On 9 January, General Schwarzkopf met all of his commanders in Dammam. The air campaign would begin shortly, he told them, but--good news for Fred Franks--there was no longer pressure to start the ground campaign before 15 February. They were therefore to be ready to attack then. Meanwhile, the Iraqis were moving armor and artillery forward; it was likely that if they thought we were going to attack, they would conduct a preemptive attack. Thus, the CINC concluded, all should be in a heightened state of alert and prepared to defend themselves.
That same day, intelligence reported that the Iraqis were moving three divisions to the Wadi, either to attack or to blunt the U.S. attack.
The next day, Franks met with the French and tied their operations to his. He wanted them to defend the western approaches to Tapline Road and King Khalid Military City in case the Iraqis came wide through the opening in the west of their defensive line.
On 13 January, Franks and Martinez rode in their HMMWV with driver Staff Sergeant Dave St. Pierre cross-country in a driving rain to visit the 2/101st, now deployed into defensive positions west of Al Qaysumah. Once he personally saw their position, and met with Colonel Ted Purdom, the brigade commander, and after considering the recent intel about possible Iraqi preemptive strikes, he ordered John Tilelli to move the 1st CAV forward, and ordered reinforcement of the 2/101st with engineer support and artillery from corps. The 1st CAV moved within thirty minutes of the order, at about 1530, and closed just south of Tapline Road that evening. Later, on 23 January, Franks started the 1st CAV north of the Tapline Road. He wanted 1st CAV forward to the border to be in a better defensive position to protect the lines of communication and to begin artillery raids and feints for the deception plan.
ON 17 January, the air war started.
The air campaign against Iraq, created and waged by the USAF, with no small tactical help from the U.S. Navy, the RAF, and elements of the French air force, was on many levels a brilliantly devised and magnificently executed operation. It brought the war devastatingly to the enemy's "head"--his centers of leadership, control centers, telecommunications centers, transportation centers, and centers of production for war and for weapons of mass destruction. Never before had these centers of gravity been so effectively and precisely neutralized.
Yes, the USAF claimed at the time more precision and more devastation than was actually achieved, but that does not diminish their actual achievement. Within hours of the start of the attack, one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world was rendered virtually harmless (above roughly 10,000 feet; below that, Iraqi SAMs and antiaircraft guns could hurt you). Within days, the Iraqi air force, armed with top-of-the-line Soviet and French aircraft, was chased out of the skies. These successes not only rendered the entire country naked to air attacks, they left the Iraqi army without any deep support or capability to maneuver, and allowed the U.S. Army to make its vast move to the west for the great "left hook" undetected. By 24 February, the air campaign had wrought considerable damage on the Iraqi army--not the 50 percent of Iraqi armor and artillery that the U.S.A.F. had set out to kill, but a lot. By G-Day, the Iraqi leadership's command-and-control capability over their army was seriously diminished, and the will to fight of Iraqi frontline troops, mostly in Kuwait, had been pounded and blasted into the sand.
The RGFC was another thing. At best, 25 percent of their armor and artillery had been knocked out of action. And their will to fight . . . ? When the battle came, they fought, and fought hard. To the benefit and credit of the U.S. Army, they were outclassed.
Back to VII Corps, when the air war started, it had been forty-one days since 6 December, when the first VII Corps troops had arrived, and twenty-six days since the 2nd ACR had become operational. More than half of VII Corps was still deploying, and there was not a combat-ready division available in VII Corps.
On 11 January , Franks had ordered the corps to begin conducting "stand to" at 0500 daily. He wanted to increase their combat-ready mentality and to get daily status reports.
On 19 January, in the first VII Corps combat action since World War II, a battery of the 75th Artillery Brigade, under the command of Captain Jeff Lieb, fired a TACMS missile in support of the USAF and destroyed an Iraqi SA-2 air defense site. Franks talked to the crew later that day. They called the TACMS "AT&T," or "reach out and touch someone."
The next day, another TACMS was sent against an Iraqi logistics site that supported their armored units just behind their frontline defending division. Franks reasoned that they would go nowhere without logistics and wanted the site destroyed to prevent a preemptive attack.
Intelligence reports intensified. There were reports on 21 January of terrorist infiltrators targeting command posts. VII Corps began tracking all civilian movement in their TAAs.
On 29 January, the Iraqis did attempt a preemptive strike in the east toward the Saudi town of Khafji. They were beaten back with high losses by a combination of air and U.S. Marine and Saudi land forces. Franks and his planners and commanders took lessons from the Marine report on that operation and applied them to their upcoming attack.
That same day, a Pioneer UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) platoon was attached to the corps's 207th MI Brigade. It began flying intelligence and target-acquisition missions two days later.
