Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1 Read online

  As for us, it was clear to me again that we had the right forces in the right combination at the right place at the right time. The decision to mass into a three-division fist, the changes in tempo, the rolling attack — all were proving correct.

  By turning east into the forming RGFC defense, we also had opened an attack lane to our north for XVIII Corps. We had not pinched them out and tried to do it all ourselves — their combat power would also be in the fight. It would make the complete destruction of the RGFC a Third Army, not just a VII Corps, fight, and it would also facilitate the ground/air coordination needed to finish it off, since both commands were in Riyadh. Because CENTCOM, Third Army, and CENTAF were co-located in Riyadh, all the command elements needed to isolate and destroy Iraqi forces in the Kuwaiti theater were in one place.

  In the air, CENTAF had all the aircraft necessary to seal off the escape routes. On the ground, Gary Luck and I had the combat power to completely destroy all Iraqi forces in the Third Army zone. It was all coming together, just as we had discussed in our war games. Now we just had to complete the execution.

  It would not be easy. For the soldiers and small-unit commanders conducting the attacks, it would turn out to be a night we would all remember.

  PERSONNEL AND LOGISTICS

  Once I had looked over the enemy and friendly situations, I asked for a quick report on our logistics status. Because I did not have a staff section to track logistics at the TAC CP, I was not current on our situation, and did not have a good feel for our fuel posture.

  I did know I had a talented group of logisticians who could do the fuel arithmetic as well as I could. An M1A1 tank uses about fifty gallons an hour. You refuel about every eight hours or less, or at every opportunity. The tank's turbine engine burns as much idling as it does rolling at forty miles per hour. Divisions consume about 600,000 to 800,000 gallons of fuel a day. We were rapidly moving away from our supply points, so the turnaround time for returning trucks was stretching out to as long as twenty-four hours, or over 200 kilometers. But with Nelligen now established, I thought that we were still all right.

  Though fuel availability in the battle area was becoming increasingly short, the percentage availability of our major combat systems was still in the high eighties to low nineties — even after the 150-kilometer move and some combat.

  The equipment losses did not bother me — the soldier losses did. Our casualties for the first two days were fourteen KIA and forty-six WIA. That was not just a number to me. These were individual soldiers who had come here to do their duty. I did not agonize over these last reports, but I paused a minute and thought about those soldiers and what we needed to do over the next hours and days to continue to get our mission done at least cost. You feel it all, and then you decide and go on.

  DOUBLE ENVELOPMENT

  Earlier that afternoon, even while paying attention to the current battles, I had been intermittently thinking about the next move. How would we end it?

  What I knew about the Iraqis that afternoon was this: The RGFC were defending and getting units into position in a hurry. We had clearly attacked into the Tawalkana in a defensive alignment from south to north. They had also attempted to put a security force of tanks and BMPs another ten to fifteen kilometers west of their main line of defense. Artillery was present, as well as mortars, but the Iraqis did not have time to coordinate their artillery fires very well with the defense, or to set any barriers in place, such as mines or antitank ditches. To the south of those three defending Tawalkana brigades was a brigade of the 12th Armored Division. The remainder of the 12th and the 10th Armored Divisions seemed to be in depth behind the Tawalkana. To the north of the Tawalkana and just slightly to the east, the Medina appeared to be relocating west from their earlier positions to tie in with the Tawalkana to their south. Augmenting the Medina defense was a brigade of the Adnan Division, which had come south to tie in with the northern brigade. Behind the Medina was the Hammurabi, whose intentions at that point I could only guess. They could stay and help the Tawalkana and Medina fight or leave. As far as I could determine, those were their only two options. I also did not know how much of the Hammurabi was still in the VII Corps sector.

  Our own situation was clear to me. We would soon have three U.S. divisions on line attacking east. The 2nd ACR had found the southern seam between the RGFC and other units (it was between the southern brigade of the Tawalkana and the 37th Brigade of the 12th Armored Division). The XVIII Corps was about a day behind us now in the north after 1st AD had turned east. I figured we had two complete RGFC divisions in our sector (Tawalkana and Medina), one brigade of the Adnan, and probably one or two brigades of the Hammurabi, plus other divisions by now subordinated to the RGFC. Two complete RGFC infantry divisions were in the XVIII Corps sector now, as well as one or two brigades of the Hammurabi, plus an unknown amount of artillery.

  The Iraqis had only two options: to fight us or attempt to escape. Our options were greater, but the two key factors were these: we had to choose how to cut off the RGFC in our sector, and we had to choose how to destroy them. Destroying them meant keeping up the relentless series of attacks, and I felt confident we had the combat power for that. Choosing how to cut them off was going to be tougher.

  Our sector now ran due east toward the Kuwaiti border and extended to the Gulf. The northern line ran directly east to west, from al-Busayyah to the coast, passing just north of Safwan. It did not include Basra, or the crossings over the Euphrates north of the east-west portion of Highway 8. The southern line ran from the Kuwait/Iraq border to about fifteen kilometers north of Kuwait City across the north-south portion of Highway 8 and to the Gulf.

