The Unseen War

by Lambeth, Benjamin S.

  Col. Gary Crowder, the chief of the strategy and plans division at Air Combat Command, described CENTCOM’s plan to eliminate the government: We “wanted to kill the guys in those offices. Detailed analysis was undertaken showing when those guys were in the building. It showed that after a leisurely breakfast, they tended to be at the offices around nine in the morning, so that was when the time on target was set for. If [the attack] had been undertaken simultaneously with the beginning of ground operations, it would have gutted the regime’s loyal manpower.”140 In yet another eleventh-hour change to the initially planned A-day air offensive, however, CENTCOM abandoned the 0900 time-on-target for the opening strikes against leadership targets. Some observers speculated that advocates of using the stealthy F-117 and B-2 had prevailed over those who had espoused a massive TLAM opening strike to breach the Baghdad-area Super MEZ during daylight hours. As Michael Knights reported in this regard, based on postcampaign interviews with some CAOC planners, “by changing the time of the assault, the only chance of effectively targeting regime forces was lost because only a daylight surprise strike could catch meaningful numbers of intelligence and security officers at key installations.”141

  The CAOC’s chief strategist later explained the actual underlying facts behind this change in plan:

  We discussed the day versus night issue with General Moseley. Although a night strike would indeed allow us the use of our stealth aircraft, a daylight offensive using a large number of TLAMS in the Baghdad area was more in keeping with the effects-based decapitation strategy that we were pursuing. At the outset, we were hoping to catch as many as possible of the regime’s leaders at work in their offices. Yet as we moved ever closer to execution and as the likelihood of our achieving operational and tactical surprise waned ever more, intelligence reporting indicated that many of the key regime officials had by that time either relocated or just stopped coming to work. Once our initial hope of achieving the desired decapitation effect began to dissipate, the stealth option at night made greater sense. Ultimately, therefore, we amended our A-day operations plan to start at night.142

  Twenty-four targets with an assigned high collateral damage expectancy were deleted from the list of targets in the Baghdad area scheduled to be attacked at the slated A-hour of 2100 on March 21. A CAOC planner recalled that “due to the presumed success of the decapitation strike, General Franks placed a call to Moseley and told him that they didn’t want to appear to be piling on. At the four-star and political level, they hoped it was enough and that we had proved our offensive capability was way beyond the regime’s ability to protect themselves. At that point, the fear in Washington was that we would launch our main blow just as the Iraqis surrendered. . . . Within six hours, we had removed 300 [weapon aim points] from the target list—it felt like we had stripped out half the ATO.”143 Three years after the campaign’s major combat phase ended, General Moseley frankly admitted that he had been “concerned” at the time that this decision to gut the opening-night ATO was “not right.” On further reflection he concluded that it had been “a mistake.”144

  General Franks’ decision to begin the ground offensive early left General Moseley with difficult choices. He could not reschedule CENTAF’s attack to begin any earlier, because the five B-2 stealth bombers committed to the opening wave required fifteen hours of flight time to their targets from their launch point at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. That meant that CENTAF’s long-awaited major air offensive would not begin until twenty-eight hours after the first wave of U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, and British Army ground forces had advanced northward from Kuwait into Iraq and Iraq’s leaders understood that they were facing a full-scale allied invasion. It was, as Michael Knights aptly remarked in this regard, “the complete opposite of tactical surprise.”145

  Many of the air component’s scheduled targets now lay inside the land component’s FSCL, an area of Iraqi terrain that extended roughly eighty-four miles in front of the advancing ground forces. These were deleted from the ATO because they had been overrun during the fifteen hours that now separated the start of the ground offensive and the scheduled start of major air operations. In the end, only 39 percent of the leadership, command and control, and regime security targets that had been initially slated for attack were actually struck by coalition air forces during the three-week campaign.

