“Without a decisive 

naval force we can 

do nothing definitive, 

and with it, 

everything honorable 

and glorious.” 

—George Washington 

to Marquis de Lafayette, 

15 November 1781.
A History of U.S. Naval Forces 

Central Command/Fifth Fleet

 Anchor 

OF Resolve

Robert J. Schneller Jr.
Published by

Naval Historical Center

805 Kidder Breese Street SE

Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060

www.history.navy.mil

Contact us at 202-433-9785

Book design by Dean Gardei

Front cover: The carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) slices through the Arabian Sea in support of 

operations in the Central Command theater, 1 October 1993. PH3 William F. Duel

Back cover: New chief petty officer selectees perform morning colors on board Naval Support 

Activity Bahrain, 16 August 2005. Phillip A. Nickerson Jr.

U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL EDITION NOTICE

Use of ISBN

This is the Official U.S. Government edition of this publication and is herein identified 

to certify its authenticity. Use of 978-0-945274-55 is for U.S. Government Printing Office

Official Editions only. The Superintendent of Documents of the U.S. Government Printing 

Office requests that any reprinted edition clearly be labeled as a copy of the authentic

work with a new ISBN. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schneller, Robert John, 1957-

Anchor of resolve : a history of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet / 

Robert J. Schneller Jr. 

 p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-945274-55-1 (alk. paper)

1. United States. Navy. Fleet, 5th–History. 2. United States. Naval Forces Central 

Command–History. 3. Middle East–History, Military. 4. Middle East–History, Naval. 

5. Sea-power–Persian Gulf Region–History. 6. Sea-power–Arabian Sea–History. I. Title.

VA63.F54S36 2007

359.30973–dc22 2007014381

 ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the requirements for permanence established by the 

American National Standard for Information Sciences “Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials” 

(ANSI Z39.48-1984).

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Internet: Bookstore.gpo.gov; Phone: toll free 866-512-1800; DC area 202-512-1800; Fax: 202-512-2104 

Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001

ISBN 978-0-945274-55-1 (alk. paper)
Contents

Foreword ....................................................................................................vii

Chronology..................................................................................................ix

Introduction...............................................................................................xiii

Growing American Interests .........................................................................1

Establishment of the Middle East Force........................................................4

Creation of Central Command and NAVCENT ...........................................7

The Tanker War ..........................................................................................12

Desert Shield and Desert Storm .................................................................20

Enforcing the Peace.....................................................................................31

Establishment of Fifth Fleet and Evolution of NSA Bahrain .......................38

Humanitarian Operations...........................................................................47

Engaging America’s Allies ...........................................................................54

Containing Iraq ..........................................................................................59

Maritime Interception Operations ..............................................................63

A New Threat Emerges...............................................................................70

Operation Enduring Freedom .....................................................................78

Operation Iraqi Freedom ............................................................................88

Global War on Terrorism: Continuing the Commitment ..........................100

Conclusion................................................................................................113

Acknowledgments ....................................................................................114

Further Reading ........................................................................................115

Acronym Glossary ....................................................................................117

Index ........................................................................................................119


Lieutenant Commander Robert Lacy signals the launch of an F/A-18C Hornet for a mission in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 

4 September 2004. 

PHAN Tommy Gilligan
The Naval Historical Center completed this illustrated history of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth 

Fleet to accompany the exhibit it installed in the headquarters building on board Naval Support Activity 

Bahrain. In keeping with the Center’s mission of supporting the operating forces, the purpose of this book is to 

inform visitors to the headquarters and American Sailors serving in the Middle East about the Navy’s presence 

in Arabian waters and the variety of missions the Navy has conducted there, in peace and in war.

From the presidency of George Washington through the beginning of the Cold War, Americans have forged and 

maintained ties with the peoples of the Middle East. These bonds strengthened in 1949 with the establishment 

of the Middle East Force and a permanent U.S. naval presence in the Arabian Gulf. They grew even stronger 

when America committed itself to the defense of its friends in the region, establishing Central Command and 

its naval component, Naval Forces Central Command, in 1983. The United States Navy remains an anchor of 

resolve in promoting peace, stability, and prosperity in the Central Command area of responsibility.

The author, Dr. Robert J. Schneller Jr., is well qualified to present this informative and well-illustrated history. He 

is co-author of a book on the Navy’s role in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and since 9/11 has been 

researching and writing about the Navy’s role in the Global War on Terrorism. As with each of our histories, the 

views expressed herein are those of the author alone and not those of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth 

Fleet, the Department of the Navy, or any other U.S. government agency. 

Rear Admiral P. E. Tobin, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Director of Naval History

Foreword

vii
Crown Prince Saud bin Abdul Aziz presents a gift to Captain R. W. Ruble during the visit of Valley Forge (CV 45) to the Arabian Gulf, 

March 1948. The ship was the first U.S. carrier to enter the gulf. 

U.S. Naval Historical Center

Aramco’s refinery at Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, 

December 1952. That year the refinery produced 

170,000 barrels of petroleum per day.

The oiler USNS Supply (T-AOE 6) conducts an underway replenishment 

in the Arabian Gulf with the cruiser Vella Gulf (CG 72), 30 June 2004. 

The carrier George Washington (CVN 73) steams in the background. 

PH2 Summer M. Anderson

Saudi Aramco World/PADIA
Chronology

1833, September 21 United States and Muscat sign treaty of amity and commerce.

1945, February 14 President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud meet on board 

cruiser Quincy.

1949, August 16 Navy establishes Middle East Force.

1968, July 17 Baath party seizes power in Iraq in a coup.

1971, December 23 The U.S. Navy takes over part of the former British naval base at Juffair, naming 

the facility Administrative Support Unit Bahrain.

1979, July 16 Saddam Hussein becomes president of Iraq.

1979, November 4 Iranian fundamentalist revolutionaries seize the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold 

its staff hostage for 444 days.

1979, December 27 Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

1980, January 23 President Carter enunciates doctrine that commits American military forces 

to the defense of the Arabian Gulf region.

1980, March 1 Department of Defense establishes the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force.

1980, September 22 Iraq invades Iran, launching an eight-year war.

1983, January 1 Department of Defense establishes U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) 

and its naval component, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).

1987, March 7 U.S. government authorizes Kuwaiti tankers to sail under U.S. registry, and 

 Operation Earnest Will escort missions begin.

1987, May 17 Iraqi Miraqe jet fires two Exocet missiles at the frigate Stark, nearly sinking 

the ship.

1987, July 1 Department of Defense establishes U.S. Transportation Command.

1987, August 21 Department of Defense establishes Joint Task Force Middle East.

1988, April 14 Frigate Samuel B. Roberts hits an Iranian mine in the Arabian Gulf.

1988, April 18 Navy launches Operation Praying Mantis and destroys half of Iran’s operational 

navy.

1990, August 2 Iraq invades Kuwait.

1990, August 6 United States launches Operation Desert Shield.

1991, January 5 Following a coup in Somalia, NAVCENT forces conduct Operation Eastern 

Exit, evacuating 281 people from the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Mogadishu.

1991, January 17 Coalition forces launch Operation Desert Storm air and naval campaigns.

1991, February 24 Coalition forces launch Desert Storm ground campaign to drive Iraqi forces 

from Kuwait.

1991, February 28 Coalition forces cease offensive operations against Iraqi forces. 

ix
1991, April 5 Coalition forces launch Operation Provide Comfort and establish a “no-fly” zone 

over northern Iraq.

1992, June 25 Administrative Support Unit Bahrain is renamed Administrative Support Unit 

Southwest Asia.

1992, August 26 The United States, Great Britain, and France establish a no-fly zone over 

southern Iraq and U.S. forces launch Operation Southern Watch the next day; 

the CENTCOM commander establishes Joint Task Force Southwest Asia to 

manage Operation Southern Watch and to plan for other contingencies.

1992, August 28 CENTCOM launches Operation Provide Relief to deliver humanitarian aid to 

Somalia.

1992, December 4 Department of Defense launches Operation Restore Hope to facilitate U.N. 

peacekeeping efforts in Somalia.

1993, January 13 U.S., British, and French aircraft attack Iraqi air defense system in southern no-fly 

zone in response to Iraqi attacks on aircraft engaged in Operation Southern 

Watch.

1993, January 17 U.S. surface ships launch Tomahawk missiles against the Zaafaraniyah factory 

complex near Baghdad in response to Iraqi attacks on coalition aircraft patrolling 

the northern no-fly zone.

1993, April 10 COMUSNAVCENT flagship La Salle departs area of responsibility and 

COMUSNAVCENT staff move ashore to quarters in Bahrain.

1993, June 26 U.S. surface ships launch Tomahawk missiles against an Iraqi intelligence 

headquarters in Baghdad in response to an Iraqi assassination attempt on former 

President George H.W. Bush.

1993, October 3 Task Force Ranger launches its seventh operation in Mogadishu against warlord 

Mohammed Farah Aideed, during which two U.S. helicopters are shot down and 

18 American soldiers killed.

1994, March 25 U.S. forces complete withdrawal from Somalia.

