Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  In consequence, he had the corps staff read themselves into the crisis--just in case. Corps G-2, Colonel Gene Klaus, and Corps G-3, Colonel Stan Cherrie, under the direction of the chief of staff, Brigadier General John Landry, set up a situation room at Kelly Barracks (an old Wehrmacht complex near Stuttgart that was the headquarters for VII Corps) in a vaulted-door, secure conference room facility in a basement. They set up maps, monitored the intelligence communications traffic they had obtained through their own parent headquarters in Heidelberg, posted the disposition of Iraqi forces, and of U.S. and other Coalition forces; they read up on the Iraqi army, and in general did their homework about the operation that by then was called Desert Shield. They were marching to the sound of the guns.

  At the same time, Franks had planners looking into moving the corps from Germany to the Persian Gulf. Since he knew this would be a truly enormous undertaking, if they were called to do it, he wanted to know in advance what would be involved. As it happened, the most obvious route for the corps--to go through Italian ports--was not the best one. Heavy combat equipment could not pass through the tunnels in the Alps. Thus the fastest route, counterintuitively, looked to be through the northern ports of Germany.

  He also had his planners look at an indirect approach to forcing the Iraqis out of Kuwait. "What if we moved VII Corps to eastern Turkey," he asked, "and then attacked toward Baghdad? Is that a workable alternative? Could we move our corps through the terrain and could we logistically support the operation?" After some corps planning work, it began to look like a workable option. As far as they could see, no Iraqi force was available to stop them. If Saddam saw an armored corps on the move to Baghdad, he might quickly decide his capital was worth more than Kuwait.

  Franks informally discussed the Turkey option to his own higher commanders, General Crosbie ("Butch") Saint, the U.S. Army Europe commander, and General Jim McCarthy, USAF, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, both bold thinkers, and they both liked the idea. But when they tried the concept out on still higher echelons, Franks's idea was squelched.

  The American buildup in the Gulf was directed by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander in chief (CINC) of CENTCOM (Central Command), headquartered in Tampa, Florida. CENTCOM is one of six United States multiservice--joint--commands, its area of military responsibility covering most of southwest Asia and the Middle East, with the exception of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, which are under EUCOM (European Command). Before the crisis in the Gulf, CENTCOM existed only as a planning body, which is to say that there were no actual troops under CENTCOM control. In case of need, troops from all the services would be given to CENTCOM (in Army terminology, they would be "chopped" to CENTCOM) from other geographical commands. CENTCOM would be the "supported" command, and other joint commands, such as EUCOM and FORSCOM, would be "supporting." CENTCOM trained with the various contingency units, who would normally be "chopped" to their command if need arose.

  In August 1990, XVIII Airborne Corps from FORSCOM was chopped to CENTCOM and immediately began deploying to Saudi Arabia, along with air and naval forces. The XVIII Corps, commanded by Lieutenant General Gary Luck, was what the Army calls a contingency corps. It was specifically configured to deploy worldwide to meet a variety of circumstances, and to do so rapidly. It was made up of the 82nd Airborne Division, commanded by Major General James Johnson; the 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Major General J. H. Binford Peay; the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), commanded by Major General Barry McCaffrey (a heavy division); the 1st Cavalry Division, commanded by Brigadier General John Tilelli; and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Colonel Doug Starr. Units of XVIII Corps began closing in theater in early August. The last to arrive, the 1st Cavalry Division, closed on 22 October.

  Fred Franks was sure that if VII Corps or VII Corps units were to join XVIII Corps in the Gulf, they would know what to do. He was not certain who would be called, but knew his job was to have them ready if they were needed. If a whole corps was needed, they were the right team, he knew, to give the growing U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia real offensive punch on the ground. That decision would come in time, but there were false starts, false alarms, and zigzags along the way.

  In August, after aviation elements from neighboring V Corps were alerted and then deployed, Franks asked and received General Saint's OK to alert his own aviation brigade for possible deployment of an attack aviation battalion. Though they worked hard to put the move together, the battalion did not deploy. Even so, Colonel Johnnie Hitt, the 11th Aviation Brigade commander, and his troops taught the rest of the corps a great deal about preparing for the move. As it turned out, this was an important planning drill for Franks and the corps staff. At about the same time, the first VII Corps troops to actually go to the Gulf were alerted and deployed--two NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) reconnaissance platoons, equipped with German-built FUCHS (FOX) vehicles.

  Later in September, Franks had a meeting on force drawdown with General Saint at U.S. Army Europe Headquarters in Heidelberg, about forty-five minutes from Stuttgart by helicopter. It was clear by then that VII Corps HQ was soon going to be deactivated. "Look, sir," Franks suggested, "if another corps is needed, why don't you just send us to the Gulf? We're already halfway there. We're going to be out of a mission in Central Europe. The decision is, V Corps will be the residual European corps with headquarters in Frankfurt. Why don't you just send VII Corps? We know what to do. We've had our BCTPs. You know about the training we've been doing. Send us."

  Saint was open to that idea and passed it on to higher command. But nothing immediately came of it, at least to Franks's knowledge.

