In particular, General Moseley valued the trust relationship between General Franks and himself (and between CENTCOM and its air component more generally) that had gradually evolved since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan nearly two years before. Indeed, so great was Moseley’s autonomy as Franks’ air component commander that as the opening night of full-scale air operations against Iraq was unfolding, CENTCOM’s director of operations, Major General Renuart, plaintively pressed him for an air component update, asking: “Will you tell us what you’re bombing when you get a chance?” With regard to this significant improvement in the CAOC’s freedom of action in setting the pace and focus of strike operations compared with the first halting weeks of Enduring Freedom, General Moseley frankly characterized the earlier air war over Afghanistan as “the JV [junior varsity] scrimmage” for Iraqi Freedom. Of the substantial improvement in joint force performance that the latter experience reflected, he noted that “you learn to fight by fighting.”14
In this important regard, the Iraqi Freedom experience clearly highlighted the need for regular and recurrent large-force peacetime training evolutions among the participating warfighting components to exercise the joint command and control system from top to bottom. For example, kill-box management in the counterland war would most likely have been far more efficient and effective in execution if all involved command and control entities had been given a prior opportunity to rehearse tactics, manage kill boxes, and flow combat aircraft into areas in which immediate responsive CAS was needed. CENTAF analysts later concluded that Marine Corps expeditionary forces and Army corps elements must be included in such exercises to practice and refine the target nomination and prioritization process.15 With continuing planned improvements to the Air Force’s training CAOC at Nellis AFB, the entire joint force command and control and combat forces complex should have ample opportunities to gain access to such training in future Red Flag operations.
Based on the campaign experience, CENTAF staffers stressed the obligation of the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command and the U.S. Army’s Forces Command to pursue increased opportunities for full-scale and joint live-fly training exercises, to include full-up AOCs and ASOCs in such exercises, and to recognize the value of training for future joint high-intensity warfare as it is most likely to be fought.16 A knowledgeable airman aptly described the main problem with the present status of joint air-ground training, observing that air power has typically been
handcuffed to operate in unrealistic ways. First, aircraft [in even recent past joint training exercises] were directed to fly low and in nontactical ways so the Army could “see” air power. Second, using air power realistically would have been so devastating to the OPFOR [opposing force] that it would have reduced the difficulty of the tactical problem for the brigade commander. Third, air power’s effects were accordingly reduced to allow the brigade commanders to achieve the desired learning objectives. Fourth, the E-8 JSTARS was directed not to provide the full picture to the ground, since this would provide too much situational awareness to the brigade commander. JSTARS was not allowed to transmit the marshaling OPFOR’s positions to the ground forces undergoing training. Finally, the participants did not practice conducting joint deep fires, since [the Army’s National Training Center] was designed to test the close battle.17
In a comprehensive overview of the areas of combat performance that mattered most at the campaign’s operational and strategic levels, an after-action assessment conducted at Air Combat Command concluded that new levels of achievement demonstrated by allied air forces while pursuing CENTCOM’s initial goals in Operation Iraqi Freedom included early establishment of uncontested control of the air, the dominance of mass precision, unprecedented rapidity of action, unprecedented connectivity and integration of ISR and command and control, unprecedented efficacy of joint warfare, and unprecedented service flexibility in rapid adaptation.18 On the first count just noted, the British MoD’s after-action report observed that CENTCOM’s plan for allied ground combat was “facilitated throughout by an air campaign which achieved significant attrition of the enemy’s combat power and involved unprecedented accuracy and lethality based on the widespread, though not exclusive, use of precision munitions and linked sensors and data streams.”19 The air component’s achievement of air dominance in the skies over Iraq enabled all else that followed with respect to harmonious joint force integration in conducting offensive operations with virtual impunity.
As for the tangible results that were made possible by this application of allied air power, the Air Combat Command review concluded that “the coordinated use of coalition air power quickly created the conditions that allowed land forces to achieve high rates of maneuver and tempo in response to enemy activity.”20 It further observed: “Captured senior Iraqi General Staff officers reported that the fighting effectiveness of the Republican Guard divisions had been largely destroyed by air strikes.”21 Essentially confirming this observation, Col. William Grimsley, commander of the 1st Brigade of the U.S. Army’s 3rd ID, recalled: “We never really found any cohesive unit of any brigade, of any Republican Guard division.”22
The air portion of CENTCOM’s campaign to topple the Ba’athist regime actually began in the summer of 2002 when U.S. and British aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone began systematically picking apart the Iraqi IADS by attacking fiber-optic cable nodes that connected its command centers, radars, and weapons. When full-scale combat operations began in earnest on March 20, 2003, the rapid collapse of forward-deployed Iraqi ground units in the south freed up allied aircraft to concentrate on the Republican Guard almost from the very start. Lieutenant Colonel Hathaway, General Moseley’s chief strategist, observed that the overarching objective of that effort was to ensure that the Republican Guard’s forces would be so physically and psychologically incapacitated that they would be unable to mount any significant resistance when allied ground forces moved into contact with them.23 Toward that end, the CAOC moved tankers and airborne ISR aircraft deep into Iraqi airspace and cleared allied aircrews to drop at will against any Republican Guard targets of opportunity in designated kill boxes. Aircraft returning to base with unexpended ordnance from missions against prebriefed fixed targets were often redirected to engage detected Republican Guard tanks and artillery emplacements, both static and moving, as their assigned “dump” targets.