1994, October 7 U.S. forces begin surging to CENTCOM area of responsibility in response to 

buildup of Iraqi forces on the border with Kuwait.

1995, March 3 U.S. forces complete Operation United Shield, covering the withdrawal of U.N. 

peacekeepers from Somalia.

1995, July 1 Navy stands up U.S. Fifth Fleet.

1995, November 13 Al-Qaeda-associated terrorist car bomb explodes in Riyadh outside the Office 

of Program Management of the American-trained Saudi Arabian National Guard, 

killing seven people.

1996, January 1 Department of Defense adds to the CENTCOM area of responsibility the 

entire Arabian Sea and a portion of the Indian Ocean.

1996, June 26 Al-Qaeda terrorists bomb the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran, 

Saudi Arabia.

x CHRONOLOGY
1996, September 4 In Operation Desert Strike, U.S. ships and aircraft launch cruise missiles against 

surface-to-air missile and command and control facilities in southern Iraq, in 

response to an Iraqi attacks on the Kurdish city of Irbil and coalition aircraft in 

the southern no-fly zone; the United States and the United Kingdom also 

expand the southern no-fly zone from the 32nd to the 33rd parallel and promise 

a disproportionate response if the Iraqis repair the damaged air defense sites.

1998, January 18 CENTCOM launches Operation Desert Thunder, a large-scale deployment of 

U.S. and coalition forces to pressure Iraq into compliance with U.N. weapons 

inspectors.

1998, August 7 Al-Qaeda terrorists detonate truck bombs nearly simultaneously outside the 

U.S. embassies in the East African capitals of Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, 

 Tanzania, killing more than 200 people.

1998, August 20 U.S. ships launch Operation Infinite Response, a simultaneous cruise missile 

strike against the Zhawar Kili al-Badr terrorist facilities in Afghanistan, and the 

al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, thought to be producing a precursor for 

the deadly VX nerve gas for al-Qaeda, in retaliation for the 7 August embassy 

attacks.

1998, December 16 In response to Iraqi noncompliance with U.N. weapons inspectors, CENTCOM 

launches Operation Desert Fox, a four-day punitive air campaign against Iraqi 

installations thought to be associated with developing weapons of mass 

destruction, units providing security to such programs, and Iraq’s national 

command and control and air defense networks.

1999, August 5 Administrative Support Unit Southwest Asia is redesignated Naval Support 

Activity Bahrain.

2000, October 12 Al-Qaeda suicide operatives detonate boat bomb alongside the U.S. destroyer 

Cole during a brief refueling stop in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 Sailors and 

wounding 40.

2001, September 11 Al-Qaeda suicide operatives crashed hijacked passenger airliners into the World 

 Trade Center towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field 

near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

2001, October 7 U.S. forces launch Operation Enduring Freedom to remove the Taliban regime 

and destroy al-Qaeda forces and infrastructure in Afghanistan.

2001, December 7 Kandahar, the last major Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, surrendered to 

Northern Alliance forces under the command of future Afghan President 

Hamid Karzai. 

2003, March 19 Coalition forces launch Operation Iraqi Freedom to remove the Saddam Hussein 

regime from Iraq.

2003, April 9 Organized Iraqi resistance in Baghdad collapses.

2003, May 1 President George W. Bush announces the end of major combat operations in Iraq; 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declares the end of major combat 

operations in Afghanistan. 

CHRONOLOGY xi
Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Chris Grahm stands ready to embark on a mission to clear shipping lanes for humanitarian relief operations 

in the Arabian Gulf, 17 March 2003. 

PH1 Brien Aho
Introduction

A merica’s interests in the Middle East, Southwest Asia, and eastern 

Africa date almost to the founding of the nation. Since World War II, the United States 

Navy has been the first line of defense for these interests. From the establishment of the 

Middle East Force in 1949 through the beginning of the twenty-first century, the U.S. Navy served 

as a force for stability and peace in the region. The Navy’s presence helped prevent regional crises 

from escalating into wars, enforce international sanctions, and minimize damage done by regional 

conflicts to American and allied interests. When there has been no other alternative, the Navy has 

gone to war by sea, air, and land to defend these interests. The Navy’s presence also resulted in 

peaceful operations such as humanitarian assistance, maritime rescue, and military exercises with 

regional allies. 

Early in the twenty-first century, the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet area of 

responsibility encompassed about 7.5 million square miles of the earth’s surface, including the 

Arabian Gulf, North Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Red Sea, and parts of the Indian 

Ocean.This expanse comprised 27 countries and three critical chokepoints at the Strait of Hormuz, 

the Suez Canal, and the Bab al-Mandeb at the southern tip of Yemen.

The Navy owes its success in this region to the patriotism, professionalism, pride, hard work, 

and self-sacrifice of the officers and enlisted men and women assigned to U.S. Naval Forces Central 

Command/Fifth Fleet. This is their story.

xiii
xiv ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

The screw sloop Ticonderoga at Venice, Italy, circa 1866–1869. When this ship passed through the Strait of Hormuz in 1879, it became the 

first American man-of-war to sail in the gulf.

U.S. Naval Historical Center
The first U.S. warship to enter the Indian Ocean 

was the frigate Essex, which twice rounded the 

Cape of Good Hope in 1800 to escort a convoy 

of merchant ships returning from the Dutch East 

Indies. The Navy conducted its first operation off 

the Arabian Peninsula in 1833, when the sloopof-war Peacock and the schooner Boxer carried 

an American diplomatic mission to Oman, an 

important hub for Indian Ocean trade. The mission 

culminated in a treaty of amity and commerce with 

Sultan Saiyid Said of Muscat.

The steam sloop Ticonderoga became the first 

American warship to sail into the Arabian Gulf 

after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in December 

1879. Her presence constituted a long-delayed 

response to an invitation from the Shah of Persia, 

with whom the United States had signed a trade 

treaty in 1856. Under Commodore Robert Wilson 

Shufeldt, who was en route to Asia on an ultimately 

successful mission to open Korea to American 

commerce, Ticonderoga stopped at Bushehr and 

Basra and steamed 70 miles up the Shatt-al-Arab. 

Shufeldt found that American commercial interests 

constituted two-thirds of Muscat’s trade. He also 

discovered that Arabs, Turks, and Persians liked 

the idea of another power helping to ameliorate 

the effects of “aggressive” British policy in the gulf, 

which Great Britain had developed in the context of 

its “great game” with Russia for imperial hegemony 

in the region to protect trade routes to India. 

Western interest in the Middle East increased 

significantly during the twentieth century, when 

petroleum supplanted coal as the fuel of choice for 

industrial nations. In 1901, British financier William 

Knox D’Arcy gained an oil concession covering 

nearly all of Persia. The first major strike seven years

later at Masjid-i-Suleiman in western Persia heralded 

the beginning of the oil age in the Arabian Gulf. The

British government’s interest in the region heightened 

on the eve of World War I, when Winston Churchill, 

then First Lord of the Admiralty, decided to base the 

country’s “naval supremacy upon oil.” Thereafter the

Royal Navy began replacing coal-burning engines 

in its warships with more efficient and economical 

oil-burning engines. With no known oil reserves of its 

own, Britain’s naval power came to rest on Middle 

East petroleum. 

Although the United States produced most of 

the world’s oil between the world wars, American 

companies invested in British petroleum concessions 

in Iran and Kuwait, took over the concession in 

Bahrain, and established an all-American concession 

in Saudi Arabia. Oil production in the region 

increased 900 percent between 1920 and 1939, as 

Growing American Interests

After the United States won independence in 1783, American merchants 

sought broader opportunities in every corner of the globe. Although Great Britain 

remained the predominant naval power in the Indian Ocean throughout the nineteenth

century, enterprising Americans soon reached markets on the subcontinent of India, along the 

east coast of Africa, on the Arabian Peninsula, and in the Arabian Gulf. Because the fundamental 

mission of the United States Navy has always been to protect American interests around the 

world, U.S. warships followed the flag of merchant sailors who pursued dreams of riches in Asia. 

With Great Britain’s Royal Navy and maritime law protecting free trade in the Indian Ocean,

Arabian Sea, and Arabian Gulf, the Navy only occasionally showed the flag in those waters during 

the nineteenth century.

1
2 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq joined Iran as major 

producers. In 1920 less than 5 percent of the world’s 

oil was produced outside the United States; by 1939 

the figure had climbed to 14 percent. 

American strategic interest in the region rose 

considerably during World War II, as German forces 

sought to drive east from Libya through Britishcontrolled Egypt and link up with Nazi tanks driving 

south from the Soviet Union through the oil-rich 

Caucasus. After Britain, Russia, and Iran signed 

a treaty in January 1942, Iran served as a major 

corridor through which the U.S. government shipped 

supplies to the Soviet Union under the Lend Lease 

program. Approximately 4,159,117 tons of aircraft, 

vehicles, guns, ammunition, food, and other supplies 

and equipment 

reached Russia

through Iran, 

nearly 25 percent 

of the total cargo 

shipped to the 

Soviet Union 

from the Western 

Hemisphere 

during the war. 

