by Jim Proser
Training with the Saudi Marine Corps meant sharing training ranges, equipment, and sensitive military intelligence. It was a reciprocal effort: the Saudis taught the Marines desert tactics, desert survival, and desert navigation. Training included individual combat skills and participation in full scale Central Command–directed exercises. The emphasis was on perfecting tactics of the mobile defense until UN Resolution 688 passed in November, demanding Iraq’s withdrawal.
Training then immediately switched to offensive operations, especially breaching techniques. Mostly American and Arab commanders conducted tactical exercises without troops on sand tables representing the battlefield. Large-scale exercises involving entire units were minimized to avoid wear and tear on the equipment. The intent of the training was to make sure everyone was prepared for different possible combat situations. It was also where Mattis’s and his future Arab allies worked closely together, taking the measure of each other and gaining the trust they needed to put their lives and the lives of their men in each other’s hands.
These critical bonds were forged in these often intense and repetitive trainings and would soon be tempered under fire. The Arab coalition forces, invited to celebrate the Marine Corps’ 215th birthday on November 10, 1990, with their new brothers-in-arms, accepted graciously. In a very real sense it was the first birthday of the Saudi Marine Corps as well.
* * *
Over the next weeks, the First Marine Division slowly moves north toward the forty-nine-foot-high sand berm just a few miles south of the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia. It has been nearly four months of constant preparation and training since Mattis and the 1/7 made port at al-Jubayl. Cooler weather, rain, and howling dust storms called haboobs replace the oppressive summer heat. Daytime temperatures drop into the seventies, and nights are often a frigid and sometimes wet fifty degrees.
General Boomer is not in a hurry to move forces closer to the border. Iraq’s well-prepared defenses mean the Marines no longer have the advantage of surprise. They are left with only the selection of the time and place for the attack. In early January, intelligence reports identify gaps between Iraqi divisions. The most exploitable gap appears at the strategically critical southwest corner, the elbow of Kuwait, a few miles to the east of Mattis and the 1/7. If the reports are true, the gap offers a direct avenue of approach to Kuwait City.
The First and Second Marine Divisions begin moving to the border assembly areas while the US Army relocates its entire VII Corps fifteen miles to the northwest Saudi-Kuwaiti border. The Army plans an envelopment maneuver through the trackless western desert against Saddam’s unprotected right flank. This maneuver was to be led by the nine Abrams tanks and several armored vehicles of Eagle Troop, commanded by Captain H. R. McMaster. It would prove to be the last great tank battle of the twentieth century.
The Iraqis’ right flank was unprotected because they thought a mechanized force could not navigate the empty desert and find them in time as part of a synchronized, multifront attack. The coalition’s secret weapon that made this maneuver possible was the recently developed GPS. This technology, combined with the vastly superior coalition M1A1 Abrams tanks, rendered the Iraqis’ defense strategy and Russian tanks obsolete.
Mattis’s 1/7 and other Marine regiments are done with digging fighting holes; now they conduct raids or “ambiguity operations” to confuse the Iraqis as to their positions and intentions. Mattis’s job now includes determining raid timelines, force routes, checkpoints, assembly areas, and tentative firing positions. Division command selects targets, coordinates air support, and raid forces movements during the day to be in firing positions for the raids by nightfall. Twelve raids are conducted. They damage Iraqi forward positions, but the division suffers its first casualties with four Marines killed and two wounded in accidents and friendly fire.
1926 Hours—29 January 1991
It is a frigid, overcast night at Observation Post 4 (OP 4), at the elbow of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. Without even a partial moon, the flat, empty desert disappears beyond a few hundred yards. OP 4, known as the as-Zabr police station to the locals, is a small office and barracks with a forty-foot stone tower overlooking the border a mile or so north.
