24 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

the relative priorities for moving Army and Marine

Corps assets, with the Army generally wanting to lift

more than the Marine Corps. Various forms of these

disputes continued for some time, leading one

anonymous "wag" to comment: "[Wiar is simply the

continuation of service politics by other means." In

the end the core dispute was not resolved as much as

sidestepped. In the diplomatic words of Fort Leavenworth's detailed look at the Army in Operation Iraqi

Freedom, the deployment data "lacked the flexibility

and responsiveness required by senior leaders,"

which meant the Pentagon decided not to use it.84 In

early 2003, CentCom would use another process to

flow troops to theater. Whatever CentCom or the Pentagon decided, the Marine Corps always had the advantage of being able to fall back on its habitual

relationship with the Navy and the maritime prepositioning ships, preloaded with heavy equipment, in

order to get to a fight, not to mention the fact that

the Marine air-ground task force was by its very nature designed for deployment even before the first

planner sharpened the first pencil.

Yet another important part of the planning process

was intertwined with the disputes about the timing

of the offensive and the use of the deployment data.

This was perhaps the most important piece of the interlocking puzzle for the Marines, the base plan for

the ground war. Throughout 2002 the plan went

through a number of major and minor changes, approximately five of the former and some two dozen

of the latter.85 There are a number of complementary

explanations for this. One is relatively simple, so simpie that it seems almost trivial. It falls into the "for

want of a nail" school of historical writing, meaning

that some small details can matter a great deal. It was

Benjamin Franklin who said, "for want of a nail, the

shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost;

for want of a horse, the rider was lost." This explanation has to do with the U.S. military's near-obsession with "bulletized" PowerPoint briefings, which

are easy to prepare on a computer and then transmit

over the internet. The "bullets" in a briefing may summarize months of careful work, or they may stand

alone with nothing to back them up. What often happened in 2002 was that one PowerPoint briefing led

to another, a planner would come up with a carefully

reasoned course of action and summarize it in a brief.

Then a commander, perhaps two or three echelons

higher, or even in another Service, would ask a question or order a change. The result could be a course

of action that looked good on a PowerPoint slide but

had not been thoroughly staffed. That part of the plan

would be "one PowerPoint brief" deep, and would

either collapse of its own weight or have to he rescued by planners scrambling to do the staff work to

back up the change.86

The Marines often thought the other Services

pressed for too much detail too early, which they resisted on the grounds that once something was on a

PowerPoint slide it could look more final than it was.

The bottom line is that the SIPRnet was sometimes a

double-edged sword. It usually made concurrent

planning easier, but it also made it easier to circulate

half-formed ideas, which could, and did, lead to extra

work for planners who were already so busy that

they were close to forgetting the names of their children.

Another explanation for the nature of the process

is that Secretary Rumsfeld had a particular vision he

wanted to implement. He was nothing if not an advocate of transformation, and he often made it clear

that the military establishment was moving too slowly

in the direction that he, and many military thinkers,

wanted to go. He certainly did not want to approve

a plan anything like Desert Storm. There was simply

no need for it, especially after the Afghan operation

had demonstrated the potential for the new way of

war, with its innovative and very joint lines of operation. There was also the use of "smart" munitions

that were both efficient and effective; five bombs

from one aircraft could now achieve the same effects

that all the bombs from five aircraft had tried to

achieve in 1991. Complementing the transformational

argument was the military-political argument identified with the neoconservative movement, which had

a long-standing policy on Iraq. Bolstered by inside

information from Iraqi exiles around Ahmed Chalabi,

senior Pentagon officials focused on the fact that the

Iraqi Army was a shadow of its former self; it was

about one-third the size it had been when Saddam

invaded Kuwait and would crumble under an American assault. In addition, the Iraqi people were dissatisfied with the regime, and the majority of them

would welcome the invaders as liberators. After the

invasion, the United States and its Coalition partners

could soon draw their forces down, and the Iraqi opposition could step in to run the country. The bottom

line for the Pentagon was that the United States did

Maj Evan A. Huelfer, USA, was cFLcc's lead planner and a great

source for historical data. He and LtCol Smith, MEF's lead planner, used almost identical wording in discussing this phenomenon.

Similar ideas about how PowerPoint can have the effect of "dumbtog down" debates have been developed by the prominent academic Edward Tufte. See, for example, his whimsically titled but

quite serious article "PowerPoint Is Evil" in the September 2003

issue of Wired magazine.
Inside Our Own Loop 25

DVIC DD-SD-07-15617

Gen Tommy R. Franks, Commander in Chief Central

Command, and DonaldR. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, brief reporters at the Pentagon. Gen Franks

and Secretary Rumsfeld worked closely in planning

the ground campaign in Iraq.

