Prelude to War 7

Courtesy of U.S. Central Command, 14 January 2003

from the beachhead, 15th MEU (SOC) flew in to seize

a landing strip in Afghanistan that became known as

Forward Operating Base Rhino. This was the start of

roughly two months of Marine operations in country,

first in and around Rhino, and later from Kandahar

Airfield, which 26th MEU (SOC) later seized on 14

December.

Repeating a phrase attributed to war correspondent Richard Harding Davis in 1885 and used many

times since, General Mattis wrote in a 26 November

message, "the Marines have landed and the situation

is well in hand."15 * It was, in the words of the Naval

Institute's annual review of the Marine Corps, a display of "flexibility and operational reach ... [thati

stunned many outsiders."16 The task force's movement from ship to shore was right out of the Marine

Corps doctrine known as expeditionary maneuver

warfare, which called for fast and deep movements,

*Some journalists reported the remark as, "The Marines have

landed and we now own a piece of Afghanistan," which the Pentagon apparently "scrambled to disavow." (See, for example,

Christopher Cooper, "How a Marine Lost His Command in the

Race to Baghdad," Wall Street Journal, 5Apr04, p. 1)

directly from the sea to objectives inland. But this

was still something relatively new and largely untried.

General Mattis was not exaggerating when he commented that if he had proposed this kind of operation at Quantico or Newport, Rhode Island, the home

of the Naval War College, he would have been told

it could not be done.17

In the meantime, back in Hawaii there were

changes afoot that would shift some of the burden

•from the small liaison elements in Tampa and

Bahrain, and from General Mattis himself. On 24 October, the Commander, MarForPac, Lieutenant General Earl B. Hailston, had formally taken on the

additional duty of Commander, MarCent, and begun

to play a much more prominent role in the CentCom

arena.18 By January 2002, Hailston was in the process

of moving his flag to Bahrain "to establish [the] MarCent HQ in theater in support of CincCent Commander-in-Chief, CentCom] and Operation Enduring

Freedom."19 Even though he occasionally shuttled

back to Hawaii, Bahrain became his home for much

of the next year and a half.2° Hailston's move, made

with some 200 of his Marines, signaled the Marine
8 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

Corps' intent to build a strong infrastructure in theater

to support Marine commanders on the ground. It was

as much a matter of Iraq as it was of Afghanistan; by

early 2002 the administration had directed the military to plan for a possible war with Iraq while consolidating its gains in Afghanistan.

The new MarCent headquarters in the Gulf was

not even up to the standard of MarCent Tampa's

building; like virtually all Marine headquarters in and

around the Persian Gulf through the summer of 2003,

it was never much to look at, let alone to work in. At

first MarCent even had trouble finding a home in theater. When they landed at Sheikh Issa Air Base in

Bahrain, the Marines from Hawaii and Tampa started

to build an expeditionary headquarters on a part of

the base. But the initiative had not been fully cleared

with the Bahrainis, there had been some kind of

cross-cultural misunderstanding, and they "requested" that MarCent find somewhere else to go.

The Marine coordination element commander,

Colonel Kiser, who was familiar with Arab ways and

with the Navy establishment, came up with a quick

Componency

The first time out ider tried to understand the

relationship between Central Command' "ervice components" and "functional components,"

their heads spun and they had to reach for their

favorite painkiller. Each Armed Service had a ervice component, with a headquarters and a staff,

commanded by its enior officer in theater. Thes

components were 1arCent, 1 avCent, AI'Cent, and

CentAF. Their purpo e a to proVide and u tain

their forces. avCent and CentAF were conunand

that could easily transform themselves into functional commands, that i , commands responsible

for combat at sea and in the air. It seemed natural

for the naval commander to take on the additional

duty of the Coalition Force Maritime Component

Commander for naval warfare, while the CentAF

commander could become the Coalition Forces Air

Component Commander for the fight in the air.

There was even a commander for special operations, Coalition Force pecial Operations Command (CFSOC). It al 0 eemed natural for the

ArCent commander to become dual-hatted as the

Coalition Forces Land Component Commander, but

what about MarCent? There were no provisions for

an "Expeditionary Forces Component Command."

In the Gulf War of 1990-1991, there had been nothing even remotely like a functional component

command for the war on land; the CentCom commander, AImy General H. orman Schwarzkopf,

had decided to take on the additional dutie f

being his own land component commander, not

unlike the Confederate general Braxton Bragg,

who had been his own supply officer. After he became the CentCom commander in the late 1990s,

General Zinni had wrestled with the problem. His

view was that the United tates had fought two

ground wars in De ert tonn. General Schwarzkopf

had taken on more than anyone man could handle, and the effort of the AI'my and the Marine

Corps had not been fully coordinated. Zinni decided that he wanted the Army and th Marine

Corps to establish a standing joint land forces component command in the region. This became Joint

Task Force Kuwait 0TF Kuwait) with it headquarters at Camp Doha, Kuwait.* Marine, and Marine units, rotated through the command, whose

staff was largely identical with that of ArCent. In

the fall of 2001, for example, then-Brigadier General Emerson r. Gardner, Jr., was in command of

JTF Kuwait. ArCent and the joint task force morphed into Coalition Forces Land Component Command in late 2001, under the command of a

three-star Army general, Lieutenant General Paul

T. Mikolashek, who moved his flag to Kuwait in

December. Like hi predecessor Zinni, General

Franks wanted a trong Coalition Force Land

Component Conunander, with its own staff, to

focus on the ground war while he focu ed on his

own responsibilities for the war at the next higher

level. The officer who was to command Coalition

Forces Land Component in 2003, Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan, found that there was

"huge goodness in that arrangement."**

*In 2003, while serving at Coalition Forces Land Component

Commander, Marine BGen Christian M. Cowdrey made much

the same point, commenting that the combined/joint land headquarters CFLCC fulftlled a function that would have been difficult for any other organization to fulfill, that of orchestrating the

plan. (BGen Christian B. Cowdrey intvw, 26Apr03 (MCHC,

QuantiCO, VA); Tom Clancy, Gen Anthony Zinni, and Tony

Koltz, Battle Ready [l ew York, : G. P. Putnam's on, 2004],

p. 315; see also Zinni intvw)

**Kevin Peraino, "Low-Key Leader; LtGen David McKiernan is

the Soft-Spoken oldier with d1e Hard Job of Commanding U. .