In the tower, Second Platoon, First Recon Marines spot a column of about thirty Iraqi armored vehicles moving toward them out of the blackness, including five T-62 tanks. This sector of the border is defended by Task Force Shepherd. After being reassigned from a defensive force to an attack force, First Division reorganized into separate task forces, each with a distinct composition and mission. Task Force Shepherd will be a blocking force in the coming attack into Kuwait. Its mission is to breach the first minefield and obstacle belt protecting the Iraqis, then act as a screen or blocking force defending the left flank of Task Force Ripper as Ripper breaches the second minefield and obstacle belt and attacks the al-Jaber airfield beyond. Mattis and the 1/7 will be up front, at the point of Task Force Ripper.
As the Iraqis are moving against OP 4, three Iraqi mechanized brigades are also moving south on the coastal King Fahad Road toward the Arab sector of the border on Mattis’s right flank. This sector is defended by the Second Brigade, Saudi Arabian National Guard, a mechanized infantry unit. The only Marines in the Saudi sector are liaison officers, training advisers, and reconnaissance teams, including two teams positioned inside the town of Khafji, nine miles south of the border.
At OP 4, the recon platoon calls in an airstrike against the fast-approaching Iraqi armor. The first aircraft arrive and attack. Met with heavy anti-aircraft fire, they fail to stop the Iraqi advance. Once within small-arms range, the recon platoon opens fire with a combination of grenade launchers, shoulder-fired antitank rockets, and machine guns. One tank is stopped by the rocket fire. The Iraqi tanks return fire with armor-penetrating missiles that go through both stone walls of the observation tower. The recon platoon withdraws a little over a mile to a horseshoe-shaped berm behind the post and reengages the tanks and Russian-made armored vehicles. Platoon commander Captain Roger L. Pollard calls in another air strike as the Iraqis take the observation post in force. General Myatt is informed that the Iraqis have taken OP 4 and are also moving against OP 5 and 6, as well as the Arab sector to the east. He mobilizes artillery and the Third Marine air wing in support of Task Force Shepherd. Mattis and Task Force Ripper, on high alert, wait in sector for orders as they monitor the attacks on either side.13
At 2100 hours, the Iraqis break through at the Arab sector and charge toward Khafji, driving back reconnaissance teams from the border. In Khafji, US Army Special Forces, the Saudi National Guard, and reconnaissance units withdraw to nearby Mishab, but two First Marine Division reconnaissance teams are trapped in Khafji by the fast-moving attack. The coalition didn’t anticipate an attack in this sector, since there is no strategic value to Khafji. But Saddam doesn’t want Khafji; for publicity he wants the dead bodies of the Marines now trapped there.
Fierce fighting continues at OP 4 as artillery and sorties of A-10 attack aircraft slow the advance of the Iraqi armor. Through the dust and low clouds, it is difficult to distinguish coalition from enemy vehicles. An illumination flare dropped from an A-10 that is meant to mark the lead position of Iraqi forces instead falls behind the Marine position, putting the Marines in the gunsights of their own air cover. Moments later a Marine LAV explodes, killing the entire crew. Captain Pollard will later recount, “It was the only time I got scared. I was in the center of the line looking for the flare to land in front of me, when all of a sudden there was this huge explosion on my right. I thought we had been flanked and had lost a vehicle to enemy tank fire.”14
It has been a two-hour continuous gunfight, with the Marines maintaining discipline, staying off the radio, and maneuvering in total darkness. As Pollard describes it, “Normally it is difficult to keep chatter off the radio, but throughout the battle, they maintained perfect radio silence. The only voices to be heard were those of myself, the XO [executive office], my FAC [forward
air controller], and occasionally the platoon commanders. However, when the LAV-25 went up, there was pandemonium over the net and it took a moment to settle everybody down.”15
The A-10s correct for the errant illumination flare, and an Iraqi T-55 tank explodes just yards in front of OP 4. It creates an illuminating reference point for attacks against other Iraqi armor. The assault begins to waver as two tanks break formation and drive blindly into a berm. Their crews abandon the tanks moments before they are destroyed. Artillery is zeroed in on dismounted infantry and scattering BMPs.
