The Unseen War
Page 23
Also in February 2003, in clear acknowledgment of its support in principle for the Bush administration’s determination to deal definitively with Iraq, the Australian government released its latest strategic review declaring that “the prospect that Saddam Hussein might threaten to use WMD against his enemies in the region or supply WMD to terrorists reinforces the international community’s efforts to ensure Iraq is disarmed.”16 At roughly the same time, the Australian government assigned responsibility for Iraqi matters to a new Iraq Coordinating Group chaired by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and consisting of key government representatives, notably including from the Department of Defence, as ADF planners continued to refine possible Australian force contribution options. On March 18, the day President Bush delivered his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein and his two sons to leave Iraq within forty-eight hours or face the full force of coalition operations to drive them out of power, Prime Minister Howard advised the Australian parliament that his government had authorized the ADF to join in force employment by the coalition once the campaign was under way. The ADF commenced Operation Falconer immediately afterward, with Australian air, naval, and special forces initiating combat operations with the CENTCOM force components with which they had planned and trained over the preceding months.17
Command Arrangements
The British military contingent that had been embedded at CENTCOM headquarters since Operation Enduring Freedom began getting indications as early as May 2002 that the command was increasingly engaged in NOFORN (no foreign nationals) planning, with a likely Iraq contingency in mind. The British representatives interpreted those indications as clear evidence that something unusual was gearing up, because normally, in the words of Lt. Gen. John Reith of the British Army, the eventual chief of joint operations for Iraqi Freedom, they had “very, very good access on everything.”18 The RAF in particular had embedded staff officers at all echelons both at CENTCOM’s headquarters in Florida and at CENTAF’s headquarters at Shaw AFB, South Carolina, as well as in the latter’s forward-deployed CAOC at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. That early embedding of key personnel at all levels ensured visibility, credibility, and the development of a deep trust relationship between the British team and its American counterparts.
Once it became clear that British involvement in such a contingency might eventually take place, the MoD established a contingency operations group comprising representatives from the MoD’s Defence Crisis Management Organization and its Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood on the outskirts of London. It further established a current commitments team to manage all preparations that would require ministerial direction. For its part, Permanent Joint Headquarters formed a contingency planning team to plan the eventual British military contribution, should the British government approve it. The chief of the defence staff then issued a planning directive to Permanent Joint Headquarters that the contingency planning team used to formulate the plan. As for the RAF’s prospective involvement, headquarters Strike Command convened a contingency action group to plan the air portion of the chosen course of action, employing cell members who were overseen by the contingency plans division at Strike Command.
Roughly concurrently, the chief of the defence staff in autumn 2002 appointed the Northwood-based commander of Permanent Joint Headquarters, General Reith, as joint commander for all British military involvement in the impending campaign. Within the United Kingdom, the MoD and Permanent Joint Headquarters collectively constituted the Defence Crisis Management Organization for the impending British participation in Iraqi Freedom. As the designated chief of joint operations, Reith exercised operational command over all participating British forces through Permanent Joint Headquarters and would be responsible to the chief of the defence staff for the conduct of operations. He delegated operational control of British forces committed to Operation Telic to the three-star national contingent commander, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, who was to be forward-deployed in the theater and would report daily to the chief of joint operations.19
In this chain-of-command arrangement, Air Marshal Burridge was the senior MoD representative to CENTCOM’s commander, General Franks, with whom he would have close daily contact throughout the campaign. He later acknowledged that Franks’ forward deployment to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility constituted a major improvement in command efficiency over the Operation Enduring Freedom experience.20 Burridge reported through the chief of joint operations to the defense staff in the MoD, with General Reith serving as a welcome buffer between Burridge and London. This arrangement closely followed the pattern first established by the British in Operation Desert Storm. During that earlier combined campaign, however, Permanent Joint Headquarters had not yet been formed, so the chief of the defence staff instead chose an existing four-star headquarters—RAF Strike Command—and designated its commander in chief, Air Chief Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, as the overall UK-based joint commander, with Lieutenant General Sir Peter de la Billiere of the British Army as the national contingent commander deployed forward in the theater.