not need to send 500,000 troops across the line of

departure to do the job.87

Secretary Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks

worked closely on the development of the plan,

which stenirned in part from the fact that the combatant commanders reported to the Secretary of Defense (and certainly not to any of the Service chiefs,

as General Franks made very clear in his memoirs,

with its colorful, "aw, shucks, I am just a country boy"

language.) It was also a function of Rumsfeld's handson style and his determination to implement his vision. In his memoirs, General Franks described

frequent personal meetings, and almost daily telephone contact, between the two men. Franks would

propose a course of action. The secretary would react

to the proposal and ask him to come up with a new

course of action in a few days, at most a week or

two, or to provide additional details. This set a grueling pace. Although General Franks concluded that

the final product was all the more robust on account

of the process, the short-term effect of the secretary's

input was to place additional burdens on the planning staffs at CentCom and its subordinate commands

like MarCent and I MEF.88

Even without PowerPoint or the secretary's input,

planning the ground war would have not have been

easy. Joint planning on a large scale is just plain hard,

and it is not something that happens often, especially

for Marines. Most Marine deployments and exercises

(with the notable exception of Ulchi Focus Lens in

Korea) were on a much smaller scale, which was fine

with the Marine leaders who believed that the Corps

should focus its efforts on preparing for real-world,

Marine expeditionary brigade-sized commitments

while the expeditionary force performed the Title 10,

U.S. Code functions (of organizing, equipping, and

training the force).89 Not that it was much easier for

Army officers. They were certainly more used to operating on a large scale—the Army was still preparing its officers to staff and fight at the corps level, as

it had since before World War Il—but as General

McKiernan pointed out, this was the first time in

decades that a CFLCC would plan and fight a combined/joint operation above the corps level.

The starting point for understanding the plan for

the ground war was Desert Storm in early 1991,

when General H. Norman Schwarzkopf had painstakingly assembled a Coalition of over 500,000 troops

in and around Saudi Arabia to expel the Iraq invaders

from Kuwait. No one moved north until all of the

troops were in theater, equipped and ready to attack.

After the air campaign that lasted over a month, more

than 15 United States and allied divisions advanced

into Kuwait and Iraq. The ground war lasted only

some 100 hours before the United States announced

a ceasefire, Kuwait having been liberated. With the

exception of the Kurds in northern Iraq, who came

under the protection of a combined/joint task force

in Operation Provide Comfort in the spring of 1991,

the Iraqis were more or less left to their own devices.

This had devastating consequences for the Shi'ite

rebels, especially those in the South, who had dared

to rise up against Saddam in the confusing days that

followed the ground war.9° It was Saddam's suppression of the Kurds and the Shia that had led to Operations Southern Watch and, later, Northern Watch, to

enforce the no-fly zones in the southern and northern thirds of Iraq through 2003 and keep the Iraqi

military in check.

The planners of Desert Storm would have been

comfortable with the CentCom plan that was on the

shelf for war with Iraq, Operations Plan (OPLAN)

1003-98. The premise of the plan was that Iraq had

once again attacked Kuwait, and that CentCom had

come to its defense and counterattacked, its objective being the removal of Saddam Hussein and his

regime. It was a relatively heavy plan, with five divisions crossing the line of departure with I MEF supplying the command element.91 In late 2001, before

focusing on Afghanistan, CFLCC planners had considered a limited objective plan, an attack to seize the

oil fields in southern Iraq, which did not take as its

starting point OPLAN 1003. After they were tasked in

early 2002 to come up with a more ambitious plan,

they still did not use 1003 as the starting point but

developed new courses of action. The course of action favored by General Mikolashek, the CFLCC com-
mander at the time, was in line with CentCom's concept of "shock and awe," emphasizing speed and surprise. It was an audacious plan calling for the force

to avoid the lengthy build-up that would announce

United States intentions and, using prepositioned

equipment, launch one division deep into Iraq with

a view to reaching Baghdad within 10 days.92

Coalition Forces Land Component Command took

this plan on the road and through all of the various

personal and impersonal contacts, including the planning conferences of various sorts, it evolved into

something not more but less audacious that came to

be known by the rather nonmilitary phrase "generated start." This was a throwback to Desert Storm and

OPLAN 1003 in that it called for a deliberate build-up

of decisive strength before anyone crossed the line of

departure. The build-up would take approximately

ninety days, and the simultaneous attack by two

corps would take up to ninety more days to get to

Baghdad.93 The results of the first I MEF operational

planning team, which ran from 13-19 March at Camp

Pendleton, further illustrate both the plan's general

outlines and I MEF's role in it. The planning team assumed that I MEF would be a supporting effort, with

the Army's V Corps (usually based in Germany) as

the main effort. I MEF would deploy 1st Marine 1)ivision, 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, 1st Force Service

Support Group, and a regimental combat team out

of II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) to serve as

"Task Force South." The team came up with a concept that called for the division to attack northwest

from Kuwait to seize the airfield at Jalihah, which

would become a support area, including a forward

arming and refueling point, before proceeding to

seize the airfields in the vicinity of Qalat Sikar and Al

Kut to the northeast, much closer to Baghdad. At this

point they expected CFLCC to order a significant

pause to allow the Army to flow additional forces and

supplies before continuing the attack toward Baghdad. The pause was an idea that never sat well with

the Marines. In the meantime, Task Force South

would resume responsibility for southern Iraq, addressing any threats the division had bypassed and in

general securing support areas and lines of communication.94

This did not play well in Washington. Considering

26 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

Photo courtesy of VMFA(AW)-121

A Lockheed KC-130 from Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352 refuels two McDonnell Douglas F/A -1 8s from

Marine All-Weather FighterAttack Squadron 121 as they soar high over Kuwait during one of the many 3d Marine Aircraft Wing deployments to the Middle East in support of Operation Southern Watch.
the possible scenarios that could lead to war with