Unnoticed at the time is the lack of continuing Iraqi artillery to support the assault, and particularly ineffective commanders as the initial attack falters. These two indicators eventually reveal to every Marine commander the critical flaws in Saddam’s military—flaws that will increase over time and drive current and future military doctrine in the Gulf War yet to come. These flaws will prompt the future, typically humble General Mattis to say, “It’s not that I’m such a great general, it’s that the other guys [the enemy] really suck.”16
As dawn breaks on January 30, the Iraqis occupy Khafji. They hurriedly prepare defenses against the inevitable counterattack. The two trapped Marine reconnaissance teams continue to report from inside the city. They estimate they have a day, possibly two, until the Iraqis sweep the city and discover them. Unfortunately, Myatt is now in a politically difficult position, since the city is in the Arab sector. A unilateral Marine counterattack will embarrass his new Saudi allies as weak and jeopardize the new coalition. Instead of the direct military approach, Myatt takes the indirect political route of sending his emissary Colonel John H. Admire, commander of Task Force Taro, to the commander of the Saudi National Guard, Colonel Turki.
Admire’s extensive cross training with Turki has created a special bond that the Marines now call upon with a respectful offer of infantry and artillery support. As expected, the Saudis view the taking of Khafji as a humiliation, and rescuing the reconnaissance teams as a matter of honor. It is a fundamental tribal custom that guests, like any other tribe member, are under the absolute protection of their hosts. Enraged at the Iraqi attack, the Saudi government orders Colonel Turki to immediately retake the city at all costs and rescue the Marines.
At OP 4, reeling from the overwhelming Marine defense, the Iraqis begin to retreat back across the border to Kuwait. Even after ten hours of full-bore combat, seeing the remaining T-55 and T-62 tanks pulling back energizes the Marines. For the next two hours, they chase the invaders back under a hailstorm of flying metal and fire. When it is over, twenty-two Iraqi tanks lie in pieces, and several hundred enemy prisoners of war are offering everything they know about Saddam’s army to intelligence officers in return for food and water.
For the next few days, Iraqi mechanized units harass the line of Marine observation posts along the border but do not attempt to breach again. Intelligence reports note the poor performance of the enemy’s artillery and air force in the January 29 attacks. Without this combined arms support for the mechanized ground forces, the Iraqis never penetrated beyond the “trip wire” defenses at the border that might have revealed the position of coalition main forces forty miles farther south.
The Marines learned that many of the Iraqi soldiers were hungry, badly trained, and poorly led. The division’s offensive plan changed as the true state of Saddam’s infantry became clear. Based on this knowledge, Myatt ordered new surveillance of the obstacle belts inside Kuwait. This revealed weaknesses not seen before, including a gap in the Iraqi air surveillance capabilities where Task Force Ripper, led by Mattis’s 1/7, could move to the border undetected. The Marines were now reading Iraq’s defenses like an open book. It became an essential textbook in Mattis’s mental library.
The retaking of Khafji became the cement in the already strong Saudi/Marine Corps alliance. Entrusting the lives of its recon Marines to the Saudi National Guard was proof of the confidence the Marines had in the Saudis. Deft negotiations at the battalion commander level from Admire allowed his Marine units to shadow the assaulting Arab battalions—just in case. Colonel Turki, his commanders, and other Arab allies in the sector planned and executed the mission using the full complement of Task Force Taro’s combined arms assets, including anti-armor detachments, infantry security forces, air and naval gunfire liaison teams, and critical artillery and air support.
0230 Hours—31 January 1991—North of Khafji, Saudi Arabia
Another cold, moonless night of low cloud cover and poor visibility. The Saudis launch a probing attack to determine Iraqi positions and their reaction strength. Some initial confusion sputters across the net as inexperienced, excited Arab gunners overreact, seeing threats in the darkness that don’t exist. Colonel Admire and his commanders monitor the radio traffic but hold their positions. They understand that the new fighters are having a case of nerves, and allow the Saudi commanders to sort out their problems.
At 0630 hours, as the sun begins to rise over the Persian Gulf, Saudi and Qatari units attack north and northeast into Khafji. Two Marine AV-8B Harrier jets destroy three Iraqi vehicles at the point of attack for the Second Battalion of the Saudi Army National Guard as it punches through the outer edge of the city. They capture seventy-five Iraqi soldiers.