British, Russian,

and American 

troops occupied 

Iran for the 

duration, with 

the U.S. Army 

presence peaking 

at nearly 30,000 

men. The United States provided Lend Lease support

to Saudi Arabia as well.

The war highlighted the latent strategic 

importance of Middle East petroleum. In 1943, 

geologists estimated that the proven and probable 

reserves in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 

Iraq, and Iran numbered approximately 25 billion 

to 300 billion barrels of oil. For Saudi Arabia alone, 

estimates ranged from 5 billion to 100 billion 

barrels. One leading geologist predicted that “the 

center of gravity of world oil production” would 

soon shift from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arabian 

Gulf. Indeed, the postwar economies of the free 

world would come to depend on Middle Eastern oil.

On the way home from the February 1945 

conference in Yalta, President Franklin D. Roosevelt 

entertained King Farouk of Egypt, Emperor Haile 

Selassie of Ethiopia, and King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud 

of Saudi Arabia. The meetings took place on board 

the heavy cruiser Quincy (CA 71), anchored in 

Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake on the Suez Canal. 

The meeting with King Saud, as President 

Roosevelt later put it, “was perfectly amazing.” The 

President had arranged for the destroyer Murphy 

(DD 603) to carry the King and his retinue from 

Jeddah, the port of the holy city of Mecca on the 

Red Sea, to the Great Bitter Lake. As the destroyer 

approached the cruiser, the sight of the royal 

entourage on the deck of Murphy, according to 

one observer, seemed like “a spectacle out of the 

past.” Royal bodyguards armed with long rifles and 

unsheathed scimitars lined the forecastle, while the 

King sat in an ornate antique French chair atop a 

great pile of Oriental rugs on the forward gun deck. 

A tent for housing the King and his retinue of more 

than forty people stood on the bow as a flock of 

sheep for their food milled about on the stern.

The meeting began amicably. King Saud, who 

had received nine wounds in battle and walked with 

a noticeable limp, expressed interest in Roosevelt’s 

wheelchair. In a personal gesture, Roosevelt gave 

the King one of his wheelchairs, as well as a state 

gift of a C-47 aircraft. Ibn Saud bestowed upon the 

President rich robes, perfumes, and a sword in a 

diamond-studded scabbard. 

Tension grew, however, as the discussion turned 

toward the settlement of Jews in Palestine because 

the two leaders held opposite views on the issue. 

Sensing that Arabs and Jews were on a collision 

course, Roosevelt planned to reevaluate America’s 

Palestine policy in search of a formula to prevent 

warfare, but didn’t live long enough to do so. 

Nevertheless, the meeting demonstrated to King 

Saud that the United States might well play a more 

prominent role in the region. The meeting came 

to symbolize America’s growing interest in the 

Middle East. 

Well number seven at Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 

spewing oil, 1938. 

Saudi Aramco World/PADIA
GROWING AMERICAN INTERESTS 3

The Cold War ushered in a new sense of urgency 

in Washington with regard to Middle East diplomacy. 

During World War II, the United States had been allied 

with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin against a common 

enemy, Nazi Germany. By the spring of 1946, however, 

U.S. leaders had concluded that Stalin was bent on 

exporting Communist revolution worldwide and on 

advancing historical Russian interests along the Soviet

Union’s European and Asian periphery. Determined 

to counter these threats to world peace, U.S. leaders 

adopted a strategy of “containment.” America and its 

allies would oppose the encroachment of the Soviet 

Union and its allies wherever it might occur. 

The Cold War’s first crisis emerged in the Middle 

East. Stalin not only refused to withdraw his troops 

from Iran within six months of the end of World War 

II as he had promised, but also set up the Communist 

Republic of Azerbaijan in northwest Iran. The United

States and Britain pressured the Russians into pulling

out of Iran by the end of May 1946, and the Sovietsponsored Azeri regime soon collapsed. 

The Iranian crisis marked a major departure in 

American foreign policy. President Harry S. Truman, 

who likened President Roosevelt’s negotiations with 

the Soviets to appeasement, grew tired of “babying” 

the Russians and decided that it was time to “get 

tough.” He convinced Congress that the United 

States should “support free peoples who are resisting 

subjugations by armed minorities or by outside 

pressure.” Pundits dubbed this policy the Truman 

Doctrine.

The security of the Middle East would remain 

one of America’s primary strategic interests 

throughout the Cold War and beyond. ÈÈÈ

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud confer on board Quincy (CA 71). Their meeting symbolized the growing 

importance of the region to America. 

U.S. Naval Historical Center
In the years immediately following World War 

II, the Arabian Gulf became an area of vital concern 

to the Navy. American naval forces based in the 

Mediterranean and the Western Pacific after World 

War II burned fuel produced almost exclusively in 

the gulf region. As U.S. fleet oilers and chartered 

tankers began moving as many as 5 million barrels 

of petroleum products per month from the gulf 

to the Mediterranean and 

Pacific, the Navy perceived 

a need to establish facilities 

and a command and control 

structure to manage the traffic. 

Accordingly, on 20 January 

1948 the Navy established 

Task Force (TF) 126 to control 

the dozens of ships plying 

gulf waters and operating out 

of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. 

In subsequent months, this 

command evolved through several iterations and, 

on 16 August 1949, it was designated the Middle 

East Force. The Navy has maintained a continuous 

presence in the region ever since. 

Under the command of a one-star admiral, the 

Middle East Force soon included a flagship, a pair 

of destroyers, aircraft, and support vessels. Between 

1949 and 1965, duty as MEF flagship rotated among 

seaplane tenders Duxbury Bay (AVP 38), Greenwich 

Bay (AVP 41), and Valcour (AVP 55), each painted 

white to deflect the intense heat of the Arabian 

sun. In 1950, the U.S. Navy leased office space from 

the British naval base at Juffair, located five miles 

southeast of Manama, the capital of Bahrain. After 

the Navy reclassified Valcour as a miscellaneous 

command flagship (AGF 1) and homeported her 

in Juffair in 1966, the ship served for six years as 

command post, living facility, and communications 

center for Commander Middle East Force and his 

staff of 15 officers. That same year MEF ships made 

128 visits to 34 ports located in 12 countries and 6 

protectorates or possessions, while the flag aircraft 

logged 77,328 miles carrying the commander to 

40 different cities. In the spring 

of 1972, the miscellaneous 

command ship La Salle (AGF 

3) relieved Valcour as flagship 

for the Middle East Force. 

Painted white like her forbears, 

“The Great White Ghost of 

the Arabian Coast” steamed an 

average of 55,000 miles annually 

calling on ports in Africa, Asia, 

and the Middle East. She served 

as the MEF flagship until 1993. 

The Navy recognized that it not only needed to 

manage tanker traffic in the Arabian Gulf, but also 

might need to conduct combat operations to defend 

America’s interests there. In March 1948, Valley Forge 

(CV 45) transited the Strait of Hormuz, becoming 

the first American aircraft carrier to operate in the 

Arabian Gulf. Valley Forge and other ships conducted 

extensive reconnaissance and scientific surveys, 

which indicated that shallow water, extreme heat 

and humidity, blowing sand, and other environmental 

conditions in the gulf posed significant operational 

problems. The carrier’s visit included a port call to 

Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia. Naval officers and enlisted 

men enjoyed Arab hospitality, while the show of 

naval strength impressed Arab leaders. Two months 

Establishment of the Middle East Force

With the creation of the Middle East Force (MEF) in 1949, the Navy 

assumed the role as the first line of defense for America’s interests in the region. 

The founding of the Middle East Force also marked the transition of the Navy’s 

presence in the Arabian Gulf from periodic to permanent.

Middle East Force flagship Duxbury Bay

(AVP 38), mid-1960s. 

U.S. Naval Historical Center

4
Arabian Gulf Region.

Courtesy CIA
6 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

later, the escort carrier Rendova (CVE 114) and

destroyer Charles H. Roan (DD 853) entered the 

gulf. The carrier paid a 52-hour visit to Bahrain, 

the highlight of which was a dinner for 120 guests, 

including 45 U.S. naval officers, hosted by Sheikh 

Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, Bahrain’s ruler. 

Various U.S. fleet units visited the region periodically 

throughout the next four decades.

American diplomacy and deployment of large 

fleet units played a major role in preventing a 

protracted war across the region that otherwise might 

have arisen from crises like Iran’s nationalization of 

Western oil fields in the early 1950s, the Suez Crisis 

of 1956, the Iraq coup of 1958, and the Lebanon 

intervention of 1958. Although no shots were 

fired, such crises often had a direct and sometimes 

hair-raising impact on American naval forces. In 

1963, MEF destroyers deployed to the Red Sea

when friction developed between Saudi Arabia and 

Egypt over civil strife in Yemen. In an “extremely 

provocative gesture,” as the MEF command history 

put it, Egyptian fighters and bombers with open 

bomb bay doors flew over the carrier Essex (CV 9) as

she transited the Suez Canal. In April and May 1967, 

MEF ships helped evacuate American citizens from 

Yemen and patrolled off troubled Aden.