Iraq, few at the Pentagon were willing to accept a

plan that took 90 days to launch. The word came

down that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was unhappy with the ponderous nature of the "generated

start," which would not only be logistics intensive but

would also sacrifice any hopes of surprising the

enemy. The result was that CentCom felt pressure to

develop ever lighter, more creative scenarios.95

The warfighters moved the plan in the direction

that Rumsfeld indicated. By early summer, the pendulum had swung so far to the "light" that there was

a plan under consideration for something like two

brigades, perhaps one Army and one Marine, to cross

the line of departure soon after a casus belli had occurred. To be sure, this would be a "running start";

this small force would be reinforced by heavier forces

from the Army and Marine Corps as soon as they

could get to the fight. The running start seemed to

mean starting early but finishing late, since the force

would once again have to wait for reinforcements before moving north for the decisive battle of Baghdad.

Marine planners pointed out that there was no need

for two corps headquarters to control the running

start, and argued that I MEF could provide command

Inside Our Own Loop 27

and control for the initial phase of the operation. It

would be better suited for the task, because, unlike

V Corps, it not only had organic subordinate commands, but it was also experienced in running and

controlling air operations, which V Corps was not. At

least initially, the Army was reluctant to accept this argument. 96

The pendulum started to arc back toward the middle in the second half of 2002, toward the ultimate,

or "hybrid," version of the plan, a mix of elements

from the "generated start" and the "running start."

One of the problems with the running start turned

out to be that it was very difficult to come up with an

optimal time to attack, considering the trade-offs between strength and surprise. When would the mix be

right, early enough for surprise but "late" enough to

allow CFLCC to build up the strength that it needed

to do the job? Over the summer, some of the planners

considered deploying a stronger initial force, perhaps

two Army brigades and two Marine regimental combat teams that could attack 30 days after the force

flow started. An attractive feature of the stronger

force was that with it CFLCC could attack simultaneously in two directions, with the Army attacking to

the northwest, toward the city of An Nasiriyah, and

East Coast Marines in aWest Coast Plan

,,\VJhat became Task Force Tarawa started as

W Task Force South. The concept for a ta k

force to follow in trace of a divi ion, to be charged

with neutralizing any threats that division had bypassed and then securing I MEF' line of communication, was certainly on the table by March 2002.

At a time when the Pentagon wanted to keep the

force light and Headquarters Marine Corp was

thinking in terms of "global ourcing," that is,

pulling assets from all over the orld to meet the

potential need for Marines in CentCom, it made

sense for "the Commandant' G-3" at headquarter

to look to II MEF in Camp Lejeune, orth Carolina,

to supply something like a brigade- ized force to

float to theater on the amphibious ta k force that

was based on the East Coast. The location and capaCity of amphibious shipping helped to determine

where the forces would come from and how big

they would be. Since there was another amphibiou task force on the West Coa t, the Marine Corps

could use the task forces to get two eparate element to the fight quickly and securely. The East

Coast Marines could mount out of Morehead City,

orth Carolina, on to their own amphibiou task

force without adding to the long list of unit for

deployment from the West Coa t, and the two

forces could travel by different routes. Another reason to look to Camp Lejeune was that the only

other remaining brigade- ized force was in Okinawa. That force needed to stay there in case it

was needed in Korea. At this point the planners

were looking at a brigade- ized unit thal would not

fight as a Marine air-ground task force. It might deploy without the expeditionary brigade command

element. If that happened, all of its parts could be

parceled out after arrival in theater. Whether to include a command element with the East Coast contingent was a matter mo tly for the I MEF

commander to decide. Thi would happen only

after General Conway took the helm in the fall of

2002.*

*LtCol George W. mith, Jr., intvw, 8Jun04 (MCHC, QuantiCO,

VA); Col ichoJas E. Reynolds, "OIF Field Hi tOIY Journal," 2003,

ently for IJuI04, reporting the comments of Col Ronald J. Johnson, Headquarters Marine Corp (PPO) current operations officer and Task Force Tarawa operations officer.
28 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

the Marines attacking to the northeast, toward Basrah, Iraq's second city, and the nearby southern oil

fields.97 The Marines had mixed feelings about Basrah, especially the suggestion that they seize and run

Basrah International Airport, no doubt an important

symbolic target but one that could become a "force

sump," because to run the airport they would have to

protect it from portable antiaircraft rockets, and that

would mean controlling the city, which could take a

regimental combat team a long time.98 By late July,

the Army had accepted the proposition that I MEF

would control the initial phase of the war, roughly

the first 75 days, and that the 3d Infantry Division

would be under I MEF control at least for that period. There was further discussion of a lengthy (30-

45 days) pause in the middle of the campaign to

build up supplies for the final assault, a proposition

that had not become any more attractive to the

Marines. Finally, there was discussion about another

large city, Baghdad, but there would not be anything

like a final decision about how to tackle the capital

until much later.99"