Ground Forces in Iraq," ewsweek Web Exclusive, 19 Mar03.
Prelude to War 9

solution. He crafted an arrangement with NavCent for

MarCent to come onto the Naval Support Activity itself, even though there was little room to spare on

that small base. NavCent agreed to allow MarCent to

set up on a baseball field that was, by turns, the

source of fine dust and, when it rained, some very

sticky mud.21

The result was an unusual overlay of temporary

structures on a base with some amenities. Some of

the MarCent Marines worked in the general-purpose

tents on the baseball field. They had some air conditioning, as much for the computers as for the Marines,

but were often hot and uncomfortable, Other Marines

worked in only slightly more comfortable expeditionary buildings. Like most Marines on major staffs

after 11 September, the MarCent Marines worked incredible hours, under great pressure, with little time

off. But there was a small upside; less than 100 yards

away was a well stocked food court, as well as a

gym, exchange, and swimming pool. Sometimes,

when the force protection condition was high, one

might witness the anomalous sight of half-camouflaged U.S. Navy personnel with loaded rifles sitting

or lying among the palm trees and brush outside the

food court, on the lookout for any terrorists who

might have made it through the perimeter, which was

an elaborate affair with concrete barriers, barbed

wire, and sentries. This was not quite as farfetched

as it sounds; not only was there a continuing terrorist threat, but, especially in early 2003, there were

also anti-American demonstrations and occasional terrorist attacks throughout the region. If there had been

a firefight, the personnel on base could have watched

it while sipping cappuccinos. It was an unusual way

to go to war.

MarCent now became the only purely "service

component command" in theater, with the enormous

responsibility of providing and sustaining thousands,

and potentially tens of thousands, of Marines and

sailors. Like his counterparts at NavCent; Army

Forces, Central Command (ArCent); and Air Forces,

Central Command (CentAF), General Hailston reported to the Commander-in-Chief, Central Command, General Tommy Franks, who held sway over

all U.S. forces in the region, whatever their purpose.

Unlike his counterparts, General Hailston was not a

tactician. He would get the Marines to the war, make

sure they had what they needed for the fight, and

generally offer advice to General Franks on how best

to employ them. It was Hailston's job to look 45 to 60

days into the future, anticipate Marine requirements,

and then fulfill them, all in all an enormous undertaking. But when Marines went into combat, they

DVIC DM-SD-05-04888

LtGen David D. McKiernan, USA, a graduate of the

College of William and Mary, gained experience in

the Balkans as a staff officer in the 1990s. In September 2002, he assumed command of the US. Third

Army and US. Army Forces Central Comman4, and

became the Coalition Forces Land Component Corninander in preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

would fight under one of the "functional components" like the Coalition Forces Maritime Component

Command (CFMCC), which was NavCent's warfighting guise. For example, Admiral Moore became both

the NavCent commander and the CFMCC commander. There were similar arrangements for CentAF

and ArCent to become, respectively, the Coalition

Forces Air Component Command (CFACC) and the

Coalition Forces Land Component Command

(CFLCC). This was a radical departure from the organization for Desert Storm some 10 years earlier,
10 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

Marine Corps Photo 0201 12-M-1586C-002

Afghans greet Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit's CompanyA, 2dLightArmoredReconnaissance Battalion, on a routine mounted patrol

through a village near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

which had been fought without a unified land cornmand.

This created a dilemma for the Marine Corps,

naval infantry and air forces that did not fit neatly

into any of these categories. In 2001 the result was

another set of complications. Task Force 58 initially

reported to NavCent/CFMCC. This was a natural relationship, especially while the task force remained

afloat. Once it was ashore, and after CFLCC had

stood up in mid-November, it had to develop a relationship with that headquarters, which had assumed

responsibility for all operations on land in

Afghanistan. Accordingly, on 30 November, CFMCC

assigned tactical control of Task Force 58 to CFLCC,

without giving up operational control. Especially at

first there was some friction between Task Force 58

and CFLCC; the CFLCC culture was "Big Army," the

world of large staffs and detailed reporting, certainly

a change for the Marines on Task Force 58. But over

time everyone made it work, the "TF 58 staff was

able to adapt to the new information requirements

while continuing to develop a solid working relationship with the CFLCC staff. The positive relationship would last throughout the operation as CFLCC

buttressed and represented CTF 58's interests."22

Between 2001 and 2003, the words "combined" and "coalition"

were used in the titles of these organizations to mean the same

thing. While "joint" refers to U.S. commands with more than one

service, "combined" or "Coalition" refers to commands that also

include foreign elements. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, I will use coalition.

Most Marine staff officers in the Persian Gulf became well versed in the intricacies of operational

control and tactical control. By and large, what General Hailston exercised was operational control, organizing and employing forces, sustaining them, and

assigning general tasks, but not tactical control,

which was the specific direction and control of

forces, especially in combat. The two exceptions

were CJTF-CM and an organization known as the Marine Logistics Command (MLC), which would play a

prominent role in the Iraq War in 2003. Like the organization for the land war, this, too, was different

from Desert Storm. Then the senior Marine in theater, Lieutenant General Walter E. Boomer, had commanded I MEF and MarCent, a heavy burden for one

commander, who in both capacities reported directly

to General Schwarzkopf.23

General Zinni has argued that especially in a major

contingency, each function requires a separate staff,

with a different focus.24 General Hailston's chief of

staff, Colonel Stephen W. Baird, believed the arrangement in Desert Storm had stressed the I MEF staff and

forced General Boomer to divide his time between

warfighting and Service component issues.2' Having

one commander responsible for "shaping, providing,

and sustaining" Marine forces and another commander for warfighting would free the warfighter to

focus on combat. The Service component commander, who would be senior, could forge a relationship with the commander-in-chief and protect the

sanctity of the Marine air-ground task forces, resisting

the understandable propensities of non-Marines to

break task forces into their building blocks, splitting

ground and air components apart and sending them

to fight with their counterparts in the Army and the

Air Force.26 (General Hailston agreed with this point

of view.) Speaking in late 2003, General James T.

Conway added the commonsense point that it would

have been difficult for him to command both MarCent and I MEF, since in one capacity he would be

the equal of the CFLCC commander, and in the other,

his subordinate 27

Even with the improved organization of the force,

there was some Service rivalry. One notable point of

contention was the "force cap" placed on the Marines

while Task Force 58 was ashore—CentCom decreed

'Neither Gen Boomer nor Gen Hailston reported directly to Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC). However, there was a lively exchange of views and data between the CentCom theater and

HQMC, especially the office of the Deputy Commandant for Plans,

Policies, and Operations (PP&O). During 2002 and 2003, Gen Hailston and LtGen Emil R. Bedard of PP&O were in close contact,

discussing and coordinating plans virtually on a daily basis.
Prelude to War 11

that initially there could not be more than 1,000

Marines and sailors in Afghanistan in late 2001. Some

Marines interpreted this as a gratuitous slap in the

face, "Big Army" making sure the Marines did not

steal the show, and, by extension, making it easier

for the Army to assume the Marine mission in

Afghanistan, a process that was well under way by

mid-January 2002.28 But the Marines complied and

were still able to carry on with their mission.