The Navy’s presence during difficult times 

demonstrated its permanence in the region and 

reaffirmed America’s intention to defend its allies 

and interests in the Middle East. ÈÈÈ

Sheikh Isa bin Salman al-Khalifa, ruler of 

Bahrain, departs the flagship Valcour (AGF 1) 

after an official visit to Rear Admiral Earl R. 

Eastwood, Commander Middle East Force, 

5 April 1967. 

U.S. Naval Historical Center

Arabian guests, crewmen, and others observe flight operations from Valley Forge’s 

island structure, 25 March 1948.

U.S. Naval Historical Center
In January 1968, British Prime Minister Harold 

Wilson announced that Great Britain would end 

its defense commitments “east of Suez” and would 

withdraw its forces from the Arabian Gulf by 

1971. The British 

government conceived 

the withdrawal as a 

money-saving measure. 

In effect, it swept away 

the last vestiges of the 

British Empire in the 

Middle East.

Bahrain had been 

a British protectorate 

since 1880, when the 

British government 

assumed responsibility 

for the island’s defense. 

On 14 August 1971, 

Sheikh Isa bin Salman 

al-Khalifa declared Bahrain’s independence and 

signed a new treaty of friendship with Britain the 

next day. Through an agreement with the Bahraini 

government, the U.S. Navy took over part of the 

former British naval base at Juffair, naming the 

facility Administrative Support Unit Bahrain.

The British withdrawal created a great power 

vacuum in the Arabian Gulf, once considered a 

British “lake.” Determined to fill the void in the 

region, the Soviets sent a task force into the Indian 

Ocean and launched diplomatic initiatives to secure 

permanent bases in countries in and around the gulf. 

The Soviet navy maintained a continuous presence 

in the Indian Ocean throughout the 1970s.

The United States was in no position to counter 

the Soviet moves. 

With America 

engaged in the 

Vietnam War

and President 

Richard M. Nixon 

committed to 

extricating U.S. 

forces from 

Southeast Asia, 

the administration 

sought to avoid 

new commitments. 

In 1969, the 

President 

annunciated 

a strategy dubbed the Nixon Doctrine, which 

envisioned transferring many security responsibilities 

to regional U.S. allies. In the Arabian Gulf, the Nixon 

Doctrine resulted in the so-called Twin Pillars policy,

which depended upon Iran and Saudi Arabia to 

provide security for the region and to constitute a 

bulwark against Soviet expansion there. As a result, 

American military assistance flowed to Iran and Saudi 

Arabia for most of the 1970s.

The Twin Pillars policy dovetailed neatly 

with the plans of Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, the 

Creation of 

Central Command and NAVCENT

During the 1970s and early 1980s, the United States supplanted Great Britain 

as the predominant Western power in the Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea. At the same 

time, threats to peace and stability in the region skyrocketed. As the danger increased, 

so did America’s commitment to the region’s security. This commitment culminated in 1983 in 

the establishment of a new unified command, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and its naval 

component, Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT).

Two RH-53 Sea Stallions from the carrier Nimitz (CVN 68) participate 

in the ill-fated mission to rescue American hostages in Iran, 24 April 1980. 

Operational difficulties underscored the need to improve how the armed forces 

worked together. 

U.S. Navy

7
8 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Shah of Iran, who sought to make his country the 

preeminent power in the gulf. Emboldened by the 

surge in oil prices during the mid-1970s and the 

flood of arms from the United States, the Shah 

plunged Iran into a pell-mell national modernization 

program that resulted in waste, inflation, and 

widespread corruption. 

Disgusted with the Shah’s seeming disregard 

for traditional social and religious values, Iranians 

from all walks of life turned against him and his 

pro-American government. In 1978, labor strikes, 

street demonstrations, and riots spread across Iran 

with increasing frequency and violence. A revolution 

coalesced around fundamentalist Iranians led by the 

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.The Shah went into

exile on 16 January 1979. He first went to Egypt, 

then to Morocco, the Bahamas, Mexico, the United 

States, Panama, and then back to Egypt, where he 

died on 27 July 1980 of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 

Soon after the Shah left Iran, Khomeini entered 

Tehran in triumph and established an anti-Western 

Islamic theocracy. He and his followers expressed 

the desire to spread Shiite extremism throughout 

the Arabian Gulf and expunge Western influence 

from the region. The Iranian revolutionaries harbored 

a particularly deep hatred for the United States 

because Washington had been the Shah’s leading 

supporter. On 4 November 1979 Iranian zealots 

seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took its staff

hostage, marking the beginning of a 444-day crisis. 

The situation in the region worsened that

December when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan in 

support of indigenous communists. Not since World 

War II had Moscow carried out a military action on 

Somalian Brigadier General Mohammed Hashi Gani welcomes Lieutenant General Robert C. Kingston, commander of the Rapid 

Deployment Joint Task Force, as he arrives to participate in Exercise Bright Star ’82, 1 November 1981. 

SSgt Bill Thompson, USA
responsibility (AOR) comprised 19 countries, the 

Red Sea, and the Arabian Gulf, and its mission was to 

protect free trade, help defend friendly nations, and 

preserve regional stability. CENTCOM eventually

got its own assigned component forces and a 

four-star commander, putting it on an even footing 

with European Command, Pacific Command, and 

Southern Command. 

The original 19 countries in Central Command’s 

AOR included Egypt and Sudan in northeast Africa; 

Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia on or near 

the Horn of Africa; the Yemen Arab Republic, the 

People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, and the 

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Bahrain, 

Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United 

Arab Emirates (UAE) on the Arabian Peninsula; and 

Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on the 

Middle Eastern and South Asian mainland.

By 2005, changes to the Unified Command 

Plan, which governed the organization of operational 

this scale. U.S. leaders feared that the Soviets hoped 

to capitalize on the American-Iranian crisis to secure 

a warm-water port on the Indian Ocean and to gain

control of Arabian Gulf oil resources.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, following 

hard on the heels of the Iranian revolution, convinced 

American leaders to take a firm stand in the Arabian 

Gulf. “Let our position be absolutely clear,” President 

Jimmy Carter declared before Congress on 23 

January 1980. “An attempt by any outside force to 

gain control of the Gulf region will be regarded as an 

assault on the vital interests of the United States of 

America, and such an assault will be repelled by any 

means necessary, including military force.” This policy, 

dubbed the Carter Doctrine, committed American 

military forces to the defense of the region. 

This new policy, inspired by the threats to the 

Arabian Gulf from the Iranian revolution and the 

Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, spurred President 

Carter to create the Rapid Deployment Joint 

Task Force (RDJTF). Established 

on 1 March 1980, the RDJTF was a 

component of what was then called 

U.S. Readiness Command, and its 

mission was to rush to the gulf area 

in the event of a military crisis. The 

first commander, Marine Lieutenant 

General P. X. Kelley, was hampered 

by a lack of bases and forwardpositioned equipment, as well as 

the long distance from the theater. 

He also didn’t “own” any forces and 

in a crisis would have to “borrow” 

them from other commands on short 

notice.

Defense officials in President 

Ronald Reagan’s administration 

considered the rapid deployment 

force a poor solution. Accordingly, 

on 1 January 1983, the Department 

of Defense replaced the task force 

with a new unified command: U.S. 

Central Command, headquartered 

at MacDill Air Force Base near 

Tampa, Florida. Initially, its area of 

Bradley fighting vehicles parked on the pier beside the fast sealift ship USNS Antares 

(T-AKR 294) at Savannah, Georgia, during Exercise Bright Star ’97. The capability 

to deploy combat-ready forces quickly across vast ocean distances enables Central 

Command to exist. 

DAC Don Teft

CREATION OF CENTRAL COMMAND AND NAVCENT 9
10 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

joint forces, had expanded the AOR to 27 countries. 

On 22 May 1990, the Yemen Arab Republic united

with the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen 

and became the Republic of Yemen. Eritrea came 

under Central Command’s purview after the country 

gained independence from Ethiopia on 27 April 

1993. Because of its cultural and political similarities 

to the East African mainland, the island nation of 

Seychelles was added to the AOR on 1 January 

1996. Because of their proximity to and political 

interaction with Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, 

the five former Soviet Central Asian republics of 

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, 

and Uzbekistan became part of Central Command’s 

AOR on 1 October 1999. On 10 March 2004,

Syria and Lebanon were shifted from European 

Command’s jurisdiction to Central Command’s 

jurisdiction because of American concern about 

Syrian-based terrorists operating in Iraq.

CENTCOM’s naval component commander 

was designated Commander U.S. Naval Forces 

Central Command (COMUSNAVCENT).

Commander Middle East Force, who had 

reported to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval 

Forces Europe during the 1970s, was reassigned 

under Commander in Chief, Central Command 

(CINCCENT).

