The Unseen War

by Lambeth, Benjamin S.

  Moving coalition forces into the region quickly enough to deny the Iraqis sufficient time to react in an orderly way was not a trivial challenge for CENTCOM’s planners. General Franks sought to pursue a calculated deception effort that had been proposed by General Moseley and General Renuart based on periodic deployment “spikes,” with an expectation that initial media attention to those force increases would lapse once the deployment surge receded.116 His intent was to accustom any observers with potentially unfriendly motivations to view such spikes as merely business as usual, at which point the spikes would begin to occur more often; as when the Navy moved in a second carrier battle group, had its air wing take part in Operation Southern Watch for a week or two, and then had it appear to depart the region. With respect to these periodic spikes, Franks proposed increasing the number of carriers on station in the region from one to three and then cycling them in and out to create a deceptive pattern. Similarly, he sought to portray U.S. troop increases in Kuwait as part of regional training exercises. His underlying intent was to acclimate Iraqi intelligence to “military expansion, then apparent contraction,” with the flow of forces being managed as an apparent sine wave that no one would perceive as a buildup with warlike intent.117

  General Moseley dispatched Major General Leaf along with an eleven-member air component coordination element (ACCE, pronounced “ace”) to the land component’s headquarters at Camp Doha, Kuwait, in early February 2003 to work closely with General McKiernan.118 This move was meant to prevent the sort of near-debacle that had occurred a year earlier when the failure of the land component to communicate its intentions clearly to the CAOC had left the latter almost completely unprepared to supply urgently needed air support for Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan after the mission unexpectedly turned sour.119

  Prompted by that near-miss experience, according to an A-10 pilot who was a key player in bringing effective CAS to embattled Army troops on the ground at the eleventh hour, General Moseley “directed a theater-wide CAS emergency conference where we took a hard look at command and control and discussed the very high target-approval levels and centralized execution that [had] posed restrictions on flight leaders in the air.”120 General Leaf’s appointment as the head of the ACCE was one of the measures that ultimately emerged from that conference. Leaf was the first truly pivotal ACCE chief (the idea had been tested with the SOF community in Afghanistan after Anaconda), and he coordinated air-ground operations as General Moseley’s senior representative to General McKiernan.121 Seven ACCE teams were distributed throughout the various Army ground elements in the war zone, with General Leaf’s being the largest.122 The intent of this important liaison move, still unrecognized at that time in formal joint doctrine, was, in General Leaf’s words, to provide an “extension of General Moseley” to the land component as a de jure emissary from the CAOC who knew the air component commander’s intent, concepts, and priorities and who was authorized to speak for him without having to coordinate every decision when the exigencies of high-intensity combat warranted it. Leaf reported as the start of Iraqi Freedom neared: “I have been received as a team member—as a member of the tribe here—with open arms. And I’ve been very impressed with how diligently both the land component and the air component are working to understand the priorities, the intent [and] the requirements of the other.” General McKiernan echoed this joint-minded spirit in noting that the ACCE presence at his headquarters “is indicative of the quality of the joint and coalition team assembled, and reflects the commitment of all the services to work together as one team to meet our objectives and desired effects on the battlefield.”123

  General McKiernan saw no need to reciprocate by creating a comparable two-star Army position in General Moseley’s CAOC. An Army colonel served as the land component’s battlefield coordination detachment (BCD) chief in the CAOC, but no senior Army counterpart to Leaf was assigned to the air component. The BCD had long since been battle-proven, and McKiernan deemed it sufficient. The commander of the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC), Brig. Gen. Howard Bromburg, frequently visited the CAOC to meet with its leadership on theater air defense issues, but he was not considered a liaison officer.124