  By October, it was becoming increasingly obvious to the military leadership in Washington that the XVIII Corps was not going to provide them with an adequate offensive option against the Iraqis, if the President chose to exercise such an option. And so, in due course, Franks was alerted to send to the Gulf the 1st Armored Division, commanded by Major General Ron Griffith. But soon this deployment was put on hold.

  Later in October, he received official instructions to begin planning to send the whole corps. But a few days after that, the message from higher up took another zigzag: "Stand down on your planning," he was told. "But don't throw anything away."

  "WILCO," Franks and his team, good soldiers, replied, but the order was a painful jolt for all of them. They wanted to go; they expected to go; and they had all been working hard to prepare to go. And then . . . well, what did this new order mean?

  And just a few days after that, on 2 November, there was still another zigzag: "No, revive that, but keep it very, very close hold"--meaning, under tight security, with very few people in the know.

  A very small planning cell was reconstituted, including Franks's deputy, Brigadier General Gene Daniel; chief of staff, Brigadier General John Landry; Support Command commander (VII Corps logistics), Brigadier General Bob McFarlin; corps G-3, Colonel Stan Cherrie; G-3 plans chief, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Goedkoop; deputy G-4, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Stafford; G-4 planner, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Browne; and G-1 planner, Major Paul Liebeck. It was a smart, talented team.

  THE days after 2 November saw Franks shuttling back and forth to Heidelberg and General Saint. Under the cover of discussions on the planned drawdown of VII Corps, he and Saint worked on the troop list and all the other myriad choices needed for the deployment of VII Corps to the Gulf. It did not take them long to realize that the Cold War, NATO-oriented VII Corps would not work in that theater. The new mission demanded a new team. VII Corps would have to be reconstituted from a terrain-oriented, defensive corps to a maneuver, contingency corps, with fully modernized maneuver battalions, equipped with the latest M1A1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley armored fighting vehicles--not an easy transformation.

  To make matters even more difficult, the corps would be moving to a location that was, for all practical purposes, empty . . . nowhere. VII Corps was now configured to fight in Central Europe, where they operated within
a sophisticated infrastructure of communications, roads, railroads, supplies, and fuel. In Central Europe, the corps also normally availed itself of what is called host-nation support: that is, territorial units of the German army and some German civilian agencies were set up to supplement the corps's need for logistics, troops, equipment, and supplies. Saudi Arabia, at best, offered a much more austere operating environment. In Saudi, there was little to no infrastructure. When you're out in the middle of the desert, you have nothing . . . nothing. So you've got to bring your infrastructure with you.

  They would have to deploy. It was never intended for a corps to plan and execute its own strategic deployment. Both USAREUR and EUCOM HQ sent planning cells to Kelly Barracks, and Lieutenant General John Shalikashvili, Saint's deputy, was to be a big help.

  General Saint, who was himself the leading proponent of mobile armored warfare in the Army, wanted VII Corps to be successful and to give them what they needed, yet at the same time, he and his boss, General Jack Galvin, EUCOM commander, faced serious tensions between the needs of VII Corps in the Gulf and the needs of their own residual mission in Europe. VII Corps was already forward-deployed into a theater with an immediate and very serious mission; now it was to be deployed to still another theater. In such cases, conflicts between the two theaters' needs are inevitable. General Saint had to balance the residual Army mission capability of the forces remaining after VII Corps had deployed with the need to provide the corps with the necessary forces to accomplish their mission in CENTCOM in Saudi Arabia. It was not an easy choice for him, and it was not always easy for General Franks to accept what General Saint wanted him to take. At times the discussions between the two generals about the right mix of forces and amount of support grew heated.

  Heated discussions between generals are not uncommon. To Fred Franks, this kind of candor is expected behavior. It goes with the job of general. Commanders who do not pound the table to make their case for accomplishing their mission are not doing their job. They should--and must--talk tough to each other. Generals do not tend to be delicate souls. Strong egos are part of their job description. They will stand up for what they believe in, normally in private meetings. A general who does not is almost surely a liability to his command.

  Heated discussions require a particular kind of atmosphere in order to be productive, however. They demand openness on both sides. There has to be a true exchange, with each side asking questions and arguing his case, and then when all the arguments are exhausted, the senior commander has to make his decision. After that, it's "Yes, sir, WILCO," and you get to work and execute.

  It's the senior commander's responsibility to create the work atmosphere that suits him, and that will be the most productive. It's called the command climate, and it's a function of a commander's command style. Coming out of cavalry, Fred Franks and Butch Saint were used to a command climate of fast-moving, open, often-animated discussions. Other commanders, either consciously or as a result of personality or the service culture they come out of, will favor something different. General Norman Schwarzkopf, for instance, was a passionate, charismatic leader with a famously thermonuclear temper and an equally famous propensity to verbally gut any subordinate who--in his perception--crossed him. All commanders like the visible and enthusiastic support of subordinates. Schwarzkopf went further. He didn't welcome contradiction, much less the kind of openness and candor that is often the way with other commanders. This difference would become important later.