Reith further delegated tactical command of all RAF forces through Air Marshal Burridge to the two-star British air contingent commander, then Air Vice-Marshal Glenn Torpy.21 Torpy’s initial responsibility was to establish the force in-theater; then, during the execution phase, to ensure that British forces were used as effectively and efficiently as possible, and that operations were conducted as safely as possible in light of combat conditions within the constraints of British policy; and finally, after the period of major combat was over, to bring the forces home. Like his counterpart British land and maritime contingent commanders who worked alongside their respective CENTCOM three-star component commanders, Torpy delegated operational and tactical control of all British air assets to the air component commander, General Moseley. This was consistent with years of British-American military interaction within NATO and in connection with Operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch. With respect to the differences between operational command, operational control, tactical command, and tactical control, Burridge noted that “it actually takes longer to describe than it does to use in practice.”22
Air Vice-Marshal Torpy’s air contingent headquarters staff at Prince Sultan Air Base numbered about two hundred personnel, some of whom were embedded in various CAOC staff positions. Air Commodore Chris Nickols headed the contingent’s staff and also was one of three rotating one-star CAOC directors each day who oversaw the day-to-day execution of the ATO for General Moseley. That arrangement gave the RAF both visibility and influence within the CAOC organization. It also preserved British direction of British forces and ensured that those forces would only undertake specific operations that had been approved by British commanders. In this post–Desert Storm arrangement, the United Kingdom built on the structure that it had developed a decade before in connection with its involvement with CENTCOM in enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq.
In subsequent testimony before the Defence Committee of the House of Commons, Burridge noted that as the British national contingent commander, his role had focused specifically on three areas: first, supporting the three British military contingents (air, land, and maritime); second, informing the senior government leadership in London of details they needed to know for conducting responsible political and military decision making; and third, influencing CENTCOM’s planning and execution of the campaign to the extent possible and appropriate. General Reith explained in similar testimony that Burridge “was controlling the operation as the man in theater dealing with the detail.”23 The chief of joint operations assigned different British forces to different CENTCOM missions. Burridge, as the designated wielder of operational control, was assigned forces and tasks by the chief of joint operations and, in his words, “just had to match them up with the American plan.”24 Reith, he said, “was looking at the London end and some of the international aspects away from the theater,” whereas he, as the national contingent commander deployed forw
ard, “was looking horizontally at the region of the theater and downwards.”25 Burridge attributed the resultant smoothness of fit and flow among the various players to the key personalities involved, a fact on which the American system heavily depended.
The American arrangement was less structured and more personalized than was the more formal British approach, with General Franks and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in daily direct contact and with the American service chiefs often making direct calls to CENTCOM’s component commanders. Moreover, the interface between the senior U.S. military leadership and the political authorities in Washington was far more direct, from the president through the secretary of defense to General Franks. In contrast, Burridge made a point of noting that he was “happy” with the United Kingdom’s command arrangement because it shielded him from direct dealings with London and further allowed him to be “very much left to get on with things.”26
Air Chief Marshal Burridge also pointed out that many on General Franks’ CENTCOM staff “would regard us as their conscience because we see things through different eyes.”27 He attributed this good relationship to the many years of close RAF involvement with CENTCOM going back to Desert Storm and the subsequent enforcement of the no-fly zones, as well as to the fact that Franks and his principal deputies recognized the quality of the thinking that the embedded British staff brought to CENTCOM’s policy and strategy deliberations. That broad-based acceptance enabled the British contingent, as appropriate, to influence CENTCOM’s decision making from the bottom up.
With respect to Australia’s involvement in CENTCOM’s command and control arrangements, Prime Minister Howard announced on March 18 that the Australian government had authorized the chief of the defence force, General Peter Cosgrove, to offer already deployed ADF forces as a contribution to any U.S.-led coalition that might commit to combat operations in accordance with existing UN resolutions authorizing the use of force against Iraq.28 Throughout Operations Bastille and Falconer, General Cosgrove retained full command of all Australian forces. Operational and tactical control, as in the case of British forces committed to the campaign, was seconded to CENTCOM’s component commanders as appropriate, but national command of those forces remained with the commander of the Australian national headquarters for Middle East operations, Brigadier Maurie McNarn. The Australian Department of Defence’s after-action report explained that “this arrangement let coalition commanders assign specific tasks to ADF forces while they remained under their Australian commanding officers at the unit level.” In addition, “although ADF force elements worked toward the overall coalition combat plan, there were processes in place to ensure that Australian forces were always employed in accordance with Australian government policies.”29
Early Planning Involvement