  I considered the tactical means available. I did not think we could cut off the RGFC with attack helicopters alone, and my success in getting fixed-wing air to hit our targets deep had been poor. So I figured we'd have to use maneuver forces. How to do that? To the south of our sector, the British were rapidly closing on their Objective Waterloo. Once they reached that, they would run out of maneuver space east of the Wadi al Batin (since the area east of the Wadi was in the Egyptian sector). However, 1st CAV would be in area Lee behind the 1st INF attack by early the next morning.

  That afternoon the answer jumped off the map. We had the maneuver forces for a double envelopment. This is a complex maneuver involving a direct attack at the enemy's strength, to keep the enemy fixed, while other forces go around as "enveloping arms" on each side and link up behind the enemy's main formation. The result is an entrapped enemy force. It is a rare maneuver, because conditions for its execution don't happen that often, but here it was clearly within our grasp. Trapping a significant part of RGFC forces in a vise would be a perfect way to end our mission.

  This maneuver also dealt with questions that had occurred to me by then about whether XVIII Corps would have time to execute the Third Army-directed maneuver to attack to our north and pin the Iraqi forces against us. If XVIII Corps could attack across the north while we came up from the south and applied pressure in the center, that would be the best use of available Third Army forces — but if time ran out before XVIII Corps could attack into the RGFC, at least with the double envelopment we would have destroyed or captured all the Iraqi forces in our sector.

  Because I had been more certain earlier that there would be a Third Army envelopment, using XVIII Corps as the northern arm of the enveloping force, my instinct then had been to send the 1st CAV around the south of the 1st INF, then north to Objective Denver, while continuing to send the British due east to interdict Highway 8, north of Kuwait City. (Also, since the British had been so successful that they had run out of maneuver space, I needed to get a boundary adjustment from Third Army to give them room.) Late in the morning, I called Third Army and hastily sketched that scheme to John Yeosock's XO, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Kendall, who passed it on to John.

  In the early afternoon, when I talked to John Yeosock about my intention for 1st CAV, he told me he did not like the idea of sendi
ng them around 1st INF toward Denver, since, from what he could see, the bulk of the RGFC was farther north, and that was our objective. Since at that time I had figured XVIII Corps would be attacking in the north, I continued to argue for my own proposal. I figured that we had enough combat power up there and that I could get the 1st CAV around the south faster to close the door on the RGFC.

  For a time, each of us argued the merits of each point of view in a good commander-to-commander discussion. Then, after we had both expressed our views, John still wanted me to weight the attack to the north, so I had said, "OK, I'll send them around the north of the 1st AD." John had a better picture of what XVIII Corps was doing and of whether they could close the gap in the north, and he probably had a better feel from the CINC about war termination, although at that time neither of us discussed it.

  (What would John and I have decided if we had known on the afternoon of the twenty-sixth that it would end at 0800 on the twenty-eighth? Knowing now what I did not know then, I probably should have gone with my instincts and sent the 1st CAV attacking east from Lee, then north, early on the morning of the twenty-seventh, rather than sending them north, to the rear of 1st AD. However, since neither John nor I did know then, going north was then the right decision, especially in light of the growing gap between us and XVIII Corps.)

  On 26 February, while current battles raged, General Franks was also thinking about how to shape the battles he wanted VII Corps to fight twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the future. With confirmed locations and intentions of RGFC units, he began shaping the plan for a double envelopment, initially intending to use the 1st (UK) Armor as the southern pincer and the recently released and on-the-move 1st CAV as the northern pincer.

  Once it was clear that 1st CAV would be the northern arm of our envelopment, I picked a new area for the 1st CAV north of Lee by about another eighty to one hundred kilometers, called it Horse, and ordered Tilelli to move his division there to be committed east and north of 1st AD. Though Horse was then occupied by 1st AD, we anticipated that by the time the 1st CAV got there, the 1st AD attack would have moved east and it would be vacant.

  After I'd determined that move, my attention turned to the southern arm of the envelopment. My choice for that was the British, and later that day, before I talked with the CINC and Yeosock, I gave that planning contingency to Rupert Smith (at the same time, I told him he did not have to execute the mission south back down the Wadi). The series of planning contingencies we were giving the small British tactical staff severely strapped their capabilities — even as they were busy directing the battles toward Waterloo. In fact, I'm sure they thought their corps commander had them planning too much. And they were right; I did ask a lot of them.

  So the double envelopment was going to be our next major maneuver. Most of the orders would be oral, and there would be some hastily drawn boundaries (the Germans call all of this auftragstaktik, or mission-type orders — that is, orders that veteran units can handle and that our doctrine tells us to use). These would be all we would need. By now we were a veteran corps.

  PLANNING AND FIGHTING

  I turned my attention back to fighting VII Corps and to the next day.

  We had to do three things almost simultaneously at the TAC: to press the current developing attack; set the next move in motion; and keep Riyadh informed. After the short meeting with the TAC staff and my phone call with the CINC, I huddled with G-3 Stan Cherrie for further details.

  At the 9 February briefing in Riyadh, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had asked, "How will it all end?" Now — at least in our sector of attack — I could see an emerging opportunity to answer the Secretary's question. We now had a final plan to close off the RGFC and destroy them.

