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

by Tom Clancy

  After I explained that the cease-fire had kept them out of the fight, I congratulated them on their magnificent 250-kilometer move from the Ruqi Pocket to where we were now. Then in the sand I sketched out the basic VII Corps attack and the vital role their actions in the Ruqi Pocket had played. After thanking them again for what they had done to help gain the victory, I left to go back to the TAC.

  1200 VII CORPS TAC CP

  The moment I walked into the TAC, John Yeosock called. He wanted us to move corps units around to eliminate pockets of resistance behind us, within our lines, and to do it while staying within the cease-fire rules, which were not to fire unless fired upon or threatened. However, that didn't seem wise to me just then. Moving around put our troops at a disadvantage, I told him, and little was to be gained, since the Iraqis who had not yet heard about the cease-fire could shoot first. John said OK.

  At 1220, I met with my five division commanders in the TAC and shook each one's hand. All of us were tired, but elated at our success. We also knew we still had work to do.

  "I want to be the first of a long line of people to say well done," I told them. "No matter what is written, said, or shown about what happened out here, the courage of our soldiers in taking the fight to the enemy, day and night, in sandstorms and rain, will be forever stamped in the desert sands of Iraq and Kuwait. I'm not sure where this is going from here, but while it's fresh in our minds, I want to thank the soldiers for their superb performance."

  Then I talked about:

  • accountability — keeping track of where all our soldiers were, as well as of casualties, and of protection and proper identification of remains;

  • safety — especially with unexploded munitions;

  • record keeping — to capture what we had done, including battle vignettes and lessons learned for the future;

  • awards policy — including awards for valor and guidance on war trophies and souvenirs;

  • destruction of Iraqi equipment.

  The meeting lasted about an hour, and then the commanders returned to their units.

  Soon after that, the first of the media arrived, including a correspondent from AP and another from an Arab news agency. I went over with them what we had done to include what I called our "left hook," thus distinguishing it from what others have erroneously called a "Hail Mary" attack. In football, a Hail Mary play is a last-minute, go-for-broke attempt to score the winning touchdown by throwing a forward pass in the general direction of your opponent's end zone. The game is on the line, you're only a little behind, you have seconds left, so you throw… and hope. Our maneuver could not have been further from a Hail Mary. Later, in an interview with Rick Atkinson of the Washington Post, I used the terms "closed fist" and "left hook" for our envelopment maneuver. In his story, I noticed later, he used "left hook," and it stuck.

  "Was this the best maneuver of your career?" they asked.

  I used a remark I had once heard Willie Mays make, after his well-known catch of a long drive from Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series: "I just make the catches," he said. "I'll let you fellows describe them."

  Meanwhile, a few of the staff from the main had come out, and I thanked them all for their work as a team, repeating in more detail what I had told my commanders earlier, then I spent the rest of the day at the TAC with them, going over what needed to be done. There was still an enormous amount to do. We could not let up now (and it was by then seductively easy to let up).

  At this point, I thought our future mission was to defend northern Kuwait. I also thought that we might be ordered to leave some equipment at King Khalid Military City in a POMCUS storage configuration. Finally, there was the question of what would happen to VII Corps when we returned to Germany. I had no answer to that yet.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Duty in Iraq

  0300 1 MARCH 1991

  Another early-morning phone call from Riyadh. I was asleep in my small tent at the TAC.

  It was John Yeosock. "There will be cease-fire talks tomorrow," he told me when I got to the phone, "and VII Corps will be responsible to set up the site. The CINC," he added, "also wants recommendations about the best place to hold the talks."

  "Let me ask around, and I'll get back to you," I answered. My immediate first thought was that the best place would be somewhere out on the battlefield, where the press and the Iraqi brass could see the extent of the damage to the Iraqi army.

  I had a quick huddle with the staff at the TAC to get them into it; and I soon had the corps staff at the main CP in on it as well. It would be a huge task to set up in such a short time, and we obviously wanted to do it right.

  Though we didn't have a lot of time, we made calls to the units in the corps to find out their views about sites; and the one that I liked best was the Medina Division HQ that 1st AD had captured on the last day of the war. It would provide a great backdrop, since it would show the abandoned HQ of one of their no-longer "elite" divisions (we figured that by now we had stripped them of any right to call themselves elite); it was reasonably accessible to the media (I figured we would fly them into the final site); and all around it was destroyed Iraqi army equipment. It would perfectly communicate the magnitude of the defeat of Saddam's army to the world.

  AT about 0400, John called back to ask for our recommendation, and I told him about the Medina Division HQ. John seemed to like that and said he would pass my recommendation to CENTCOM — but he also asked if we had taken the crossroads in Safwan, as specified in the written order we had gotten the morning of 28 February. I was surprised by the question. I still wondered why anyone placed any significance on that crossroads, since the remaining RGFC in our sector were in front of 1st and 3rd ADs. But an order is an order, and I believed we had done what we had been supposed to do. I told him we did not have troops there physically, but that we had gotten air there to interdict movement, as I had understood the intent.