September saw a declaration by General Franks

that President Bush wanted CentCom to be prepared

for war within 60 to 90 days and that CFLCC needed

to be prepared to execute across the continuum of

force, with either a heavy or a light plan. During the

same month, I MEF began to work with British Royal

Marine planners on their potential role in an offensive; initial plans called for one Royal Marine commando (the rough equivalent of a Marine Corps

battalion) to fight under I MEF. The Royal Marines

appeared ideally suited for an amphibious assault

against targets on the Al Faw Peninsula in southeastern Iraq.10°

The American Marines took an immediate liking

to their British counterparts, as individuals and as

warriors, and welcomed them as reinforcements. This

was eventually to lead Colonel Christopher J. Gunther, who became the I MEF plans officer in the second half of 2002, to take advantage of a brief to the

British high command to ask for a second Royal Marine commando, tossing in as a sweetener the possibility that a U.S. Marine expeditionary unit might

work under British command.101

Most versions of the plan included a healthy dose

of 'deep" and special operations against carefully selected targets, like those seen in Afghanistan, which

had impressed General Franks favorably. There

would be two joint special operations task forces,

"Both I MEF and V cows planned extensively for the fight even

after ccc decided in September that Baghdad planning would

fall to V cos.

jccc 030127-M-2081S-OO1

Newly arrived Marines prepare a bivouac area near

the command post center at Camp Commando,

Kuwait.

Joint Special Operations Task Force North and Joint

Special Operations Task Force South, the first to work

with the anti-Saddam militias in Iraqi Kurdistan in the

northeast part of the country, and the second to secure any potential launch sites for Scud missiles in

the western desert between Baghdad and the Jordanian border (which had been used by the Iraqis in

Desert Storm to attack Israel). But that was not to be

the extent of special operations; there would be special operations force elements at work throughout the

country, adding their capabilities to the force mix in

all areas of operation. Marine expeditionary force

planners took the initiative to coordinate with special operations forces, for example, by traveling to

Fort Campbell, Kentucky, for an unexpectedly cordial and productive session. Once again, the Marines

found that they continued to get good results when

they reached out to other communities.'02

In October, I MEF held a general officer symposium

to develop "a common understanding of the ... operation plan." It would have been more accurate to

say the state of "operational planning," since "the" plan

did not yet exist—even though it was now beginning to

be known as Operations Plan 1003V. During the same

month, there was a I MEF exercise based on an invasion of Iraq, and advance parties from I MEF began to

deploy to Kuwait to stand up a command post, soon

followed by the I MEF command element, which deployed to Camp Commando, a few miles west and

north of Kuwait City, and prepared to participate in

CFLCC exercises. By late November there were approximately 850 members of the force staff in Kuwait,

along with approximately 100 members of the 1st Marine Division staff'°3
Inside Our Own Loop 29

As the commanders and their staffs began to settle in, or at least try to settle in, during December,

they realized they could be living in the desert for

quite some time. Despite the pronouncements from

CentCom, there was still nothing like a timeline, no

one knew for sure when the war would start, or even

if it would start. On 9 December, General Conway

spoke to his officers at Camp Commando and told

them they might be in Kuwait for the long haul. He

wanted to dispel rumors that the Marines were going

home after the current round of exercises. He did not

know if there would be a war but ventured the guess

that it might come "as late as February," which was

still during the "cool" season, the "right" time to go to

war. But he concluded that if the Marines had to fight

in the heat, they would fight in the heat.'°4

Around the same time, senior Marine officers debated whether they should push for a large-scale deployment. The issue was this: if I MEF arrived early,

in force, a large number of Marines might spend a

number of months in Kuwait waiting for a war that

GySgt Jay R. Joder, an intelligence specialist, works in

the Coalition Forces Land Component Command's

operations and intelligence center at Camp Doha,

Kuwait. Ground operations within Central Command's area of re3ponsibility would be controlled

from here.

Photo courtesy of ccc

might never come. On the other hand, if the troops

stayed home until the situation gelled, they might not

be able to get to theater in time if the pace of events

were to speed up and the war started on short notice.

General Mattis, supported by Colonel Gunther, is said

to have pleaded the case for flowing the forces in the

near future. Colonel Gunther pointed out that at

worst the Marines would get some good training; it

would be like going to a very big series of combined

arms exercises in a desert other than the Mojave at

Twentynine Palms, California.'05

In the meantime, General McKiernan, who had replaced General Mikolashek in September, was working to turn CFLCC into a more joint command.

McKiernan liked to say that CFLCC was made up of

a number of "tribes" and "sub tribes," that is members

of different Services, American and allied, as well as

members of different branches of the Army. Many

Marines forget the extent to which Army officers

often identify with their military occupational specialty. His method was to do "a lot of training and

tribal team building." One McKiernan initiative was to

reorganize the staff along functional lines in order to

break down the old-fashioned "G-1, G-2, G-3, G-4"

stovepipes and encourage cross talk among the various disciplines. Virtually every day in late 2002 and

early 2003 the CFLCC staff held some sort of exercise, in addition to participating in CentCom exercises and various rehearsals. This may turn out to

have been one of the most extensively rehearsed

wars in U.S. history. In short, the point was to change

the original tribal identity, to make CFLCC into a joint

tribe, a headquarters with a joint outlook.'06

General McKiernan did not just want to change

the tribe's way of thinking, he also wanted to change

its makeup. In the fall of 2002 there was also a push

to get the other Services, especially the Marine Corps,

to send more officers to CFLCC. The long-standing

joint manning document called for a complement of

some 90 Marines; in the early fall there was only a

handful of Marines at Camp Doha, ordered to CFLCC

by MarCent. One or two had even been at Doha

since the fall of 2001 and were filling key billets. Two

of these officers were Colonel Gregory J. Plush

whose title was MarCent liaison but who functioned

for months more or less as the senior Marine on the

staff, and Colonel Marc A. Workman, chief of the

deep operations coordination cell in the C-3. General McKiernan relied heavily on Workman to plan

what was known as the "deep fight," operational fire

support well beyond the frontlines, which at CFLCC

in 2002 and 2003 was about "creating desired effects," not just destroying targets.107
30 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