The new unified command faced enormous 

difficulties. None of the countries in the Arabian 

Gulf region allowed the United States to base 

ground forces or land-based air forces permanently 

on their soil. U.S. military leaders knew they would 

have to deploy sizable, combat-ready forces to the 

Arabian Gulf region fast enough to cope with an 

emergency. The problem was how to do so.

The solution they chose was “maritime 

prepositioning,” a concept that had emerged during 

the Vietnam War. In this approach, the Defense 

Department maintained equipment, supplies, and 

vehicles on board Military Sealift Command (MSC) 

ships that served as floating depots in forward areas. 

In an emergency, these ships would steam as close as 

possible to the crisis spot and unload their cargo, even 

at ports with only rudimentary facilities. Meanwhile, 

Aerial view of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, 9 December 1998. Naval Station Diego Garcia serves Central Command as a vital 

air hub, logistics hub, and base for Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Two. 

SrA Sarah E. Shaw, USAF
long-range transport aircraft of the Air Force’s 

Military Airlift Command would fly troops to an 

airfield near the ports where they would “marry up” 

with their equipment. Planners envisioned a virtual 

bridge of ships and airplanes to deploy strong forces 

to the theater and keep them supplied.

The Navy invested $7 billion in strategic sealift 

programs during the 1980s to make maritime 

prepositioning a reality. Thirteen specialized roll-on/

roll-off prepositioning ships were built or converted

from existing hulls. These ships were divided into

three maritime prepositioning ship squadrons 

(MPSRO Ns) based in the Azores in the eastern 

Atlantic (MPSRO N-1), Diego Garcia (MPSRO N2), and Guam (MPSRO N-3). Each squadron 

contained the equipment and 30 days’ worth 

of supplies for a Marine Expeditionary Brigade 

(MEB) of 16,500 men. The Army, Air Force, 

Navy, and Defense Logistics Agency stowed 

materiel in 11 other prepositioning ships based at 

Diego Garcia. 

In addition, the Defense Department 

converted eight Sea-Land Corporation container 

ships (SL-7 class) into fast sealift ships (FSS) 

capable of making 30 knots and able to load 

and unload cargo quickly at unimproved ports. 

These ships were intended to embark a full 

U.S. Army mechanized division at East Coast 

ports, transport the unit to a global hot spot, 

and return to the United States for follow-on 

ground forces. Moreover, the Department of 

Transportation followed Navy Department 

recommendations and expanded its Ready 

Reserve Force fleet from 36 to 96 cargo ships, 

tankers, and other auxiliaries. 

To improve coordination among the Military 

Sealift Command, Military Airlift Command, and the 

Army’s Military Traffic Management Command, the 

Defense Department in 1987 created the joint U.S. 

Transportation Command, headquartered at Scott 

Air Force Base, Illinois. These measures went far to

ensure swift deployment of combat-ready forces to 

Southwest Asia.

Although Central Command was responsible 

for the Arabian Gulf, the Navy’s leadership viewed 

the region as an extension of the Pacific Basin. The 

Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Gulf 

of Oman had long fallen within Pacific Command’s 

area of responsibility, and remained so throughout 

the 1980s. On 30 December 1983, the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff (JCS) directed CINCCENT to coordinate 

with Commander in Chief, Pacific Command 

(CINCPAC) for contingency plans to integrate the 

Middle East Force into Pacific Command’s Indian 

Ocean battle force, Task Force 70, during certain 

crises. For the rest of the 1980s, the Middle East 

Force flagship remained home-ported in Bahrain, 

while COMUSNAVCENT headquarters stood in 

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 

By the late 1980s, the United States had 

committed itself to the defense of the Arabian Gulf 

region, created a unified command to carry out the 

mission, and invested heavily in programs to ensure 

its success. The entire commitment hinged upon the 

Navy’s ability to control the sea. Events soon tested 

the structure and capabilities of the new unified 

command and its naval component, as well as the 

very sincerity of America’s commitment. ÈÈÈ

A U.S. Marine guides a light armored vehicle down the ramp of the 

container and roll-on/roll-off ship M/V Cpl. Louis J. Hauge Jr. during the 

buildup for Operation Iraqi Freedom, 16 January 2003. This ship had 

served with Maritime Prepositioning Squadron Two since 1984. 

PH3 Aaron Pineda

CREATION OF CENTRAL COMMAND AND NAVCENT 11
The Tanker War

While the United States reorganized its security structure in the Arabian 

Gulf, the situation in the region grew considerably darker. On 22 September 1980,

Iraq launched an offensive into western Iran, marking the beginning of a war that 

dragged on for eight years and cost the two countries a million dead and a trillion dollars. Although 

fought mostly on land, the war also included maritime operations, with each side attacking merchant 

shipping in the Arabian Gulf. In what became known as the Tanker War, between 1980 and 1988 

the protagonists attacked hundreds of vessels, killing more than 400 mariners and inflicting losses 

in the tens of millions of dollars on ship owners, charterers, and insurers. When the Tanker War 

escalated to the point of threatening free trade in the Arabian Gulf, the Navy stepped in to defend 

America’s interests and allies and to keep the sea lanes open.

joined the party as a teenager, Baathists had seized 

power in Iraq in a July 1968 coup, and Saddam had 

become leader of the party and head of state in 

1979. He maintained power by turning Iraq into a 

police state and torturing and murdering political 

opponents and Iraqi citizens who displeased him. 

Despite making significant strides in forging an 

Iraqi nation-state, Saddam feared that Iran’s new 

leadership would threaten Iraq’s delicate Sunni-Shia 

balance and exploit its geo-strategic vulnerabilities, 

particularly its minimal access to the Arabian Gulf. 

Finally, Saddam figured Iran would be easy prey, 

believing that Khomeini’s purges of Iran’s army 

and air force had fatally weakened their military 

capabilities. 

As it was, the invasion bogged down quickly. 

Iraq’s air force proved incapable of putting ordnance 

on target with any sort of accuracy or reliability, 

while Iraqi ground force tactics proved incapable 

of overcoming resistance even by lightly armed 

defenders with any sort of alacrity. As a result, the 

war degenerated into a stalemate featuring trench 

lines, human wave assaults, chemical attacks, and 

massive artillery bombardments reminiscent of 

World War I. As casualties mounted, Iranian strategy 

shifted from repelling Saddam’s invasion to toppling 

his regime.

Rooted in ancient Sunni-versus-Shia and 

Arab-versus-Persian religious and ethnic strife and 

fueled by twentieth-century border disputes, the 

Iran-Iraq War has been called the “great war of the 

third world.” Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein claimed 

to have launched the invasion because of a dispute 

over the Shatt-al-Arab, the waterway that forms the 

boundary between Iran and Iraq and empties into 

the Arabian Gulf. 

His real reasons, however, stemmed from 

delusions of grandeur, a paranoid sense of 

vulnerability, and a bad politico-military assessment 

of his eastern neighbor. Saddam sought to consolidate 

his rising power in the Arab world, to replace Iran as 

the dominant state in the Arabian Gulf region, and 

eventually to become a global figure like his hero, 

Joseph Stalin. Saddam believed that Arab Shiites in 

southwestern Iran would welcome the invasion as 

liberation from Persian oppression, and he hoped 

to grab the western Iranian province of Khuzestan, 

which contained the bulk of Iran’s oil industry. 

At the same time, Saddam perceived Iran’s 

fundamentalist agenda as a threat to the vision of 

revolutionary pan-Arabism articulated by the Baath 

Arab Socialist Party. The Baath Party was a secular 

Arab nationalist political party and movement 

that had arisen in Syria in the 1930s. Saddam had 

12
Now fighting for his life, Saddam turned 

seaward. For the first three years of the war, attacks 

on shipping in the Arabian Gulf had been sporadic 

and generally uncoordinated, with 48 vessels coming 

under fire. Because oil and the control of its export 

constituted the lifeblood of both sides, control of 

merchant shipping routes, destruction of enemy and 

enemy allied merchant ships, and protection of oil 

export assets became key objectives in Iraq’s strategy 

and operations. By 1984, the Iraqi air force’s growing 

proficiency at hitting targets enabled Baghdad to 

escalate operations against Iranian oil facilities and 

tankers. Thus began the second phase of the Iran-Iraq 

War’s so-called Tanker War. Iraq hoped to weaken 

Iran’s economy by reducing its oil-export capacity, to 

internationalize the war in an attempt to gain foreign 

support, to reduce pressure on its ground forces, and 

to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

Before 1984, Iran remained content to accept 

maritime losses while seeking victory on land. But 

Iraq’s escalation of antishipping operations besieged 

Iran’s economy and precipitated a change in Iran’s 

maritime strategy. Iran’s leaders realized that with the 

exception of Iraq’s old rivals, Syria and Libya, most of 

the Arab world was providing financial and military 

aid to Saddam. Since Iraq possessed few of its own 

maritime assets worth attacking, Iran responded in 

kind to Iraq’s maritime onslaught by targeting ships 

trading with Iraq’s gulf allies. Seventy-one merchant 

ships were attacked in 1984 alone, compared with 48 

in the first three years of the war. 

