Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1

by Tom Clancy

  His only regret lay in one piece of coordination that didn't happen. While in Riyadh, Franks went to visit the Air Force to try to get better help in destroying artillery in range of the breach. He proposed to Major General John Corder, the deputy for Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, that the Air Force put up aircraft at the same time the corps flew their Pioneer UAV. When the UAV spotted an artillery target, Franks proposed, the corps could relay it to the circling aircraft, and the aircraft could roll in and take it out. Corder agreed to do it, but on 10 February Franks was informed that his decision had been disapproved and they would not do it after all. He never knew why.

  Other than that, though, he was enthusiastic. The last time Franks had briefed them in December he had the 2nd ACR, two battalions of the 210th Artillery Brigade, and one AH-64 battalion in Saudi ready for war. Now he had a four-division corps ready to fight. It was a hell of an achievement by the commanders and soldiers of the VII Corps, with help from many outside the corps. Franks was proud of the VII Corps and proud to report to General Powell and Secretary Cheney that if called on, they were ready to fight.

  During the period before the war, Franks never really stopped thinking about the upcoming battles — mentally preparing himself for what the corps was about to face. He was motivated to win at least cost, and he never concentrated so hard on anything in his life. It never left his conscious or subconscious thoughts. Total focus like that was a method of problem solving that had never failed him. An aspect of these meditations (as Napoleon called them) was to continue to sit in front of a map and concentrate on it — looking from that angle at the corps plan, at possible combinations, then thinking about something else, and then looking back again.

  The corps was scheduled to move from its TAAs to its final attack positions starting on 16 February. During one of his map sessions before that move, Franks's concentration on unit dispositions paid off: he noticed that the corps units were now arrayed south to north in the same physical configuration as they would later — in the tactical maneuver toward the RGFC — attack south to north. That configuration meant that it would be possible to conduct a corps rehearsal of this difficult and complex maneuver as the corps traveled the 160 to 180 kilometers to its attack positions, an invaluable training opportunity. It was the only chance the corps had for such a rehearsal. Franks gave the order.

  From 16 to 18 February, the rehearsal took place, and it was awesome, that massed wave of iron, itself over 100 kilometers wide, hurtling across the desert. Typically, they did an AAR after the move.

  At the end of the move, on 18 February, Cal Waller became ARCENT and Third Army commander, as John Yeosock had been evacuated to Germany for emergency gallbladder surgery.

  On 20 February, during a visit, Waller made it clear that from G-minus three to G-Day itself, it was imperative that the corps avoid getting into any fights that might force a strategic decision to go to war (this was during a time of intense, last-minute diplomatic maneuvering between the United States, the Soviets, and the Iraqis). At the same meeting, he also confirmed that there would be a coordinated attack by XVIII and VII Corps to the final objective, adding that VII Corps should not get in a hurry attacking the RGFC; he expected both corps might need the operational pause near Objective Collins. And he confirmed further that it would be twenty-four to thirty-six hours after the attack before there was a decision from CENTCOM on release of the 1st CAV Division.

  Franks, of course, welcomed the decision on the mutually supporting attack, but he still did not want to pause in front of the RGFC.

  At 2200 on 21 February, Waller called Franks to tell him G-Day would be 24 February. They would go on the twenty-fifth.

  On 22 February, Franks had his final commanders' meeting. He told them to "fight tough and smart, close and deep, use arty and air, and cover each other," and gave a short pep talk about the importance of the mission and how well prepared the corps now was for combat.

  Later that day, Franks visited a hospital and the 1st CAV soldiers wounded on 20 February. He told them thanks, and asked about their fellow soldiers and how soon they could go back to the division. Most of their wounds were from fragmentation or burns.

  COMMAND OF GROUND FORCES

  Meanwhile, an issue was still floating out there that needed to be resolved — the issue of overall command of ground forces. The designation of a land force commander, with a separate staff competent to direct land force operations in a joint theater environment, has been an issue in many U.S. joint operations back to World War II.