What Marines do for Christmas:

25 December at Camp Commando

Commando sat at the base of Mutla Ridge, one

of the few parcels of distinguishable terrain in

an otherwise flat and largely treeless country. In

August 1990, the Iraqis had used the ridge to shell

the camp below; there were still shell holes and

shattered bUildings here and there within its confines. For a Christmas treat, I MEF Headquarters

Group gave its members a rare opportunity to venture outside Camp Commando on a 10-kilometer

run to the ridge and back and to find out that they

were not in the same shape that they had been in

at Camp Pendleton. Armed guards were posted

along the route to defend against possible terrorist

attacks. Even with the terrorist threat, and the sand

that offered little traction, it was an enjoyable outing. Back at Camp Commando, Generals Amos and

Mattis spent their time talking about Baghdad with

a handful of I MEF officers. General Mattis said he

wanted to get north of the Tigris as quickly as possible to minimize the time his division would be

susceptible to weapons of mass destruction; General Amos said he wanted to put the wing on a

"JDAM [or "smart" bomb] diet" so that he would

have enough precision munitions for the big fight

in the city. Then they ranged over a variety of issues-from where to place boundaries between

Army and Marines; how to coordinate fires and

control air space; the integration of information

and covert operations on the one hand and conventional operations on the other; and general

techniques, tactics, and procedures for fighting in

urban terrain. One of the participants, Lieutenant

Colonel George Smith, remembered thinking that

this "pure warfighting" talk was the ultimate professional military education session.*

*Col icholas E. Reynolds, "OIF Field History Journal," 2003,

entry for 19Ju104; LtCol George W. Smith, Jr., intvw, 8Jun04

(MCHC, Quantico, VA).

Photo courtesy of Field History Branch
Inside Our Own Loop 31

Photo courtesy of CFLCC

MajGen Robert R. Blackman, Jr., chief of stafffor the Coalition Forces Land Component Command, talks with

the command's logistical officer following one of many updates at the Coalition Operations and Intelligence

Center, Camp Doha, Kuwait.

McKiernan was so pleased with Workman, in particular his experience as a Marine air-ground task

force planner able to coordinate a range off effects,

that he resisted any moves to replace Workman, who

wound up serving at CFLCC for the duration, working up to 18 hours a day for months on end. It was

only after they had been working together for some

time that Workman mentioned he was a rancher by

profession, and not a regular officer, which McKiernan at first refused to believe, a backhanded compliment to the professionalism of this Reserve

artilleryman who literally had to sell the farm in order

to stay on active duty.108 In October, reinforcements

for Plush and Workman began to trickle in. General

McKiernan asked for the best Marine general that

Headquarters Marine Corps could find, and Major

General Robert L. Blackman soon received orders to

serve as the chief of staff at CFLCC. General Blackman, who had commanded the 2d Marine Division

and most recently served at CentCom headquarters

in Tampa, was respected both as a Marine and as a

team player in the joint arena.109 After his arrival in

country, General Blackman repeatedly urged Headquarters Marine Corps to provide more officers for

the staff. In late November, Colonel Patrick J. Burger

arrived at Doha to serve as the senior I MEF liaison

officer and began to coordinate the activities of the

growing number of Marine liaison officers who were

not technically part of the CFLCC staff but who in

most cases might as well have been.'1° In January,

during a trip to Washington, D.C., General McKiernan himself again requested Marine augmentation for

the CFLCC staff. It is hard to escape the conclusion

that if CFLCC was short of Marines, it was a reflection

of Marine manpower constraints and certainly not of

a desire by "Big Army" to limit the number of Marines

at CFLCC or the influence of Marine doctrine.1 In

the end there were some 70 Marines at CFLCC, still

short of the number in the joint manning document

that the Army and the Marine Corps had long since

agreed to, but certainly at a level where the liaison

officers could effectively represent the Marine point

of view. More importantly, the staff became even

more joint in the interests of putting the common interest ahead of any one Service or nationality. In Febmary 2003 there would be some 1,300 members of

the CFFLC staff. 112

By November both the CFLCC and the I MEF staffs
were ready to exercise the most recent version of the

CFLCC portion of the CentCom plan, which now bore

the name "Cobra II" and still called for a relatively

small force to advance from Kuwait into southern

Iraq. Major Evan A. Huelfer, USA, FLCC's lead planner, commented that although there were some

changes, the outlines of the "four brigade" initial attack had not changed markedly over the intervening

13

What was somewhat different in the fall was the

hope that the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division, augmented by a British division, would advance from

Turkey into northern Iraq, toward Baghdad, at

roughly the same time.'14 Generals Franks, Mikolashek, and McKiernan all wanted near-simultaneous

attacks into Iraq from north and south, the main attack coming from Kuwait, with a supporting attack

by Coalition forces from Turkey. This was an idea

4'Both Gen McKiernan and his special assistant, Terry Moran, remembered a version of the plan in the fall of 2003 around the time

of their arrival at Camp Doha. The general termed it "a very small

force . . . a brigade combat team from the 3d ID and a MEU from

the Marines." Moran used more or less the same terms: "Early on,

there was some discussion of that start force being no more than

a brigade of the 3d ID, reinforced Out of the MEU . . so the

thought was that we would cross the LD with that very small force,

and it would be rapidly reinforced by the MEF and by the V Corps.