  THIS is the makeup of VII Corps that Generals Franks and Saint hammered out:

  From their European VII Corps divisions, they would take only the 1st Armored. From Europe, they would additionally take the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, the Support Command, plus other corps regimental and brigade units, totaling about 42,000 of the original 110,000 soldiers--in the end, only 40 percent of the original European corps. The rest of VII Corps would come from other units in Europe and the continental United States. These would include units from the Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve, who would join the Support Command and the existing corps brigade units. VII Corps also would eventually include the British 1st Armored Division, but they had no idea of that in November. Some major specifics: The 3rd Armored Division, from V Corps, commanded by Major General Paul "Butch" Funk, would go in place of the 3rd Infantry Division (though a brigade from the 3rd Infantry Division did go). And the 1st Infantry Division would deploy with two brigades from Fort Riley, and add the 2nd Armored Division forward brigade from northern Germany, which would join them in Saudi Arabia. Three complete artillery brigades (one from V Corps in Germany, one from the Arkansas National Guard, and one from III Corps in the United States) were added to the 210th Brigade, one of three in NATO VII Corps, to form its corps artillery. The VII Corps support command in Germany--in that built-up modern infrastructure--numbered 7,500 U.S. soldiers. In Desert Storm--in the austere desert environment--they grew to over 26,000 soldiers, including a medical brigade of fifteen hospitals.

  Each of the eight non-division brigades in the corps also grew. For example, two brigades of three battalions each were added to the 7th Engineer Brigade. And to increase air defense capabilities, a composite air defense task force of Patriot and HAWK units was added. Many of these additions, made by Franks's 1959 West Point classmate and FORSCOM commander, General Ed Burba, came from the Reserve component (National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve) in the States. From the Reserve component, 21,000 soldiers and their equipment were added (19,000 in units and another 2,000 as individual replacements). In a little over ninety days, VII Corps grew by a total of 124,000 soldiers. And when the corps attacked the Republican Guards, it was a new corps team of 146,000 U.S. and British soldiers and close to 50,000 vehicles.

  Once this essentially new corps team was in the desert, just to live and train, everything had to be created from what they brought with them--shelter, sanitation, waste disposal, mail system, water, and training ranges for weapons firing and maneuver practice. Beyond that, capabilities to attack over long distances had to be provided, such as additional trucks for fuel and ammunition, additional communication (capable of reaching longer distances), and additional support of all types, such as medical personnel and engineers (to build roads, airfields, and breach minefields).

  Units and equipment had to be added to make up the difference. VII Corps had to become a corps much like XVIII Corps, capable of being deployed, then of fighting and supporting itself. That meant adding many units for a contingency role for which they had not prepared. Although XVIII Corps also had to add units for their mission, for them it proved less of an adjustment, for they were already trained and configured for that. VII Corps had been deployed, permanently stationed, and configured to fight in Central Europe. There had been no thought to making it a "contingency corps," capable of being picked up from Germany and deployed worldwide. In going through this experience, VII Corps was to be a microcosm of what the entire U.S. Army would be required to do over the next few years--that is, rapid tailoring to accomplish missions that were difficult to predict far in advance. Such rapid tailoring is now part of the U.S. Army's revised (1993) doctrine, and is now done with relative ease (as we have seen recently in Army deployments to Haiti and Bosnia).

  VII Corps changed dramatically from Europe to southwest Asia. In Europe the corps was geared to a terrain-oriented mission defending against a Soviet/Warsaw Pact threat. In Desert Storm, the mission was force-oriented, and the corps was tailored to find and kill a powerful opposing force in an attack that spread over long distance.

  So for VII Corps it was not a matter of picking up the existing Cold War VII Corps in Germany, moving it to Saudi Arabia, fighting the Iraqis, then boarding ships and planes and coming home. In a little less than 100 days, a new corps was built from a no-notice start; it was moved via ship and air to southwest Asia; units got used to operating together; and then they fought a major land campaign.

  The VII Corps name was the same, but in the deserts of Saudi Ara
bia and Iraq, it was quite a different corps.

  WHEN VII Corps did deploy--and even at this late date it was not certain that they would--VII Corps would no longer be part of the NATO coalition in Germany, but of a new coalition, led by a new command team, General Schwarzkopf, CENTCOM, and Lieutenant General John Yeosock, Third Army, in a part of the world where they had absolutely no experience. They had a lot of work ahead of them, and not a lot of time to accomplish it.

  On Thursday, 8 November, Franks was again in Heidelberg with General Saint. At that meeting, the final troop list was approved, and many other details were worked out.

  Sometime during the meeting, Franks asked, "Sir, when do you think we might get the word to go?"

  "Should be sometime later today, I think," Saint answered.

  All right! Franks thought. Finally!

  Later, back in Stuttgart, there was a phone call from Heidelberg. Major General John Heldstab, deputy chief of staff for operations, was on the line. "Fred, it's a go," Heldstab told him. "Watch CNN at 2000 tonight over Armed Forces Network."

  "What about official notification, John?"

  "As soon as we get something official, I'll get a message to your headquarters."