The Unseen War

by Lambeth, Benjamin S.

  Despite such occasional friction at the margins, the provision of CAS was typically smooth throughout the major combat phase of Iraqi Freedom, regardless of the color of the uniform that delivered it. During his briefing to the media on April 5, 2003, General Moseley remarked: “If you check into the CAS stack, you may be working with a Marine in an F/A-18 or a Navy crew in an F-14 or an Air Force pilot in an A-10. You won’t know the difference. You’ll just know the call sign and the location. So I think that’s another wonderful testimony to joint training, joint doctrine, joint CAS, and being able to work the command and control to get the airplanes up there.”46

  As for the overriding importance of simply getting the job done correctly rather than seeking credit for having done it, Moseley added: “As the air component commander, I’m not sure I care how we kill the [enemy] tank. I just want the tank to die so my Army captain doesn’t have to face it. . . . There will be someone somewhere along the way [who] will want an accounting scheme of who killed what vehicle, but right now that’s not important to us and it’s not important to that lieutenant or captain.” He further noted that the lion’s share of recognition for having fostered the tone for this joint-minded approach belonged to General Franks, who “from the very beginning has conducted [the campaign] in the absolute finest traditions of jointness and coalition and combined operations, and each of us, the component commanders, have been involved from the very beginning on the development at the strategic and operational level. There’s been nothing that we’ve asked for that we haven’t got. . . . We’re in absolute harmony with each other on being able to complement and supplement each other’s capabilities and, in some cases, limitations.”47 A CAOC staffer later added, “At times, air power enabled the land forces by attriting the enemy. At others, the maneuver forces enabled air power by forcing the enemy out of concealment and causing them to mass. The FSCL placement lost its importance because the corps commander could open kill boxes through the ASOC to facilitate fires. With this new paradigm, the Army received air power fires where and when it wanted.”48

  The KI/CAS concept accepted in principle by all participants used a common grid reference system for CENTCOM’s area of operations that allowed both airmen and ground combatants to operate and communicate within a common frame of reference. The lessons learned from the effective integration of air power and SOF teams during Enduring Freedom were folded into General Franks’ concept of operations for Iraqi Freedom, thereby increasing the combat effectiveness of a far larger air and ground team that had previously experienced virtually no significant interaction. As a former U.S. Army officer later expressed this key point: “Air and ground forces, which had fought essentially separate wars in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, were now integrated to a higher degree than ever before. By relying on precision air strikes, CENTCOM was able to slim down the U.S. ground force element to a single heavy division, one light division, and two light brigades. . . . Even before U.S. ground troops came into contact with Republican Guard units, these elite Iraqi formations were subjected to punishing attacks by Air Force, Marine, and Navy aircraft, just as they had been in 1991.”49 A V Corps after-action assessment likewise gave the air component high marks for having provided more than adequate support: “It was not merely the parallel functioning of two armed services; it was the almost flawless operation of a thoroughly integrated combined-arms team. Army officers of the V Corps staff described the results in superlatives. It was the best, most efficient, most effective, and most responsive air support the Air Force has ever provided to any U.S. Army unit.”50

  The after-action assessment of the Army’s 3rd ID reflected a similar satisfaction with the performance of the air-land interface, noting that “the teamwork of key leaders and supporting arms was vital. We avoided ‘rice bowl’ protection and ‘gave way together’ to get the job done. . . . The effort of our [ALOs and JTACs] demonstrated ‘gauntness’ in action—with no concern for ‘who gets credit’ for mission success—one team, one fight, one successful mission. The commendable end result was directly attributable to the months of tough training and close personal relationships that only true professional organizations produce and sustain.” In particular, “the working relationship between the fire support element (FSE) and [ALO] at the division tactical command post . . . was exemplary, resulting in a dynamic fires team. Together, they labored to provide a permissive environment for massing fires.”51

  The Department of Defense later attributed the campaign’s rapid success largely to this unprecedented level of joint force integration among CENTCOM’s principal warfighting components. Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, the commander of JFCOM at the time, noted that arriving at such insights as the importance of joint integration, adaptive planning, and speed in staying ahead of the enemy’s decision cycle “was actually not all that easy. They had to be proven in conflict” and required “a significant change in U.S. service culture to accept the message that the power of the joint force is far greater than that of any individual service.” Giambastiani added: “The key to harnessing the full power of jointness begins at [the level of] command and control. It is at this level—the level of the combatant commander; the joint task force commander; [and] the air, land, and sea commanders—where the real work of seamlessly integrating service capabilities into . . . what we call the coherently joint and combined force takes place.”52

  Advances in Force Connectivity

  Throughout the duration of major combat in Iraqi Freedom, CENTCOM had more than forty times the amount of bandwidth on tap than had been available for the conduct of Operation Desert Storm. The bandwidth capacity of the command’s joint operations center in Qatar alone was said to have been roughly equal to that of a large American city. This greatly expanded capability allowed for network-enabled operations unprecedented in their comprehensiveness and connectivity. A subsequent Air Combat Command briefing on the air war reported that “bandwidth and information connectivity resulted in a high degree of interoperability between the components,” aided by a “seamless integration of service component efforts in the CAOC.” Demand for bandwidth nevertheless exceeded the available supply as “frequency and bandwidth became an important . . . commodity that corps- and divisional-level staff fought over throughout the war.”53