Task Force 58 was released from CFLCC control

on 3 February 2002.29 Although small numbers of

Marines stayed in country, either as individuals or as

units, for quite some time, the 26th MEU(SOC) left

Afghanistan on 13 February. This spelled the end of

Task Force 58's engagement in that country. Now the

nature of the task force's achievement was even

clearer. Apart from validating some of the tenets of

expeditionary maneuver warfare, it showed Marines,

literally and figuratively, how far they had come from

the traditional "two up and one back" mind-set that

had characterized the war in Vietnam and, to a certain extent, Desert Storm, which had had some of the

characteristics of an old-fashioned linear battlefield.3°

Task Force 58's experience also showed Marines

how far they had come since Desert Storm in another

way. Despite the friction over matters like the force

cap (some friction was inevitable), there had been

nothing like the bad blood and the temper tantrums

that are discernable beneath the surface of the memoirs of the Gulf War; in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq,

senior participants almost uniformly reported that the

level of cooperation was unparalleled, both among

the Services as institutions and among their chiefs as

individuals. To cite just one example, CFLCC's General McKiernan stated categorically that "there were

no rifts" between the various commanders.31

There are a number of possible explanations for

the relative good feeling, the general atmosphere of

trust, among the Services after September 2001.

These ranged from the maturing of joint routines at

the combatant commands, to the exigencies of the

situation, that is, the unifying effect of the events of

11 September, to the backgrounds and the personalities of the commanders. A number of controversial

A Marine crew chiefguides a CH-46 Sea Knight of Ma rifle Medium Helicopter Squadron 365 at Kandahar International Ahport in Afghanistan. Squadron aircraft flew re-supply, long-range reconnaissance patrol,

ground escort, armed interdiction, and heliborne assaults in search of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces.

DVIC DM-SD-02-06319
12 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

issues such as the employment of Marine air in the

joint environment, which had been a serious point of

contention during Desert Shield/Desert Storm, had

more or less been resolved during the decade since

the Gulf War. CentCom commanders like General

Zinni, first and always a Marine but also something of

an iconoclast and nothing if not a "joint" visionary,

had created and exercised joint structures such as

Joint Task Force Kuwait, with its provisions for alternating Marine and Army commanders. Similarly, operations Northern Watch and Southern Watch, run for

years by United States and allied air forces to enforce

the no-fly zones in the top and bottom one-thirds of

Iraq, were successful combined and joint operations 32

Analyzing the backgrounds of the participants in

the Iraq War, historians Williamson Murray and Major

General Robert Scales, USA (Retired), have made the

comment that the officer corps was far better trained

and educated in 2003 than it had been during the

Gulf War, let alone Vietnam. The key here is the word

"educated"; beginning in the 1980s, officers were not

only well trained, able to perform battlefield tasks,

but they could also think in "operational terms." "The

new emphasis," Murray and Scales wrote in their excellent overview of the period, The Iraq War, "was

on maneuver, deception, exploitation, and decentralized leadership."33 In the Marine Corps the reform

movement had started informally with meetings after

hours at Quantico, sometimes over beer, but just as

likely over coffee or sodas, and spread little by little

to other bases. Many of the ideas that emerged were

eventually enshrined in doctrine, particularly FMFM

1: Warfighting, during the commandancy of General

Alfred M. Gray in the late 1980s. Not everyone became a maneuverist, but it is fair to say that by the

end of the 1990s, virtually everyone was familiar with

the term and had been influenced by it in some

way. 34 The personalities of the commanders, and how

they meshed, were also part of the picture. General

McKiernan commented that "the big strength in this

campaign was the personalities of the various component commanders. . . . You can say a lot of that

[inter-Service cooperation was possible] because of

developments in joint doctrine and training.. . but a

lot of it [was] . . . also in the chemistry between

the leaders."35 General Franks, with his down-to-earth

style, was known as an officer who listened to his

subordinates. A strong proponent of military transformation, he was a commander who identified the

desired "effects . . . and tasks and purpose, but [left]

the planning to the component commanders."36

He had a long-standing "joint" reputation, having

been the ArCent commander under Zinni. It had

been a natural progression for him to take the commander's chair and continue the joint tradition. Even

after becoming the commander, General Franks had

stayed in touch with General Zinni, using him as an

unofficial mentor and even trying, in late 2002, to use

him as an official mentor for a CentCom exercise.

(Zinni did not come to theater, because by then his

blunt pronouncements against the coming war had

made him persona non grata with the Pentagon.)37 At

MarCent, General Hailston had an unusually varied

background, having served as an infantryman, an aviator (whose call sign was "Titan"), and a force service support group commander. He had relationships

with other senior commanders, especially CFACC's

Lieutenant General T. Michael Moseley, USAF, which

went back many years. He also had a reputation for

not suffering colonels gladly and for taking good care

of his younger Marines, not necessarily bad traits to

have in 2002 and 2003 (at least so long as you were

not a colonel). The field historian assigned to his

headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Acosta, attested to the general's ability to ask penetrating questions across a broad range of subjects, and to keep

supplies and equipment flowing to theater.38

Murray and Scales assert that General McKiernan,

who was to become CFLCC commander in September

2002, "proved to be an inspired choice."39 An armor

officer who was quiet but compelling, McKiernan's

background included joint and combined experience,

in addition to senior Army commands. He, too, was

not afraid of new ideas and wanted to find the best

organization for the fight, as opposed to doing things

the way they always had been done. He had what

Newsweek was to call "a temperament as. . . even as

the desert," which also made it easy for him to work

with other Services.4°

The officer who set the tone for virtually all

Marines in theater was General James T. Conway. A

graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, he

was commissioned in 1970 and had had a successful

career in the infantry. When away from the fleet, he

served as the commanding officer of The Basic

School and then as president of the Marine Corps

University. He also served two tours on the joint staff

in Washington. From 2000 to 2002, he was the commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, and then

from August to November 2002 he served as the

deputy commanding general at MarCent, which gave

him an opportunity to work closely with General

Hailston on CentCom issues while he waited to take

command of I MEF. This was the commandant's mi-
tiative. General Jones wanted to maintain continuity

on the West Coast and to make General Conway

even better prepared for his next job, to command I

MEF and to balance its equities against MarCent and

CFLCC requirements 41*

Murray and Scales described Genera? Conway as

*When asked how the right Marines, a virtual dream team, had

come to serve in key billets in the CentCom area of operations in

2002 and 2003, the Commandant of the Marine Corps said it had

been as much a matter of good long-term personnel policies as of

any specific, short-term assignments. (Gen James L. Jones, Jr.,

intvw, 14Jun04 [MCHC, Quantico, VA])

