Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

by Tom Clancy

  I was stunned.

  But we put out the warning order. None of my commanders came back on the radio to protest stopping.

  This was the third set of orders given to the corps that day. First had been the double envelopment. Second had been the adjustment based on Ron Griffith's radio call, our orders to keep 3rd AD and 1st INF from running into each other, and the postponement of the 1st CAV attack based on Ron Griffith's late call. Now this. We would issue two more orders before the cease-fire the next day. It was not the kind of battle rhythm pace I liked when issuing orders to an attacking corps of 146,000 soldiers and 50,000 vehicles--in fact, it was the kind of pace that I had been used to when I was a captain with 137 soldiers and fifty vehicles.

  As I let it all sink in, many things went through my mind. My initial thoughts were ones of frustration: We had not yet finished the mission. We had the Iraqis on the floor. Let's finish it. Run right through the finish line at full speed.

  Yet if someone knew something I did not, and if he thought we had reached our strategic goals, I was glad that our troops were done and there would be no more casualties. The corps was tired. In maybe another twenty-four hours, I would have had to start rotating units in and out to generate some fresh combat power.

  I asked myself if I had been forceful enough in painting the local tactical picture to John Yeosock, and decided I had. We had been especially attentive to it since his earlier reports of the CINC's "concerns," and John got reports from not only me directly, but from Colonel Dick Rock and Colonel Carl Ernst, who had been at my 27 February morning planning session. Third Army had as precise a picture of our situation and the enemy's then as at any time in the war. As for CENTCOM, I had no idea what they knew, but I had to assume that it was whatever Third Army knew.

  I did not bypass John Yeosock and call General Schwarzkopf directly to protest. I trusted Yeosock. He knew mounted operations and, even though he was in Riyadh, he had a great feel for what still needed to be done tactically in our sector of attack. I had made my case with him and that was it. At the same time, I trusted that the senior leadership knew what they were doing. We were not yet done tactically, but if there were other considerations that made a cease-fire a wise strategic choice, then OK, we would execute.

  When I let the TAC know, their reaction was not unlike mine. First, they had questions: "Is this right?" Then, like me, they asked, "Why now?" Then, when the end appeared inevitable, there was a noticeable sign of physical letdown. With the adrenaline gone, the momentum and charged atmosphere of only a few moments earlier went away. I knew it would be like that all over the corps as the word got out.

  When the corps command post first received word of the anticipated cessation of hostilities, all of the brigades in the corps were in heavy contact with the enemy and the 1st Cavalry Division anticipated action. As the time of the cease-fire changed, units continued to attack forces in Kuwait and Iraq. The 1st INF was heading "toward the blue."

  It is here that human factors come into play in a large combat unit.

  By 1800 that evening, I was using the combat power of the corps at full throttle, with maneuvers set in motion that would complete our mission in another twenty-four hours. We had four divisions committed, with a fresh division in the 1st CAV. The troops and commanders, while tired, were still capable of continuing the attacks at a peak level of intensity, stimulated both by the continuation of the attack and the prospects of victory. They were driving on. Yet if ever the momentum got interrupted, it would be hell getting it started again. It is a fact of soldier and unit behavior. When you're operating at close to endurance limits and pushing yourself and your soldiers to stay at that level, you must keep going. Any halt means a precipitous drop in energy level, because the stimulus is removed. Without that stimulus of movement and action, units fall idle very fast, like dropping off a cliff. After that, it is damn near impossible to rouse them to previous levels. I had seen it happen many times in training and in combat in Vietnam.

  So when we confirmed the rumors of a cease-fire, the air went out of the balloon. When we put the order out just before midnight, we could just feel the corps attack momentum come to a halt.

  VII CORPS ACTIONS

  While all this was going on, actions in VII Corps continued.

