The Unseen War

by Lambeth, Benjamin S.

  As indicated above, precision attack was a dominant feature of CENTCOM’s air war. Thanks to increased weapons accuracy and a far greater number of available PGMs, allied aircraft expended fewer than 30,000 munitions against all Iraqi targets in three weeks, compared with about 250,000 during the five-week air portion of Operation Desert Storm. In addition, 850 TLAMs were fired from U.S. and British ships operating in the North Arabian Gulf, with 350 launched during a single night in the opening round of the campaign.5 A number of CALCMs fired by Air Force B-52s also figured in the cruise missile contribution to the overall air campaign.

  The satellite-aided GBU-31 JDAM, which made its combat debut during NATO’s air war for Kosovo in 1999 and saw extensive use during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001, truly came into its own during the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom. Although the Air Force’s B-1B heavy bombers flew only 2 percent of all recorded sorties, they dropped roughly a third of all of the JDAMs (some 2,100 in all) that were expended during the campaign.6 This widespread availability of GPS-aided munitions, observed a former Marine Corps F/A-18 pilot, “meant that rather than putting his aircraft at a precise point in space, at an exact airspeed, altitude, attitude, and heading, a pilot could simply fly to the vicinity of a known set of target coordinates, release a bomb, and reliably expect that the bomb would guide directly to the target. He could do this without ever seeing what he was attacking—day, night, or in poor weather.”7 Amplifying on this, he added: “One of the chief advantages of JDAM weapons is that the pilot . . . can release the bomb once his aircraft enters a pie-shaped envelope that is calculated by the onboard mission computer and depicted on the navigation display. Once the bomb leaves the airplane, its tailfins adjust its trajectory and guide it to the preprogrammed coordinates. In essence, the JDAM is a launch-and-leave bomb that guides itself to the target.”8 An Air Force F-16 pilot explained it more candidly: “Dropping JDAM was so easy even a monkey could do it. You put in your north, south, east, and west coordinates, input your altitude, and then drive to the target. The jet tells you when the bomb’s in range and when it is at minimum range, and you can select the impact angle you want, and what route you want the bomb to take, if applicable. And that’s about it.”9

  The Iraqi Freedom campaign saw a number of new air power “firsts.” For example, the campaign featured the first concurrent use of B-52, B-1B, and B-2 heavy bombers in a single package to attack multiple targets simultaneously. Related concepts of operations that were first tested over Afghanistan, such as loading bombers with precision munitions, putting them into holding orbits and stacking them, and using them for providing on-call CAS, finally matured in Iraqi Freedom. The Iraq war also saw the first combat use of the CBU-97 sensor-fused weapon. This munition, dropped from an altitude of 20,000 feet or more, dispenses 10 heat-seeking BLU-108 submunitions, each containing 4 armor-penetrating projectiles with infrared sensors, that descend by parachute to sniff for individual tanks and then attack those tanks with bomblets designed to penetrate the tops of their turrets.10 On one occasion, a B-52 delivered 6 CBU-97s against a concentration of Iraqi tanks. In addition, the campaign saw the first air delivery of a combat-loaded M1A1 Abrams main battle tank directly into conflicted battlespace for immediate combat use when the 362nd Air Expeditionary Group operating out of Rhein-Main Air Base in Germany flew five Abrams tanks, five M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles, and fifteen M113 APCs from Ramstein, Germany, to Bashur, Iraq, in early April 2003. Less than two weeks before, Air Force C-17s had conducted their first low-altitude combat airdrop of a large Army unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which parachuted into northern Iraq.11