"big," he was well over six feet tall, "bluff, well-read,

and well-educated," and concluded that he "represented all that was best about the new United States

Marine Corps, which General Al Gray as the commandant had built up."42 He was a popular commander, described as an officer and a gentleman

who was good to work for and who took care of his

troops.43 He was nothing if not involved in what his

subordinates were doing. For example, he had a policy of wanting to be briefed in person on unusual,

high-risk evolutions, as a young British reconnaissance officer was to discover during the war when

Prelude to War 13

DVIC DM-SD-05-06318

LtGen James T Conway, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, addresses the officers of Regimental Combat Team 7 at Camp Coyote, Kuwait. Gen Conway had charge of a battalion landing team during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm before assigned command of the 1st Marine Division and then

IMarine Expeditionary Force.
14 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

he was whisked from his position in the desert in

order to brief the I MEF commander, in person, on an

upcoming operation. It was typical of General Conway to focus on the extraction plan; he wanted to be

sure there was a plan to take care of the soldiers and

Marines in the worst case.44 Even months after the

war, he remained acutely conscious of the casualties

that had occurred during the campaign—able to recite numbers and remember individual cases.45 He

has described his own command style as "democratic," which meant he preferred to command by first

listening to his subordinates and then outlining his

intent. He knew when to give his subordinates free

rein and when to intervene. A review of the journals

kept by the field historian at I MEF headquarters during the Iraq War reveals that, like General Hailston,

General Conway spent much of the time asking questions and gathering information. They also show that

he was typically optimistic, slow to anger, and virtually unflappable, equal to any challenge, whether

contemplating the possibility of a chemical attack or

dealing with a difficult counterpart or subordinate,

traits that he would need in Operation Iraqi Freedom.46
Chapter 2

Inside Our Own Loop:Jomt Planning for War in Iraq

Operation Enduring Freedom set the stage for Operation Iraqi Freedom. The second operation was not

a clear-cut sequel to the first; for military planners,

there was no straight line from success in Afghanistan

in the winter of 2001-2002 to a war in Iraq in 2003 to

remove the dictator Saddam Hussein from power. But

Enduring Freedom was in many ways the starting

point for Iraqi Freedom.

Coalition Forces Land Component Command

(CFLCC) and Coalition Forces Maritime Component

Command (CFMCC) were still very much in existence

when the focus shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq early

in 2002. The Marines in Task Force 58 who fought in

Afghanistan between November 2001 and January

2002 had operated under both of these commands

and had developed good relationships with them. If

anything, General Franks was more convinced of the

need for an organization like CFLCC in a war with

Iraq. In Afghanistan there were few U.S. troops on

the ground, but a war with Iraq could be a larger,

more complex undertaking by far and most likely

would be won or lost on the ground. Alongside

CFLCC and CFMCC, Coalition Forces Air Component

Command and Coalition Forces Special Operations

Command remained very active commands that the

Marines would engage.

Both for the individuals who went to Afghanistan

and for the organizations that sent them, the experiences of Task Force 58 in Enduring Freedom set

some of the specific conditions for war in Iraq. Integrated into a combined, joint operation that fused airpower, special operations, and information

operations, the Marines had operated hundreds of

miles from the beachhead, relying heavily on Marine

airlift, especially by Sikorsky CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopters followed by Lockheed KC-130 Hercules cargo

carriers. They had succeeded without a large staff, or

a plan that was hundreds of pages long, relying instead on common sense, good liaison officers, and

"hand con" (not a formal relationship like tactical

control or operational control but one sealed with a

handshake).

The focus began to shift to Iraq even before Task

Force 58 left Afghanistan. In the wake of 11 September, the administration had looked to see if Iraq was

behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon before deciding to fight in Afghanistan. But

it seems that Iraq was never far from the administration's mind and that while overthrowing the Taliban

and uprooting Al Qaeda were short-term objectives,

Iraq, more specifically, removing the regime of Saddam Hussein, had always been a long-term objective.

Military planners followed the administration's lead

on both Iraq and Afghanistan.47 In the fall of 2001,

staff officers from Headquarters Marine Corps to Central Command (CentCom) to CFLCC were considering

the possibility that U.S. forces could be called upon

to invade Iraq. There were some preliminary planning directives, but even without them many Marines

and Army officers simply assumed that Iraq would

come after Afghanistan. CFLCC's Major General

Henry W. Stratman, USA, spoke for many when he

said that after 11 September the assumption was not

whether, but when, the United States would go to

war with Iraq.48

In January 2002, General Hailston, in his capacity

as the Commanding General, Marine Forces Pacific,

directed I MEF to focus its efforts on preparing for

"contingencies" in the CentCom theater. "CG, MarForPac. . . decided to focus I MEF efforts on preparation for contingencies in the CentCom theater. I

MEF's role in PacCom activities was minimized or assumed by III MEF and MarForPac" to the virtual exclusion of other activities.49

This was when I MEF's majors and lieutenant

colonels, along with a few colonels, who make any

large staff run earned their pay. They entered into

what was for many of them the most intense period

of their careers in the Marine Corps, one that would

not let up for some 18 months. Even before they deployed from the United States, they came close to

spending every waking minute working on the plan,

often in windowless secure spaces. When they were

not working in a vault, they might be traveling from

one drab base to another for a conference or a war

game. They no longer had any time for themselves,

let alone their families or their "honey do" lists.

For the I MEF intelligence section, the focus on

CentCom meant embarking on "a wide variety of activities, including presentation of many staff orientation and mission analysis briefings, . . . supporting

estimates and plans, . . . development [of require-
16 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

ments]. . . hosting visits from national and theater intelligence organizations (CIA, DIA, MCIA, CentCom,

ArCent, and V Corps) and [making] liaison trips." For

its part, I MEF's current operations section became

involved in various exercises in the CentCom area of

operations. In April, for example, it participated in

Base 802669A1 (R00667) 12-99

the exercise "Lucky Sentinel," a combined/joint computer-assisted command post exercise designed to

train and sustain the battle staff of Joint Task Force

Kuwait. It was conducted "in conjunction with ArCent; CentAF; and the Kuwaiti military," good practice for the events that were about to unfold.
Inside Our Own Loop 17

Similarly, I MEF's future operations section used exercises like "Desert Scimitar" and "Lucky Sentinel" to

prepare for war in the Middle East, while the MEF

plans section was involved in longer-range, highlevel operational planning. In the subdued words of

the I MEF command chronology, "G-5 directed most

of its efforts . . . [to] . . . details [of] I MEF's slice of

the USCincCent's plan in concert with the nation's

strategic objectives."50

This was a dramatic understatement. For a few

months, the plans section took the lead in the intense

and exhausting task of laying the groundwork for

Marines to participate in a war for Iraq. In January

2002, General Hagee sent one of his lead planners

for Korea, Lieutenant Colonel George W. Smith, Jr., to

Tampa with Colonel Jonathan G. Miclot, the plans officer at 3d Marine Aircraft Wing. Their mission was to

represent MarCent, not just I MEF, on CentCom's

long-range planning element.5' This was a happy

consequence of Marine staffing practices. In his MarCent capacity as a component commander, General

Hailston made the decision to let I MEF, the warfighting command subordinate to him, play the leading

role in operational planning.