  First INF units had had almost four days of nonstop actions, accompanied by constant adjustment to retain unit integrity--to make sure the right units were in the right combination. These adjustments were especially frequent at night, when the units could easily become separated. One of those units was the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor, an M1A1 tank battalion in the 2nd Armored Division Forward, which had been one of the two lead brigades in Tom Rhame's night attack toward Objective Norfolk on the previous night. By now they had attacked and moved all day and were approaching Highway 8.

  On 27 February, according to an account by Captain Tim Ryan and Captain Bill Rabena, "the afternoon sun was setting as the brigade snaked its way down a valley leading from the Kuwaiti central plateau to the coastal plain [the troops would call it the "Valley of the Boogers," because of the severely broken terrain and the hidden Iraqis]. The dense black smoke from the burning oil wells twenty miles away made it seem several hours later. Captain Tim Ryan, the D Company, 3/66 Armor commander, had just finished issuing orders to his company for yet another brigade night attack when the change of mission from Lieutenant Colonel Jones came over the radio." Because Taylor Jones, the battalion commander, did not want to lose any howitzers to attacks by bypassed Iraqi units known to be still in the area, Jones ordered Ryan to go back to the rear and escort the howitzer batteries of 4/3 Field Artillery battalion forward so that they could safely get in better position to support the attack. Ryan decided to use only two tanks, his and that of Staff Sergeant Stringer, for the mission. "As Ryan and Stringer turned their tanks around for the return trip," after one successful escort, "Staff Sergeant Stringer identified and reported approximately ten dismounted Iraqi soldiers through the tank's thermal sights. The enemy squad was well armed, their light machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades clearly evident at that close range." Ryan wanted to let them surrender and fired warning shots over their heads. "As the tracers from the warning burst of machine-gun fire from Ryan's tank arched through the black sky twenty feet over the enemy's head, a hail of bullets from Stringer's tank slashed through the formation. Several enemy soldiers dropped in their tracks. . . . Meanwhile, the remaining soldiers ran for cover behind a previously unnoticed Iraqi T-62 tank approximately 400 meters away from both Ryan and Stringer." Several minutes passed, as an Iraqi soldier made his way to Stringer's tank to ask for medical care for their wounded. Meanwhile, Ryan's tank loader, Pfc. Berthold, was keeping an eye on the remainder of the Iraqis and the T-62. When he noticed that some of the Iraqi infantry were mounting the tank and others were running away, he alerted his commander, and Ryan went into action. "Ryan immediately slewed his tank's turret back in the direction of the enemy tank, identified the fleeing enemy through his sights, and squeezed the trigger once again, sending machine-gun bullets through the dark. None of the enemy soldiers was moving when he traversed his turret back to the enemy tank. . . . Before he had come to let the thought sink in, Sgt. Jones [his gunner] reported that the T-62's turret was traversing. . . . Ryan ordered Jones to fire, and the resulting impact of the main gun round on the T-62's turret blew it completely off the hull." Ryan and Stringer would go on to destroy another tank and a BMP and capture an Iraqi infantry squad before they completed their artillery escort mission (at 0230, 28 February). At 0430, they got the mission to resume the attack at 0600 28 February.

  First AD had continued their relentless attacks with three brigades abreast. Their combat damage to Iraqi units on into the darkness of 27 February was 186 enemy tanks, 127 personnel carriers of all types, 38 artillery pieces, 5 air defense systems, 118 trucks, and 839 EPWs. For the 1st AD, these attacks had been the heaviest fighting of the four days. One 1st AD soldier, from 4th Battalion, 66th A
rmor, was killed in action.

  By about 2130, the 3rd AD had reached Phase Line Kiwi and had run out of room. If I continued them east, they would run into the 1st INF. (It was astride Highway 8 that I had redirected 1st INF farther east, so that 3rd AD could continue their attack to Objective Denver.)