The three-week air war was also distinguished by the application of mass precision for the first time. Although the total number of precision-guided munitions used during the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom was about the same as that used in Desert Storm, that number represented an order of magnitude increase overall because only about 7 percent of the munitions employed in Desert Storm were precision-guided, whereas in Iraqi Freedom the number was close to 70 percent. CENTCOM’s deputy commander, Lieutenant General DeLong, called Operation Iraqi Freedom “one of the most surgical and precise bombing and ground campaigns in the history of warfare.”24 Since all allied strike aircraft participating in the major combat phase were capable of delivering precision-guided munitions, the ratio of aircraft to targets attacked was unprecedentedly low. In contrast to the five-week air offensive portion of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, which saw 126,645 sorties flown, for a daily average of 2,945, the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom generated only about 41,000 sorties, for a daily average of only 1,576, while producing the desired combat effects.25 During the campaign’s first twenty-four hours, literally every allied air-delivered weapon directed against an Iraqi target was precision-guided. Even by March 24, well into the war’s first week, 80 percent of the air-delivered munitions were precision-guided.
More important than CENTCOM’s increased reliance on precision munitions per se was the addition of inertially aided munitions, which offered four distinct advantages over their laser-guided counterparts. First, they can be delivered accurately against fixed targets regardless of weather conditions. Second, the aim points do not nee
d to be deconflicted with respect to their proximity to one another. In the case of laser-guided munitions, combat pilots must ensure that the infrared “bloom” of another weapon detonation nearby does not affect the effectiveness of their own bombs. Inertially aided munitions, in contrast, permit attack on a target complex en masse. Third, they can enable fighter aircraft to attack two or more aim points during a single weapons delivery pass. Finally, they allowed coalition aircrews to achieve the greatest possible standoff from defended targets because they could release their weapons and immediately depart the area without having to continue to mark their intended aim point with a laser spot on which an LGB could guide until impact. A senior CAOC planner pointed out in this regard, “These factors allowed us to achieve mass that had not been possible before on a large scale. Indeed, the only combat aircraft that did not carry inertially aided munitions during the first night’s attacks were F-15Es, because they had not yet been loaded with the requisite software.”26
This pathbreaking application of mass precision was for the first time accompanied by a prevalence of effects-based thinking; that is, allied air operations were driven by specific desired results rather than the achievement of arbitrary levels of target destruction per se. Col. Mason Carpenter, the head of the CAOC’s strategy division, subsequently wrote in this regard:
The air and space effort was measured in effects, not numbers. Numbers were only interesting insofar as they helped determine effects. It did not really matter how many armored vehicles were destroyed. The real measure was how hard and well did the Iraqi armored divisions fight. When an Iraqi tank crew took off their uniforms and deserted, their tank was almost as good as destroyed. . . . Many of the surface forces failed to fight; the Iraqi air force failed to fly; and the Iraqi leadership failed to command. Effects are the bottom line.27
Carpenter added that this important net effect “cannot be captured or appreciated by traditional measures, such as the percentage of vehicles destroyed, numbers of sorties flown, or the percentage of munitions expended.”28
With respect to rapidity of action, Air Chief Marshal Burridge described the campaign as “the first operation that [he] would characterize as postmodern warfare,” in that “the degree and speed of maneuver and the tempo that was achieved was startling.”29 The speed of the coalition forces’ advance clearly impressed the Iraqi military leadership as well. During postcampaign interrogations conducted by JFCOM, numerous senior Iraqi officers and other operational-level commanders cited the speed and unpredictability of allied offensive operations as the main factors that led to the early collapse of their own forces.30
To be sure, the allied ground advance was slowed for a time by the unanticipated resistance from Fedayeen Saddam, the three-day shamal, logistics concerns, and the absence of prompt feedback on the progress of the land offensive. The air portion of the campaign, however, sustained its high pace of operations without interruption throughout the three weeks of major fighting. In the end, coalition forces made it to Baghdad from a standing start in just twenty-one days. It is hard to imagine how the ground advance could have gone much faster even had everything worked flawlessly. One assessment of the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom credited its success to “massive, precise, and responsive air power and a ground force that attacked over unprecedented distances with previously unseen speed.”31 Colonel Carpenter later concluded in a similar vein: “Never in the history of warfare has this much precision air power been applied in such a compressed period of time.”32 A Marine Corps reconnaissance platoon commander who was at the leading edge of I MEF’s final push toward Baghdad offered this succinct portrayal of what that accomplishment meant in practice: “For the next hundred miles, all the way to the gates of Baghdad, every palm grove hid Iraqi armor, every field an artillery battery, and every alley an antiaircraft gun or surface-to-air missile launcher. But we never fired a shot. We saw the full effect of American air power: every one of these fearsome weapons was a blackened hulk.”33
