cable operator, to deliver his new news channel in the Big Apple. But Time Warner reneged after it acquired Turner, two weeks ago. Murdoch promptly sued–and froze plans to distribute a Warner Bros. cable channel in England. Adding to the controversy, he also enlisted Giuliani in the dispute, who plunged in with gusto. The mayor’s wife happens to work for a Murdoch operation, and he’s a favorite of Murdoch’s sensationalist tabloid, the New York Post. A federal judge quickly rapped his knuckles.
What’s going on here? Confusion, for one thing, and hypocrisy for another. Yes, Time Warner, like most local cable operators, runs a virtual cable monopoly in most of New York City and has a soft spot for CNN and other cable channels it owns. Yet Murdoch also has a reputation for using his media properties (especially the New York Post) to bash business rivals. And he’s hardly one to complain about being cut out of a market. Murdoch controls near monopolies in England and elsewhere, and Time Warner partisans accuse him of blocking CNN in parts of the world where he holds sway-a charge the Murdoch camp denies.
So how does the Word Series figure in this mess? Time Warner owns the Braves, which came with its acquisition of Turner. Murdoch’s Fox Broadcasting, meanwhile, has rights to air the games. (By the way, Time Warner does carry the Fox Broadcasting network on its cable in New York.) With the Braves in the series, will Fox refuse to air the games or black them out in Atlanta or New York? “We’ll just air the Yankees half of the evenings,” says a Murdoch exec. Just kidding, we hope.
title: “Here We Go Again” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-17” author: “Larry Wilson”
This high-risk strategy can succeed only if lots of things go right. It could all happen. But will Dunlap be around long enough to find out? Personally, I suspect that if his plan produces a few quarters of good profits, which are lots easier to come by than long-term success, Sunbeam will soon stop shining as an independent company. Reason: if Dunlap gets his numbers, you can bet that he and money manager Michael Price, whose Mutual Series funds own 21 percent of the company, will gin up a buyer and sell Sunbeam quicker than you can press the PUREE button on a blender.
To understand how this might play out, you have to look behind the headlines, examine Dunlap’s history and figure out what makes him tick. You also have to understand what happened at Dunlap’s previous employer, Scott Paper, where he made a fortune, attained the status of a minor Wall Street god and became a poster boy for corporate downsizing.
If you can make it past Dunlap’s forbidding exterior, you discover that despite his endless boasting he isn’t really a beast or a blowhard. He just comes across that way. Offstage, he’s very charming and very, very smart. He’s been fixing troubled businesses for more than 20 years, but was all but unknown until he was anointed Scott chairman in 1994. He made his mark quickly, firing 11,000 of the company’s 29,000 workers, closing plants and shutting down the headquarters building. Then he sold the remnants of Scott to Kimberly-Clark. Scott’s stock tripled during Dunlap’s 18-month tenure; he made about $100 million, and Scott’s other shareholders made $6 billion. Yes, they owe much of that gain to Dunlap’s performance. But a lot of it was luck, too. When Dunlap took over, the coated-paper business was on a roll, reaching a cyclical high. So when he sold Scott’s coated-paper subsidiary, as the company planned to do before he got there, it fetched a superhigh price. And part of the stock run-up came from the takeover premium Dunlap realized by selling the company. Dunlap’s brief stay at Scott was his seventh job in 17 years, by the way. That’s an average of less than three years per job. So when I predict a short stay for him at Sunbeam, it’s not cynicism. It’s realism.
Before we proceed, you should know that my family and some of my NEWSWEEK colleagues own stock in Mike Price’s mutual funds, so we have benefited from Sunbeam stock’s more than doubling since Dunlap was hired in July. The stock rose about 50 percent the day of the announcement alone. Baseball players boast about a 30- 30 year: 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases. The 50 percent job cut combined with the 50 percent first-day stock rise gives Dunlap the first 50-50 year ever chalked up by a CEO.
Workaholic: Dunlap has come a long way since I first met him in 1984, when he was trying to fix ailing Lily-Tulip, the paper-cup maker. He was shacked up with his two dogs in a motel room near Lily headquarters in Augusta, Ga. Dunlap said his wife, who has put up with him for 29 years now, stayed home in Florida so he could work 24 hours a day with no distractions.
He isn’t the kind of guy you call to fix small problems. You call him when you’re in extremis. Unlike, say, Digital Equipment chief executive Robert Palmer, who recently announced huge firings to try and clean up a mess that he made himself, Dunlap cleans up messes made by other people. That distinction is often overlooked. ““People say, “You just fired 6,000 people at Sunbeam.’ But I say, “No, I just saved 6,000 jobs at Sunbeam’,’’ Dunlap told me in a 90-minute phone interview last week. ““I didn’t create the problem at Sunbeam. I came in to clean it up. Don’t blame the doctor; the doctor didn’t make you sick.''
