Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1

by Tom Clancy

  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 Armor, 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 th
ey 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 attacking 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.

  As far as I could see, there was nothing more I could do. I was tired, frustrated, and extremely disappointed that we had not been given the time to finish. I felt like the manager of a ball club that had won the World Series in five games, instead of four. We were proud as hell of what we had done, but I wanted that sweep.

  Yet, for all that, I still determined that the frustrations would not cast a shadow over the heroic and skillful execution of VII Corps's soldiers and leaders, and for that reason, I said little more about the missed opportunity to bring our mission to its final conclusion. Nor should it cast a shadow today — six years after Desert Storm — over the strategic significance of the victory in the Gulf and the opportunities it has opened for greater peace in the region.

  Nevertheless, from the perspective of strategic, operational, and tactical linkage, there are lessons to learn for the future. If students of military history and operations want to learn the major lesson the Gulf War teaches, they should look at the war's end state.

  It was a significant challenge, no doubt about it, to orchestrate the end of a campaign of lightning swiftness that had been conducted by a thirty-five-nation coalition in a region of the world with many opportunities and pitfalls. Nonetheless, it seemed that we gave a lot more thought (at least in the theater) to how to get in and get started than how to conclude it. The intellectual focus seemed to be in inverse proportion. The closer we got to the end, the less we focused.

  At the end of my briefing on 9 February, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney asked me, "How will it all end?" The perfect question at the right time — and a question every Secretary of Defense should ask anytime our military is about to be committed to battle. He should keep asking until it is over. Though I gave Secretary Cheney an answer that reflected my sense of how I expected it to end for VII Corps and Third Army, I'm not aware of anyone at any time giving him a picture of the expected end state for the entire theater.

  Here, to the best of my knowledge, is the story of how the decision was made that brought us to the actual end state on the battlefield:

  In the evening of 27 February, following General Schwarzkopf's "mother of all briefings," General Colin Powell called Schwarzkopf to tell him that the President was thinking of ending the war within a matter of hours, but would defer that decision to the theater commander. General Powell added that he shared the President's view. As far as he could personally tell, it was all over. Yet he too wanted to hear that confirmed by the theater commander.

  General Schwarzkopf replied that he would poll his commanders before giving a final judgment.

  That poll never got to the tactical battlefield.

  In the call back to Powell, General Schwarzkopf confirmed that it was time to end the fighting. After that theater judgment, the Joint Chiefs agreed unanimously that the war had achieved its goals and should stop.

  The order went to Third Army, and from Third Army to us.

  Could we have gone on? Absolutely. Would that have made good tactical sense? From where I was standing, absolutely. Would another twelve hours have destroyed more of Saddam's army? Absolutely (though not much in our sector).

  But wars are not fought to make tactical sense. They are fought to gain strategic objectives. When those who are looking at the entire strategic situation, both present and future, say we are at the end, then for the soldiers on the battlefield, that's the end. Sometimes strategic goals have immediate results, such as the liberation of Kuwait. Others take longer to manifest themselves, and are obtained by taking advantage of the new opportunities that arise from the way the tactical outcomes were gained. Now, six years after our victory in Desert Storm, those results are still being played out, and I believe they are mostly positive.

  I was not thinking about any of that on the morning of 28 February. I simply trusted those who were making the strategic decisions. That was the difference between the end of this war and of the one in Vietnam. From President Bush to the soldiers in our tanks, it was a matter of trust reunited.

  Our VII Corps tactical victories had not taken eighty-nine hours. They had taken almost twenty years.

  0630

  By now it was approaching daylight; reports of operations were coming in over the radio. These reports were somewhat spotty, however, because our tactical line-of-sight communications were not particularly good at this time. Since we were in their sector, we could talk direct with 3rd AD; we had good line-of-sight comms with 1st CAV; and since 2nd ACR were to our west, they were in direct comms. But because of the range between us and 1st AD, we had difficulty contacting them from time to time; other than SATCOM, we were out of radio contact with 1st INF (because SATCOM was on a different frequency than the other line-of-sight comms, transmissions on one could not be heard on the other).

  As for VII Corps main CP, they were by now over 200 kilometers away (about an hour and a half's helo flight). For the past two days, they had been unable to hear tactical radio communications and were thus having difficulty keeping current on the rapidly changing local tactical situation.

  Communication with Third Army was in better shape, since Colonel Dick Rock still had his long-haul phone comms directly back there. So I remained confident that John Yeosock's staff had a decent picture — at least of what we knew in the corps TAC.

  Though I considered flying east to the 1st INF, I concluded that it would take up the whole time before the 0800 cease-fire, and I wanted to be the one to order it, so I determined to stay at the TAC. Because of the constantly changing orders from Riyadh and the possible mix-up in the corps, I wanted to be next to my most reliable comms during the hours before the cease-fire. After the previous night's rapid changes, I did not know what to expect this morning.