The long-range planning element was small and

run mostly by Army ground officers, who had been

working in the same directorate as Major General

Commissioned in 1968 through the Enlisted Commissioning Program, LtGen Earl B. Hailston went

to flight school and served in a variety of aviation

and ground assignments before assuming the multihatted position of Commander, U.S. Marine Forces

Pacific/Commander, U.S. Marine Forces Central

Command/Commanding General, Fleet Marine

Force, Pacific/Commander. US. Marine Corps

Bases, Pacific, on 10 August 2001.

Photo courtesy of Field History Branch

Keith J. Stalder, an even-tempered Marine aviator

who was the deputy J-3 at CentCom and would become the deputy commanding general of I MEF later

in the year. Since late 2001, the focus of the planning

element's much compartmented work had been Iraq,

and the timeline was short—this was not theoretical

planning for some unlikely contingency in the distant future. The word was that CentCom might need

to be ready to fight as early as the spring of 2002;

this could be a "come as you are" war. In that regard

it would not be unlike the campaign in Afghanistan,

which had been a relatively quick success.

The vision that guided the planning was to win by

creating "shock and awe" through multiple lines of

operation putting simultaneous pressure on the

enemy—from the air, from conventional ground operations, and from various kinds of special operations, to include "non-kinetic" operations and

operations by proxies like the Kurds. There were

three main groups in Iraq—the Shia majority, the ruling Sunni minority, and the Kurds. The Kurds lived a

more or less autonomous existence in the northeast

corner of the country and had large, well-armed militias. Neither the Kurds nor the Shia had much love

for Saddam Hussein, who had suppressed them in

unimaginably brutal ways. For Marines, "shock and

awe" was something like the "combined arms effect,"

on a grand scale, of forcing the enemy into a series

of dilemmas he could not resolve; if he turned to face

one threat, he would make himself vulnerable to another threat. It was something like facing mortars and

machine guns at the same time; was the infantry better off staying in fixed positions during a mortar attack, or getting out of its holes into a field of machine

gun fire?

While often associated with the air offensive in

what was not yet officially known as Operation Iraqi

Freedom, "shock and awe" was more than a theory

of air warfare. The concept has both a recent and a

more distant past. In the recent past it can be traced

to a book published by the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., in December 1996 by

Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade titled Shock

and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance, with contributions by retired Generals Charles A. Homer, USAF,

and Frederick M. Franks, Jr., USA, both of Desert

Shield/Desert Storm fame, and retired Admiral Leon

A. Edney, who had been commander-in-chief at Atlantic Command. The authors' purpose was to offer

an alternative to the strategy of overwhelming

force—sometimes called the Powell Doctrine, on display in Desert Storm, by pointing to the potential of

the many new technologies to achieve "rapid domi-
18 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

nance" that would paralyze the enemy's will to resist, ideally but not necessarily before any ground

forces were committed. It is easy to see why this doctrine is especially attractive to the Air Force, as it suggests that airpower alone could be decisive.

The authors of Shock and Awe readily conceded

that their theory was not entirely new, with antecedents in the World War II concept of "blitzkrieg"

and various operations since. Iraq war historians

Williamson Murray and Major General Robert Scales

discuss how General Anthony Zinni and his Army

counterparts used ideas like "rapid dominance" and

"overmatching power" when they considered joint

contingency plans against Saddam Hussein.52 Zinni

himself has commented that after Desert Storm, a

more or less traditional war, he was convinced that

the Marine Corps needed to learn to think along multiple lines of operation. Marines would also have to

work better in the joint arena. These were, he said,

the lessons he tried to inculcate in I MEF after he became its commanding general in 1994. He added the

sage comment that, like many, he imagined at the

time that he was on the cutting edge, but realized

later that the winds of change were blowing in other

places in the Marine Corps around the same time.

Transformation is not a straightforward, top-down

process.53

Looking back to 1989, Murray and Scales found

an interesting precedent, a small war before Desert

Storm that was almost like a laboratory experiment of

the ideas that dominated planning in 2001 and 2002.

This was Operation Just Cause in Panama: "Maneuver in Panama was nonlinear and focused on control of the whole operational area rather than on the

sequential capture of key terrain and high ground

characteristic of more traditional forms of maneuver."54 Just Cause was complemented by new forms

of technology such as laser-guided bombs that enabled pinpoint targeting, that were to improve

markedly over the next 10 years, in turn enabling further strides in doctrine. Murray and Scales concluded

that Just Cause had little effect on Desert Storm,

which did not incorporate much of this kind of

"shock and awe," and added that the U.S. military's

lack of preparation for the postwar period in Panama

had contributed to widespread looting and lawlessness after the fighting had stopped.55

Throughout 2002 and into 2003, the basic concept

for a war of "shock and awe" against Saddam Hussein did not change. General Franks made sure of

that. Nor did other threshold concepts change once

they had been established. These had to do with the

would organize for the fight, who they would report

to, and with basing the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing in

theater. Smith and Miclot found that their counterparts in the long-range planning element were working from a scenario that had two Marine

expeditionary brigades performing various missions,

mostly to do with security, in southeast Iraq while

the Army's V Corps carried the fight to the enemy in

the north. Over the next 40 days, the two Marine

planners worked patiently to lay down the Marine

expeditionary force "marker"; the argument that the

Marines should fight as one expeditionary force in

Iraq, the whole force being greater than the sum of

its parts, let alone two independent Marine expeditionary brigades.56

This took some doing. Although it was something

they had always known and heard, Smith and Miclot

learned again, firsthand, just how peculiar the concept of the Marine air-ground task force is to nonMarines; no other Service has anything quite like it.

Many Marine and Army units of apparently comparable size are not in fact comparable; the Marine unit

typically has more organic power, because it comes

with its own air support. This is one of the factors

that led to disconnects when joint planners were

placing Army and Marine units on the board. As Lieutenant Colonel Smith put it, it was difficult to get into

the Army's "comfort zone," to make his Army counterparts comfortable with the "MEF single battle" concept, but he felt that after 40 days of hard work, he

and Miclot had succeeded.57

The other threshold issue they took on was "beddown" for the Marine aircraft wing, essentially a matter of forward basing. This may not sound like a

particularly dramatic issue, but with the U.S. Air Force

occupying ever more space on the air bases in

Kuwait, it was important for the Marine Corps to

stake claims to space for its aircraft near the front.