ON 1 February, the 1st CAV began to assume operations up to the border, and from that day until VII Corps attacked on 24 February, the division fought what has become known as the battle of the Ruqi Pocket. Their mission was to conduct artillery raids and feints against Iraqi positions along the Wadi, to destroy Iraqi units and artillery in range of the breach, and to deceive the Iraqis that the Coalition main attack was coming north up the Wadi. As G-Day approached, the 1st CAV operation, by design, picked up intensity. Brigadier General Tilelli and his division kept constant pressure on the Iraqis by a combination of artillery raids, ground attacks up to brigade strength, and aviation attacks fifty to eighty kilometers deep.
Here are some of the notable events:
27 January--the 1st CAV captured five Iraqi deserters, the first of almost 1,800 captured during the next three weeks.
2 February--friendly fire. A U.S. HARM missile hit a 1st CAV radar site and wounded two soldiers.
5 February--the 1st CAV had its first exchange of fire across the border. Two days later, it destroyed an Iraqi border observation tower.
13 February--thirty-five EPWs (enemy prisoners of war, the new name for POWs) were collected. Later that day, sixty MLRS rockets were fired in two different strikes at targets determined by the 1st Brigade. The next day, the 1st Brigade began breaking holes in the twelve-foot-high border berm, and later that day 108 MLRS rockets were fired by the 42nd Artillery brigade under 1st CAV control. The following day, combat engineer vehicles used a variety of fire (165-mm demolition cannon, Copperhead laser-guided artillery, and TOWs fired by Bradleys) to destroy three Iraqi border observation towers.
15 February--in an operation named Redstorm/Bugle, the 1st CAV fired MLRS and cannon artillery, while the VII Corps 2/6 Apache battalion of eighteen AH-64s attacked approximately seventy-five kilometers deep into Iraqi positions.
17 February--using all of VII Corps's daily CAS (combat air support) allocations, the 1st CAV successfully destroyed numerous Iraqi artillery pieces, an MLR battery, a command post, and tanks in front of the division's sector. The following day, 1/7 CAV and 2/8 CAV, both battalion task forces of tanks and Bradleys, conducted a mounted reconnaissance forward, capturing enemy ammunition and killing defending Iraqi infantry. As they withdrew, they came under Iraqi artillery fire, which was quickly silenced by twenty-four MLRS rockets and close air support.
19 February--the 1st UK MLRS unit, under 1st CAV control, fired 192 rockets against nineteen targets. That night, 2/8 CAV ambushed an Iraqi MTLB and destroyed it with a TOW missile. It also took out a pair of enemy infantry squads with artillery fire.
20 February--Operation Knight Strike was launched by Colonel Randy House's 2nd Brigade, in the l
argest tactical fight of the war so far for VII Corps. In a running battle with Iraqi dug-in units, 1/5 CAV, a Bradley battalion, came under heavy fire, and both a Bradley and a Vulcan air defense track took direct hits from five Iraqi tanks in revetments, followed by mortar and artillery fire. The CAV struck back with artillery and close air support, destroying the Iraqi tanks and twenty artillery pieces. During the fight, a second Bradley was hit, an M1A1 tank hit a mine, and three 1st CAV soldiers were killed (nine were wounded). One of those killed in action was PFC Ardon Cooper, who threw himself over his wounded buddies to protect them from incoming Iraqi artillery fire. For this, Cooper was awarded a posthumous Silver Star.17
Even though Operation Knight Strike was successful, it showed that the Iraqis were capable of heavy concentration of fire if an attacking unit got into their prearranged fire area. But it showed as well that Iraqi fire could be quickly silenced and that they had limited ability to shift their fires from their prearranged defensive positions. The lesson was to keep them from getting set in a defensive position. You had to hit them without pause with massed combat power from an unexpected direction.
21 February--703 MLRS rockets were fired by an MLRS unit of the 1st AD under 1st CAV control at known and suspected Iraqi targets as part of the plan for all units of the corps to get into combat operations.
Meanwhile, 1st CAV armor and infantry units kept up almost continual direct-fire attacks against Iraqi units in the Ruqi Pocket area; they continued to break holes in the twelve-foot-high border berm, and they continued their relentless raids against Iraqi defending units. First UK artillery joined this fight on 22 February, and along with 1st CAV artillery, they conducted a massive artillery raid. Later reports indicated that this raid deceived the Iraqis into believing the ground offensive had started in this area.
The actions by the 1st CAV Division in the Ruqi Pocket were hugely successful. They deterred any attack south by Iraqi units, destroyed significant numbers of Iraqi units and artillery (some in range of the 1st INF breach), captured prisoners, who were a valuable source of intelligence, deceived the Iraqi command about the size and direction of the VII Corps attack, provided valuable lessons about how the Iraqis could and could not fight, lessons other units in the corps would use, and allowed the aviation and artillery units of VII Corps to be skillfully employed in the artillery raids (code-named Red-storm). These raids inflicted damage on the Iraqis and gave the rest of the corps needed combat experience. It was a masterful and selfless performance by the 1st CAV that contributed in a major way to VII Corps's battle success.