That sort of outspokenness is one reason Dunlap has gotten famous. Another is that, unlike your typical big-time chief executive, Dunlap doesn’t hide behind his handlers or shy away from a fight. Last February, when we were putting together what became NEWSWEEK’s ““Corporate Killers’’ cover story, we offered a page to more than 50 chief executives to argue in favor of downsizing. Only Dunlap, whom we contacted on our deadline day, agreed to play. A few hours after we called him, his article arrived on our fax machine.
You have to love Dunlap’s irreverence. Consider the way he unveiled his plans for Sunbeam last week. It’s something of a Wall Street custom to provide an 800 number to let analysts, reporters and stockholders hear the proceedings at the company’s expense. None of that for our boy. You had to dial the 312 area code on your own nickel. ““If people care enough to want to hear the conference,’’ Dunlap said, ““let them pay for the call.''
Dunlap’s strength is being able to look at troubled companies objectively. His weakness is that he can’t seem to look at himself the same way. Take his book, ““Mean Business.’’ It’s got lots of interesting stuff, but it has more me, me, me in it than a diva tuning up for an opera. And over and over, Dunlap positively gloats about putting people on the street. Even when downsizing was in fashion, this book would have been over the top. The irony is that Dunlap doesn’t like being considered an ax murderer. ““I don’t enjoy firing people,’’ Dunlap said, ““I know what it’s like to have your father out of work. It’s terrible.''
West Point: Dunlap, you see, grew up poor in Hoboken, N.J., the son of a shipyard worker who was frequently laid off. He escaped by clawing his way into West Point, serving in the army and then going into the business world. So, then, why does he brag about firing people? ““That’s just my manner,’’ he said. ““Just because I don’t talk about feeling bad about having to fire people doesn’t mean that I like having to do it. But if I don’t fire some of the people, the whole company will go under, and no one will have a job.''
That sounds a bit too facile, so enough talking. It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for Dunlap. Sunbeam is going to be a lot harder to fix than Scott was. Publicity and scrutiny attend Dunlap’s every move at Sunbeam, whereas he was outside the limelight at Scott until results started to come in. Scott was bloated; Sunbeam isn’t. Big customers like Wal-Mart aren’t likely to cut Sunbeam any slack when they can buy similar appliances elsewhere. Last week, in one of his many interviews, Dunlap talked about wanting to be called Handsome Al rather than Chain Saw Al or Nuclear Al. Fat chance. Unless, of course, he surprises us skeptics by actually fixing up Sunbeam rather than merely gussying it up for sale–in which case he might just give chain saws a good name.
He’s called Chain Saw Al, the Shredder, or Rambo in Pinstripes. Here’s how Al Dunlap made his rep
Lily-Tulip: In his three years (1983-86) at the helm of the paper-cup maker, Dunlap moved headquarters from Ohio to a company plant in Georgia, slashing his staff..
Headquarters-Staff Cut: 50 percent
Crown-Zellerbach: From 1986 to 1989, Dunlap shed administrators, sold the San Fransico headquarters building for $57 million and closed 18 distribution centers.
Administrative-Staff Cut: 30 percent
Australian National Industries: For Australian tycoon Kerry Packer, Dunlap in 1989 fired virtually every one of the engineering firm’s senior managers and closed or sold 15 of its facilities
Work-Force Cut: 47 percent
Scott Paper Co.: Dunlap laid off 11,200 employees at the paper giant in 1994, then sold the whole company
Work-Force Cut: 31 percent.
title: “Here We Go Again” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-03” author: “Joan Martin”
Not a chance. If anything, the next confrontation promises to be as nasty as the last, and possibly more damaging to the transatlantic relationship. Reason: the Bush administration is desperate. With Iraq in chaos, it needs the semblance of multinational cooperation more than ever. And this time, it’s personal. President George W. Bush was angry with Germany and France half a year ago; this time, with the 2004 elections, his own political future is at stake. The U.S. administration hopes a new U.N. resolution will bring more international cash and troops to Iraq–but it’s willing to give up relatively little. As the debate gets underway in New York this week, no one expects quick agreement.
