Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign sic-2

by Tom Clancy

  Moments after oil started spewing into the Gulf, CENTCOM intelligence had located and debriefed the engineers who’d operated the Kuwaiti oil-storage area before the war. From them came estimates of the amounts of oil that could be dumped (a lot!) and suggestions for ending the dumping. It quickly became clear that the situation was more serious than anyone had realized. Already the spill was many times greater than had been released by the Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska. Something had to be done, and soon, and air was the only force available to do it. Chuck Horner immediately had his targeteers working on the problem. The strategy they came up with was straightforward. They would torch off the oil slick and shut down the pipelines the Iraqis had opened.

  Needless to say, the subject came up at General Schwarzkopf’s 1900 meeting. Schwarzkopf asked Horner two questions: “What is required?” and “When can we do it?”

  The plan devised by Buster Glosson’s Black Hole wizards called for USMC AV-8s to drop phosphorus flares into the oil slick and ignite the floating crude oil (the flares were normally used to light up the battlefield at night for close air support). Then F-111s would strike the two valves that controlled the outflow of oil. Their destruction would cause the pipeline to switch into its failsafe position, and various manifold controls would seal it off, making it inoperable. Though the pipeline could be repaired, such repairs were considered beyond the abilities of the Iraqi Army.

  The AV-8 mission was fairly simple, and did not involve significant enemy defenses; but the F-111s were dropping their bombs from medium altitude in daylight, to ensure they could visually find their aim point in an area very well defended by optically aimed guns and heat-seeking missiles. It would not be easy.

  “We can accomplish both missions tomorrow,” Horner told Schwarzkopf.

  “I’ll get back to you,” the CINC replied.

  All the next day, they waited, but no word came out of the CINC’s staff. Torching the slick was itself environmentally risky. Would a sea of fire spread to shore, where tons of black goo had already washed up? Wouldn’t nature’s own — admittedly slow — cleanup process be ultimately better than a big, soot-producing burn? Though Horner doesn’t know this for sure, such questions were doubtless being asked in Washington. The answer: a “go ahead” for the mission to set the slick on fire never came.

  However, early on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, the “go ahead” came to the TACC for the F-111 strike. The time on target was for three and a half hours later.

  Now the pressure was on Tom Lennon and his Aardvark pilots of the 48th TFW (P). The weapons, GBU-15s, had small wings, which allowed them to glide to their target from some distance away. Their guidance was provided by a radio control signal generated from another F-111 (its WSO received a television picture from a TV camera located in the bomb’s nose). As the bomb flew closer, the ground image grew larger, and the WSO could fine-tune the placement of the crosshairs with a small control stick in his cockpit — all this while the bomb was flying at nearly ten miles a minute, leaving no room for error during the final seconds of flight. Meanwhile, the F-111 pilot would put the aircraft on autopilot, watch the television screen to judge how well his WSO was doing, and hope he didn’t spot antiaircraft fire or missiles. During the final microseconds of the bomb’s flight, the target image would swell to take over the entire screen. Then the screen would grow dark picoseconds before 2,000 pounds of tritonal in the warhead went off. All in all, a very tricky operation requiring a great deal of training, planning, and skill.

  This particular mission involved four F-111Fs fragged to deliver two GBU-15s. The number three and four aircraft carried the bombs, while the number one and two aircraft carried the radio relay pods that received and transmitted the radio signals to and from the bomb.

  As it turned out, when the first bomb was released and the number one WSO began fine-tuning its heading, for some reason his radio relay got interrupted and he lost contact with the bomb. Instantly, he mashed the radio button and called out that he had to abort the drop — but fortunately, the number two WSO had been monitoring the drop and immediately transmitted “I’ve got it,” and proceeded to guide the bomb to the exact place where the first valve was buried.

  Except for the hitch, the mission went as planned — two bombs dropped, two valves destroyed, the oil pipeline shut down… and a very happy Norman Schwarzkopf and Chuck Horner.