EARLIER, during the first week in February, the corps began to position their logistics west to form Log Base Echo, which was to be the provisions center for the attack. To provide security for Echo, Franks moved an element of the 1st INF on the border in front of them, just west of the 1st CAV. Their orders from Franks were to show only reconnaissance units and aviation (he didn't want the Iraqis to know a force was west of the 1st CAV) so the 1st INF immediately began actions to guard the logistics site and cover the rest of the division move. VII Corps now had forces west from the Wadi approximately eighty kilometers.
On 14 February, a Scud missile hit Hafar al Batin, narrowly missing a 1st CAV shower point. That day Franks was twenty kilometers to the east at a COSCOM briefing and could hear the impact. There were no casualties.
More attacks were launched in front of the 1st INF on 16 February. Franks wanted to start to hit Iraqi artillery in range of the breach and to conduct some aggressive reconnaissance. He reasoned that by then the Iraqis would not be able to react very much anyway. And, besides, with the increased activity of the 1st CAV, they would not notice. But he kept the 2nd ACR and the two armored divisions hidden in the west until 23 February.
The next day was G-Day. Fred Franks continues from here.
CHAPTER NINE
Coiled Spring
VII CORPS MAIN COMMAND POST G-DAY 24 FEBRUARY 1991
I was up at 0400 after a good night's sleep, hoping my leaders and troops were as well rested. We would need our energy.
In a way, I was relaxed that morning--or at least relaxed in the sense that I knew we were ready and that we had the initiative. I did not think I would make any major decisions that day, one of those rare days in the last hundred when that was the case. Most of what we had spent those hundred or so days preparing was now ready to go. The main thing was we knew when we were going to attack: tomorrow, at about 0530, or BMNT. That seemed a sure thing.
This knowledge is a definite advantage for the attacker, one not available for the defense. You can get your unit both physically arranged and mentally ready. The defenders can only wait and wonder. After all those years conceding the initiative to the Warsaw Pact in our NATO mission, I liked this much better.
But truly relaxed? No.
I felt the stress--we all did, soldiers and leaders alike. All over the command, the pressure was constant. Some of it was physical, due to the extended austere living conditions, especially for the soldiers, and some was mental, because we were going to war and there were a lot of big unknowns. Those who had not been in combat probably wondered how they would handle it. Those who knew combat wondered what this war would bring. There was also a sense of isolation there in the desert. As a commander, you do your best to relieve some of the stress by the command climate you set, the way you treat people, the decisions you make, and the way you make them. But getting soldiers and units ready for war also means tough decisions, hard work, and being unyielding on the need to meet rigorous battlefield standards. As for myself, my own way of relieving stress wasn't to take days off, but to visit fellow leaders and soldiers, to try to do things for them: "To lead is also to serve." They always did more for me than I did for them. They never failed to inspire me with their hard work, selfless attitude, sense of humor, and flat-out competence.
Like most mornings over the past hundred days, the transition from sleep to waking was not gradual. As soon as I woke up, my brain switched on full throttle. From the time we had gotten the mission, I had never stopped concentrating on the myriad issues confronting us, as well as on all the details that had to be dealt with in order to get ready for and execute combat operations. That focus consumed me that day and every day as we prepared for battle. I never concentrated as hard on anything in my life. It was seven days a week, every waking second; and it probably continued in my subconscious somehow when I slept. There were no days off; I just couldn't do that. General Hancock said it right at Gettysburg: "Today, a corps commander's life is not important." I felt it was my duty to spend myself to the max for this mission and the troops for whom I was responsible. I lived it. I internalized the various parts of the corps so that I would know its behavior like my own. It was like a living part of me. We almost became as one. I was not alone in this. I had seen all my leaders and commanders do the same in their organizations.
So I was focused and intent on what we were about to do that morning, and especially on what we needed to do that day--to the point that I didn't notice much that was around me--yet I was also about as relaxed as a commander could be this close to a major attack. I was confident, but I knew that things rarely went exactly as planned, and I was acutely aware of my responsibilities.
My first focus that morning was on what we call a commander's running estimate--the continuing assessment in my own head of what was going on in the corps and of possible enemy actions. A commander does this constantly, looking at the situation and war-gaming possibilities, and his staff does the same, often separated in time and distance.
Here is how the corps looked to me that morning as I renewed our activities over the past few days.
The main issue for us that day was to move our enveloping force (2nd ACR, 1st AD, and 3rd AD) and our breach force (1st INF) far enough forward to make the start of our attack tomorrow release like a coiled spring. This would jump-start a momentum that would not let up until we destroyed the Republican Guards, in the sector Third Army
had assigned us.
The plan for the first day of operation focused on the breach of the 1st Infantry Division. While the Big Red One conducted the deliberate breach, the 2nd ACR would continue to press on into Iraq as the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions poured their combat vehicles through the holes prepared by engineers in the ten- to twelve-foot border berm. The 1st Cavalry Division would continue its deception operations near Al Ru'Qua, and the 1st (UK) Armored Division would begin moving forward on heavy equipment transporters to exploit the 1st Infantry's breach.
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