  He told me that would be a problem. Our written orders had been to seize it, and the CINC thought we had it. Safwan was the site the CINC favored for the talks and he had already tentatively told Washington. I repeated that we did not have it.

  John told me the CINC wanted to know why his orders had been disobeyed regarding that crossroads.

  I was absolutely stunned.

  My first reaction was real anger. I thought about the other war that had ended with my lower leg amputated. Now here in this war I was to have my professional character amputated. I was really disappointed with the CINC. To be accused of disobeying an order is to be accused of a serious breach of discipline, especially in wartime. More than the personal injury, though, was the sudden realization that this had been the first communication from the theater commander to VII Corps after the war. No calls of thanks to the troops. No discussion of casualties. No calls to the locker room, as it were, for the men and women who had made this all possible. That anger burned hot for some time.

  I have questioned orders, especially ones I considered stupid, or those to which there might be legal or moral objections. I have argued the wisdom of others and suggested alternatives. I have executed orders I did not like, and for commanders I did not like. But once discussions ended and my commander said, "Here is what I want you to do," never had I willingly or knowingly disobeyed a legal order.

  Yet I was also a corps commander of 146,000 U.S. and British troops who had just finished a magnificent operation. I could not let the incident overshadow the great achievements of the troops and my responsibility to them. I also was a subordinate, and my superior officer had requested an explanation. I would do as he requested. Then I would let it pass and get on with the mission. We still had lots to do.

  We had interdicted the road junction but not seized it. We had done so with attack helicopters of the 1st INF (they had been there for a number of hours, and I later learned they had observed six vehicles pass through but had not fired because they had gotten the panic cease-fire call at about 0720 on 28 February and had never gotten the
order to resume the attack). There had been no intent to disobey orders. I had selected tactics to accomplish what I had interpreted to be the intent of the order.

  I had gotten those verbal orders from John at about 0330 on 28 February. The written order came later that morning. My interpretation of John's verbal orders to me was for us to stop Iraqi movement through that road junction. My selection of tactics was interdiction with air, and the assumption that the 1st INF attack would probably get there by 0800 if they continued on their attack axis. Stan gave the 1st INF the mission to interdict the road junction, which they did. I and everyone else missed the "seize" in the written order. That was my fault.

  Any failure of the corps to seize the road junction was my responsibility, but it was not failure based on disobeying an order.

  I never heard any more about it, not then and not since. I never mentioned it to any of the other commanders or soldiers, other than in the 1st INF, since they were involved.

  I could never understand why the CINC's first reaction would be to accuse John Yeosock and me of disobeying an order.

  1 MARCH 1991

  Right after first light, I went to visit the 1st INF, who were across Highway 8, just south of the Kuwait-Iraq border. I wanted to tell Tom Rhame what had to be done to get Safwan and to explain that it was now the site of the talks.

  On the way, we saw the wreckage of the Iraqi army that had tried to stop them. We had flown over some of the wreckage the morning of the twenty-seventh. Now it went on much farther. Burning equipment, tanks, BMPs, trucks, air defense tracked vehicles, artillery — it was all there. Some isolated pieces of equipment looked brand new and undamaged. Bunkers, trenches, and vehicle revetments were everywhere.

  As we crossed over into Kuwait, we saw the oil well fires. They resembled gigantic torches, with bright orange flames reaching from the ground to a height above our flight path. The flames were topped by thick black plumes of smoke, which spread and merged to form a black gray haze over the entire landscape. Close to them, you could hear the loud, roaring sounds of burning gas and oil. It grew visibly darker the farther we flew into Kuwait. It was Dante's Inferno, Armageddon, hell on earth, you pick it. I had never seen anything on this scale before. We quickly counted twenty-seven wells on fire, and there were many times that many. It was an awesome sight… and an unconscionable act of material brutality against the assets of another nation. I'm sure the Iraqis thought that if they could not have the oil, then no one else would, either.

  Though I wanted to talk to Tom Rhame about Safwan, I first thanked him and his troops for their superb efforts during the war. I had given Tom the most varied combat missions and, in the night passage and attack, the toughest, and they had done what I'd asked with skill and courage. They felt good about it. I could see it in the faces, hear it in the voices of the officers, NCOs, and soldiers I saw and with whom I talked. It was a different unit from the one I had visited on the eve of battle. They were now victorious veterans of mobile armored desert warfare. They would never be the same, and they knew it.

  Tom had commanded the Big Red One with skill and courage. Like the rest of us, he was a combat veteran of Vietnam, a veteran of the Cold War, and had had extensive command and staff service in mounted units. I enjoyed being around Tom. He was quick off the mark, never backed away from a challenge, and was always upbeat. He and his division were tough mounted warriors. I had always known it, and now the Iraqis knew it as well.

  Tom and I huddled so that he could reconstruct for me the last twelve hours of his war. It was then that I learned that he had not received a specific order to seize Safwan. Then we discussed what we had to do now.

  "We have to go get the town and the airfield without getting into a fight," I told him. "Try to seize them without firing a shot, but your troops and commanders always have the right of self-defense."

  "WILCO, boss," he answered.