  The centerpiece of the situation display capability in CENTCOM’s joint operations center was a Blue Force Tracker (BFT) system that was enabled by GPS transponders mounted on selected surface vehicles in each ground combat unit. The BFTs transmitted the geographic coordinates, direction, and speed of those platforms at any given moment as they moved about the battlespace. An early draft of JFCOM’s after-action assessment of the campaign described the complexities of this new aid to battlespace situation awareness: “Ground forces provided to CENTCOM arrived in theater with seven different, noninteroperable BFT systems. Each had different hardware, software, and transmission paths; operated on different frequencies; and flowed information through different ground stations. CENTCOM had to integrate these systems to obtain a common operating picture of [friendly] ground force dispositions.”54

  Hundreds of allied SOF combatants were likewise issued two-pound GPS transmitters the size of a cigarette pack that provided their geographic coordinates to senior commanders, sometimes located thousands of miles away, via airborne and satellite uplinks. The signals from these miniature transmitters were captured by National Reconnaissance Office satellites and relayed to command centers worldwide via the SIPRNet from Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs. The transmitters interconnected roughly a quarter of the entire allied SOF contingent in Iraq as they searched for Scud missiles in Iraq’s western desert, attacked enemy command posts, and sought to track down fleeing Iraqi leaders. Their locations within the battlespace, along with those of other ground forces and airborne support aircraft, were depicted as icons on digital displays at the joint operations center, in the CAOC in Saudi Arabia, and at CENTCOM headquarters in Florida. Every key node that figured
in this network-enabled campaign enjoyed plasma displays that showed the precise location of all friendly forces at any moment. The system allowed ground commanders from the brigade level on up to monitor on laptop computer screens the movement of each friendly vehicle as it advanced across Iraqi terrain.55 “It allowed them to be tracked throughout the battlefield so we knew where our forces were,” noted Lt. Gen. Joseph Cosumano, commander of the Army Space and Missile Command, “and it allowed them to work better with conventional forces.”56

  CENTCOM also maintained a Red Force tracking capability that marshaled the best intelligence from overhead multispectral sensors and signals intelligence. By one account, it “swept up enemy radio and radar transmissions, cell- and satellite-phone conversations, land-line communications and data transmissions—even the Iraqis’ military e-mail system.” Although the Red Force picture was less up-to-date and complete than that provided by Blue Force Tracker, because it was only as good as its intelligence inputs and necessarily required more processing time, General Franks characterized it as “the best any commander had ever had in wartime.”57

  The ISR network for Iraqi Freedom, controlled centrally by CENTCOM’s directorate of intelligence, represented an unprecedented fusion of military and national sensor platforms, starting with three dozen daily passes by imaging satellites and supported by eighty dedicated ISR aircraft that provided continuous multispectral imaging, thermal imaging, signals intelligence monitoring, and other surveillance of Iraq.58 These dedicated platforms were further backstopped by a wide spectrum of strike aircraft whose onboard sensors, such as ground-mapping radars and electro-optical and infrared-imaging targeting pods, were also used for the first time in a systematic and organized way for ISR monitoring through the integration of information gathered by their various targeting systems through Link 16 and the many other data-link capabilities that produced the common operating picture that was available to everyone at levels ranging from the Pentagon and CENTCOM’s forward headquarters down to operating units in the field.

  CENTCOM made particularly effective use of an arrangement involving an extended tether network through which satellite-derived information could be vectored directly to Beale AFB, California, for subsequent cueing of U-2s orbiting high over Iraq. The Air Force deployed an unprecedented fifteen of its thirty-four U-2s to the war zone to support the campaign, attesting to the continuing advantages offered by this vintage but still uniquely capable aircraft in ISR.59 Configured with multiple imagery systems and a unique signals intelligence collection capability for an air-breathing platform, the U-2 carried a substantially bigger payload than any UAV. With as many as 6 of the aircraft concurrently airborne on the same ATO—a combat first—U-2s flew 169 sorties averaging 8 hours’ duration each, for a total of some 1,400 combined flight hours.60

  In addition, airborne RQ-1 Predator UAVs forwarded real-time imagery to downlinks in the United States via satellites, as did the single RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude UAV that was deployed forward to support the campaign. That platform, which also forwarded target area information to Beale for real-time processing, flew only 3 percent of CENTCOM’s high-altitude ISR missions in support of combat operations (357 hours total), yet it provided about 55 percent of the required time-sensitive target information to General Moseley’s staff in the CAOC.61 Offering three times the persistence of manned ISR platforms, Global Hawk helped significantly in shortening CENTCOM’s “kill chain” (the sequence of events ranging from initial target acquisition and identification through committing the most appropriate weapon against it and receipt of clearance to fire to the target’s destruction). At any given moment, there were three or more U-2s and as many as six Predator UAVs overhead in direct support of allied combat operations.