That was probably a bit. . . imprudent." (LtGen David D. McKiernan intvw, 30Jun03 lU.S. Army Center of Military History, Washington, DCI; TerryMoran intvw, 23Aug03 lU.S. Army Center of

Military History, Washington, DCI)

that certainly sat well with the outgoing commandant

of the Marine Corps and incoming head of European

Command, General James L. Jones, Jr., who wanted

to do what he could to make it happen, and was willing to commit Marine units if it made sense to do

so.°5 The attack from the north would be able to secure important targets in the north such as the oil

fields around Kirkuk and Saddam's "hometown,"

Tikrit, which was considered to be one of his bases

of power.'

"Lucky Warrior 03-1" was a CFLCC exercise testing

command and control, including the links between

CFLCC and I MEF, and focusing on the initial phases

of war. It began on 24 November, just in time for

Thanksgiving, and was a precursor to the CentCom

exercise "Internal Look 03," which tested three scenarios from Operations Plan 1003V at the next higher

level and occurred in early December with I MEF

participation. General Blackman remembered later

that the scenario at the time was for CFLCC elements

to cross the line of departure with two brigade com-

*The history of this idea goes back to the spring of 2002, when

Gen Mikolashek proposed it to Gen Franks, who accepted it. However, it was not actively pursued until the summer of 2002,

when it was briefed to the British, who were very enthusiastic

about the idea and played a key role in resurrecting it. British

sources are consistent with Huelfer's memory. (Maj Evan A.

Huelfer intvw, 16Mar03 (U.S. Armt Center of Military History,

Washington, DC); House of Commons Derfense Committee, Lessons of Iraq ILondon, UK: Stationary Office, 2004] v. 1, p. 45.)

32 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

Photo courtesy of Field History Branch

Marine Lieutenant Colonels Robert L. Sartor, current files officer, and Brian D. Ken, assistant current files officer, both with the operations section, I Ma nine Expeditionary Force, exchange information during Exercise Internal Look 03. The bi-annual exercise was designed to evaluate the command and control capabilities of

Central Command headquarters and its component commands.
Inside Our Own Loop 33

bat teams from 3d Infantry Division and one Marine

expeditionary unit, all under I MEF. The expeditionary unit would take the southern city of Umm

Qasr, while the two brigade combat teams would

take the oil fields. There would of course be followon forces under this "running start" scenario.hhi*

After these exercises, General McKiernan decided

he needed a stronger force that could move fast; unless CFLCC were stronger from the outset, he would

not be able to accomplish all of the set tasks at the

same time. It seemed, for example, that CFLCC would

have to choose between maintaining security on the

southern oil fields and moving north. As McKiernan

put it on 19 December 2002: "We do not have enough

combat power to simultaneously penetrate [Iraq] and

move straightaway . . . to Baghdad and do all the

other tasks we have to do in southern Iraq. . . secure

the oil fields, keep Basrah out of the fight, develop

our logistic support areas, deal with displaced civilians, deal with enemy prisoners of war, cross the Euphrates. "117

After the war, on 1 May 2003 General McKiernan

made the comment that this was "probably the most

critical decision I made [during Operation Iraqi Freedom] . . . I made a case for additional forces . . . that

were ready to conduct ground operations . . . [for a]

two-corps operation, with a penetration as a form of

maneuver by the main effort, and a [simultaneous]

supporting attack by the MEF to fix everything over

on the east side."18

Next there was a series of video teleconferences

between General McKiernan and CentCom so that

General McKiernan could make his case. In Major

Huelfer's words, it went something like this:

Lieutenant General McKiernan made a plea to

General Franks, and said, "Hey, look, you are

asking to attack at C+15 [15 days after starting

the force flow], but we won't have enough

forces on the ground to do both of those operations simultaneously. We cannot go out to

Nasiriyah and toward Basrah at the same time."

So. . . I think the light went on, he [General Franks] said, "Okay.". . . The very next day,

General Hailston [the MarCent commander]

*The exercise was "McKiernan's first opportunity to ... conduct

operations with his new staff and new general officers and to exercise the new [CFLcc] organization . . . [as well as] the first opportunity for cFLCC's major subordinate elements . to practice

operations under . . . cFLcc. Much of the exercise focused on

team building and establishing [joint] standard operating procedures." (Gregory Fontenot, et al., On Point: The US. Army in operation Iraqi Freedom [Fort Leeavenworth, KS: combat Studies

Institute Press, 2004], p. 53)

came up. . . to Kuwait, and the next thing you

know.. . [Marine] regiments were flowing into

Kuwait.'19

In fact, there was an intermediate step. The talks

between McKiernan and Franks led to talks between

theater and the Pentagon, a sometimes painful

process described by McKiernan's assistant, Terry

Moran (no doubt with tongue in cheek), as a "tug-ofwar": "We had a series of VTCs [video teleconferences] where we were asking to move the force

posture from X to X plus Y. We were in a tug-of-war

with CentCom and with OSD [Office of the Secretary

of Defense] on how big Y could be." It seemed that

whatever increase CFLCC requested, "they would try

to skinny [it] . .