  As a final "rehearsal," VII Corps conducted a corps-wide maneuver, in attack formation, as units moved to their final attack positions south of the Iraqi border. This provided invaluable training prior to execution under fire.

  Normally in a theater of operations, there is a joint force commander, a CINC, who directs operations through what are called service component commanders of land, sea, and air. In the Gulf theater, there was no problem with sea and air component commanders. The Joint Forces air component commander was Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, and all air forces in the theater reported to him, including Navy air not needed for ship protection and Marine air not needed for close air support of marines. Likewise, all naval forces reported to Vice Admiral Stan Arthur.

  On the ground, however, things were more complicated. On the ground were essentially five corps: two Arab corps and three U.S. corps. A lot of combat power. Yet initially no overall land forces commander had been designated.

  Thus, for example, when Chuck Horner needed to coordinate airground actions, he had no land force counterpart with whom to coordinate, but went directly to the CINC.

  In the end, General Schwarzkopf felt he had to assume the role of de facto land forces commander. This would still have been a viable choice if Schwarzkopf's staff had been able to direct land forces operations and be the theater staff. They were not. They had never practiced it, and were inclined not to get involved.

  This is how the ground forces broke down: the USMC had a two-division corps-sized force, under Lieutenant General Boomer, reporting directly to the CINC; the two U.S. Army corps, with a total of nine divisions, reported to Lieutenant General Yeosock, who then reported to the CINC; and the Saudi composite — essentially two division corps — the Egyptian two-division corps, and the Syrian division each reported to the Royal Saudi Land Force's designated commander, Lieutenant General Khalid. In Riyadh, a staff coordination cell for all non-U.S. Coalition forces was created. It was called C3I (Coalition Communication Coordination Integration Center), and it was headed by U.S. Army Major General Paul Schwartz.

  Thus, three land commanders reported directly to the CINC. But the CINC had no staff to direct land forces operations. During planning, this vacuum didn't have much consequence, but during operations, because there was no overall direction of land forces operations, it would matter a great deal. This continues to an be area of much discussion today.

  OPERATIONS BEFORE G-DAY

  Unlike forces in England preparing to attack German defenses on D-Day, who had no operational mission until they sailed to conduct their assault, VII Corps was an operational unit, part of CENTCOM's land forces, and had an operational mission, even as it deployed and planned the attack.

  This meant that as soon as units were in-theater, they were assigned operational missions, which had to be planned for and trained for. They were not simply placed in some administrative area for sixty days to get themselves assembled and combat ready, at which point they could signal that they were ready to play. While they were assembling, training, planning, and dealing with the myriad other details of preparing for battle, VII Corps units had a number of tough things to do.

  The 2nd ACR, the first unit in-theater, became operational on 21 December. At that time, the VII Corps mission was to provide a security force in the then-150-kilometer gap between XVIII Corps's western boundary (at this time XVIII Corps had a defensive mission from the coast to about 100 kilometers west) and the eastern
boundary of the Joint Forces Command North (that is, the two Egyptian divisions and the Syrian division). The 2nd ACR had that job.

  From that point on, VII Corps was directed to be prepared to fight with the forces they had in-theater. This directive required continuing adjustments in estimates, planning, training, modernization, debarkation and movement to TAAs, and in command, even as the corps planned for its attack toward the RGFC (if that proved necessary).

  On 26 December, after a heads-up that Third Army might be called on to attack soon after the UN deadline passed on 15 January,[16] John Yeosock informed Franks that he wanted VII Corps's combat power (i.e., the forces they had then) available as of 15 January, 1 February, and 15 February. From that moment on, the corps planners had to be simultaneously available for war with what they had, while planning for war with the entire fully deployed corps.

  On 27 December, at an informal meeting in his office in Riyadh, General Schwarzkopf informed Franks, Pagonis, Luck, and Yeosock that the President had called on Christmas Eve to tell him that they might be at war in three weeks. The CINC then instructed his commanders that he would try to hold off the ground attack until somewhere between 10 and 20 February, but that they should be ready to go earlier with what they had.

