152.Ibid., 19.
153.Andrew Koch, “Information War Played Major Role in Iraq,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July 23, 2003, 5.
154.CENTCOM’s SOF teams also used money freely as a part of the psychological warfare campaign. As one senior planner put it: “How much does a cruise missile cost? Between one and two and a half million dollars. Well, a bribe . . . achieves the aim, but it’s bloodless and there’s zero collateral damage” (Vago Muradian, “Payoffs Aided U.S. War Plan,” Defense News, May 19, 2003, 1).
155.Koch, “Information War Played Major Role in Iraq,” 5.
156.Elaine Grossman, “Coalition Drops ‘Capitulation Leaflets’ over Iraqi Troops,” Inside the Pentagon, March 20, 2003, 16.
157.Elaine Grossman, “Land, Air Commands Struggled on Iraq Leaflet Timing, Coordination,” Inside the Pentagon, June 26, 2003, 4–6. A member of General Leaf’s staff recalled that “when we arrived, there was no organized method within the land component organization to nominate types of leaflets against specific targets. Two things happened before the war to fix that. First, there was a memorandum of agreement that established the types of information that would be provided to the CAOC. We even developed a form that was used. . . . Second, the information operations working group under the land component commander began to play a bigger role in shaping the various messages, timing, targeted groups, and so on. I watched this overall process closely for General Leaf, and most of the major problems were fixed by the time the war started” (comments by Lieutenant Colonel Crawford, March 4, 2007).
158.Elaine Grossman, “Evolving Threats May Offer Air Force ‘Unlearned Lessons’ in Iraq,” Inside the Pentagon, July 17, 2003, 17.
159.Andrew Koch, “Information Warfare Tools Rolled Out in Iraq,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, August 6, 2003, 7.
160.Carpenter, “Rapid, Deliberate, Disciplined, Proportional, and Precise,” 24.
161.Koch, “Information War Played Major Role in Iraq,” 5.
162.Holmes, U.S. Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom, pt. 2, 24.
163.Hunter Keeter, “Cartwright: Threat Location, Prediction Capability Should Be Priorities,” Defense Daily, April 30, 2003, 4.
164.Willis, “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 19.
165.Lorenzo Cortes, “Air Force Integrated Litening Pods for Block 40 and Block 50 F-16s before OIF,” Defense Daily, June 20, 2003, 5. The more capable Sniper targeting pod was not used during the campaign because qualification testing on it had not been completed.
166.“WCMD-Equipped Sensor Fuzed Weapons Dropped on Iraqi Vehicle Column,” Defense Daily, April 3, 2003, 1; Kopp, “Iraqi Freedom—the Hammer and Anvil,” 26.
167.Holmes, U.S. Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom, pt. 2, 32.
168.Michael Sirak, “U.S. Air Force Reveals New Strike Munition,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, May 14, 2003.
169.“USAF Offers Details of Weapon Tailored for Iraq War,” Aerospace Daily, May 5, 2003.
170.Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, 432.
171.Ibid., 432–433.
172.Hinote, “More Than Bombing Saddam,” vi.
173.Ibid., 116.
174.Ibid., 165.
175.Kitfield, “Attack Always,” 1292–1296.
176.Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, 8.
177.Woods and others, Iraqi Perspectives Project, x. For a subsequent RAND report that exploited much of the same source material and arrived at roughly the same conclusions, see also Stephen T. Hosmer, Why the Iraqi Resistance to the Coalition Invasion Was So Weak (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-544-AF, 2007).
178.Woods and others, Iraqi Perspectives Project, 27–28.
179.Hinote, “More Than Bombing Saddam,” 12.
180.Ibid.
181.Woods and others, Iraqi Perspectives Project, 125.
182.Ibid., 125.
183.Ibid., 126.
184.Ibid., 147.
185.Ibid., 128.
186.Ibid., 128.
187.Biddle and others, Toppling Saddam, 7.
188.Ibid., 24.
189.Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, 10.
190.Comments by Colonel Neuenswander, March 6, 2007.