  ★ We have already mentioned Iraqi fire trenches — ditches dug in the desert and hooked up to existing crude-oil pipelines and pumping stations. When the invasion came, they were to be filled with oil and set on fire.

  Though of all the Iraqi assaults on the environment, this one offered the greatest potential military usefulness, it remained an assault on the environment, or, as Chuck Horner puts it, “I will admit that war is not the place to preach ecological chastity, yet only a criminal or fool goes around pumping crude oil about the landscape.”

  At any rate, fire trenches were part of the extensive defense system near the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. The plan was to force Coalition ground troops to penetrate and be channeled through as many casualty-producing hazards as possible before they engaged the Republican Guard and selected armor units. As they were slowed and channeled, Iraqi heavy artillery was scheduled to make mincemeat of them.

  Though the trenches themselves may have been intended as a surprise, the Coalition’s control of air and space ended that hope, and taking the trenches out of action actually proved to be fairly easy. Sometimes the oil in the ditches could be ignited simply by having Warthogs strafe them. Keeping them from being resupplied with fuel, however, proved to be a little harder. Each set of trenches was fed by buried pipelines from a common pumping station, usually five or so lines to a station. The pumping stations were then connected to a major east-west oil line to the north.

  The pipelines and pumping stations were attacked in mid-February — far enough ahead of “G day” (which was still undetermined) to allow other countermeasures if these attacks failed, but close enough to prevent repair.

  A dozen F-117 aircraft were given the job; and it must have seemed like a milk run next to the missions over Baghdad. Ten of them would hit the fire-trench pumping stations, while the final two would drop the master oil pipeline.

  This mission also went without a hitch.

  As it turned out, the Iraqi Army was so physically and psychologically beat up when the ground war started that their minefields and trench lines proved to be of little value in stopping the Coalition advance.

  The ultimate Iraqi environmental madness, the setting on fire of Kuwait’s oil fields on or about the twenty-third of February, still burns in Chuck Horner’s memory:

  I have never seen anything so senseless, so evil, so offensive to mankind. Picture if you can dense, black, oily, greasy smoke boiling into the air from a thousand fires. The desert sand is awash with black oil topped with violent red and orange flame balls. Bright orange flames spew upward at each wellhead, with ugly rivers of burning oil spilling into low ground and creating lakes that belong in hell. Angry pillars of dense black smoke rise upward until they are caught by the winds aloft — some days at a few hundred feet, other days at thousands of feet — and then driven by the winds for thousands of miles. As you fly over the area, you gaze down on a solid mass of foul-smelling smoke stretching downwind as far as you can see. When you break out under the overcast, you are inside a dark wilderness.

  In Riyadh and Abu Dhabi the sky has a greasy overcast and the air smells of soot. Airplanes flying over Kuwait come back with oily soot all over them, and their canopies have to be cleaned so the pilots can see.

  After the war Kuwait City looked like a biblical wasteland. The concrete block houses were all burned out, with black smoke smudge over every window. Everything else was stained with greasy black soot. White cats were black. White cars were charcoal-colored.

  What can I say, except to condemn the Iraqis who planned and perpetrated this outrage on our planet? How evil can
you get?

  Though I’m sure Iraqi citizens who lost loved ones to our bombs have felt similar outrage, to an objective viewer the Iraqi revenge on Kuwait — the Iraqi outrage to the world’s environment — can never be forgotten, and it must not go unpunished. We must find ways to prevent similar despoliation in future armed conflicts.

  12

  A Day in the War

  CHUCK HORNER

  3 February 1991

  0300 I go to bed, extremely tired but feeling good. The war is going well.

  0345 I wake up to Scud sirens going off in Riyadh. I lie there and think, Should I get up, put on chem protection, and go to the shelter in the basement? Well, assuming the Scud is aimed at the RSAF building next door: since it will be coming from the north, and since my bedroom is facing south toward the RSAF headquarters, and since I am on the top floor, and since the Scud will have a parabolic not a vertical descent, then the Scud is liable to come through my room en route to the RSAF headquarters, and I will be killed. The RSAF headquarters, on the other hand, will suffer little damage, since most of the blast will be confined to my room.