In March 1984, Iraq initiated sustained naval 

operations in a self-declared 1,126-kilometer 

maritime exclusion zone, extending from the mouth 

of the Shatt-al-Arab to Iran’s port of Bushehr. The 

intensity of the maritime part of the Iran-Iraq War 

waxed and waned over the ensuing months.

In 1986, Iraq stepped up its air raids on tankers 

serving Iran and Iranian oil-exporting facilities. Iran 

responded by escalating its attacks, using aircraft, 

THE TANKER WAR 13

The guided missile frigate Stark (FFG 31) lists to port after being struck by two Iraqi-launched Exocet missiles on 17 May 1987. 

Naval Historical Center
14 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

speedboats, sea mines, and land-based Silkworm 

antiship missiles, against tankers serving Arab 

ports in the gulf. Because Kuwait was devoting a 

significant proportion of its oil revenues to support 

Iraq’s war effort, the Iranians focused heavily on 

Kuwaiti tankers and merchant ships trading with 

Kuwait. That fall, the Kuwaiti government began 

seeking help from the international community in 

dealing with the Iranian onslaught. 

On 13 January 1987, the Emir’s government 

asked the U.S. government permission for Kuwaiti 

tankers to fly the American flag in the gulf, thereby 

enabling them to receive the same protection 

as merchantmen under American registry. The 

Kuwaitis figured that American naval protection 

would deter or defeat Iranian aggression against 

the reflagged tankers. The Kuwaiti government had 

already made similar inquiries to the governments of 

the United Kingdom, China, and the Soviet Union, 

and Britain had already begun reflagging ships.

From the U.S. perspective, the Iran-Iraq War 

posed a difficult dilemma. While the land war made 

little immediate impact beyond Iranian and Iraqi 

territory, strikes on shore-based oil production and 

export facilities, offshore platforms, and tankers 

created a ripple effect that reached around the world. 

Although the United States was not dependent on 

gulf oil, its allies were. America imported less than 

10 percent of its oil from the region during the mid1980s, but Western Europe imported approximately 

30 percent and Japan approximately 60 percent of 

their oil from gulf states. By 1986, the Tanker War 

had significantly reduced shipping in the gulf and had 

caused insurance rates on tankers to skyrocket. Worse 

still, the fighting impeded the flow of gulf oil to the 

rest of the world and had the potential to damage the 

global economy. U.S. leaders were also alarmed by 

the prospect of an Iranian victory and its potential to 

spread Shiite fundamentalism throughout the region 

and to destabilize America’s gulf allies. 

Crewmembers stand watch at a 50-caliber machine-gun station on board the amphibious ship Okinawa (LPH 3) during Operation Earnest 

Will, 1 November 1987.

PH2 (SW) Jeffrey A. Elliott
But it was the specter of the Soviets using the 

escort mission to project power into the region that 

finally precipitated U.S. government action. Arabian 

Gulf sea lanes, declared President Reagan, “will 

not be allowed to come under the control of the 

Soviet Union.” On 7 March 1987, the United States 

government announced its decision to authorize 11 

Kuwaiti tankers to sail under U.S. registry. The two

governments signed a reflagging agreement on 2 April.

The governments of Great Britain, France, Italy, 

Belgium, and Netherlands likewise grasped the 

importance of preventing Iranian depredations to 

oceangoing commerce and maintaining freedom of 

the seas, so they too dispatched ships to the gulf. 

Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab 

Emirates contributed fuel to the effort and granted 

access to gulf port facilities and airbases. 

Because American naval leaders remained 

uncertain about how Iran would respond, the U.S. 

Navy deployed a substantial task force, the largest of 

the naval contingents involved in escorting Kuwaiti 

tankers. By the end of 1987, the Navy had deployed 

13 warships inside the gulf to carry out the operation, 

code-named Earnest Will. A U.S. carrier battle 

group steaming in the Gulf of Oman increased the

Navy’s strength in the theater to between 25 and 30 

warships and provided the means to strike targets 

inside Iran, if it became necessary. 

The Navy did not, however, consider operating 

carriers inside the Arabian Gulf. No American 

aircraft carrier had operated extensively inside the 

Strait of Hormuz since Constellation (CV 64) took 

part in Midlink 74, the largest naval exercise held 

in the Arabian Sea to that point. Throughout the 

1980s, naval leaders believed that the benefits of 

operating carriers inside the gulf were not worth the 

risks posed by uncharted hazards, a perceived lack 

of sufficient deep water to conduct flight operations, 

and Iranian mines and antiship missiles. Aircraft 

carriers were kept in the deeper and less threatening 

Arabian Sea, despite being hundreds of miles farther 

away from potential targets.

THE TANKER WAR 15

A line of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers steams through the gulf under U.S. Navy escort, 1 September 1987. 

PH3 Henry Cleveland
16 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

The Navy’s unwillingness to operate carriers 

inside the gulf exacerbated command and control 

problems that arose during Earnest Will. Part of the 

difficulty lay in the fact that the operation unfolded 

on the boundary of two unified commands. The

Middle East Force operated inside the Arabian Gulf 

under CINCCENT, while the carrier group steaming

in the Gulf of Oman operated under CINCPAC. 

Navy leaders involved in planning the operation 

wanted a Pacific Fleet admiral to command the 

naval forces operating in Central Command’s area of 

responsibility. The fact that the commander in chief

of Central Command was a Marine—General George 

B. Crist—perturbed naval leaders who believed that 

only one of their own had the training necessary to 

lead naval operations. The Chief of Naval Operations 

even proposed reassigning the Red Sea and Arabian 

Gulf from CINCCENT to CINCPAC. The Joint 

Chiefs of Staff declined. 

Technically, Central Command’s naval 

component commander should have led the naval 

forces in the theater, particularly in the wake 

of the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols 

Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. 

Confused command relationships, incompatible 

communications, inadequate intelligence sharing, 

and different service approaches to tactical problems 

had hampered joint operations during the failed Iran 

hostage rescue mission of 1980, the peacekeeping 

mission in Lebanon of 1982–1984, and the Grenada 

intervention of 1983. Goldwater-Nichols sought to 

resolve these problems. It increased the power of the 

JCS chairman, the Joint Staff, and the commanders in 

chief of the combatant commands while reducing the 

power of the service chiefs. 

From the Navy’s perspective, however, this 

emphasis on “jointness” came at the expense of the 

service’s traditional independence. Naval officers 

A lookout scans the horizon from the bridge of the cruiser Fox (CG 33), escorting the reflagged Kuwaiti supertankers Gas Prince and 

Bridgeton, 21 July 1987. 

PH2 G. L. Pixler
considered service on a joint staff detrimental to 

one’s career. The Navy even had developed its own 

strategy, the Maritime Strategy, publicly articulated 

in January 1986, which it used to justify its force 

structure. 

Pacific Fleet’s claims to the Indian Ocean area

and the Navy’s resistance to jointness made the 

service reluctant to subordinate forces to Central 

Command. In 1987 COMUSNAVCENT was Rear

Admiral (Select) Philip F. Duffy, who, in practice, 

managed only the logistic and administrative support 

of naval forces in the gulf. Although the Navy had 

close ties to countries in the region, CINCCENT’s 

requests that the Navy assign a more senior officer to 

the NAVCENT billet made no headway in the Office

of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV).

Nevertheless, General Crist persuaded Admiral 

William J. Crowe, the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, that CINCCENT needed to have 

sole control of naval operations in the theater. 

They arranged a compromise with OPNAV. On 

20 September 1987, the Department of Defense 

established the Joint Task Force Middle East 

(JTFME), a temporary command and control 

organization tailored specifically to fit the 

needs of Operation Earnest Will. Owing to the 

predominantly maritime nature of the mission,

and “to satisfy the Navy’s sensibilities,” as Admiral 

Crowe put it, Rear Admiral Dennis M. Brooks, flying 

his flag with the carrier battle group in the North 

Arabian Sea, was designated Commander JTFME.

Brooks answered to Crist for operational direction. 

THE TANKER WAR 17

Iranian ship Iran Ajr, captured while laying mines off the coast of Bahrain, with a U.S. Navy landing craft alongside, 22 September 1987. 

PH3 Henry Cleveland
18 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

The command structure still did not function 

smoothly because Commander Middle East Force, 

Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen, retained a degree 

of autonomy, and he and Brooks clashed repeatedly. 

To resolve this problem, Crowe combined JTFME 

and the MEF under Brooks’ successor, Rear Admiral 

Anthony Less.

U.S. naval forces operating in the gulf faced 

operational as well as organizational difficulties. On 

17 May 1987, an Iraqi Mirage F-1 pilot mistook the 

U.S. frigate Stark (FFG 31) for an Iranian vessel and 

struck her with two Exocet air-to-surface missiles. 

The night attack killed 37 American Sailors, but 

their surviving shipmates saved Stark from sinking 

with a dogged and skillful damage control effort. 