  Here is what we figured at that point: The 1st CAV, our northern envelopment arm, would attack east and just to the north of the 1st AD toward Objective Raleigh, which was where we thought the Hammurabi Division was located. The British, our southern envelopment arm, would attack northeast from their current location near their Objective Waterloo to Objective Denver. The two arms would link up behind the surrounded Iraqi forces near or just to the north of the town of Safwan, which was itself just north of the Iraq-Kuwait border on Highway 8. In between these two divisions would be the pressure force — the 1st AD, 3rd AD, and 1st INF. They would all attack due east toward Objective Denver. Finally, I would have the 2nd ACR in reserve, possibly to attack south of the 1st INF and toward Denver, inside the British. Though the concept seemed to make sense on the surface, I knew the real challenge would be getting the 1st CAV fitted in north of the 1st AD.

  At around 2000, Stan Cherrie communicated our concept to the main CP for some further planning, while we set about to examine quickly its overall feasibility. Though Third Army was already well aware of what we had planned by that time, John Landry sent the double-envelopment scheme of maneuver to Third Army as part of the midnight VII Corps official situation report. Thus the CENTCOM staff had that report to include in General Schwarzkopf's 27 February morning update, but whether the update included mention of the double envelopment — or if in fact he ever learned of it — I do not know.

  At a little past midnight, the Third Army liaison, Colonel Dick Rock, reported to Third Army that we were planning a double envelopment. And at his 0615 report on 27 February, he added details on the identification of units and location of objectives.

  REPORTS

  By 2100 the main attack was well under way.

  When the 2nd ACR attacked through the RGFC security zone into a brigade of the Tawalkana, the orientation of the Iraqi units was either west toward us, or else south and southeast, as though they still expected the attack to come north up Wadi al Batin. North of the 2nd ACR, the 3rd AD had also begun to hit more and more Iraqi units, and by late afternoon had hit what appeared to be another brigade of the Tawalkana. To their north, lead elements of the 1st AD had also hit Iraqi armored and mechanized units. Although we were still getting prisoners, most Iraqi units were in defensive positions and fighting back. So far it appeared that both the direction and power of our attack had them surprised. We had the Tawalkana Division fixed, and possibly the Medina, as well as elements of other Iraqi divisions that had been incorporated into their building defense. I wanted to keep it that way by continuing the attack all night and all the next day… and for as long as necessary to accomplish our mission. And I wanted to press the attack both close and deep in order to keep the Iraqis from getting set, and permitting them to better coordinate their artillery fires or to emplace minefields.

  While all this was happening, the British had been highly successful. While protecting our advancing corps right flank, they had defeated the 52nd Iraqi Division and overrun the HQ of most of the defending Iraqi frontline infantry divisions.

  Thus, by late afternoon of 26 February, we had three divisions and a cavalry regiment in direct contact with the enemy. North to south: 1st AD, 3rd AD, 2nd ACR, and 1 UK. The 1st INF Division had been moving since 0430, and would pass forward through the 2nd ACR later that evening to give us four divisions on line in a night attack.

  By this time, with so many units engaged in combat, there were more events to report in the battle than time to report them. The best we could do for our higher HQ was to summarize our plans and the enemy actions. It was just not possible to attempt the sort of specific detailed reporting of the battle at the corps level that one would normally get at a lower echelon, such as a battalion or a brigade.

  The reporting did have to get done, though, and there we were, beset with problems, none of them having to do with talent or motivation.

  The biggest problem, ironically, was our success on the battlefield. At every level, commanders and soldiers were more focused on fighting their units than on reporting, and so the latter suffered. That's normal in heavy fighting, of course — it was the same in Vietnam — and in fact, the heavier the fight and the faster the pace, the greater the lag time, but still it was a problem.

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sp; Another one was the constant movement of the command posts. Reports are assembled in the CPs and passed on, and maps kept current — yet everyone's command posts kept moving. They'd be set up for a short time, then they'd be gone again.

  To control the 1st AD movement and early contacts, Ron Griffith had set up what was essentially a rolling TAC CP — a group of vehicles directly behind the attacking brigades, and which almost constantly moved along with them (and thus equipped only with line-of-sight communications). Butch Funk did the same thing. Both Griffith and Funk moved about the battlefield either in ground vehicles or helicopters. Beginning with the night attack on the twenty-sixth Tom Rhame commanded his division in a tank near the front. Don Holder also was up front with a small command group of vehicles as his 2nd ACR TAC and TOC moved during the day. Though the main CP of the Big Red One began moving north through the breach, the division not only ran away from them, the main never again set up and functioned through the rest of the war. Their reports went to their TAC CP, which had only line-of-sight comms. Meanwhile, most of my commanders directed the fight by radio when they could, but very often, because there was so much coordination involved, they were out of their CPs and up front, commander to commander.

  In short, with all of this moving about, the staff officers and NCOs charged with writing things down and reporting to higher HQ could catch only bits and fragments… and then only when they themselves were not moving. When the CPs displaced, the staffs missed the part of the fight that went on while they were in transit. If the fight develops fast, the staffs can miss a lot in a short time.