The British were the first allies to be brought into CENTCOM’s planning for Iraqi Freedom. They were invited by the U.S. government to join in the process in June–July 2002, well in advance of Australia and at a time when U.S. forces were still reconstituting after having just completed the major combat portion of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. After Britain’s secretary of state for defence announced in September 2002 that the United Kingdom was involved in contingency planning for a possible Iraq scenario, key RAF station and squadron commanders were drawn into the planning process. Even at that early stage of preparations, a significant portion of the RAF’s high-readiness forces were already deployed and flying operational missions in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility as part of Northern Watch and Southern Watch. Regarding this early involvement, Air Chief Marshal Burridge later recalled that although no timetable had been announced or even determined at that point, “it was put to me that if the [United Kingdom] was at any stage likely to participate, then best we at least understand the planning and influence the planning for the better.”30 Air Marshal Torpy similarly recalled that the United States was “absolutely clear that there was no commitment on Britain’s behalf at that stage to commit forces to any sort of operation.”31
Most of the equipment that was procured expressly for Operation Telic was obtained through the MoD’s well-established urgent operational requirements (UOR) process. The MoD’s after-action report explained that the UOR process, announced in Parliament on November 25, 2002, was created to “provide a cost-effective solution to specific capability shortfalls related to a particular operation.”32 The associated establishment of the Defence Logistics Organization’s logistics operations center ensured that needed equipment was delivered to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility in accordance with the priorities of Permanent Joint Headquarters. UORs also helped to increase the number of RAF aircraft configured to deliver precision-guided munitions and to provide for additional stocks of precision munitions and other weapons. Thirty-three percent of the UORs that were issued in support of the war effort accelerated existing programs, with another 20 percent introducing new and previously unprogrammed capabilities, 30 percent topping off holdings already in the inventory, and 17 percent modifying existing equipment or infrastructure.33
The MoD moved in mid-December to encourage the shipping market to tender for the timely provision of possible needed surface transportation vessels, as well as to begin specific unit training and to reduce the notice time to move for some units.34 The British contingent was a fully invested participant in CENTCOM’s Internal Look planning exercise in December 2002, during which CENTAF’s force requirements and the RAF’s contribution to the impending campaign, were it to participate, were finally nailed down.35 The RAF also participated in multiple CENTAF “chair-fly” exercises, as well as in actual large-force strike and other mission rehearsals at Nellis AFB and elsewhere. The RAF’s E-3D Sentry AWACS community conducted tactical employment seminars, did spin-up training to include getting needed U.S. combat information release and access, and conducted briefings and simulations prior to final mission certification.36
Shortly before the 2002 holiday season, the British contingent conducted an exercise that determined that the command structure in place was, in Air Chief Marshal Burridge’s words, “pretty much 95 percent right.”37 In the course of that exercise the contingent identified potential friction points, and liaison officers were installed at those points. That timely evolution bore out the value of mission rehearsals. The British government did not, however, make its final decisions regarding the composition and deployment of British assets until early 2003.
Australia joined in CENTCOM’s planning for possible contingency operations against Iraq not long afterward. On June 18, 2002, the minister for defence had declared that the government of Australia was ready to consider supporting additional U.S.-led coalitions beyond Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. In addition, in response to the obvious resolve of the Bush administration to address the challenge posed by Iraq, the government further directed Australian defense planners to initiate contingency planning for an Australian contribution to any U.S.-led coalition in case diplomacy should fail. In return, in August 2002, the U.S. government invited initial Australian participation in CENTCOM’s planning workups in Tampa, Florida, albeit with no firm military commitment sought by either side. The well-developed personal ties and trust relationships established within CENTCOM throughout the course of Australia’s earlier contributions via Operation Slipper made it clear to all that the initial groundwork was now in place should Australia be included in a U.S.-led combat coalition against Iraq.38
By August 2002 the ADF’s joint planning staff had gained a fairly thorough understanding of CENTCOM’s evolving contingency plans for Iraq and began developing appropriate options for the Australian government to consider should the latter ultimately decide that Australia would participate in coalition operations against Iraq. Later in November, Prime Minister Howard declared that the ADF had “made appropriate contingency arrangements,” including moving the Australian national headquarters for Middle East operations forward to be collocated with CENTCOM’s deployed headquarters in Q
atar.39 The following month the government directed the ADF to begin training for combat operations in case Iraq failed to comply with the weapons inspection regime stipulated in UN Resolution 1441. Finally, on January 10, 2003, as the start of its initial deployment of forces to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility neared under the aegis of Operation Bastille, the government formally declared that it would commit ADF forces to the allied coalition and would begin preparing them for possible combat operations soon to come. The ADF’s deployment itself finally began on January 23, 2003, with the departure of the amphibious transport ship Kanimbla from Sydney to the North Arabian Gulf and other Australian force elements concurrently moving forward by air.40
The Allied Force Component
In a force buildup code-named Operation Warrior, the United Kingdom committed to Operation Iraqi Freedom the largest composite military force that it had deployed since its contribution to Operation Desert Storm twelve years before. RAF Strike Command was the designated force provider for all British air assets presented for the impending campaign. In response to requests submitted by CENTCOM and CENTAF, and working closely with Permanent Joint Headquarters, Strike Command identified RAF force requirements and volunteered options, including the new Storm Shadow standoff hard-target munition and Tornado F3 interceptors, to help with the anticipated defensive counterair effort.41