On 24 July, during the U.S. Navy’s first Earnest 

Will convoy escort mission, an Iranian-laid sea 

mine damaged the reflagged tanker Bridgeton. The

Navy’s mine countermeasures forces in the area, 

consisting of eight MH-53 helicopters and a small 

flotilla of ocean minesweepers, found and destroyed 

numerous mines during these and later operations in 

the gulf. Nonetheless, the aircraft were too few and 

the minesweepers too old, having seen almost forty 

years of hard service, to accomplish the clearance 

mission adequately. American naval leaders hoped 

to compensate for this deficiency by employing 

a traditional mine warfare tactic—preventing the 

enemy from laying the weapons. In that regard, 

American forces in the gulf scored a major success 

on 21 September, when U.S. Army AH-6 Seabat 

helicopters, operating from the deck of guided missile 

frigate Jarrett (FFG 33), intercepted the Iranian 

vessel Iran Ajr in the act of dropping mines into the 

water. In a swift action, the joint team captured the 

minelayer. That October, the joint frigate-Seabat 

team sank a speedboat and captured two others when 

the Iranians opened fire on the aircraft.

Undeterred, the Iranians struck and damaged 

the reflagged tanker Sea Isle City with a Chinesesupplied Silkworm missile. In retaliation, the Navy 

destroyed two Iranian oil platforms being used as 

military outposts. On 14 April 1988, guided missile 

frigate Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) struck an Iranian 

The destroyer John Young (DD 973) shells a pair of Iranian command and control platforms in response to an Iranian attack on a 

reflagged Kuwaiti tanker, 19 October 1987.

PH3 Henry Cleveland
mine that blew a 22-foot hole in her side and 

wounded ten Sailors. 

To drive home the point that the United States 

would not tolerate such attacks and remained 

determined to protect its allies and interests in 

the gulf, the Navy launched against Iranian forces 

another retaliatory strike, code-named Operation 

Praying Mantis. On 18 April, surface ships and 

carrier-based aircraft destroyed two gulf oil 

platforms used by the Iranian military. In this battle, 

U.S. naval forces sank or damaged half of Iran’s 

operational navy. Even though a few Iranian fast 

attack craft continued to fire on American warships 

and merchantmen, Praying Mantis greatly reduced 

the threat to shipping. 

Then, on 3 July, guided missile cruiser Vincennes 

(CG 49) mistook an Iranian airliner for an attacking 

warplane and shot it down, killing 290 passengers 

and crew. This sad episode seemed to be the last 

straw for the Iranian people, reeling from almost a 

decade of revolution and war. Tehran’s ground forces 

tottered on the brink of collapse under the weight 

of an Iraqi offensive. Antiwar demonstrations had 

broken out in Isfahan and Tabriz. The economy 

was in ruins, the treasury bankrupt. On 18 July, the 

Iranians agreed to accept a U.N. cease-fire proposal. 

The war with Iraq, and with it the Tanker War, soon 

came to an end.

Operation Earnest Will had succeeded, and 

the Navy’s ships, aircraft, weapons, and personnel 

generally performed well in conducting littoral 

operations. But problems had arisen in two areas—

mine warfare and command and control. Naval 

leaders recognized that the mine countermeasures 

force needed modernization and took steps to acquire 

new ships and equipment. They were less inclined

to explore new approaches to melding theater and 

naval operations. If anything, naval leaders ascribed 

the difficulties that Commander JTFME experienced

with command and control of operations in the gulf 

to outside interference. 

Despite these difficulties, the U.S. Navy-led 

Joint Task Force Middle East, working with 

America’s European and Arabian Gulf allies, 

accomplished the mission of protecting the vital 

gulf tanker traffic. Earnest Will had also taken some 

of the sting from Iran’s revolutionary movement. 

Finally, the United States’ stand in the gulf during 

1987–1988 erased the negative images resulting 

from the failed Iranian rescue mission and 

withdrawal from Lebanon, persuading the region’s 

leaders that they could count on the United States. 

Meanwhile, relative quiet returned to the 

Arabian Gulf. The United States gradually reduced 

its forces in the region. By the summer of 1990, 

only five naval vessels patrolled the gulf, the smallest 

contingent since the late 1970s. ÈÈÈ

Lieutenant Dan Taylor climbs down from the frigate Nicholas 

(FFG 47) into a motor whaleboat for transfer to a reflagged 

Kuwaiti tanker, where he will serve as liaison officer during a 

tanker escort mission, 1 July 1988.

PHCS Mitchell

THE TANKER WAR 19
Desert Shield and Desert Storm

T he quiet didn’t last long. Saddam Hussein’s megalomaniacal dream of 

becoming the Stalin of the Middle East survived the war with Iran, despite the war’s 

exorbitant cost to Iraq in blood and treasure. This time, however, the dictator sought 

to satisfy his lust for conquest by choosing what he thought would be a much easier target. On 2 

August 1990, Iraqi Republican Guard armored and mechanized units rolled into Kuwait. Six days 

later, Saddam announced the annexation of Kuwait, declaring it Iraq’s nineteenth province. Saddam 

figured nobody—not Arab nations, the United Nations, or the United States—would contest the 

invasion. He believed America possessed neither the will nor the ability to go to war in Southwest 

Asia. It was another bad politico-military assessment. Within seven months, the United States had 

taken the lead in an international coalition that had prevented further Iraqi conquests and had 

driven Saddam’s forces out of Kuwait. The Navy’s ability to control the sea and project power 

ashore proved critical to the success of Desert Shield, while its warfighting capabilities played a key 

role in the coalition’s victory over Iraq during Desert Storm.

American naval forces responded immediately 

to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Within an hour, the 

Independence (CV 62) carrier battle group, cruising 

in the Indian Ocean near Diego Garcia, headed for 

the Gulf of Oman, while the Dwight D. Eisenhower 

(CVN 69) carrier battle group, nearing the end of 

a deployment to the central Mediterranean, set a 

course for the Red Sea. Within three days carrierborne aircraft had come within striking distance of 

Saddam’s tank columns.

On 4 August, President George H.W. Bush 

decided that military power offered the best hope 

of deterring or halting further Iraqi aggression. On 6 

August, at the invitation of Saudi King Abdul Aziz 

Ibn Fahd, the President ordered American forces to 

Saudi Arabia.

Central Command’s Operation Plan (OPLAN) 

1002-90, the latest in a series of U.S. war plans for 

defense of the gulf region, guided the deployment. 

With the end of the Cold War in 1989, the resultant 

shift in U.S. strategic focus from global war to 

regional conflict, and the emergence of Iraq as the 

preeminent military power in the gulf, Department 

of Defense and CENTCOM planners had based 

1002-90 on a scenario involving a potential Iraqi 

attack down the Arabian Peninsula. The plan called 

for the deployment of American naval, air, and 

ground forces to deter or counterattack an Iraqi 

invasion of Saudi Arabia.

Operation Desert Shield, as the deployment to 

Saudi Arabia was called, unfolded in two phases. 

The first—a defensive phase—lasted through 31 

October 1990. The second—preparation for an 

offensive—lasted from 1 November 1990 to 16 

January 1991. The next day Central Command 

launched Operation Desert Storm to push Iraqi 

forces out of Kuwait. Together these operations 

became known as the Gulf War.

Like the Tanker War, command and control 

of naval operations during the Gulf War proved 

problematic. Although the Secretary of Defense 

had tried to resolve Pacific Command’s boundary 

dispute by reassigning the Gulfs of Aden and 

Oman to CENTCOM’s area of responsibility on 

20
Kuwait.

Courtesy CIA
22 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

26 June 1989, nothing had changed in the Navy’s 

organization or attitude with regard to Central 

Command. On the eve of the invasion of Kuwait, 

COMUSNAVCENT, Rear Admiral (Select) 

Robert Sutton, was still junior to the three-star 

commanders of Central Command’s other service 

components. For a large-scale operation like Desert 

Shield, naval leaders still expected Pacific Command 

to supply an admiral to lead naval operations in 

support of Central Command, rather than as a 

component of Central Command. As a result of 

this attitude, three-star officers from the other 

services had played major roles in the staff work and 

exercises to develop OPLAN 1002-90, but the Navy 

had provided no such input. 

Once again, the Department of Defense 

brokered a compromise. The commander of Pacific 

Command’s Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Henry H. 

Mauz Jr., was designated COMUSNAVCENT under 

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., CENTCOM’s 

commander in chief. Sutton remained in Hawaii 

under the title COMUSNAVCENT Pearl Harbor 

and retained responsibility for sealift coordination, 

logistics, and personnel support throughout the 

Gulf War. Rear Admiral William Fogarty, who had 

been commander of Joint Task Force Middle East on 

the eve of the Iraqi invasion, became Commander 

Middle East Force. While the other component 

commanders established forward headquarters at 

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with General Schwarzkopf, 

Admiral Mauz decided to exercise command from 

the Seventh Fleet flagship Blue Ridge (LCC 19).

Admiral Mauz assigned relatively junior naval 

officers to joint duties within Central Command. 

For liaison duty with CENTCOM headquarters, 

he created the billet of NAVCENT Riyadh, to 

which he appointed Rear Admiral Timothy W.