191.Kopp, “Iraqi Freedom—the Hammer and Anvil,” 30. On this point, the above-noted assessment implied that the coalition’s defeat of Iraq’s ground forces was essentially due to “the M1 tank’s ability to fire on the move, hit targets on the first shot at ranges of multiple kilometers, and penetrate both sand berms and T-72 frontal armor at the same distances,” disregarding CENTAF’s relentless kill-box interdiction attacks independent of ground action that accounted for the vast majority of Iraqi tanks destroyed during the campaign (Biddle and others, Toppling Saddam, 30). A less unabashedly parochial treatment of that capability concurred that “the combination of protection and firepower on the American M1A1 [Abrams main battle tank] played a critical role in ensuring that Iraqi forces could not brings tanks to bear at ranges that allowed them to be effective.” The latter study added, however, that “questions arise . . . about what would have happened if Iraq had large numbers of more modern antitank guided weapons like the Russian-designed Kornet” (Cordesman, “The ‘Instant Lessons’ of the Iraq War,” 13). Notably, Hezbollah’s well-disciplined militia units used such weapons against the Israel Defense Forces in southern Lebanon during the thirty-four-day war there in 2006, with significant costs to Israel’s Merkava main battle tank.
192.Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, 14.
193.Gen. Richard Myers, USAF, Department of Defense briefing, Washington, D.C., April 7, 2003.
194.Krepinevich, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A First-Blush Assessment, 21.
195.Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), 320–321, emphasis in the original.
196.Jody Jacobs, David E. Johnson, Katherine Comanor, Lewis Jamison, Leland Joe, and David Vaughn, Enhancing Fires and Maneuver through Greater Air-Ground Joint Interdependence (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, MG-793-AF, 2009), 6.
197.Johnson, Learning Large Lessons, 115, 140.
198.Jacobs and others, Enhancing Fires and Maneuver through Greater Air-Ground Joint Interdependence, 6.
Chapter 5. Problems Encountered
1.James R. Schlesinger and others, Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review DoD Detention Operations (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 2004).
2.Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), 116.
3.Powell further remarked that he had counseled the president beforehand at a private dinner in August 2002, well before the war was initiated: “My caution was that you need to understand that the difficult bit will come afterwards—the military piece will be easy. This place [Iraq] will crack like a crystal goblet, and it’ll be a problem to pick up the bits” (Charles Moore, “Colin Powell: ‘I’m Very Sore,’” London Daily Telegraph, February 26, 2005).
4.“Top Navy Aviation Officials Predict Few Major Lessons from Iraq,” Inside the Pentagon, May 22, 2003, 10.
5.Ibid.
6.Grossman, “Evolving Threats May Offer Air Force ‘Unlearned Lessons’ in Iraq,” 1. The twofold intent of that symposium, whose participants included many key players in the planning and execution of air and space operations during the three-week campaign, was, first, to produce an exhaustive overview report aimed at providing a solid foundation for improving CENTAF’s ability to plan and execute major air operations in a future joint and combined setting, and, second, to document the essential facts of the three-week air war to facilitate subsequent efforts to develop and apply tactical lessons learned; update platform-specific tactics, techniques, and procedures; and improve joint and service doctrine. Working groups at the symposium explored such specific subjects as strategy; target development; guidance, apportionment, and targeting; the master air attack plan; ATO production; comm
and and control arrangements; SPINs development; combat operations; time-sensitive targeting; counter-Scud operations; ISR; combat assessments; the tactical air control system; space operations; information operations; KI/CAS; defensive counterair; SEAD and DEAD operations; tanker issues; and combat search and rescue. Although the final report is not available to the general public, the present book has been informed throughout by extensive inputs from numerous CENTAF personnel, from General Moseley on down, who took part in the symposium and in the many events that it addressed.
7.Elaine M. Grossman, “Giambastiani Flags Battle Damage, Friendly Fire ‘Lessons Learned,’” Inside the Pentagon, March 11, 2004, 3.
8.Moseley, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Initial CFACC Roll-up.”
9.Another issue lies in recognizing the difference between operations that went well because allied forces were good at them and those that succeeded because the Iraqis were weak or inept; the latter should counsel caution not to be excessively complacent as we look ahead. I wish to thank my RAND colleague Karl Mueller for bringing this important point to my attention.
10.Tim Ripley, “Iraq Friendly Fire Was Worse Than Reported,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, July 16, 2003, 3.
11.The PAC-3, which, unlike the PAC-2, can reach higher and is a hit-to-kill weapon, saw its first operational use in Iraqi Freedom.
