by John Keegan
About the use of armour in built-up areas, such as Basra and Nasiriyah: the general emphasized that it was a deliberate policy not to block city highways by using airpower to demolish buildings, so that tanks could manoeuvre freely and target points of resistance with their main armaments. The policy, he said, proved highly successful. Tanks operated with great success, against conventional thinking, in built-up areas. Some Iraqi units were able to immobilize tanks, by using RPGs against their road wheels, but the number of successful attacks was few. The Iraqis suffered heavy casualties in attempting to ‘swarm’ tanks with foot soldiers.
Turning to the western front, the general responded at length to my question about using the ‘hard’ desert to bypass the area of paved roads west of the Euphrates and press the advance on Baghdad. He said that it was a misunderstanding to think that the advance from Basra to Baghdad had been achieved across the gravel desert. In fact, most of the advance had been made along the highways and it was only just short of Baghdad that the 3rd Infantry Division’s armoured columns had left the paved roads to make use of a ‘spit’ of naturally hard surface between Karbala and the adjacent lake to press forward.
He turned finally to discuss the Baghdad front. Baghdad, he said, had always been seen as the critical focus of the offensive, and the place where the ‘tipping point’ of the campaign would occur. The exact focus was Baghdad International Airport. It was a location of vital prestige to the régime. Its capture intact would also – as the Ba’athists would recognize – permit the reinforcement of the ground offensive with troops and supplies virtually at the point of final assault – at the place of victory or defeat. General Franks reflected here on what he called the ‘inside-out’ nature of the air attack on Iraqi formations defending Baghdad. He stressed very strongly that he sought to avoid ‘collapsing’ the Republican Guard into the city, thus filling its buildings and streets with the better-trained Iraqi soldiers. He wanted them to remain outside. With that object in view, airpower was used to attack the divisions’ rear areas and lines of retreat, so as to persuade the enemy that they were safer where they were. The procedure was successful. Few of the Republican Guard left their positions and the divisions were engaged and neutralized by advancing American units well outside the city limits. They were unable to manoeuvre so as to defend Baghdad airport so that, as it began to fall into American hands, the ‘tipping point’ was reached.
Because the built-up areas of Baghdad had deliberately not been devastated by air attack, he was able to use armour in a novel way inside the city. In an aside, the general revealed that he had never cared for the use of the term ‘shock and awe’ and, though no doubt the initial bombing of the government quarter did cause shock and awe, he had not seen that effect as the point of the air offensive. He saw the point as the dislocation of the command and administrative structure. The forecasts of Baghdad becoming ‘another Stalingrad’ were proved wrong; armoured units were able to fight with almost the same freedom of action inside as outside the urban area, and to achieve rapid and decisive results. Main armament was fired effectively, down boulevards, at ranges of as much as 1,000 metres (1,093 yards).
In answer to a question, General Franks said it was his impression that, once large-scale operations began, the Iraqi command and control system was not effective. He did not think that anyone was in charge, ‘anyone’ including Saddam, Uday or Qusay. He believed that the Iraqi defence system ‘went onto automatic’, simply reacting as it had been trained to do in peacetime, not responding to American attacks by calculated counter-thrusts.
After taking over an hour and a half of General Franks’s time, I felt I had trespassed long enough on his patience and goodwill. I also felt, correctly, that I had acquired a comprehensive overview of the sequence of the war’s main events, and of the interaction of offence and defence. The General’s presentation was a tour de force. No military analyst could have expected more in the time available.
In retrospect, I nevertheless recognize grey areas and blank spots in my understanding. For example, were there critical engagements in the ground fighting and, if so, when, where and between which formations? How important was the role of the air forces – in ground attack, in heliborne operations, in interdiction? How important was intervention by 82nd Airborne and 101st Air Assault? Was there at any stage, as the media alleged, a shortage of force on the ground? Was it true, as alleged, that there was a lack of ‘force protection’ on the march up to Baghdad? Was there a ‘wobble week’? On that subject, did the embedded media assist or detract from the evolution of the operation? Could the British have taken control of Basra earlier than they did?
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A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Keegan’s books include Intelligence in War, The First World War, The Battle for History, The Face of Battle, War and Our World, The Mask of Command, Fields of Battle, and A History of Warfare. He is the defence editor of The Daily Telegraph (London). He lives in Wiltshire, England.