  “Reachback” (i.e., forward-deployed combat operations centers tasking rear-area facilities as far back as the home front for information support) was another key enabler of allied force employment, as exemplified by the case of a B-52 crew that experienced a radio failure after taking off from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom but was able to salvage its mission by falling back on MILSTAR satellite communications with the help of ground-based space support facilities in the United States. Reachback allowed more tactical intelligence than ever before to be pushed down to wing-level staff personnel. The new fighter data-link (FDL) system represented yet another boon for force connectivity. It enabled the prompt transfer of target coordinates and related information among the RC-135 Rivet Joint, the E-8 JSTARS, the E-3 AWACS, and F-15Cs and Es and a few F-16C+s as soon as any of those platforms detected and geolocated a new target of interest.62 That capability enabled more efficient and effective time-critical targeting by allowing strike fighters to locate assigned targets almost immediately and to hook their radars and infrared weapons guidance systems directly onto targets generated by FDL.63

  The stringent visual target identification requirements that CENTCOM levied on all of its subordinate components created an unusually great demand for real-time tactical imagery.64 The fusion of real-time information from FAC-As, ground observers, UAVs, and JSTARS helped substantially to meet those requirements. In general, the networking tools that were available to the CAOC for Iraqi Freedom were better than those that enabled the earlier Afghan campaign in that they allowed heightened reliance on “decision-quality” information and reduced the reaction time for time-sensitive targets down to almost single-digit minutes, as attested by the twelve-minute information cycle time for the B-1 that was targeted against a location where Saddam Hussein was thought to have been present. Networking also enabled the concept of “swarming” a target with multiple attack platforms either simultaneously or in sequence.65

  U.S. naval forces that participated in the opening round of Iraqi Freedom were also fully integrated into the digital data stream. For example, the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln featured a joint fires network (JFN) and cooperative engagement capability (CEC) that allowed its battle-group participants to share radar information and to fire missiles based on information provided by other ships. The arrival of Nimitz and the first E-2C Hawkeyes that were equipped with the system expanded that capability. The JFN, a Navy adaptation of the sensor fusion mechanism that enables the Army’s tactical exploitation system (TES), allows deployed aircraft carriers to receive imagery from airborne platforms and signals intelligence from the Air Force’s RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft. When the campaign began, the Navy was still considering whether to invest more money in its version of the Army’s system or to try to make do with a cheaper and somewhat less robust remote terminal capability. The Navy’s version showed considerable potential, but some of its capabilities remained to be validated.66

  The multifunction information distribution system (MIDS), a nodeless and secure Link 16–based jam-resistant tactical data link, also made a major difference in enhancing interoperability with other joint and allied platforms equipped with that capability. Now in the U.S. fleet and with more than a thousand Link 16 terminals in the four services, it was a major contributor toward the continuing transition from analog to digital warfighting, and it paved the way for the next step in network-enabled combat operations.67 The Navy’s subsequent pursuit of such capabilities as Link 16 and JFN to move target information into the cockpit faster reflects its determination to become a fully linked force.68 Notwithstanding the substantial shortening of the target approval process, it still took time for the CAOC to pass along a clearance to fire to an airborne controller, who would relay the target coordinates to a strike crew, who then had to identify the target positively before expending ordnance against it.

  Although senior commanders had up-to-date information about the position and movement of Iraqi ground forces, that information could not usually be passed down in sufficient time to the friendly ground units that were nearing actual contact with Iraqi forces. The rate of advance of allied ground troops was often so fast that CENTCOM had difficulty providing real-time intelligence to their short-range and line-
of-sight-limited voice and data communications. As Michael Knights observed, those units were on the wrong side of the digital divide where “the slope got a lot steeper at the brigade level and below” and where tactical-level subordinate units “lay at the base of a veritable digital cliff.” For them, real-time situational awareness of the presence and location of enemy ground forces was all too often “earned the hard way: by meeting the enemy at close hand.”69 Another account expressed the same point, noting that “many U.S. troops got their first clue about enemy resistance when they bumped into their foe.”70 Although CENTCOM’s operational-level commanders generally had sufficient situation awareness to meet their needs, tactical commanders approaching the point of contact with enemy ground troops needed a more refined degree of detail that was rarely available to them. Two RAND analysts likewise observed that allied ground forces faced the “constant danger of encountering the enemy without warning.” They compensated with “a high degree of passive protection and overwhelming firepower.”71

  The Iraqi Freedom experience highlighted the persistent shortfall in wideband data-link capacity as a major limiting factor in infrastructure effectiveness. A key challenge in this regard entails acquiring more and bigger data transfer “pipes” while continuing efforts to better manage the bandwidth capacity that already exists.72 Another challenge entails improved knowledge management, with a view toward determining what information is in greatest need of being moved rather than trying to move more information on the net. Yet a third challenge entails a persistent stovepipe problem in the relationship between operations and intelligence.