For now, the two great combatants, America and France, are being polite. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says Washington wants the world to “come together” to the aid of Iraq. His French counterpart, Dominique de Villepin, says France appreciates Washington’s “openness.” But neither government has appreciably changed its prewar position. Powell: “The lead role has to be played by the United States… We are the ones who took over the country.” Villepin, in effect: non. Just last week he proposed a full transfer of authority to Iraqi civilians, starting with the establishment of a provisional government next month–a suggestion Powell dismissed as “totally unrealistic.”
This is a classic diplomatic standoff: everything has changed, and nothing has changed. The war is over, but few Europeans buy the argument that the White House, post-Iraq, is a born-again multilateralist. Neither does Washington believe that Europeans, having opposed the war, will suddenly rally to the U.S. cause. The German magazine Stern summed up Europe’s popular skepticism last week, portraying a frowning Bush on its cover rattling his geopolitical tin cup: from bigmouth to beggar.
Some diplomats still hope for an artful compromise. Last month’s bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad was an attack on the entire international community, Spain’s Foreign Minister Ana Palacio told NEWSWEEK. “It crystallized an attitude that, although we didn’t agree on military intervention, we should leave that to historians and look to the future–because it concerns all of us.” Palacio believes that a new “progressive approach” at the United Nations will ultimately bridge U.S. and European differences, starting with Spain’s proposal to set a clear timetable for handing power over to a newly elected Iraqi government.
The trouble is, this approach assumes that the coming Security Council battle is about Iraq. It is, of course–but only on the surface. From a European vantage point, the issue (just as it was a year ago) is power. On one side is America’s avowed willingness to go it alone in the world, without constraint by its allies. On the other is Europe’s insistence on a broader, more inclusive world leadership that might (particularly in France’s view) have avoided the whole current mess. “There’s been no narrowing of these fundamental differences,” says Robert Kagan, the author of “Paradise and Power,” an influential book about the U.S.-Europe divide. “I think the French have been waiting for this moment.”
Perhaps Washington has been waiting as well. A year ago, when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder was running for re-election, White House officials accused him of poisoning relations with America by placing his opposition to the Iraq war at the heart of his campaign. Now White House aides heap praise upon him for taking control, along with NATO, of security in Afghanistan. Berlin may now be pressing the administration for a better definition of a U.N. role in Iraq, but that’s a straightforward and politically uncomplicated demand. When President Bush meets Schroder in New York at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly, State Department sources say, the warmth between the two is likely to be palpable.
By contrast, France continues to be a thorn in Washington’s side. U.S. officials are openly scornful of French foreign policy, and de Villepin in particular. “He claims he wants to be constructive,” says a senior U.S. official, “but we think he’s departing from a position of unreality. He isn’t just disagreeing with the war but trying to pretend it never happened.” Adds an aide to Secretary Powell: “If the French don’t want to come onboard, they will find themselves isolated.”
Indeed, for the Bushies that seems to be the game. “The Russians have separated themselves from the French and the Germans,” notes one State Department official, adding that the Germans also seem to showing a bit of distance from their French partners, despite a chummy meeting between Schroder and French President Jacques Chirac two weeks ago in Dresden. “The Germans say: ‘Let’s expand the role of the U.N.,’ " says this source, which is very different from France’s ideological determination to replace the United States entirely. Does this translate to a rift that the United States can exploit at the United Nations? That remains to be seen.
As the next round of debate at the United Nations begins this week, it’s becoming clear that everyone has an agenda, perhaps even more than before the war. In jousting with Washington, Chirac is playing not just a global game but also a more parochial one. Is it France, with its askance view of America, or Britain, with its more accepting view, that speaks for Europe? British Prime Minister Tony Blair has his agenda, too. Don’t be shocked to see him backing way from his slavish post-9/11 support of Bush. It has cost Blair dearly at home.
Most crucial is Turkey. Back in July, a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official visiting Washington floated the idea of sending 10,000 Turkish troops to Iraq in exchange for a greater Turkish role in the political development of the country (read: the sensitive Kurdish area on Turkey’s southern border). Now it’s temporizing, just as it did before the war, bollixing up America’s invasion plans. Just last week Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan said he had no intention of having Turkish troops act as “American gendarmes.”
And so it goes. The familiar tenor of the argument doesn’t mean the Security Council won’t find a compromise. Washington is willing to accept a more detailed U.N. role in place of the vague advisory position outlined in previous proposals, U.S. officials say, even if it refuses to cede real power. Will Europeans go along, most especially France? Meeting Chirac in Spain last week, Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar spoke of Coalition forces being killed in Iraq at the rate of one a day. “Terrorism,” he said. Chirac’s word for it? “Resistance.” Clearly, agreement is a long way off.