  Of this toned-down opening air offensive, one F-15E crewmember recalled: “What we all saw was a scaled-back version of the original plan. When we were briefed on the original plan, everyone was shocked and awed. When we were then shown the follow-on plan, which outlined how quickly the Army and Marines were going to move when the first bombs fell, we thought that the whole situation on the ground and in the air was going to get pretty bad.” Another F-15E crewmember added: “We jokingly started to call it ‘shock and awwww-sh*t!’ when it looked like the ground troops were spread too thin and got bogged down in An Nasiriyah and the like.”146

  Still concerned that Iraq might launch Scud missiles against Israel, General Moseley persuaded his land component counterparts to make an exception to CENTCOM’s general rule against key infrastructure target attacks so that he could target a dozen bridges in western Iraq that might enable Hussein’s forces to move hidden Scuds from their storage facilities to launch areas. Although CAOC staffers knew that dropping these bridges might impede postcampaign food relief into Iraq from Jordan, they regarded the Scud risk as a more pressing priority. Accordingly, the coalition target coordination board, headed by CENTCOM’s director of operations, General Renuart, acceded to Moseley’s bid to attack the twelve requested bridges, ten of which were ultimately either destroyed or damaged from the air, leaving more than one hundred more in the area untouched. The bridges were all in the vicinity of previously known or suspected Scud launch areas in desolate locations, and all spanned smaller streams or dry washes in unpopulated parts of western Iraq. Encountering resistance from his political-military assistant, who sought to have the board’s approval for the attacks reversed, General McKiernan replied that he trusted General Moseley’s judgment on the issue.147

  The widespread use of the term “shock and awe” by the media was badly misleading, in that it implied a visual spectacle that was never an intended part of the air attack plan. Air Chief Marshal Burridge dismissed the term as “a sound bite which got rather regenerated in Washington” that fundamentally missed what the air war was about and “was not very helpful elsewhere, frankly.”148 On the contrary, the initial goal of allied air strikes was to degrade IADS facilities around Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul and to destroy key command and control nodes.149 Limited air strikes were also conducted against Iraqi artillery and surface-to-surface missile positions in southern Iraq.150 Less than a week before the campaign started, Anthony Cordesman had presciently suggested that eleventh-hour news reporting was tending “to exaggerate the [likely] impact of the precision bombing plan in the first two nights.” He even more presciently predicted that “events will increasingly dictate targeting from Day One on.”151 Indeed, by D+1 on March 20, Navy SEALs had seized the offshore gas and oil platforms and main oil tanker loading platform at Al Faw; by early the following morning, the Jalibah and Tallil airfields had been captured and the regular Iraqi army’s 51st Mechanized Division had surrendered; and by the end of D+3 on March 22, the Rumaila oilfields and Umm Qasr in the Al Faw Peninsula had been secured.152 Also on March 22, some seventy TLAMs were launched against bases of the Ansar Al Islam, an insurgent group that was thought to have ties with Al Qaeda.153

  Regarding the opening-night spectacle, Knights observed that “the [Bush] administration and the military had played it safe, and the result was underwhelming to friend and foe alike. There would be no major collateral damage incidents directly attributable to the air campaign—a notable first for the post–Cold War U.S. military—nor would there be an appreciable effect on the enemy war effort.”154 The damage was extensive all the same, however, and it must have seemed overwhelming to those Iraqis
who were on the receiving end of the bombs. President Bush later aptly characterized the opening round of A-hour attacks that began on the night of March 21 as “one of the most precise air raids in history.”155

  Air-Land Warfare Unfolds

  After several days of preplanned attacks against government buildings and other fixed targets, allied air strikes shifted, as planned, to concentrate on Iraqi fielded forces, including the six Republican Guard divisions that were deployed in and around Baghdad. The principal focus of the initial air effort against Iraqi ground forces was on the command and control, armor, and artillery assets of the units positioned between Kuwait and Baghdad and on the Republican Guard divisions that were positioned to defend Baghdad. Coalition air attacks against the southernmost enemy ground formations were directed against, in order of priority, the Iraqi 3rd Corps, 51st Mechanized Division, 11th ID, and 6th Armored Division.156

