ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                     23


Proceedings: How was your intelligence support?

Hopkins: One of the failures of the whole damn war was intelligence. I think
it was terrible, absolutely terrible.  Strategic intelligence, what the Air Force
was using in Iraq, that's something different. But the battlefield intelligence was
inadequate.  When the battalion commanders and regimental commanders--and
I'm getting beyond my portion of it--crossed the line of departure, they didn't
know what was in front of them, and that's just unconscionable, as far as I'm
concerned.

Proceedings: You were the senior Marine commander in the area. Did you have
to do most of the liaison with the Saudis?

Hopkins:   Yes. [Brigadier] General Jim Brabham had served with Central
Command on a previous tour and knew the area, so General Boomer sent him
over to look at the infrastructure.    He went to Riyadh right away and really
didn't have anything to do with the 7th MEB.     As soon as we got in we were
hunkered down at the port and marrying up our units with the equipment, I
focused on the tactical situation.
   I conducted visual reconnaissance flights with the helicopters, and went down
to talk with Major General Saleh,        who was the Saudi Eastern Province
Commander.    Here we were, all these Americans coming into Saudi Arabia and
we needed some decisions: Where we could deploy; what infrastructure could
we use; where could we establish live-fire ranges.  Those kinds of things.


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