Otherwise the wing would have had to look for

bases farther afield, which would degrade its ability

to get into the fight and especially to provide responsive close air support. Miclot worked hard and

succeeded; Smith considers him one of the unsung

heroes of the war for identifying, and resolving, the

issue early on.58

On 12 February 2002, in Washington, Smith and

Miclot back-briefed the trio of officers who held the

key positions for shaping basic Marine Corps policy

and "major muscle movements" in 2002 and 2003—

Lieutenant Generals Hailston (in his MarCent capacity), Hagee (in his I MEF capacity), and Emil R.

Bedard (the deputy commandant of the Marine Corps

basic organization for combat, how the Marines for Plans, Policies, and Operations (PP&O), basically
Inside Our Own Loop 19

Photo courtesy of Col Charles J. Quilter II

An Iowa native, Col Jonathan G. Miclot was commissioned from the U.S. Naval Academy and then deszgnated a navalflight officer in 1981. He commanded

VMFA(AW)-225 before being assigned as plans officer, 3d Marine Aircraft Wing.

the commandant's current operations division). Smith

and Miclot were gratified to find that the generals

wholeheartedly supported their work on both the

unity of the Marine air-ground task force and the

bed-down issues, something that did not change for

the life of the operation. Within a few months, General Hagee would become commandant and General

Conway would take his place at I MEF; but at the top

of the Marine Corps, the I MEF-MarCent-PP&O nexus

remained the central forum for consultations and decisions about Iraq and certainly played a prominent

role in the sourcing conference that took place later

in February to come up with a preliminary troop list

for Iraq. (The levels of involvement shifted somewhat

over time. Initially, Bedard played the most prominent role. As the lay-down for Iraq started to gel,

MarCent and I MEF played more prominent roles,

while Bedard tended to monitor developments. Although under CentCom's operational control, MarCent also reported to Headquarters Marine Corps,

generally to Bedard, on strictly Marine Corps business such as deciding which Marine units to deploy

to CentCom or how to outfit them.)59 Thanks to the

state of technology for secure communications, the

commanders and the planners were able to stay in

very close touch throughout the process, and the senior officers who were read in on Iraq could develop

and maintain arguably the best situational awareness

in the history of warfare. They could find out almost

anything they wanted to know.60

It was Marine Corps doctrine that the Marine expeditionary force should not only fight as a Marine

air-ground task force, but that it should also plan as

an air-ground task force. Planners for the constituent

parts of the task force should integrate their work.

They should not work as stovepipes, waiting to interface at senior levels after plans were well advanced. Instead they needed to function as a

network, at all levels, from the start.'

Officers of I MEF used the same approach in their

work with other Services. In the interests of coordinated planning, Colonel Joseph D. Dowdy, and Lieutenant Colonel Smith, who was the I MEF plans

officer at the time, reached out to their counterparts

during the many planning conferences that took

place over the next few months. These included sessions at Transportation Command at Scott Air Force

Base in Illinois; V Corps headquarters at Heidelberg,

Germany; and CFLCC headquarters at Camp Doha,

Kuwait, not to mention the commanders' conferences

chaired by CentCom on a regular basis. The Marines

were generally able to establish and maintain good

relationships with their counterparts, especially at the

working level. Sometimes it even reached the point

where planners identified more with one another

than with their parent commands, sure sign that relationships had gelled.61

It was always assumed that I MEF would fight

under CFLCC. When CFLCC had taken control of land

operations in Afghanistan in November 2001, CentCom had charged it with the traditional Joint Task

Force Kuwait missions of defending Kuwait and generally being prepared for war with Iraq. That had not

changed in 2002, and from the start CFLCC had

played the central role in planning for the ground

war against Iraq and for I MEF's role in it.62 The

arrangement was that, exercising operational control,

MarCent would flow I MEF to theater and provide for

its sustainment, relying mostly on the Marine Logistics Command drawn largely from the 2d Force Serv-

*While in Tampa, LtCol Smith was able to hold a secure telephone

conversation with Gen Hagee virtually every day, briefing him on

developments and receiving his guidance.

"This was one of the fundamentals of the Marine Corps planning

process: "continuous planning requires continuous coordination

laterally and between echelons as plans are adjusted and refined

over time." (U.S. Marine Corps, Planning [Washington, D.C.: Department of Navy, 19971, p. 83)
20 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

ice Support Group for that purpose. But then MarCent would assign I MEF to CFLCC's tactical control

for combat operations alongside the Army's V Corps.

The result, General McKiernan commented later,

would be the first time since the Korean War that

there would be a combined 'operational-level, land

component command/warfighting headquarters."63

Like planning, educating other Services about the

Marine air-ground task force and safeguarding its equities was a continuous process. It went on long after

the initial lessons in Tampa in January and February

2002. Marines at many levels engaged their counterparts at CFLCC and other commands, finding ways to

make the lessons stick without being resented by

their "students." The process started at the top. From

the highest levels on down, Marine commanders and

planners stayed on message. General Hailston continued to defend I MEF's identity as an air-ground

task force. While still I MEF commander, General

Hagee did the same when meeting with General

Mikolashek, who remained in command at CFLCC

through the summer of 2002. Then, when General

Conway was preparing to replace General Hagee as

I MEF commander and General McKiernan became

the new general on this particular block, Conway

hosted McKiernan and his subordinates at Camp

Pendleton. First the Marines presented the I MEF capabilities brief. Among other "lessons" about the airground task force, General Conway wanted to make

sure his new boss understood that "our air" was also

"his air," a concept General McKiernan came to embrace.64 He also wanted to give his subordinates—

now-Major General Mattis, who had become

commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, and

Major General James F. Amos, the 3d Marine Aircraft

Wing commander, a chance to talk through issues

with CFLCC planners. The specific issues were perhaps not as important as opening channels of communication among general officers at CFLCC and I

MEF; the participants remember feeling that the meeting cleared the air. General McKiernan's view, that

CFLCC was there to "shape" the fight by its subordinates, not to plan it, must have gone over well with

the Marines.65

The generals set the tone for their respective commands, and much the same process happened at

lower levels as subordinates worked their way

through the many practical issues involved in joint

operations. General McKiernan characterized the prevailing attitude throughout CentCom as: "Let us coordinate, and let us cross talk, and then come

together at a series of. . . conferences. . . . I would

say that that was always done very well."66 In addition

to the exchanges between counterparts, most commands also made a point of exchanging competent

liaison officers, just as General Mattis had done in

Afghanistan. One of the important lessons learned in

Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to be that commands

understood the importance of finding strong officers

to serve as liaison officers; liaison officer was no

longer a suitable billet for an underachiever whom a

commander wanted out of sight and mind.67

Technology helped the process along. Counterparts and liaison officers may have held personal

meetings whenever they could, but they also could

and did look each other in the eye almost every day

over secure video-teleconferencing links—this happened before, during, and after combat. Virtually all

of the generals in theater were regular and, it

seemed, enthusiastic users of this technology. At the

same time, there was a robust exchange of e-mails

and discussions in chat rooms on the SIPRnet (the

secure military internet system), where officers could

also consult the drafts of one another's plans and

work through revisions. In short, there were unparalleled opportunities for the secure coordination of

operations, especially in peacetime; operational security did not have to be the obstacle to efficient

planning it had been in virtually every other major

war before Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was no

longer as true that senior headquarters imposed operation plans and orders on subordinate commands.