  Allied air attacks also now focused increasingly on “tank plinking” in designated kill boxes. This mission presented a major targeting challenge to allied aircrews because the Iraqis, having learned from the Serb experience four years earlier in Operation Allied Force, did not array the tanks of the Republican Guard divisions in battle formation, but instead dispersed them under trees and in the farming villages of the Euphrates River Valley.157 Duly qualified allied fighter aircrews often performed as airborne forward air controllers (FAC-As) while searching for targets of opportunity during strike coordination and reconnaissance (SCAR) missions so they could direct other fighters and bombers to find and attack them.158 This function complemented the work done by JTACs and SOF teams in locating Iraqi units and laser-designating them for airborne strikers. The mandatory altitude floor of ten thousand feet in the vicinity of Baghdad that General Moseley had imposed on allied aircrews made it hard for fighter pilots and their backseaters to discern targets, even with the aid of their infrared and electro-optical targeting pods, when JTACs on the ground tried to talk their eyes onto those targets.

  Some FAC-As were initially underutilized in the air war. For example, in certain instances involving I MEF ground operations, F-14 pilots and radar intercept officers who were certified to perform FAC-A functions were held back in CAS stacks while fighters flown by more trusted Marine aviators were pushed forward to work directly with Marine JTACs on the ground. Once FAC-As were finally allowed to work in close concert with ground-based JTACs, particularly during night hours, they substantially reduced the required time between aircraft check-in and bombs on target. When they were not operating directly with JTACs, FAC-As were often best used to conduct reconnaissance in closed kill boxes inside the FSCL. FAC-As and SCAR aircrews operating in concert with division- and brigade-level JTACs were often able to locate and engage previously undiscovered enemy force concentrations.159

  CAOC staffers later characterized the use of SCAR operations in this manner as “the most effective method for maximizing combat effects within open kill boxes.”160 General Moseley used a few dedicated SCAR assets to find and identify moving targets and then either to attack them or to direct other aircraft to attack them. CAOC planners recalled that “SCAR jets typically took off with ATO-assigned kill boxes as their initial work areas, but they could be easily retasked as the battlefield situation might require. Their inherent flexibility further enhanced kill-box interdiction in Iraq.”161

  The air component’s sorties dedicated to supporting the land component were intended to undermine or eliminate Iraqi ground force resistance and thereby enable General McKiernan to maneuver his forces with no need to pause in response to enemy actions. General Moseley colorfully explained this intent before the start of combat operations: “I don’t want [General McKiernan] to have to stop unless he decides to pull into the local 7-11 for a chili cheese dog and a cherry limeade.”162 Toward that end, using as a starting point the “push-CAS” kill-box approach that was first employed during Desert Storm and further refined during Enduring Freedom, the CAOC developed sophisticated and flexible KI/CAS procedures that provided a better means of identifying and promptly attacking Iraqi targets on the battlefield.163 Each kill box in a larger common grid reference system overlaid on the battlefield was a thirty-minute by thirty-minute block of terrain, which translated into an area thirty nautical miles long and slightly less in width depending on latitude.164 Such blocks were further divided into nine “keypads” that allowed for additional target-area deconfliction, plus the ability to concentrate more strike sorties within a given block of airspace over the combat zone. Each row of kill boxes was assigned a numerical designator, such as 84, and each specific kill box was assigned a two-letter designator, such as AW. Then each individual key was given a number (see figure 2.1).165

  The CAOC and the staff of its subordinate air support operations center (ASOC) assigned to support V Corps planned to use the kill-box system to ensure dedicated command and control procedures and a constant presence of FAC-As and JTACs within the battlespace. Controllers would assign allied pilots to specific kill boxes, both inside and beyond the FSCL, that were opened and closed for finite windows of time as might be required to ensure proper deconfliction of aircraft and artillery and to minimize the chances of friendly fire incidents. V Corps and I MEF were to control the kill boxes within the FSCL, and the CAOC would control those beyond it. The land component commander could open kill boxes within the FSCL to strike aircraft and close them at appropriate times to preclude any possibility of fratricidal fire from allied aircraft. In practice, however, the Army commander initially refused to open kill boxes inside the FSCL or to allow FAC-As to control kill boxes inside the FSCL in accordance with the KI/CAS plan (see figure 2.2), resulting in frustration for the air component and a resultant systemic inefficiency in the actual execution of the CAOC’s KI/CAS plan. Only after the “strategic pause” (see below) was the KI/CAS plan executed as it had been initially envisioned.166