  The three-week campaign also featured a number of firsts for American carrier-based air power as old platforms racked up new combat accomplishments. To begin with, the war saw the first delivery of a JDAM by an F-14D strike fighter—ironically enough as that jet was nearing the last days of its storied thirty-five-year service life. Earlier models of the F-14 had already been upgraded to carry JDAMs and had dropped them during Operation Enduring Freedom, but with three deployed F-14D squadrons operating near Iraq, CENTCOM and 5th Fleet planners wanted the latter aircraft to have JDAM capability as well. Accordingly, immediately before the campaign got under way, the Navy upgraded its F-14Ds to carry and deliver JDAMs, with the modification performed afloat by squadron maintenance technicians assisted by a Naval Air Systems Command team that had embarked with the squadrons, but with no direct support from depots or contractors in the United States. The campaign also saw the first use of an F/A-18E Super Hornet in an in-flight refueling role, the first use of the EA-6B in a psychological operations role, and an AGM-65 laser-guided Maverick missile fired for the first time by an S-3B at a target designated for it by an F/A-18C.

  ISR milestones achieved during the Iraqi Freedom campaign included

  the first employment of the RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV as a SCAR asset, geolocating 50 SAM launchers, 10 or more SAM batteries, and roughly 70 missile transport vehicles;

  the first full integration of information operations into an ATO following the pioneering steps in that regard taken during Enduring Freedom;

  the fielding of a cryptological cell to work directly with the CAOC in retasking signals intelligence sensors to address urgent tactical needs, generating some 2,500 cues derived from signals intelligence;

  the use of the Navy’s upgraded E-2C Hawkeye 2000 to direct allied air strikes during adverse weather;

  the use of pairs of RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft to geolocate such moving targets as short-range theater ballistic missiles and mobile SAM launchers;

  the use of the E-8 JSTARS to provide dynamic surveillance and targeting during brownout conditions occasioned by the shamal;

  the first employment of the B-1 radar’s GMTI capability in an ISR role;

  the wide-scale use of electro-optical and laser pods for both targeting and BDA;

  the use of the E-3 AWACS as a dynamic tasking tool, leveraging the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System carried by some F-15Es and other data modems to direct and redirect allied strike platforms;

  the use of a Navy Aegis anti–air warfare cruiser as a tactical ballistic missile early-warning system;

  the use of fused ISR to enable single platforms to attack multiple targets with precision munitions during a single mission;

  the use of Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites on orbit as a part of the tactical sensor network, detecting 26 missile launches, 1,493 static infrared events, and 186 high-explosive events;

  the targeting of Iraqi media facilities as a focused part of an information-operations campaign;

  and the simultaneous use of multiple ISR assets, including the concurrent use of 4 Predator UAVs during a single mission and the first ATO to include 6 simultaneous high-altitude U-2 sorties.12

  Although the allied force buildup in the region began in November 2002, the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC) did not start keeping track of its support contributions until January 1, 2003. From that date through mid-April, AMC’s airlifters and additional chartered transport aircraft carried more than 214 million pounds of cargo and nearly 276,000 personnel in support of the campaign. Most of the American and allied troops were flown to the war zone in chartered jets. Nonmilitary chartered aircraft carried 224,047 military personnel to various forward operating locations in 4,542 sorties, with the next highest total (25,151) being transported on board C-5s. Together, C-5s and C-17s flew 11,400 sorties during the force buildup alone, with the C-5 averaging 53.8 tons per sortie and the C-17 averaging 33.1 tons per sortie. C-5s flew 99 fewer sorties than the C-17 but hauled 11,500 more tons and 5,300 more personnel.13

  The Air Force reached beyond its normal CRAF assets on tap to charter some Soviet-made An-124 heavy airlifters for especially high volume cargo missions in support of Iraqi Freedom, contracting for these aircraft with Volga Dnepr Airlines on an as-needed basis. They performed seventy-nine lift missions for CENTCOM at a cost of $28.9 million. The
Air Force also chartered fifty-three flights of Il-76 medium airlifters from Ukrainian Cargo Airways in March and April 2003. Beyond those, no other foreign carriers were contracted by the United States to support the campaign.14