  Meanwhile, as their two brigades attacked on line toward Kiwi, they'd had continuous combat with Iraqi units. Their 1st Brigade had reported destroying 60 tanks, 13 artillery pieces, and 6 BRDMs (Soviet-built wheeled personnel carriers). At Kiwi, their 3rd Brigade (which had earlier passed through 2nd Brigade) had destroyed three T-72s, three BMPs, and captured over two hundred EPWs. One of the EPWs was an officer, who reported that there were many Iraqi tanks in front of the brigade beyond Kiwi. At a little past 2300, 3rd AD recorded that they had received our corps order to continue the attack to Denver across Highway 8 (made possible by the 1st INF adjustment east).

  First CAV had moved east to a position just west of Phase Line Lime, ready to attack east to destroy the Hammurabi after 1st AD cleared a zone of attack. While moving up, their cavalry squadron had destroyed a BMP and a bypassed bunker complex from which Iraqis were firing on them. By 2100, they were set for their attack east. Their written order to attack east was published at 0220 on 28 February, although verbal orders had gone out many hours before.

  ORDERS

  At 2337, we got the official written order from Third Army that the cessation would take place the next day at 0500, and we put out our own order soon after that. Though we had less than six hours of darkness in which to execute, I was satisfied that there was enough time for the commanders to rein in their ground ops. Meanwhile, we would continue with Apaches forward until 0500, and I called off the operation of the 1st CAV.

  I stuck around in the TAC for a little while longer, and when I was satisfied that all the units had received the 0500 cease-fire order, I decided to get some rest. My own adrenaline level had drained away. Gone was the intensity of the previous four days. Gone was the intensity of the previous night. I could feel myself relaxing. I tried to prevent it, but it was hopeless. "Do not let down," I kept saying to myself. I was not successful.

  I left sometime at around 0100. While walking to the tent, I told Toby how proud I was of everybody in VII Corps . . . and how severely disappointed I was that I couldn't get the 1st CAV into the fight.

  The problem was that, while it was over, I felt a nagging sense of in-completion. In every training exercise I'd ever had as a young officer, we had always tried to end with a successful attack that put us on our objective. Instead, we had ragged edges--and with our final objective clearly within reach.

  First Squadron, 7th Cavalry, 1st CAV Division, was within sixty kilometers of Basra; 1st AD Apaches could see the Gulf; 3rd AD was within thirty kilometers of Highway 8 and our Objective Denver; 1st INF was less than twenty kilometers from Safwan. The British were across Highway 8, north of Kuwait City.

  0300 28 FEBRUARY

  "General Franks, we have new orders from Third Army." It was Toby, jolting me awake.

  "What the hell is it now?" I snapped. Although I was waking up quickly, as soldiers learn to do, I was also "shooting the messenger."

  As always, Toby was doing the right thing.

  "Third Army has ordered a new time for the cessation," he said. "From 0500 to 0800. G-3 thinks you should come over to the TAC."

  "OK, thanks, Toby. I'll be right there," I said, getting my head back in the war I'd thought was all but over. Toby left a cup of coffee. I got my leg on in the dark and walked into the bright lights of the TAC.

  0315 VII CORPS TAC CP

  I called John Yeosock to get clarification, and John confirmed the change. Not only did we have a change of cessation time from 0500 to 0800, he said, but we were to ensure "maximum destruction of enemy equipment." A written order would soon follow. When I reminded him that this was the third set of VII Corps orders that our units would have gotten within the past twelve hours, he told me he did not need any reminding about that. He was well aware that between him and a tank commander, orders had to pass through eight layers of command.

  The next order for us was truly puzzling: it was very important for us to get to the crossroads at Safwan, John told me, to prevent any Iraqi units from escaping by that route. Why the Safwan crossroads had suddenly become a high priority escaped me. The 1st INF had already cut Highway 8 south of Safwan, the road leading into that intersection from the Gulf coast was not carrying any significant traffic, and in fact this order was the first time we had been given any geographic objective in the war (it had been a corps decision to seize al-Busayyah). But an order is an order. I said WILCO and called Stan over for a huddle. I had interpreted John's order as one to stop movement through the road junction. The tactics were up to me.