  Allied flying units initially deployed with a 1.5 crew ratio, which was raised to 2 (that is, to 2 aircrews per aircraft) before the start of combat operations. CENTAF’s planners had given all committed units advance warning of this requirement, recognizing that a crew ratio of 2 would be essential to support around-the-clock combat operations in a campaign of this one’s expected duration.125 The Air Force’s Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) rotation experience amassed over the course of the preceding decade made that service’s deployment of assets for the impending campaign easier because all of its committed players already had a running start. In anticipation of expected CSAR requirements, the Air Force identified forward operating locations near Iraq and positioned HH-60G helicopter detachments there to shorten the response time should an allied aircrew be downed.126 In the end, Saudi Arabia approved CENTAF’s request to use the CAOC at Prince Sultan Air Base and authorized the conduct of SOF reconnaissance and CSAR operations out of a small airfield at Arar near the Saudi border with Iraq’s western desert.127 Additional ramp space was also installed at Al Jaber Air Base and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait to accommodate anticipated strike operations and munitions storage requirements.128

  The aircraft bed-down bases available to CENTAF by March 21, 2003 (the formal start of major combat operations) included Moron Air Base in Spain; RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom; Constanta, Romania; Sigonella, Italy; Souda Bay, Crete; Akrotiri, Cyprus; Cairo West, Egypt; Arar, Prince Sultan Air Base, and Tabuk in Saudi Arabia; Doha and Al Udeid in Qatar; Ali Al Salem and Al Jaber in Kuwait; Manama and Shaikh Isa in Bahrain; Al Dhafra and Minhad in the United Arab Emirates; Masirah, Seeb, and Thumrait in Oman; Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; and Sabiha Gokcen, Afyon, Diyarbakir, Corlu, and Incirlik in Turkey. Forces afloat included two U.S. Navy carrier battle groups in the eastern Mediterranean, three carrier battle groups in the North Arabian Gulf, and a Marine Corps ARG also in the North Arabian Gulf.129 As a hedge against last-minute political contingencies involving Turkish support, General Moseley planned four alternative air tasking orders (ATOs) for A-day: the participation of the Mediterranean-based carrier air wings in the event of Turkish basing and overflight approval, Turkish tanker basing and Egyptian overflight approval, Egyptian basing and overflight approval, and an ATO that excluded the use of those two carrier air wings in the worst-case event of Turkey denying both basing and overflight into Iraq.

  CENTCOM’s worst fear in this respect came to pass on March 1, 2003, when the Turkish parliament rejected the Bush administration’s request to stage U.S. troops from Turkey into Iraq, denying General Franks the opportunity to use the Army’s 4th Infantry Division (ID) to spearhead the opening of a northern front in Iraq. The rejection also meant the loss of two wings’ worth of Air Force fighters and tankers based at Incirlik, as well as the loss of two additional Turkish bases that accommodated thirty-six KC-135R tankers. (An existing agreement between Turkey and the United States that allowed allied combat aircraft to operate out of Incirlik permitted only defensive operations in connection with the enforcement of the northern no-fly zone over Iraq.)130 Were Turkey to deny overflight as well, that would mean the loss of the two Mediterranean-based carrier air wings for conducting attacks into the heart of Iraq and for supporting planned SOF operations in the north.131 Despite these real and potential disappointments, however, General Franks felt that having the troops of the 4th ID deployed forward in twenty-seven ships in the eastern Mediterranean made for an effective deception option. Accordingly, those troops were left in position there. That decision had the salutary effect of keeping eleven regular Iraqi army divisions and two Republican Guard divisions tied down in northern Iraq.

  The Air Force had already spent some $7 million to improve a number of Turkish air bases in preparation for a possible
war against Iraq, and continued the improvements right down to the wire in the hope that so doing might help occasion a change in Turkish policy. Among the sites being built up was an air operations center (AOC) at Diyarbakir Air Base where the commander of USAFE’s 16th Air Force, Lt. Gen. Glen Moorhead, would oversee allied air operations over northern Iraq in a supporting role under General Moseley. Diyarbakir was intended to serve as a mini-CAOC to support combat and airlift missions into the north and to be, in effect, a repeater node to General Moseley’s master air operations center in Saudi Arabia. By the time combat operations began on March 19, however, only a small fraction of the needed bandwidth had been installed, and it would have taken hours for the mini-CAOC’s computers to download the ATO. In addition, USAFE spent approximately $4 million on permanent improvements at Incirlik, where Operation Northern Watch had been headquartered since 1991.132