12.Bradley Graham, “Radar Probed in Patriot Incidents,” Washington Post, May 8, 2003. In a campaign history published by General Bromberg’s organization five months after the major combat phase ended, the 32nd AAMDC spoke frankly of “cluttered cyberspace” in the area of operations around Karbala where the F/A-18 was downed by one of the unit’s Patriot batteries: “Patriot and field artillery FireFinder acquisition radars radiated on the area. Helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft moved throughout the area . . . employing various radio and radar systems and filling cyberspace along other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Overhead, JSTARS and AWACS aircraft added to the clutter carrying multiple emitters on board. Simultaneously, EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft conducted jamming and support missions for various air packages. In the midst of this electronic clutter, an F-18 was mistakenly engaged and destroyed by Patriot missiles. . . . While not the proximate cause, . . . it is possible that [this] electronic clutter contributed to [the F/A-18’s inadvertent downing],” suggesting that “deliberate examination must be made of the operational impact of cluttered cyberspace and [that] joint approaches to cyberspace management must be undertaken” (“Operation Iraqi Freedom: Theater Air and Missile Defense History” [Fort Bliss, Tex.: 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, September 2003], 94).
13.Michael Smith, “U.S. ‘Clears’ Crew Who Shot Down Tornado,” London Daily Telegram, July 16, 2003.
14.Ibid.
15.Theodore A. Postol,” An Informed Guess about Why Patriot Fired upon Friendly Aircraft and Saw Numerous False Missile Targets during Operation Iraqi Freedom,” briefing charts, Security Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 20, 2004. Lending strong credence to this independent analysis, the Army briefing that it addressed candidly conceded that there was “no voice link between [the Patriot] battalion headquarters and higher authority [with respect to identification and engagement]; that there was a “different air picture at different levels of command”; that there were “varying degrees of standards [across the Patriot force]”; that Patriot operators focused “solely on TBMs [and] did not work identification of unknown aircraft on [their] scope”; and that those operators “lost situational awareness of air tracks,” indicating a clear need to “train [for] scope awareness [regarding] all air platforms” (emphasis added). “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” briefing charts, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command, Fort Bliss, Tex., September 2003, 54, 56–57.
16.Robert Riggs, “Blue on Blue: How Did an Army Patriot Battery Shoot Down a Navy F-18?” CBS 11 News (Dallas/Fort Worth, Tex.), February 4, 2004, at http//:www.globalsecurity.org/news/2004/040505-patriot-shootdown.htm
17.Givens, “‘Let Slip the Dogs of War,’” 25.
18.Davies, F-15C/E Eagle Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 45.
19.Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Patriot System Performance: Report Summary (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, January 2005), 1.
20.Ibid., 2.
21.Ibid., 3.
22.Conversation with General Moseley, August 2, 2006.
23.“Army Announces Patriot Missile System’s Performance in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” U.S. Army News Release, December 10, 2004.
24.Reynolds, Bashar, Baghdad, and Beyond, 78.
25.Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, USAF, “USCENTAF Friendly Fire Investigation Board: A-10—USMC Friendly Fire Incident (near An Nasiriyah, Iraq, 23 March 2003),” memorandum for commander, U.S. Central Command, Shaw AFB, S.C., May 23, 2003.
26.Executive summary attached to Gen. John P. Abizaid, USA, “Investigation of Suspected Friendly Fire Incident near An Nasiriyah, Iraq, 23 March 2003,” memorandum for commanders, USCENTAF, USARCENT, USNAVCENT, USMARCENT, SOCCENT, and Joint Forces Command, U.S. Central Command, MacDill AFB, Fla., March 6, 2004.
27.Ibid.
28.Ibid.
29.Peter Pae, “‘Friendly Fire’ Still a Problem,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2003.
30.Rod Andrew, U.S. Marines in Battle, An Nasiriyah, 23 March–2 April 2003 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps, 2009), 20. Type III CAS does not require the FAC to have visual contact with either the designated target or the supporting aircraft.
31.Pae, “‘Friendly Fire’ Still a Problem.”
32.Stout, Hammer from Above, 270.
33.Operation Telic: United Kingdom Military Operations in Iraq, 25.
34.Third Infantry Division (Mechanized) After Action Report: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 141.