  That was not the only guidance Tom got about Safwan that day. He received a lot more — from me, all the way to Riyadh. The anxiety level was up in Riyadh. I guess nobody wanted to tell President Bush that our site for the talks was still in enemy hands. At the same time, I also guess no one wanted to conduct a full assault into Safwan, since that might cause casualties, would attract a lot of attention, and violate our "cessation of offensive operations." So the guidance I gave Tom was to secure the town without a fight. Bluff, threaten, do whatever he had to, but get it. I left the details to him.

  Later that day, Tom sent his second brigade, commanded by Colonel Tony Moreno, and the 1/4 Cavalry to get Safwan.

  In a superbly skilled use of persuasion supported by force, Tony Moreno quite simply told the Iraqi commander to get the hell out of the way or suffer the results. That threat was credible to the Iraqis. They had already seen what U.S. forces had done to their friends, and Tony had the tanks visible to show he meant business. By late afternoon, they were in Safwan and had the airfield… but not before the 1/4 Cav had had to convince an Iraqi RGFC colonel to get out of there, using the same "Moreno" tactics. Moreno's approach had essentially been the same one that President Bush had used to deal with Saddam Hussein in the first place. "Get out of Kuwait, or we are coming in there to throw you out." Saddam had not been convinced, so the Coalition had liberated Kuwait by force. When Tony Moreno used the same threat at Safwan, the Iraqis did not need more convincing. By 1600, they had Safwan, the airfield, and the road junction.

  Meanwhile, though the mission had to come first, I still had a driving urgency (fueled by the aftermath of Vietnam) to visit the troops and leaders to thank them for all they had done to win this victory. I also wanted to visit the hospitals and especially to talk to as many amputees as I could. I started the process that day… as did all my commanders. There would be many visits and many ceremonies, which together would put some kind of closure on all that had happened.

  Here is one small example: On the way back to the TAC, we visited with Lieutenant Colonel Pat Ritter and his tankers of the 1/3 4 Armor and learned from them about the intensity of the 1st INF's fight to take Objective Norfolk on the night of 26 and 27 February.

  Pat told me of the tough night passage, the difficulty they had had just navigating, and the enormous discipline shown by the soldiers and leaders to clear fires so that they would not shoot each other. He and his company commanders and NCOs talked about close-in fighting and about the Iraqi infantry with RPGs. He related stories about short-range tank shots of less than 500 meters and about the enemy firing from the rear. He also told of one of his company commanders who had used the machine guns of his tank to kill Iraqi infantry trying to climb on Ritter's tank. As the troops told me about their battles, I felt the emotion and excitement in their voices. When they talked about what they themselves had done, it was in whispered tones, but when they talked about what others had done, their voices grew louder. It had been a tough night for those tankers. Before I left, I told Pat and his troops how proud I was of them.

  SINCE I had not yet had a chance to visit 3rd AD, that night I called Butch Funk. He was feeling good about the performance of Spearhead — as well he should have. They had been relentless and had left in their wake the better part of four divisions, including the Tawalkana. Butch had scheduled an AAR with his commanders on top of the captured underground HQ of the 10th Iraqi Armored Division, and I wanted to attend some of that. There was also to be a memorial service in his CAV squadron, and he asked if I would later award his CAV squadron commander the Silver Star. I told him I would be proud to do it.

  I also called Cal Waller to get a reading of the CINC on the Safwan issue and the flap over our pace of attack. Cal was always helpful with reading Schwarzkopf, and he was also candid and did not hold anything back.

  When I asked him about the uproar and accusations over the Safwan road intersection, Cal explained, as I had guessed, that the problem was that the CINC was embarrassed: Based on what he had been briefed, he had told the President we had the place for the talks. Then he was told w
e did not have it.

  When I asked Cal about the pace-of-attack problem, he told me that the CINC had been upset over that a couple of days before, but now he was pleased about the whole operation.

  All right, I thought to myself afterward, they both make sense now, then chalked both of them off to the spur-of-the-moment pressure of command. It even occurred to me that now maybe the CINC regretted he'd raised the Safwan incident at all.

  2400 1 MARCH 1991

  As of midnight, our VII Corps SITREP to Third Army said this about Iraqi units:

  North of us, out of our sector, approximately five battalions remained in the Basra pocket, conducting screening and hasty defensive operations on the southern bank of the Euphrates River. These units were hastily formed battle groups composed of the Medina, Hammurabi, and Adnan Divisions. We also knew that approximately eighteen battalions of five different divisions had successfully withdrawn to the north bank of the Euphrates River and were probably attempting to consolidate before returning to the Baghdad area. We thought the threat to VII Corps in our sector consisted of scattered forces of no larger than company-sized elements who had either been trapped or bypassed, and who might not have gotten the cease-fire word.

  2 MARCH 1991

  That morning, I got a quick staff update on the enemy and on our own situation.

  Though the Iraqis were in disarray, they were rapidly moving units and equipment out of the theater. They were clearly a beaten army and fleeing as fast as they could. Our SITREP the previous night had gotten that accurately.