  On 27 December, VII Corps was far from ready to go. They would be only slightly more ready to go in three weeks. Franks, in short, was not at all pleased to hear that they might be expected to attack then. All the same, he determined to drive the corps even faster to get ready.

  He speculated in his journal on possible reasons behind the CINC's announcement: "[I] believe," he wrote, "some promises were made at the highest levels… that if we committed forces by early November they would be ready by 15 January. Then our gov't took that date and got the UN resolution passed. I'd like to meet the staff who came up with that projection. Here we are with 2nd ACR, one AH-64 battalion, and two artillery battalions. Have next to no CL IX" — spare parts. "Have no maps. Have no nav aids" — 137 total. "Have lousy comms."

  But an order is an order. So he kicked the corps into higher gear and planned accordingly. It was at this point that he adjusted his pre-combat training time from three weeks to two.

  Meanwhile, other missions came to them:

  On 7 January, John Yeosock gave Franks the order to defend the Tapline Road against a possible Iraqi attack down the Wadi al Batin. To cut that would cut the major northern Saudi east-west supply corridor, as well as the avenue XVIII Corps would soon be using for their move west to their attack positions. For this mission, Franks planned to use the 1st CAV and the 2/101st to defend, while the aviation elements of the 1st AD would be his reserve. Air and the reinforced 1st CAV would be enough combat power to stop an Iraqi attack, he reasoned, and by using no more than those forces, he would be able to preserve his ground troops so as to protect their training and to allow them the time they needed to get out of the port area.

  On 9 January, General Schwarzkopf met all of his commanders in Dammam. The air campaign would begin shortly, he told them, but — good news for Fred Franks — there was no longer pressure to start the ground campaign before 15 February. They were therefore to be ready to attack then. Meanwhile, the Iraqis were moving armor and artillery forward; it was likely that if they thought we were going to attack, they would conduct a preemptive attack. Thus, the CINC concluded, all should be in a heightened state of alert and prepared to defend themselves.

  That same day, intelligence reported that the Iraqis were moving three divisions to the Wadi, either to attack or to blunt the U.S. attack.

  The next day, Franks met with the French and tied their operations to his. He wanted them to defend the western approaches to Tapline Road and King Khalid Military City in case the Iraqis came wide through the opening in the west of their defensive line.

  On 13 January, Franks and Martinez rode in their HMMWV with driver Staff Sergeant Dave St. Pierre cross-country in a driving rain to visit the 2/101st, now deployed into defensive positions west of Al Qaysumah. Once he personally saw their position, and met with Colonel Ted Purdom, the brigade commander, and after considering the recent intel about possible Iraqi preemptive strikes, he ordered John Tilelli to move the 1st CAV forward, and ordered reinforcement of the 2/101st with engineer support and artillery from corps. The 1st CAV moved within thirty minutes of the order, at about 1530, and closed just south of Tapline Road that evening. Later, on 23 January, Franks started the 1st CAV north of the Tapline Road. He wanted 1st CAV forward to the border to be in a better defensive position to protect the lines of communication and to begin artillery raids and feints for the deception plan.

  On 17 January, the air war started.

  The air campaign against Iraq, created and waged by the USAF, with no small tactical help from the U.S. Navy, the RAF, and elements of the French air force, was on many levels a brilliantly devised and magnificently executed operation. It brought the war devastatingly to the enemy's "head" — his centers of leadership, control centers, telecommunications centers, transportation centers, and centers of production for war and for weapons of mass destruction. Never before had these centers of gravity been so effectively and precisely neutralized.