  During his final meeting with the president and his national security principals in the White House on March 5, 2003, General Franks informed President Bush: “All key infrastructure improvements have been completed, and the required force is now in place in the theater.”133 Some 208,000 U.S. military personnel were in the region at that point, including a ground force of 137,000. Franks told the president and Secretary Rumsfeld that he could initiate the campaign any time the president was ready. Rumsfeld suggested that the president give Hussein an ultimatum to step down and leave Iraq with his two sons within forty-eight to seventy-two hours or be prepared to face a war that would end his rule. Franks concurred with Rumsfeld’s proposal, noting that it would provide CENTCOM enough time to get all planned SOF assets across the border to secure the oil wells in the south and Scud launch boxes in the western desert. He also told the president that CENTCOM had identified twenty-four targets that would almost surely result in high collateral damage if attacked, and he explained CENTCOM’s planned collateral-damage mitigation measures. Bush, however, refused to play a personal role in the selection of targets.134

  By the end of the first week of March, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were on station in the eastern Mediterranean, and three more carriers—Kitty Hawk, Constellation, and Abraham Lincoln—were deployed in the North Arabian Gulf along with their embarked air wings, each of which included about fifty strike aircraft.135 Nimitz was en route to the North Arabian Gulf to relieve Abraham Lincoln, which had been deployed for an almost unprecedented nine months.136 The five carrier battle groups in position and ready for combat included upward of forty allied surface vessels and submarines armed with BQM-109 Tomahawk land-attack missiles (TLAMs, pronounced “T-lams”). In addition, Air Force F-15Es, F-16s, and F-117s were in place at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar; tankers and various ISR platforms were forward-deployed to Prince Sultan Air Base; and more than two hundred additional aircraft, including F-16s and all of the Air Force’s in-theater A-10s and land-based Marine Corps F/A-18s, were positioned at two bases in Kuwait, with still more in Oman, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, all ready to carry out a multidirectional attack. This fielded inventory of aircraft included fourteen B-52s operating out of RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom and B-1 and B-2 bombers deployed to the Gulf region and the British island protectorate of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.137 Four of the B-2s that would take part in the war were deployed on March 13 from Whiteman AFB, Missouri, to Diego Garcia.138

  Marine Corps sea-based air assets in the North Arabian Gulf were concentrated in 2 amphibious task forces, ATF West and ATF East. The first consisted of the amphibious assault ships USS Dubuque, USS Cleveland, USS Boxer, and USS Bonhomme Richard. These 4 ships embarked a total of 24 AV-8B Harrier attack jets, 16 CH-53E heavy-lift helicopters, 18 AH-1W Cobra attack helicopters, and 9 UH-1N and 12 CH-46 helicopters with their aircrews and supporting equipment and personnel. ATF East consisted of the amphibious assault ships USS Kearsarge, USS Bataan, and USS Saipan, which carried roughly the same complement of aircraft as ATF West. Including its larger complement of land-based air assets, the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing totaled 435 aircraft in-theater by the time it was fully in place, making it the largest air wing to deploy since Vietnam. All but 16 of the Harriers operated from Bonhomme Richard and Bataan.139 Two squadrons of Marine Corps F/A-18Cs that did not fall under the command of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing were VMFA-323 and VMFA-115, which operated as a part of the air wings embarked in Constellation and Harry S. Truman respectively. Of the total F/A-18 contingent, 60 were Marine Corps Hornets attached to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and were operating out of land bases in the region in anticipated support of Lt. Gen. James Conway’s I MEF.140 In all, allied aircraft committed to the impending Iraqi Freedom air offensive included 236 Navy and carrier-based Marine Corps F/A-18s, 56 F-14s, 35 EA-6Bs, 40 S-3Bs, and 20 E-2Cs. The Marine Corps also provided another 130 land-based strike aircraft and 22 KC-130 tankers. Those combined assets contributed to a coalition total of 1,801 aircraft, 863 of which were provided by the U.S. Air Force.141

  The early force presentation planning that produced this massive deployment of American air assets was considerably more deliberate than had been the case in Operation Enduring Freedom, which entailed more of a crisis-response planning challenge because of the comparatively short notice that CENTCOM had been given after the September 11 attacks. During the course of this buildup, the Saudi government quietly approved CENTCOM’s request to operate tanker aircraft from Saudi bases in support of allied strike operations (see chart 1.1 and map 1.3).142

  As the start of combat operations neared, the commander of the Constellation battle group, Rear Adm. Barry Costello, indicated that planning to coordinate U.S. and allied air attacks had been completed and the battle group was “ready today if required to execute the mission.”143 The high-profile force buildup and such candid leadership statements denied the Bush administration any chance of achieving strategic surprise, but tactical surprise was still possible.