. down.'°2° Nevertheless, the end result was that CFLCC came to develop the heavier,

two-corps plan, which the 3d Infantry Division reverted to V Corps.121

This plan was truly a hybrid, a good combination

of the "generated start" and the "running start." The

force was by far smaller, and more agile, than the

force with which General Schwarzkopf crossed the

line of departure in 1991, but it was developing a respectable amount of combat power. Where

Schwarzkopf had had two Marine divisions at his disposal, it was now fairly official that if and when the

order was given, I MEF would bring its entire division-wing-force service support group team along

with some 7,100 Marines from Camp Lejeune. General Conway decided he wanted them to come with

the 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade command element; he wanted a second Marine command element

in country to take on the distinct security and stability missions in southern Iraq that had originally been

foreseen for Task Force South a few months earlier.122* I Marine Expeditionary Force's subordinate el-

*part of the explanation for the selection of 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade as opposed to 2d Marine Division may have been

that much of the division staff was already committed to an ongoing centcom operation in the Horn of Africa and was simply

not available. The 7,100 Marines would include the three infantry

battalions of Regimental combat Team 2 (RcT 2), something less

than 1,000 Marines in the brigade headquarters, a combat service

support element, and 81 aircraft. Apart from the units that were organic to 2d Marines, the larger units earmarked for deployment

with the brigade were 2d Battalion, 8th Marines, which replaced

the already deployed 2d Battalion, 2d Marines; 1st Battalion, 10th

Marines; 2d Force Reconnaissance Company; Company A, 8th

Tanks; Company A, 2d Assault Amphibious Battalion; and Company C, 2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Upon arrival

in Kuwait, the aviation and support elements would transfer to the

wing and the force service support group, but later on other units

came under Tarawa's control, such as 15th Marine Expeditionary

Unit, enabling it to reach a maximum strength of some 15,000

Marines and sailors.
34 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

HowTask Force Tarawa Got Its Name

General Conway did not like the colorless designation "Task Force South" for 2d Marine Expeditionaly Brigade, and he asked Brigadier

General Richard F. atonski its commander, to

come up with something better. A Marine with a

good sense of histOIy, General atonski wanted

to think the matter through and began by asking

the History and Museums Division for help in

naming the task force. The head of Reference section, Danny J. Crawford, reviewed the names of

the task forces in Desert Storm, such as Grizzly,

Papa Bear, and Ripper, and made a few suggestions for the new task force-Mameluke, from the

name of the sword; Fortitude, one of the Corps'

earliest mottoes; Chosin or Cho en Few, to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Korean War

(which had ended in 1953). Crawford added the

incidental note that the avy's codename for Iraq

ements, then, were to be 1st Marine Division, 3d Marine Aircraft Wing, 1st Force Service Support Group,

Task Force Tarawa, and I MEF Engineer Group, a

force-level engineering asset. The last was a concept

that was unfamiliar to many Marines. Made up of Marine engineers and Navy Seabees under the command of a rear admiral, the engineer group was an

initiative that dated back to the days when General

Zinni was the force commander. The point was for I

MEF to be able to do "one-stop shopping" for its engineering needs, especially in major deployments. 123

In December 2002 and January 2003, the rough

outline of the "hybrid" plan was for the Army's V

Corps to move north through the western desert of

Iraq with at least one full division, with the ultimate

goal of capturing Baghdad. Meanwhile, I MEF would

move north on a more central axis, the "obvious"

route to Baghdad, which leads into and through the

heart of Iraq, the Fertile Crescent between the Tigris

and Euphrates Rivers. The Army remained the main

effort, the Marines were the supporting effort, which

meant they would pick as many fights as they could,

as General Conway put it, in order to deflect pressure from the Army and to make the Iraqis think the

Marines were the main effort. In effect, the Marines

would defend the Army's flanks by rapidly defeating

enemy forces in its zone. I Marine Expeditionary

Forces' spearhead division, would have the city of AI

Kut as its aiming point, while Task Force Tarawa

would seize and hold objectives in the south, securin World War II had been "Plughole," clearly a

non-starter but an interesting bit of historical trivia.

General atonski agreed and said he would consider Crawford's other suggestions along with the

idea that he pick the name of a mythical creature

from the Arab world that his future opponent

would recognize. In the end, Tarawa seemed to fit

best. General atonski happened to be looking at

some artifacts from World War II in the Pacific, a

reminder that Tarawa was a famous battle associated with 2d Marines and therefore a good name

for a task force with that regiment as its infantry.

When 2d Marine Expeditionaly Brigade landed in

Kuwait, it became known by that illustrious place

name.*

*BGen Richard F. 'atonski intvw, 26Mar04 (MCHC, QuantiCO,

VA); aronski-Crawford e-mail msg, 18Dec02 (RefSec. ICHC,

Quantico, VA)

ing the division's rear from potential threats. 124 A

quick look at the map reveals that Task Force Tarawa

was to assume responsibility for at least one major

city, Basrah, the surrounding oil fields, and thousands

of square miles of territory, much of it inhabited-a

breathtakingly ambitious mission that could succeed

only if the optimistic assumptions about the nature of

the opposition (or the lack thereof) were correct.