  The first thing I wanted to do was make a quick call to the units to change the cease-fire time.

  I assumed the time change had been the result of a simple error in converting Zulu time to local time, or a difference of three hours. The use of different times in a single time zone in an operational theater made absolutely no sense to me. I had outlawed the use of anything other than local time use in the corps. We were attacking in one time zone, and I did not want some tired, getting-shot-at soldier having to fool with changing times from Zulu to Charlie or whatever.

  But we also had this crossroads business at Safwan to take care of.

  Stan circled it on the map hanging in front of us. My first thought was to go after it with the 11th Aviation Brigade. Stan gave them a warning order. With Apaches to interdict traffic, that would get a presence there immediately, and ground troops would follow later. A second look at the map showed that such an attack by corps aviation risked getting in the way of the 1st INF. The Big Red One was not more than twenty to thirty kilometers away from Safwan, which would put the town in the normal deep area for division Apaches to attack. So I said no to the 11th Aviation Brigade option.

  I recalled that 1st INF had been attacking on a generally northeast axis before I had ordered the division to go due east until they crossed Highway 8, then north. Now I figured that if they went back to their original attack direction, then they would get to the crossroads. To do that would also mean halting 3rd AD along Phase Line Kiwi, so that they would not now run into the 1st INF. That is what I decided to do.

  Just as it was the third change of orders for the corps, it was also the third change of orders for the Big Red One. . . . I could visualize Tom Rhame, forward in his tank, awakened with these orders and wondering if I had gone crazy.

  I directed an order go out to all of VII Corps: They were to continue to attack in the same direction and with the same objectives we had been using prior to the early-evening adjustments, they were to continue the attack until 0800 (not 0500), and, until that time, they were to destroy maximum equipment. This order also put the 1st INF back on their earlier line of attack--that is, generally northeast. My assumption was that if our map posting was accurate--if they were indeed twenty to thirty kilometers from Safwan--then the 1st INF would easily get to those crossroads by 0800. I also figured their own Apaches would get there much sooner.

  I should have known we would have confusion. Though we did our best to keep things simple, I probably should have realized that I was adding to the confusion simply by transmitting all of these orders. Time was running out.

  With the initial cessation order at 2337, the coiled-spring effect had gone out of the corps--after all, soldiers are not machines to be switched on and off at random. Also, big units are harder to move than small units--especially when they have been attacking for the better part of four days. Clausewitz calls this phenomenon the disorganizing effects of victory. That night was the night of maximum friction, all brought on by fatigue, misunderstanding, and miscommunication--the "countless minor incidents," Clausewitz writes--"the kind you can never really foresee" that "combine to lower the level of performance."

  Here is one example. We were a
ttacking in one direction at 1800. Units were about to run into each other and were not oriented for the double envelopment. At 1900, an order went out to stop so that we could reorient the corps for the next day's final attack. However, even though orders to resume the attack were sent to all the other divisions, one was not put out to 1st INF--attention to it had gotten lost in all the cease-fire transmissions. Then, to add to the complexity, we got the cease-fire order and tried to go back to the directions that had been in effect before 1800.

  At that point, since there was no time for written orders, all of these orders were going out in verbal radio transmissions over both our standard line-of-sight and our SATCOM radio nets. And finally, though the order announcing the 0800 cease-fire was received and acknowledged by each of the major units, I did not speak personally to any of the commanders at that time.

  It was now about 0430. All of this activity had taken the better part of an hour. I looked around the TAC. We'd had three mission changes. Fatigue and frustration had overtaken us. What a hell of a way to end this war, I thought.

  Sometime later we received the second written order from Third Army that night: an order to a five-division corps to extend by three hours an operation we had expected to end by now. It was totally unrealistic to believe that so large an organization could react that quickly--and in the middle of the night, after four days of battle. Even if everyone in the corps had been listening to the same radio, they would have had trouble executing on such short notice.