  Yes, the USAF claimed at the time more precision and more devastation than was actually achieved, but that does not diminish their actual achievement. Within hours of the start of the attack, one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world was rendered virtually harmless (above roughly 10,000 feet; below that, Iraqi SAMs and antiaircraft guns could hurt you). Within days, the Iraqi air force, armed with top-of-the-line Soviet and French aircraft, was chased out of the skies. These successes not only rendered the entire country naked to air attacks, they left the Iraqi army without any deep support or capability to maneuver, and allowed the U.S. Army to make its vast move to the west for the great "left hook" undetected. By 24 February, the air campaign had wrought considerable damage on the Iraqi army — not the 50 percent of Iraqi armor and artillery that the U.S.A.F. had set out to kill, but a lot. By G-Day, the Iraqi leadership's command-and-control capability over their army was seriously diminished, and the will to fight of Iraqi frontline troops, mostly in Kuwait, had been pounded and blasted into the sand.

  The RGFC was another thing. At best, 25 percent of their armor and artillery had been knocked out of action. And their will to fight…? When the battle came, they fought, and fought hard. To the benefit and credit of the U.S. Army, they were outclassed.

  Back to VII Corps, when the air war started, it had been forty-one days since 6 December, when the first VII Corps troops had arrived, and twenty-six days since the 2nd ACR had become operational. More than half of VII Corps was still deploying, and there was not a combat-ready division available in VII Corps.

  On 11 January, Franks had ordered the corps to begin conducting "stand to" at 0500 daily. He wanted to increase their combat-ready mentality and to get daily status reports.

  On 19 January, in the first VII Corps combat action since World War II, a battery of the 75th Artillery Brigade, under the command of Captain Jeff Lieb, fired a TACMS missile in support of the USAF and destroyed an Iraqi SA-2 air defense site. Franks talked to the crew later that day. They called the TACMS "AT&T," or "reach out and touch someone."

  The next day, another TACMS was sent against an Iraqi logistics site that supported their armored units just behind their frontline defending division. Franks reasoned that they would go nowhere without logistics and wanted the site destroyed to prevent a preemptive attack.

  Intelligence reports intensified. There were reports on 21 January of terrorist infiltrators targeting command posts. VII Corps began tracking all civilian movement in their TAAs.

  On 29 January, the Iraqis did attempt a preemptive strike in the east toward the Saudi town of Khafji. They were beaten back with high losses by a combination of air and U.S. Marine and Saudi land forces. Franks and his planners and commanders took lessons from the Marine report on that operation and applied them t
o their upcoming attack.

  That same day, a Pioneer UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) platoon was attached to the corps's 207th MI Brigade. It began flying intelligence and target-acquisition missions two days later.

  On 1 February, the 1st CAV began to assume operations up to the border, and from that day until VII Corps attacked on 24 February, the division fought what has become known as the battle of the Ruqi Pocket. Their mission was to conduct artillery raids and feints against Iraqi positions along the Wadi, to destroy Iraqi units and artillery in range of the breach, and to deceive the Iraqis that the Coalition main attack was coming north up the Wadi. As G-Day approached, the 1st CAV operation, by design, picked up intensity. Brigadier General Tilelli and his division kept constant pressure on the Iraqis by a combination of artillery raids, ground attacks up to brigade strength, and aviation attacks fifty to eighty kilometers deep.

  Here are some of the notable events:

  27 January—the 1st CAV captured five Iraqi deserters, the first of almost 1,800 captured during the next three weeks.

  2 February—friendly fire. A U.S. HARM missile hit a 1st CAV radar site and wounded two soldiers.

  5 February—the 1st CAV had its first exchange of fire across the border. Two days later, it destroyed an Iraqi border observation tower.

  13 February—thirty-five EPWs (enemy prisoners of war, the new name for POWs) were collected. Later that day, sixty MLRS rockets were fired in two different strikes at targets determined by the 1st Brigade. The next day, the 1st Brigade began breaking holes in the twelve-foot-high border berm, and later that day 108 MLRS rockets were fired by the 42nd Artillery brigade under 1st CAV control. The following day, combat engineer vehicles used a variety of fire (165-mm demolition cannon, Copperhead laser-guided artillery, and TOWs fired by Bradleys) to destroy three Iraqi border observation towers.