  Better yet, the Patriot at Riyadh Air Base, about half a mile to my north, may hit the missile before it gets to me, which means only debris will hit me.

  About then, I hear the sonic booms of two Patriot missiles taking off to the north, followed by the pop of the intercept.

  Now I am going back to sleep. I always do after Scud alarms. I guess staying in bed is more attractive than making sure I save my life.

  ★ 0415 The phone beside the bed goes off, and I answer, “General Horner, how may I help you?” (Old habits drilled into me at the fraternity house in Iowa City die hard.) BeBe Bell, General Schwarzkopf ’s executive officer, is on the other end.

  “General Schwarzkopf wants to talk to General Yeosock,” he says. Though Yeosock usually sleeps at ARCENT headquarters in Eskan Village south of town, he had a late night at MODA and stopped here for rest.

  “Okay, hold on, I’ll get him,” I answer. “By the way, how are things going?”

  “Don’t ask,” BeBe says.

  So I slide out of bed and go to John’s door about thirty feet away. I knock, open it a crack, and hear snoring. “John, it’s BeBe on the phone. The CINC wants to talk with”—thinking “at”—“you.”

  John wakes up immediately, sits up on the edge of the bed, and says, “Thanks, I’ll take it in the living room.”

  As I turn, I hear John light up a cigar.

  I stop in the head and relieve myself, then shuffle back to my room. When I get there, the phone is still resting on the table by my bed, and I can hear Schwarzkopf talking — yelling — at John. I wonder why he bothered to use the phone. All he had to do was open a window at MODA (about one and a half miles to our south) and we all could have heard him. I put the receiver on the hook, but I can still hear John answering the CINC’s questions in the living room.

  I fall asleep admiring John’s resilience and patience.

  ★ 0530 My alarm goes off, and I can hear someone making coffee in the kitchen — either John or his aide, Major Fong. My new aide, Major Mark (Hoot) Gibson, is down in the UAE flying combat missions.[67]

  I’m glad John has stayed over; I don’t often have a chance to talk with him.

  I hit the shower and shave there, then I’m into my desert fatigues in an instant. They are draped over a chair by the door, and I don’t change them that often. Everyone else is just as grimy, and it is a pain in the ear to put all the stuff I need into the pockets of the new uniform — billfold, security badges, handkerchief, atropine syringe — all the stuff you carry around when you are involved in a war.

  ★ 0550 As John and I drink coffee and listen to the CNN news, he goes over the latest CINC tirade. It seems that late last night, after John had left for home, Freddie Franks had sent in a message that pissed Schwarzkopf off. John explains both sides of the problem and how he is going to take care of it.

  It seems to me that John has two problem children, Fred and the CINC, and as a result, he isn’t having much fun.

  ★ As far as I can remember it, the crisis that night had to do with Fred’s attempts to get the reserve force assigned to him (the First Cavalry Division — the force that was to be kept available during the opening of the ground war if anything went wrong). Fred felt that he needed the reserve from the start, to ensure that the main attack went well. The CINC wanted to keep it under his command until he knew that the attack on Fred’s right flank (the Northern Area Corps — the Egyptians and Syrians) was going okay; then he would give it to Fred to reinforce the main attack. Schwarzkopf was worried that an Iraqi counterattack into the Egyptians and Syrians could create problems that the reserve had to fix, in which case Fred would have to go it alone with his VIIth Corps and the British (that in fact should have been enough).

  I’m guessing at this, but I suspect that Fred sent out a message to Third Army (Yeosock, his immediate boss) explaining that he needed the reserve forces assigned to him immediately — a perfectly reasonable request. Unfortunately, VIIth Corps messages too often had information addressees that included the Department of the Army, the Joint Chiefs, the commanders in Europe — a whole host of people who would like to second-guess Schwarzkopf.