  The C-17 was the more reliable of AMC’s two strategic airlifters. Having entered service only in the mid-1990s, it averaged an 88 percent in-commission rate, compared with the C-5’s 67.5 percent rate, over the four months from the start of January to the end of April 2003. (The mission-capable rate for the C-5 rose from 62.1 percent in January to 71.6 percent in April.) The air mobility portion of CENTCOM’s deployment of assets for Iraqi Freedom proved to be almost accident-free, with C-17s experiencing seven minor mishaps and the C-5 recording four incidents, but with no aircraft losses or aircraft damage totaling more than $1 million.15

  With respect to logistic support, the British contingent was similarly pleased with the overall aircraft serviceability and spares support that it received, which worked smoothly thanks to resupply procedures that had been developed and perfected during the twelve years the United Kingdom was involved with enforcing the no-fly zones and operating in a desert environment. Although the British contingent’s leaders allowed afterward that they could always have asked for more, they indicated that what they received was more than adequate to support the level of tasking to which the RAF was committed on the ATO. Air Chief Marshal Burridge did single out one important shortfall in logistics: “We are not yet fully invested in a logistic tracking system which tells us, in the same way as a global logistic company would know where every bit of kit is in transit, we have not yet got that system embedded.”16 Of the benefits in hedging against anticipated support needs he observed: “If you adopt a just-in-time concept against planning assumptions, then you are introducing risk.”17

  There also were notable contrasts between the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom and the six-week Persian Gulf War of 1991. For one thing, the speed of deployment of needed forces was very rapid in the latter campaign—only three months compared with the seven months required for Operation Desert Storm. For another, all allied strike aircraft could now drop LGBs, whereas only one in five could do so in Desert Storm. In addition, TLAMs during Desert Storm had only a five-hundred-plus-mile range and required two to three days for the target to be programmed into their terrain-following guidance systems, whereas TLAM range in Iraqi Freedom exceeded one thousand miles and each missile could be programmed within hours of a target being geolocated. Also in Iraqi Freedom, it took only minutes rather than up to two days for commanders at all levels to receive target imagery and coordinates from space-based sensors and UAVs. Only one type of UAV was available to coalition forces in Desert Storm, as opposed to ten types in Iraqi Freedom that ranged from a small, hand-launched drone to Global Hawk. Moreover, whereas in Desert Storm a hard copy of the ATO had to be delivered daily to each aircraft carrier, in Iraqi Freedom it went out simultaneously in electronic format to all units via the secure Internet protocol router network (SIPRNet). Finally, secure communications in Desert Storm were limited to the STU III secure telephone unit, whereas in Iraqi Freedom, communications via secure video teleconferencing were possible all the way down the chain of command to the tactical level of a small ground unit commander sitting in a Humvee.18

  Even before the dust from the campaign had fully settled, the four services were eager to begin compiling service-specific accounts of how each had leveraged the various technological, tactical, and doctrinal improvements that it had instituted over the course of the preceding decade. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, however, had determined even before the campaign started that JFCOM would instead undertake a single collaborative effort to report key combat lessons learned by all of the services. “This was not a war fought by the Army or the Navy or the Air Force or the Marines,” he reiterated soon after the Ba’athist regime collapsed. “It’s a war that’s been fought by joint forces.”19 CENTCOM’s director of operations at the time, Major General Renuart, observed that it had been deemed “important to consolidate the process, to make it as simple as we could for the warfighters, and give the services and other agencies the access they needed to provide a meaningful product. That has turned out to be a very, very positive relationship.”20 In hindsight, having JFCOM conduct this initial assessment on behalf of all the services was well advised. Apart from the enduring fact that instant history is usually bad history, any such efforts right out of the blocks by the individual uniformed services would almost certainly have been flawed by service parochialism. General Moseley remarked on this point shortly after the collapse of the Ba’athist regime: “Lessons-learned briefs are dangerous because the people who listen to your brief stop listening as soon as they hear the one or two items that foster their particular agenda.”21

  Nevertheless, during his subsequent postcampaign briefing at a conference attended by air war participants at all levels who had gathered at Nellis AFB in July 2003 to review, assess, and document the air war’s main events, General Moseley recited a long checklist of items and areas of activity that he personally deemed effective and useful campaign developments. These included:

  General Franks’ integrated war plan and the generally effective jointness among CENTCOM’s subordinate warfighting components;

  General Franks’ designation of General Moseley, in his capacity as the air component commander, as CENTCOM’s space coordination authority;

  integration and partnership better than experienced previously in coalition warfare;

  the aggressive and well-orchestrated theater engagement effort all of the coalition partners;

  a command relationship between the air component commander and his subordinate commander of Air Force forces forward-deployed to the theater (COMAFFOR) that was consistent with good doctrine;

  a CAOC organizational construct, manning level, and composition that were consistent with established doctrine;

  the ACCE assigned to the land component;

  the presence of other component-commander liaison officers in the CAOC;

  and the similar presence of host-nation liaison officers in the CAOC.

  With respect to highlights of the air component’s actual combat operations, Moseley’s roster included:

  the highly effective use of precision-guided munitions;

  the early transition from SEAD to DEAD operations on D+3;

  the early deployment of tankers, sensor aircraft, and UAVs forward into Iraqi airspace;

  a markedly reduced sensor-to-shooter cycle time;

  the KI/CAS concept of operations and its execution;

  the air component’s urban CAS concept of operations and its execution;

  and improved interaction between the air component and supporting national intelligence agencies.22

  JFCOM’s initial look at the campaign concluded that the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom attested to the dominance of “overmatching power” over “overwhelming force,” with the latter construct being fixated mainly on numbers “as befits a traditional, attrition-based campaign,” whereas the former looks beyond numbers to focus “on harnessing all the capabilities that [the U.S.] services and special operations forces bring to the battlespace in a coherently joint way.”23 Among the many positive accomplishments of CENTCOM’s conduct of air operations during the campaign, this chapter emphasizes improvements in air-ground coordination since Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in early 2002; improvements in force connectivity across service lines; increased targeting efficiency on CENTCOM’s and the CAOC’s part in comparison to the initial days of Operation Enduring Freedom; improvements in the effectiveness of the CAOC as a budding weapons system in its own right; advances in the combat support performance of such key enablers as space, UAVs, JSTARS, and information operations; and new munitions and technologies that saw their first combat application during the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The overall combat effects and battlespace achievements racked up by CENTCOM’s air component during the t
hree weeks of major combat are also treated below.

  Improvements in Air-Ground Coordination

  Operation Anaconda, a U.S. Army–led effort to bottle up and capture or kill Al Qaeda holdouts in the Shah-i-Kot Valley of eastern Afghanistan in March 2002, demonstrated the dangers of faulty air-ground coordination. The failure of Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) Mountain (which had been tasked with planning and executing the mission) and CENTCOM’s land component more generally to plan for the involvement of the air component nearly resulted in a disaster for the operation when CJTF Mountain’s attempted insertion of allied ground troops met unexpectedly fierce Al Qaeda opposition and left those troops for a time without adequate on-call air support. Prompted by a heated Army–Air Force argument that ensued in the early aftermath of that near debacle, when CJTF Mountain’s commander wrongly accused the Air Force of having failed to provide his embattled troops with adequate CAS in a timely manner, the Air Force’s chief of staff, General Jumper, initiated a four-star dialogue with his Army counterpart, Gen. Eric Shinseki. Their discourse did much to itemize the many misunderstandings on all sides associated with Anaconda and to implement appropriate measures to ensure that such a failure to communicate would never again hamper the effective integration of U.S. land and air forces in joint warfare.24

  A direct outgrowth of that high-level interservice dialogue was General Moseley’s establishment of an ACCE physically collocated at the headquarters of the land component commander, Lieutenant General McKiernan, in ample time for the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. As briefly explained in Chapter 1, General Leaf’s responsibility as ACCE was to represent the air component as General Moseley’s personal ambassador and spokesman, and not merely to serve as an air liaison officer between the air and land component commanders.