  As the campaign’s scheduled start drew closer, General Moseley listed as his chief planning and execution concerns the effective conduct of attacks on time-sensitive targets, high-value targets, and other targets designated for immediate strikes. He called for a strategic attack, decapitating the country’s leadership while destroying the regime’s command and control and security forces. One hundred percent Scud suppression and denial of WMD use were also essential. All of this required the prompt establishment of air and space supremacy. Other concerns included countermaritime operations against mines, coastal defenses, and Iraqi naval command and control. Counterland operations, including deep attack, CAS, and kill-box interdiction along with complete ISR coverage of Iraq and the surrounding area of operations were major parts of the plan. All of this would play a key role in establishing a forward tanker and high-value aircraft presence and a robust intratheater airlift capability while concurrently maintaining an effective theaterwide combat level of effort that extended to include continuing operations in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa region.144

  CHART 1.1 CENTAF Aircraft by Category

  Source: CENTAF

  Source:CENTAF

  Throughout the course of CENTAF’s planning for possible major combat operations, General Moseley and his key subordinates had tried to anticipate a number of “what if?” contingencies. These nightmare possibilities included a possible early salvo of Iraqi aircraft armed with a mix of conventional and WMD munitions on suicide missions against coalition forces; an early salvo of Iraqi civilian airliners loaded with conventional munitions, WMD, fuel, and perhaps hostages; an early salvo of Iraqi missiles carrying a mix of conventional and WMD munitions; an early salvo seeding of Iraqi mines into local waterways and the North Arabian Gulf; torching of the southern and northern oil fields and its possible impact on coalition air operations; an early WMD attack against CENTAF’s airfields by SOF teams and other unconventional combatants; a more sustained attack on CENTAF’s airfields by Al Qaeda and Iraqi internal security forces, particularly against leadership, fuel trains, personnel, food and water storag
e facilities, and key command and control nodes; and a D-day start later than March or April, which would expose troops and equipment to excessively high temperatures and affect the enthusiasm of host-nation support throughout CENTCOM’s area of operations.145

  Final Adjustments

  Beginning in late 2002, the National Security Council, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and Agency for International Development all submitted nominations to CENTCOM for a no-strike list of potential targets to be avoided, based on solicited recommendations by various UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations.146 The final no-strike list, which included such facilities as hospitals, water plants, and key nodes of Iraq’s electrical power grid, eventually grew to include thousands of facilities that were duly incorporated into CENTCOM’s target attack planning. The list was updated almost daily as the start of combat operations drew closer. CENTCOM also issued a collateral-damage-mitigation chart to inform target planners how destructive particular munition types would be against the cross-section of specific target types. Air operations planners divided metropolitan Baghdad into zones that were further subdivided into alphabetized sectors, with each building in each sector assigned a number.

  In early December 2002 General Franks opened his forward headquarters in Qatar, where he conducted an Internal Look exercise like those convened by CENTCOM in 1990, 1996, and 2000. In preparation for it, General Moseley’s “go-to-war” team first gathered at Shaw AFB to plan and “chair-fly” several ATOs against Iraq, in the process learning lessons that proved valuable when full-scale combat operations began the following March. The four-day exercise in Qatar involved the intimate participation of Franks and his subordinate component commanders and was publicly announced only in broad outline. It focused mainly on rehearsing the Hybrid plan for the first stages of what would become the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom, homing in particularly on the exact requirements for troops and equipment as well as on the diplomatic clearances for basing and overflight that would be needed from key countries in the region.147