35.Ripley, “Iraq Friendly Fire Was Worse Than Reported,” 3. Many of the fratricide incidents were ground-to-ground in nature, despite the land component’s extensive use of CENTCOM’s Blue Force Tracker capability.
36.Lessons of Iraq, vol. 1, 108.
37.Quoted in Gardner, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: Coalition Operations,” 93.
38.Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, 110.
39.Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers, 148.
40.Ibid.
41.Ibid., 151.
42.Robert Hewson, “Apache Operations over Karbala,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, July 2003, 27. Not long after the Apache went down, CENTAF geolocated it with overhead imagery and destroyed it with four well-placed 2,000-pound LGBs. Conversation with Major General Darnell, August 2, 2006.
43.Neil Baumgardner, “V Corps Commander: Army ‘Altered Use’ of Apaches following Failed Attack,” Defense Daily, May 8, 2003, 3.
44.Rowan Scarborough, “General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U.S. Attack in Iraq,” Washington Times, May 8, 2003; Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers, 148–154.
45.Neil Baumgardner, “101st Airborne Division Packaged Apaches, ATACMS during OIF,” Defense Daily, May 14, 2003, 2.
46.Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, 192.
47.Ibid., 193.
48.“Army to Reevaluate Apache Tactics,” Air Force Magazine, October 2003, 15.
49.Scarborough, “General Tells How Cell Phone Foiled U.S. Attack in Iraq.”
50.Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, 160.
51.Ibid., 179.
52.Ibid., 192. The 3rd ID’s after-action assessment likewise observed candidly that current Army attack helicopter doctrine “is still oriented on deep attack operations [which are] not the best use for the division attack helicopter battalion. The heavy division attack helicopter battalion is best employed in conducting shaping operations between the division coordinated fire line (CFL) and the division forward boundary (DFB).” The assessment recommended “readdressing attack aviation doctrine to discuss the employment of the attack helicopter battalion in the heavy division to support shaping op
erations as opposed to deep attack operations” (Third Infantry Division (Mechanized) After Action Report: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 36–37).
53.Richard J. Newman, “Ambush at Najaf,” Air Force Magazine, October 2003, 60.
54.Johnson, Learning Large Lessons, 129–131.
55.Knights, Cradle of Conflict, 295.
56.Rebecca Grant, “Saddam’s Elite in the Meat Grinder,” Air Force Magazine, September 2003, 43.
57.General Merrill A. McPeak, USAF, Presentation to the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters United States Air Force, September 14, 1994), 35.
58.Maj. John M. Fawcett Jr., USAF, “Which Way to the FEBA (and FSCL, FLOT, Troops in Contact, Etc.)?” USAF Weapons Review, fall 1992, 26 (emphasis added).
59.Knights, Cradle of Conflict, 297.
60.Regarding the nature of these responsibilities, a postcampaign report issued by the USAF Air Ground Operations School described the ASOC as “the principal air control agency of the theater air control system responsible for the direction and control of air operations directly supporting the ground combat element. It processes and coordinates requests for immediate air support and coordinates air missions requiring integration with other supporting arms and ground forces. It normally collocates with the Army tactical headquarters senior fire support coordination center within the ground combat element.” The ASOC “manages [CAS] assets within the ground force AOR, processes CAS requests and controls the flow of CAS aircraft, deconflicts airspace control measures and aircraft, assigns aircraft to [TACP] terminal attack controllers, and manages the joint air request net (JARN) and the tactical air direction net (TAD).” Its subordinate TACPs attached to deployed Army troop formations “advise ground forces on aircraft employment and capabilities, coordinate and control aerospace operations, participate in battle planning, request air assets to support ground force requirements, and direct air strikes against enemy targets in close proximity to friendly forces” (Curt Neal, “JAGO [Joint Air Ground Office of Air Combat Command] ASOC Tiger Team: ASOC/TACP Reorganization to Support UEx [Unit of Employment ‘X’],” briefing slides, USAF Air Ground Operations School, Nellis AFB, Nev., 2005). This report summarizes key findings of a conference convened by ACC’s JAGO at the USAF Air Ground Operations School at Nellis AFB on January 25–27, 2005, aimed at developing a “new ASOC construct” with the goal of providing “the most air power on target with the least amount of [command and control].”
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