  In other words, it wasn’t Fred’s reasonable request that sent Schwarzkopf through the roof; it was the broadcast to the whole world of his case, when in fact the CINC had already told him that he would give him the reserve when he wanted him to have it.

  ★ It’s always good to talk with John, even when cigar smoke, like now, hangs from the ceiling down to maybe a foot off the floor. We don’t see everything the same way, but our perceptions and views are complementary. I have it easier than John does. My problems are shot-down planes, which targets to hit next, getting the ATO out on time, and the evening meeting with Schwarzkopf.

  John’s biggest problem is the wunderkinds — people like Gus Pagonis, the Army’s logistics wizard, or Fred Franks, a genius at fighting armor (and there are others). All are superstars, the best at their professional role. Each appears to think that his is the most important role in the war, that he is the one person who’ll be responsible for winning the war, and they each play a key role. Major General Gus Pagonis was a special challenge. On the one hand, he was everywhere, solving huge problems — working miracles moving the two corps to the west, while keeping them resupplied with food, water, and fuel. On the other hand, he had an ego as large as George Patton’s. If anything he was involved with was going good, he made sure the CINC knew it; and if anything was going bad, he told John just before the CINC found out and called.

  After we talk for a time, I lie on my back under the blue haze with a bowl of cold cereal on my chest. John is in a chair, and we both watch some heroic reporter on TV describe his narrow escape from last night’s Scud attack. God, what guts!

  Shortly after 0600, we both leave.

  ★ 0605 I am ashamed to admit it, but I am wearing a bulletproof vest and carry a 9 mm pistol under my fatigue jacket.

  It is cold and clear as I walk the dark path from my apartment building past the small shops that had housed the barber, cleaners, and recreation services before the fighting started seemingly years ago. As I reach the hole in the ten-foot-tall cinder-block wall that divides the USMTM compound from RSAF headquarters, I speak to the guards so they won’t shoot me in the dark. By now we have an RSAF and USAF military policeman at every checkpoint. That way, each side knows what is going on. (For the most part, our two peoples have been working well together and bonding.)

  A path has been worn in the desert sand from the hole in the wall to the covered car-parking area behind the RSAF headquarters. Because the dining hall vents are located nearby, you can smell the pleasant odor of food. Meanwhile, cats are busy rummaging through the dumpster for the remains of last night’s dinner. Hope they like chicken and rice. They don’t have much other choice.

  ★ 0610 I walk upstairs. After I enter the bu
ilding, the mosque is on my right. Early prayer is in session, but attendance is low, since most are at their duty stations. You can tell how many are at prayer by counting the boots and dividing by two.

  I walk down the pink and green marbled hall and take the elevator up to the third floor and my office. The night clerk tells me that there is nothing hot on my desk. Whatever else is there, George Gitchell, my chief of staff, will want to see first, so he can make sure it is thoroughly staffed before I sign or okay it. I go into my office, hoping a letter from Mary Jo came in during the night. But no such luck. You live for mail from home, and sending letters without postage is truly one of the most appreciated perks in this war.

  I take off the fatigue jacket, pistol, and bulletproof vest and stow them in my desk. Then I pick up the “Read File,” go to the stairwell, and descend the four flights to the basement.

  ★ 0625 I walk down the basement corridor — bare cement with guard posts roughly every hundred yards — past the computer room. Things are quiet there for now. A few airmen are sitting at consoles typing in the routine events that appear in the ATO; technicians are working on terminals that need fixing. After that comes a room that is used in peacetime as the RSAF command post but has now become the area where they do administrative communications with their bases. Next there’s a small makeshift plywood and curtained shelter in the hall where the airlifters have a small office that’s used to coordinate the TACC with the Airlift TACC, which is still upstairs in tents on the parking lot. There just isn’t enough room to collocate them together. Upstairs, they plan and publish the ATO for airlift — primarily those C-130s that are now busy moving the XVIIIth and VIIth Corps to the west, landing on desert strips and highway — an untold story.