Looking at the process of planning for Iraq, a Fort

Leavenworth study concluded that since networks in

"the information-age ... enable, . . . distributed, parallel planning, V Corps, I MEF, and the subordinate

divisions were near-equal architects for the final

plan." This conclusion assumes that the subordinate

commands had the requisite clearances to access

highly classified files.

In retrospect, integrating with CFLCC appears to

have been relatively easy compared to working with

CFACC. Groups of Army officers, especially at CFLCC

and in parts of V Corps, came to accept and even

embrace the concept of the Marine air-ground task

force as an organization with integrated ground, air,

and support assets. Although there were nuances in

the picture that make it difficult to generalize, it is

safe to say that the same was never true to the same

degree of CFACC, the Coalition air forces commanded by Lieutenant General Moseley, who was

not only a functional and a component commander,

but also one whose forces had been conducting operations in theater for quite some time, especially Operation Southern Watch. They were flying combat

missions under his command while his counterparts
Inside Our Own Loop 21

Photo courtesy of Field History Branch

Gen Michael W. Hagee, Commandant of the Marine

Corps, receives a brief on current operations from

LtGen Earl B. Hailston, Commanding General, Marine Forces, Central Command.

were still thinking about what they would bring to

the fight if and when it occurred.

Before leaving CentCom, General Zinni had laid

some of the groundwork for cooperation between

CFACC and I MEF by instituting a standard operating

procedure for joint fires, which addressed "battlefield

coordination, direction, and procedures for . . . air

and ground-based fires systems" and was ratified by

all of the Service chiefs.69 He had his Army and Marine Corps subordinates work out an arrangement for

the employment of Marine air under Joint Task Force

Kuwait, and established the general principle that

Marine air would support Marine ground forces, offering any "excess" sorties to CFACC.7° In 2002, while

he was still at I MEF, General Hagee and General

Moseley renewed the same general agreement about

the employment of Marine air with General Moseley:

Lieutenant General Moseley . . . , Lieutenant

General Hagee . . . , and Lieutenant General

Hailston . . . met in June . . . and agreed to

make CFACC the air space control authority,

with I MEF MACCS [Marine Air Command and

Control System] controlling air in support of I

MEF. I MEF would publish its own direct support air tasking order (DSATO) to task I MEF

aircraft, which was to be included in CFACC's

theater ATO [air tasking order]. When Lieutenant

General Conway took command of I MEF from

Lieutenant General Hagee, the arrangements

and relationships did not change; Lieutenant

General Moseley continued to endorse the principle of I MEF MACCS controlling air assets supporting the MAGTF [on the] ground.71

When interviewed in the spring of 2003 about cooperation with CFACC, Generals Hailston and Amos

were upbeat about the subject. They reported general agreement with General Moseley on the role of

Marine air in the looming conflict, one that was different from that in Desert Shield/Desert Storm when

a fair chunk of Marine air had been split off from I

MEF and worked for the equivalent of the CFACC.72

As General Amos put it, he found General Moseley to

be a commander who readily understood the utility

of the Marine aircraft wing as a part of the Marine

air-ground task force while asserting his own rights to

the air space over the battlefield.73

The problem, once again, was finding a way to

get into the joint comfort zone—to get things right at

the working level, to focus not on general agreements but on specific details that would apply in

2003. The default setting at CFACC was to control all

of the air space in the area of operations. The Air

Force liked to control air space through the air tasking order, described as "the daily master plan

[which] listed all of the strikes, CAPs [combat air patrols], tanker missions, and other supporting functions

for a 24-hour period."74 Air tasking orders were prepared about 96 hours before their time of execution.

Accustomed to decentralized planning, and interested

primarily in supporting I MEF's scheme of maneuver,

the Marine aviators had not changed overmuch from

Desert Shield/Desert Storm, when they had been

"deeply suspicious" of what they saw as an inflexible

system that might not be able to respond to lastminute requests for support, that is, the Air Force system seemed to be better suited for strategic or

operational offensives than for the kind of tactical

uses that were the bread and butter of Marine air. In

the end, in this new war the agreement among the

generals was to "nest" Marine command and control

under CFACC. There would be a Marine air tasking

order within the CFACC tasking order; the primary

mission for Marine air would be to support the I MEF

scheme of maneuver; excess sorties would be made

available to CFACC, and there would be provisions

for the reverse to occur as well. Excess CFACC sorties

often "volunteered" to fly Marine missions; they

seemed to enjoy working within the Marine air control system.75

A related and very complex issue was the separation of what came to be known as "Air Day," the day

the air offensive would begin, and "Ground Day," the

day the ground offensive would begin. These terms

were commonly abbreviated as "A-Day" and "GDay." (In this war, there was an often-confusing mix

of civilian and military acronyms whose meanings
22 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

were not entirely clear to everyone.) To summarize

what was a lengthy and sometimes hard-fought set

of transactions, CFACC thought the war should start

with its house brand of "shock and awe," attacking

carefully selected targets with precision munitions,

some simultaneously, others in a particular sequence.

The main targets were the air defense capabilities that

had survived Operations Northern and Southern

Watch, as well as leadership and command-andcontrol nodes. With their coverage of nearly twothirds of Iraq, Northern and Southern Watch

represented an early, ongoing, and effective suppression of enemy air defense campaign.