  FIGURE 2.1 Common Grid Reference System

  Source: Special Warfare

  The kill-box arrangement was the result of a command and control construct that first saw widespread use during Operation Desert Storm. Subsequent improvements had made it a very effective measure for controlling battlefield interdiction and CAS sorties. General McKiernan or his designated subordinate could close entire kill boxes or merely portions of a keypad, either permanently or temporarily, to allow friendly ground operations in that particular piece of battlespace. A former Marine Corps fighter pilot explained that “airborne FACs [forward air controllers] could direct supporting aircraft to proceed to a given key on the keypad and await further instructions, or could use the system to help describe a target: ‘A pair of T-72s just north of the road intersection in the northwest corner of 84AW-9.’”167 Another informed account of this mission added: “The correct term for these dual-role sorties was KI/CAS, which inevitably became known as ‘kick-ass.’”168

  As the land component advanced relentlessly on Baghdad, kill boxes were opened and closed, on a minute-by-minute basis at times, “as ground troops neared them, artillery fired through them, or attack helicopters needed to service targets.”169 General McKiernan applied an atypically deep FSCL at the start of the ground offensive to prevent allied ground forces from overrunning the FSCL during their rapid advance, outstripping their supporting joint fires, and running the risk of sustaining Blue-on-Blue attacks by allied aircraft. This deep FSCL often worked at cross-purposes with the best interests of the land component, however, because it prevented the conduct of often urgently needed interdiction and CAS by allied fixed-wing air power (see Chapter 5 for a more detailed discussion).

  FIGURE 2.2 Kill-Box Status Change Request Format

  Source: Special Warfare

  In northern Iraq, the American and coalition teams assigned to JSOTF (Joint Special Operations Task Force) North were mainly charged with keeping the Republican Guard divisions positioned in that region from falling back toward Baghdad and impeding allied combat operations in the south. Air component suppo
rt for those northern SOF units was severely limited until Turkey granted the coalition the use of its airfields and airspace. To make matters worse, JSOTF North had been assigned a lower priority than the SOF operations in Iraq’s western desert and the main conventional ground force that served the land component working south of Baghdad. The CAOC found it impossible to provide a continuous air presence over northern Iraq by aircraft operating from bases south of Iraq because of the substantial distances involved. Accordingly, JSOTF North did not receive preplanned air support until Turkey finally granted overflight permission for Navy and Marine Corps strike fighters operating from the two carriers on station in the eastern Mediterranean. That Turkish approval came on March 24, five days into the war, and the first Navy sorties began flowing into northern Iraq two days later, on March 26. Eventually, CAS support was essentially constant.170

  Ground forces ignored the importance of fixed-wing air support at their peril. In an attempt to use Army air power in direct support of the land offensive, for example, the commander of V Corps, Lt. Gen. William Wallace, elected late in the afternoon of March 23 to launch thirty-one AH-64 Apache attack helicopters in a deep assault against forward elements of the Republican Guard’s Medina Division near An Najaf without prior preparation of the battlespace by the air component’s fixed-wing assets. During the course of that operation, which an assessment of the Army’s campaign performance later characterized frankly as “unsuccessful,” nearly all of the Apaches were badly damaged by Iraqi AAA and other heavy-weapons fire, and one was forced down and its two-man crew captured.171 An early account of this endeavor attributed the near-disaster to “hasty preparation, inadequate intelligence, a forewarned enemy, and an unfortunate selection of attack routes.”172 There was considerably more to the story, however, than that incomplete characterization suggested (see Chapter 5 for a more detailed discussion).