Exactly what the Marine Corps would do in Baghdad was once again unclear. Along with the elite

forces that would most likely try to keep the Coalition

away from the capital, Baghdad had long been recognized as the enemy's center of gravity. The Marines

wanted to playa role in the fight for Baghdad and argued for a simple boundary, like the Tigris River, between Marine and Army units in the zone. By late

summer 2002, the CFLCC commander, General Mikolashek, appeared ready to accept that approach.

Then, in September his successor, General McKiernan, decided to change course and designated the V

Corps staff as the lead on Baghdad. The Army was

the main effort and it had the heavier force. It would

fight in the city; the Marines would support the attack

but remain outside the city limits. To be sure, there

was always the possibility that this would change,

both in General McKiernan's mind and in the minds

of the Marine planners. To the general's way of thinking, the "base plan" was for V Corps to command the

tactical fight for Baghdad. But "there was a branch

plan that said, if ... it makes sense ... bring forces
into Baghdad from both the. . . MEF. . . [and]. . . V

Corps, . . we ought to be sure that we can do

that. "125* The bottom line was that both V Corps and

I MEF continued to think about Baghdad and to try

to come up with the right way to subdue and control

the Iraqi capital.

The prospect of a joint British-American attack

from the north lasted through most of December

2002, when it became increasingly clear that the

Turks were not likely to allow the British to pass

through their country. It was only later that the Turks

also refused to allow an American division to pass

through Turkey. In January 2003 it was easy for

CentCom and CFLCC to decide to redirect as many

British forces as possible to Kuwait and to I MEF,

*This is one of the few instances when there was a whiff of Sewice politics in Gen McKiernan's basic policy decisions. There was

no compelling reason to assign Baghdad exclusively to V Corps.

""It would not become clear until mid-March 2003 that the 4th was

not welcome in Turkey either. By then the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry

Division and its equipment were in ships floating off the coast of

Turkey. But this was not all bad. It enabled Gen Franks to bolster

a deception plan that pointed to an attack from the north, which

may have found its mark. (Tommy Franks, American Soldier [New

York, NY: Regan Books, 20041, p. 429)

which did what it could to encourage this development. The reinforcements came in the form of the 1

United Kingdom Division (Armored), a composite

made up of three more or less independent brigades,

which began to flow into Kuwait in early 2003. Marine expeditionary force planners happily proceeded

to include the British division in their plans, along

with the 15th MEU (SOC) which was now officially

slated to reinforce the British.126

With a full division at their disposal, the British

could assume responsibility for Basrah and its surroundings. In the words of one staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Richard T. Johnson, who worked on

the plan at CFLCC, the Marines "hit the right numbers" (like a lucky gambler) when the British joined

their team. Johnson's thinking, in retrospect, was that

without the British, the Marines would have been

hard pressed to control the powder keg that was Basrah and accomplish their other assigned missions."

"LtCol Richard T. Johnson noted that in December 2002 the senior British advisor at CFLCC, BGen Albert Whitley, met with Gen

James Conway to discuss whether and how the British Army and

I MEF could work together. (LtCol Richard T. Johnson intvw,

26Apr03 [MCHC, Quantico, VA])

Inside Our Own Loop 35

DVIC DM-SD-05-04662

A graduate of the University of Louisville with a degree in history, BGen Richard F. Natonski, following a tour

with Plans, Policies, and Operations Division of Headquarters Marine Cops, assumed command of 2d Marine

Expeditionary Br4gade (Task Force Tarawa) in June 2002.
36 Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

JCCC 021112-N-4374S-020

Marines assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) disembark from an amphi bious assault vehicle to conduct a live fire training exercise while on their six-month training deployment

in the Central Command area of responsibility.

Another planner, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, said the southeast of Baghdad. Being heavily mechanized, the

British were I MEF's "slingshot," propelling it much Army was, arguably, well suited for the desert. The

farther and faster than it could otherwise have Marine battle space, on the other hand, started off as

gone.127 With the British in I MEF, Task Force desert but soon became a varied and complex mix of

Tarawa's mission changed; its focus could shift west- desert, scrub brush, agricultural land, rivers, and

ward, away from Basrah and the southern oil fields. canals. It was defined, and largely contained, by the

But the type of mission remained similar—it was to two great rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and

secure crossing sites over the waterways in the south anchored in the south by Basrah, which lay on the

and to preserve combat power. General Natonski Shatt al Arab waterway not far from the border with

stated that he became aware of this change on ap- Iran, and in the north by Baghdad, some 300 miles to

proximately 17 January 2003.128 the northwest. A small number of highways ran

There were similarities, and dramatic differences, through the area, varying in quality from a good subetween the battle space assigned to the Marines and perhighway to two-lane local highways to dirt roads.

that assigned to the Army. Most of the Army's battle Like the rivers, the highways mostly ran on a northspace was trackless desert, at least until it reached west to southeast axis. There was a prominent chokethe cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Hillah, which lay point at An Nasiriyah in the south of Iraq, some 90