This last testament underscores tellingly how the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom showcased the manner in which counterland air attack has increasingly begun to move doctrinally beyond solely the classic supporting roles of CAS (direct support) and air interdiction (indirect support) toward missions that are not intended just to support the friendly ground force, but rather to destroy the enemy’s army directly and independently as the overall main weight of effort. An Air Force doctrine expert commented in this regard, “In the last update to Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2–1.3, Counterland Operations, we added a short section describing the generic term ‘attack’ as applying to those counterland missions that do not fall under the traditional mission rubrics of CAS or air interdiction. . . . I think it will be a while before we get this into joint doctrine, but the momentum is there.”34
In addition, owing again to the successful precedent established in Afghanistan, the Iraq war featured a more closely linked force than ever before. As one CENTCOM staffer put it: “Everything that had a sensor was connected.”35 Persistent ISR provided by airborne and space-based sensors coupled with a precision-strike capability by all participating combat aircraft allowed General Moseley to deliver discriminant effects throughout the battlespace virtually on demand. This cross-service synergy was greatly aided by the extraordinary collegiality that General Franks fostered all the way from the campaign’s earliest planning workups to the conclusion of major combat. During a strategy review session in the Pentagon with all four service chiefs on March 29, 2002, almost a year before the start of combat operations, Franks stated categorically: “At the end of the day, combatants, and that’s either me or the boss I work for [Secretary Rumsfeld], are going to put together a joint and combined operation here, and it is not going to scratch the itch of any one of the services.”36 The most comprehensive and thorough assessment of U.S. Army operations during the campaign characterized the unprecedented level of harmonious cooperation among the components as “arguably . . . the first ‘jointly’ coherent campaign since the Korean War,” as well as also “arguably the first campaign in which the initiatives inherent in the Goldwater-Nichols legislation bore full fruit.”37 Much the same can be said for the integration of space, mobility, and information in General Moseley’s planning and execution of allied air and space operations. One account characterized him as “the quarterback of the [air] operation, calling audibles in response to changing circumstances.”38
This unprecedented efficacy of joint force employment was a significant force multiplier in and of itself. There was a minimum of preoccupation with who was “supported” and who was “supporting.” On the contrary, the intercomponent relationships were fluid and dynamic. In sharp contrast to the initially flawed execution of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, in which CJTF Mountain’s two-star Army commander sought at first to go it alone rather than seek the active involvement of fixed-wing air power, the integration of the air component into the planning and execution of joint operations in Iraqi Freedom was generally done properly and was essential in producing the resultant joint-force synergy. Indeed, seemingly anticipating the harmonious interaction at the operational and tactical levels, Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, at that time the head of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation, observed several months before the campaign’s start that “a new air-ground system has come into existence where you no longer talk in terms of one being supported and the other being supporting. That would be like asking if the lungs are in support of the heart or if the heart is in support of the lungs. It’s a single system.”39
This pattern of performance, moreover, was light-years removed from so-called Little League rules of joint warfare, in which all force elements are treated as coequal and each gets its fair-share chance to play a part. Instead, the component commanders pooled their combined combat assets into a “job jar” from which they selectively drew and matched the right combination of forces for any given situation. The result was an unprecedented mutual-su
pport relationship between allied air and ground forces working in full concert. “The Iraqi land forces were forced to expose themselves by the speed of land operations and then hit hard from the air,” one author noted, “which, in turn, sharply reduced the Iraqi threat to U.S. and British land forces. Jointness took on a new practical meaning.”40
Allied air and ground operations were almost seamlessly integrated, with target information flowing with unprecedented rapidity and ease from SOF troops to aircrews and vice versa. Thanks to what senior leaders in the CAOC described as a “ruthless, staring constellation [of surveillance assets] looking at Baghdad,” allied SOF units could spot targets and pass that information to an ISR system that got it promptly transmitted to strike aircraft orbiting overhead.41 General DeLong later commended the U.S. military for “successfully transforming itself from being service-based to being joint-based.”42 The war saw air and space operations integrated into “a combined and joint campaign in the truest sense of the words. . . . No single component held the key to success—it required the full team effort for the coalition to succeed quickly.”43
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