At times it seemed that CFACC thought the air offensive could win the war by itself; there was a precedent of sorts in Serbia when NATO air attacks in 1999

had, by themselves, brought about the desired result:

"in every way that mattered, airpower won the fighting in Kosovo, while ground units served to consolidate that victory."76 This fit with the view, held by

many in Washington, that Saddam's regime was held

together largely by the threat of force, and for that

reason his support was weak and shallow. This was

a variant on the "kick in the door and the house will

collapse" train of thought, assiduously promoted by

people like Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, that seemed to

guide a lot of the planning for this war.77

It followed, for those who held this belief, that

CFACC planning did not have to be as integrated as

planning by other CentCom components and that

CentCom should allow CFACC enough time to create

its war-winning effects. That would be something on

the order of 30 days, not too different from the 38

days in Desert Storm that had preceded the ground

war; in that war, the two campaigns had not been integrated but sequential. Now, in 2002, CFACC wanted

a boundary that put Baghdad under its control for

those 30 days, as well as the use of Marine fixed-wing

assets that, presumably, the Marine Corps would not

need until the ground war started. This was not only

an argument against synchronicity; it also undermined I MEF "single battle" doctrine. Simply put, the

Marines did not want to break up the air-ground task

force, even temporarily.

Unwilling to give up the benefits of synchronizing

the air and ground campaigns, many Army and Marine officers consistently argued for a much shorter

air offensive. Lieutenant Colonel Smith remembered

that as early as late February 2002, the prevailing

view at CentCom was that the offensive should last

no more than 48 hours.78 Within I MEF, General Amos

continuously repeated that his first and most important priority was supporting the Marines on the

ground. General Mattis was one of the leading proponents of synchronicity, making his arguments

forcefully throughout the planning phase. He wanted

almost no preliminary air attacks before the ground

attack and for the air and ground offensives to start

very close to the same time. One of the planners at

division, Lieutenant Colonel Paul J. Kennedy, came to

the conclusion that it was Mattis who won I MEF over

to his way of thinking by "socializing" (that is, effectively promoting) this concept, which stood the

CFACC concept on its head. If the air and ground

campaigns were synchronous, or nearly synchronous, the Marine aircraft wing would have few airframes to spare for CFACC, because it would be busy

supporting I MEF.79"

No matter who originated the idea, I MEF consistently argued for a much briefer air offensive in its

dealings with CFLCC, which adopted much the same

position, and made its arguments to other elements

in the CentCom chain. These arguments became

more compelling in late 2002 as CentCom focused

more and more on the southern oil fields after concern for their preservation turned into a strategic imperative. In the end, one of the most telling

arguments against a lengthy preliminary air offensive

was that it would put Saddam Hussein on notice that

the ground offensive was coining and would give

him time to sabotage his own oil fields, as he had in

the Kuwaiti oil fields during the Desert Storm air offensive. It was largely for that reason that in December 2002 and January 2003, I MEF and CFLCC joined

forces to argue for no preliminary shaping whatsoever, which did not resonate with CFACC. The final

prewar consensus was that the air offensive should

be relatively short and that the two phases should he

as closely integrated as possible.8°

The commander of the British air component in

Iraq, Air Vice Marshall Glenn L. Torpy offered a good

summary of the factors at play in the final stages of

the debate in early 2003, which suggests how difficult

it was to close the gap between CFACC and the other

components:

As we developed our thinking . . . there was

a shortening of that phase [the air phase] and

it came down in the early part of . . . [20031

from approximately 16 days . . . to a matter of

five days. . . . [Tihat was driven even closer together, as we got closer to the likelihood of

*Ltcol Kennedy was right in so far as Gen Mattis was a very effective advocate for his ideas. However, it appears that others at I

MEF and centcom had reached the sanie conclusion on their own.

(Ltcol Paul J. Kennedy intvw, 6Nov03 lMcHc, Quantico, VAI)
the operation ['s] being executed, for three factors. . . First of all, there was a growing realization that we needed to secure the southern

oil fields as swiftly as possible to prevent any

subsequent damage. . . . There was nervousness by the American land component and by

General Franks over the vulnerability of having

a very large land contingent in a fairly small

area in Kuwait [waiting for the air campaign to

end]. . . . General Franks felt that if he had the

ability to synchronize the components together

as comprehensively as possible then he would

have the [best] chance of. . . getting the campaign over and done with as quickly as possible.81

Inside Our Own Loop 23

In the days just before the war, the commanders

appear to have agreed to shorten the air campaign

even further. According to the Fort Leavenworth

study, the final plan was for the gap between A-Day

and G-Day to be 15 hours. This happened after

"Colonel Kevin Benson, the CFLCC C-5 [with whom

Marine planners had an excellent relationship] developed and forwarded to the CentCom staff a series of

position papers advocating adjust [ments in] . . . the

G-A Day sequence.82*

The dispute over the separation of A-Day and GDay went hand in hand with a painful set of disputes

over the time-phased force and deployment data

(commonly known as TPFDD, closely related to the

TPFDL, with the "L" standing for "List"), the computerized system for getting U.S. forces to a fight in good

order. It could phase forces to match a plan, and

make sure the support they needed would arrive at

the right time. Especially in a small, single-Service

contingency, this was the kind of rational process

everyone was comfortable with. In large deployments

the process was trickier; there was a finite amount of

lift, especially airlift that the Services had to share.

Most of these assets belong to Transportation Command. When the debate over the sequence of the

campaign has not been settled, and when no one

knows when the war will start, the result can be a

three- or four-sided scramble for scarce resources.

This is generally what happened between January

and July 2002. No one had enough forces in theater

at that point; there was not even a firm date by which

On 1 March, Gen James conway commented that the air campaign was likely to be brief in order to achieve surprise, which

implied a very short separation between A-Day and G-Day. This

was consistent with the scenario for the 10 March 2003 I MEF rehearsal of concept drill, when General conway reminded his staff

not to "expect a return of A and G separated by multiple days."

Photo Courtesy of Col George W. Smith, Jr.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina, LtCol

George W. Smith, Jr., was commissioned in 1985. Following several staff and school assignments, he reported to headquarters IMarine Expeditionaiy Force

in July 2000 where he served consecutively as a future operations planner and a regional plans officer.

everyone had to be ready to cross the line of departure. But there was strong and continuing pressure

to be ready to flow forces to theater, which lent some

urgency to the discussions about the deployment

data. Believing they would start the fight, and having

their own plan for that phase (which they had developed more or less on their own), CFACC planners

argued that they should be first in line. But if CFACC

won the deployment data argument, then it mattered

less who won the argument about the separation of

A-Day and G-Day, because the ground forces could

not be in theater and ready to fight until CFACC had

finished moving its forces. In other words, the danger was that the deployment data could drive the war

plan, which was the reverse of what was supposed

to happen, the deployment data was designed to be

a tool for planners. We had, Lieutenant Colonel Smith

concluded wryly, gotten inside our own "observalion/orientation/decision/action" (OODA) loop.83

There were additional complications to do with

*The OODA loop is a concept pioneered by U.S. Air Force Col

John Boyd. Boyd's argument was that if you want to win an aerial dogfight, you will go through this loop faster than your enemy,

that is you will get inside his OODA loop.