Inside the city, the trapped recon Marines continue to direct Harrier jet attacks against targets near them and against enemy armor attempting to move into the city along King Fahad Road. By 1200 hours, the Saudi’s Seventh Battalion fights through the city to the Marines. It loads them into armored vehicles and moves them to secure forward air controller positions to advise on additional fire missions against the Iraqis. It is a huge victory—a redemption of their honor and a vindication of their alliance with the Americans for the Saudis, and a testament to the intellectual standard of Marine commanders like General Mike Myatt and Colonel John Admire, who understand and can apply the political as well as military dimensions of war.
As night falls, the Saudis, Qataris, and other Arab allies consolidate their positions inside the city. The recon Marines remain with the Arab contingent to assist with targeting missions to come in the morning. It isn’t yet time for celebration while the city is still in Saddam’s grip.
By 1600 the following day, the Tenth Battalion of the Saudi Army National Guard sweeps the Iraqis out of the city and links up with the Fifth Battalion at the northern edge of town. The Iraqis are chased back across the border, with heavy losses of over 90 percent of their original force. The Saudis and Qataris have captured over six hundred enemy soldiers and, with coalition assistance, destroyed over ninety Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles.
Major General Salah Mahmoud’s mission for Saddam is a total, humiliating failure. The inexperienced Saudis took on Mahmoud’s highly experienced and much larger force, defeated it, and sent it scurrying home. No territory was captured, and no dead Americans would be delivered to Saddam for publicity.
Based on the Saudi performance in Khafji, Marine command creates combat assignments for them in the coming Kuwaiti offensive. Previously the Saudis were assigned only to defensive positions, and only inside Saudi Arabia. Now they will fight alongside American and other coalition attack elements as one unified force. Now it’s time for celebration. Without alcohol of any kind in the kingdom, the Marines are temporarily at a loss, but characteristically quickly adapt. Small groups of proud Arab warriors with their American and European brothers-in-arms hunker down together to share fruit juice, rock and roll, and war stories.
7
Task Force Ripper
From a purely numbers perspective, the odds seemed to be stacked against Task Force Ripper, the first coalition ground unit to assault Kuwait. “From the intel we had, we were way outnumbered, and figured it would be a pretty tough fight,” said First Lieutenant Brian C. Hormberg from Houston.
Before the air war began on January 17, the ratio of Iraqi troops was estimated to be a whopping seven to one. Enemy tanks enjoyed a numerical advantage of at least four to o
ne. And since Central Command didn’t make public an estimate of the number of Iraqis killed by bombing, no one was certain what was waiting for Marines beyond the two minefields.
—Claude W. Curtis, “The Tip of the Spear,” Leatherneck, August 1991
0330 Hours—24 February 1991—Task Force Assembly Area Near the Saudi-Kuwaiti Border
The commanders of Task Force Ripper wait silently in their armored vehicles. An occasional comm check comes over the net. Fourteen thousand Marines in six task forces stand by with their weapons in Condition 1: magazine inserted, round in the chamber, safety on. Some visualize the actions they will take in a few moments, some pray, some focus on home and loved ones.
Lieutenant Colonel Mattis has already lost his first Marine and written his first letter home to a grieving Marine family. Two days before, an accidental discharge of an M-16 rifle killed one of his men.1 The casualty estimation for Mattis’s 1/7 battalion in the coming attack is 10 percent, or about forty men. Privately he confides to a friend back home, “They expect heavy casualties.”2
He expects to have many more letters to write by the time they get to Kuwait City.
Hours earlier, Task Forces Grizzly and Taro crossed the line of departure at the border and opened two lanes through the first minefield and obstacle belt inside Kuwait.3 They now wait in blocking positions to protect the left and right flanks of Task Forces Ripper and Papa Bear as those two task forces pass through the lanes and breach the second minefield and obstacle belt farther north. General Myatt’s worry, as he monitors weather reports in his headquarters tent at the border, is that Ripper and Papa Bear will have trouble getting through the second obstacle belt and get stuck in between the first and second belts. This is a kill zone zeroed in on by Saddam’s deadliest weapon, his artillery.