Wright. For liaison duty with Air Force Lieutenant 

General Charles Horner, the Air Force component 

commander and Joint Force Air Component 

Commander (JFACC), Admiral Mauz assigned a 

group of officers designated the Fleet Coordinating 

Group and led by a Navy captain. Although these 

command arrangements 

reflected the Navy’s 

tradition of independence, 

the commitment of 

relatively junior officers 

to CENTCOM’s 

joint team and the 

lack of a prominent 

role in prewar joint 

planning and exercising 

strained NAVCENT’s 

relationships with the 

other components and 

added undue difficulties 

to the conduct of joint 

operations, particularly 

in adjusting to the air 

component commander’s Air Tasking Order (ATO)

system of flight operations management. The fact

that the daily ATO itself had to be flown out to

the carriers instead of transmitted electronically 

symbolized the Navy’s joint organizational and 

operational problems during Desert Shield and 

Desert Storm.

Fortunately, these problems created only minor 

bumps on the road to victory. American forces began 

arriving in Saudi Arabia on 7 August. In general, 

Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Navy Reservists

reached the theater by air, while more than 90 

percent of their equipment and supplies came by sea.

The cruiser Bunker Hill (CG 52) launches a Tomahawk land attack missile (TLAM) toward a target 

in Iraq, January 1991. Operation Desert Storm marked the TLAM’s combat debut. The destroyer Paul 

F. Foster (DD 964) steams at right

PH2 Rob Clare
From mid-August to early September, naval forces 

afloat and ashore made up the bulk of allied military 

power facing Saddam Hussein. On 15 August, the 

first three ships of Maritime Prepositioning Ship 

Squadron Two reached the Saudi port of Jubayl.

MPSRO N-2 carried the equipment and 30 days of 

supplies for the 7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade. 

The Marines, who had begun to arrive at Jubayl’s air 

facilities on the 14th, “married up” with their shipdelivered equipment and stood ready for combat 

11 days later. By 1 September, U.S. naval forces in 

the Arabian Gulf, North Arabian Sea, and Red Sea 

included three carriers, one battleship, six cruisers, 

five destroyers, and eight frigates. 

Allied nations also deployed ships and aircraft to 

oppose Iraq’s aggression. Eventually, naval 

forces from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, 

Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, 

Greece, Italy, Kuwait, the Netherlands, 

Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the 

Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom 

participated in one way or another in 

Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and the 

aftermath of the war.

Admiral Mauz soon realized he would 

have to operate carriers in the Arabian 

Gulf if the Navy were to contribute 

effectively to the war. Successful late 

Cold War experiments to place carriers 

in confined waters like those surrounding 

the Norwegian fjords and the Aleutian, 

Aegean, and Japanese islands suggested that aircraft 

carriers could, in fact, conduct safe operations 

in shallow waters close to land. By Mauz’s order, 

the Independence battle group transited the Strait 

of Hormuz on 2 October and proved that flight 

operations were feasible in the gulf. From then on, 

the question was not whether carriers could operate 

in the gulf, but how many.

During the first phase of Desert Shield, ships 

operated by Military Sealift Command delivered 

1,034,900 tons of equipment, 135,100 tons of 

supplies, and 1,800,000 tons of petroleum products 

to the Arabian Gulf region. Of the 173 ships 

involved, 124 were U.S.-flag vessels, and these 

accounted for 85 percent of the tonnage. Even 

though Phase I ended formally on 5 December, 

virtually all of CENTCOM’s planned requirements 

had been satisfied by 11 November. At the same 

time, the United States deployed more than 60 

naval vessels, 1,000 ground-based aircraft, and 

240,000 military men and women to the theater. 

On 1 November General Colin Powell, chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported to the President 

that General Schwarzkopf “had the combat 

capability in place, in the region, to successfully 

defend against any Iraqi attack.” 

Saddam’s negative responses to U.N. political 

initiatives during the fall of 1990 made it increasingly 

clear that an offensive operation would be necessary 

to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait. In August, Air 

Force and CENTCOM planners worked up the

first draft of a plan for a four-phase air, land, and 

sea campaign to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait, 

code-named Desert Storm. On 31 October, President 

Bush decided to deploy an additional 200,000 Sailors, 

Soldiers, Airmen, and Marines to the theater.

Most U.S. air and naval forces deployed during 

Phase II arrived in the theater by mid-January. As 

in Phase I, people came largely by air and cargo by 

sea. During Phase II, 220 MSC-controlled ships 

delivered 1,270,300 short tons of equipment, 

235,400 more than in the earlier effort. The

404,700 tons of supplies delivered in Phase II almost 

Lieutenant Commander Mark Fox, the first coalition pilot to shoot down an Iraqi 

MiG, in the cockpit of the F/A-18C Hornet he flew during the mission.

Naval Historical Center

DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM 23
24 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

tripled that of Phase I. Finally, MSC delivered 

to theater forces 3,500,000 short tons of fuel, 

1,700,000 more than in Phase I.

While merchantmen delivered supplies and 

equipment, combatants prepared for war. On 1 

December 1990, Vice Admiral Stanley Arthur 

became COMUSNAVCENT in a routine turnover. 

Admiral Arthur divided the carrier battle groups 

into two battle forces, designated Zulu and Yankee, 

which operated respectively in the Arabian Gulf and 

Red Sea. Naval air wings rehearsed strike operations 

at Fallon, Nevada, before departing for the theater. 

Battle Force Yankee conducted “mirror-image” 

strike exercises with Air Force units. Other naval 

units conducted combat search and rescue, surface 

warfare, antiair warfare, gunfire support, amphibious 

landing, and a wide variety of other exercises.

Even as coalition forces prepared for war, the 

allies sought a peaceful exit for the Iraqi army in 

Kuwait. But after Saddam refused to withdraw, the 

coalition launched Operation Desert Storm on 17 

January 1991. 

At that time, Iraq fielded the world’s fourth 

largest army and sixth largest air force. Iraqi ground 

forces in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations 

numbered 43 divisions. Twenty-five of them occupied 

two major defensive belts along the Kuwaiti-Saudi 

border. The remaining 18 divisions stood by in

reserve, including eight Republican Guard divisions

positioned north and west of Kuwait. The Iraqi navy’s 

165 vessels, including 13 missile boats, were sitting in 

port or operating along the Kuwaiti coast. Iraq’s air 

force numbered approximately 950 aircraft.

On the coalition side, seven U.S. Army divisions, 

two Marine Corps divisions, a British armored 

division, a French light armored division, and the 

equivalent of four Arab divisions stood ready for 

action. More than 2,400 fixed-wing aircraft from 

12 coalition countries flew from bases and aircraft 

carriers throughout the theater and around the 

world. In all, more than 600,000 men and women 

from 31 nations prepared to liberate Kuwait.

The coalition naval armada numbered more 

than 150 ships from 14 nations. The United States 

Navy contributed 108 of these ships, including five 

carrier battle groups, two battleships, 13 submarines, 

and the largest amphibious force mustered since the 

Korean War, carrying nearly 17,000 Marines. The 

John F. Kennedy (CV 67), Saratoga (CV 60), and 

America (CV 66) battle groups operated in the Red 

Two A-7 Corsair II jets loaded with cluster bombs and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles streak toward a target in Iraq, 1 February 1991. 

The Navy retired its last A-7s in May 1991.

CDR John Leenhouts
Sea while the Ranger (CV 61) and Midway (CV

41) battle groups steamed in the Arabian Gulf. The 

Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) battle group arrived 

on station in the gulf in January 1991. The America 

battle group rounded the Arabian Peninsula in 

February, bringing the number of carriers operating 

in the gulf to four. The naval array also featured 

special warfare forces, naval construction battalions, 

medical units, cargo handlers, logistics ships and 

aircraft, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) units, 

mine countermeasures (MCM) ships, salvage and 

repair units, and harbor defense forces.

CENTCOM’s four-phase theater campaign 

plan for Operation Desert Storm sought to expel 

the Iraqi army of occupation from Kuwait and to 

destroy Iraq’s offensive capabilities to prevent future 

aggression. Phase I was a strategic air campaign aimed 

at rendering Iraqi forces blind, deaf, and immobile, 

while leaving the basic economic and industrial 

infrastructure of the country intact. In Phase II, allied 

forces would establish air superiority in the Kuwaiti 

Theater of Operations. In Phase III, air and naval 

power would prepare the battlefield by isolating and 

reducing enemy forces in the theater. Phases I–III of 

the theater plan—strategic attack, air supremacy, and 

battlefield preparation—made up the air campaign. If 

Saddam refused to capitulate during Phases I–III, the 

coalition would launch Phase IV, a ground offensive

aimed at ejecting the Iraqis from Kuwait. 

Naval forces had two primary missions in Desert 

Storm: support the air campaign and convince 

Saddam that the allies intended to launch an 

amphibious assault on his left flank. U.S. leaders 

had considered making a Navy-Marine amphibious 

landing in Kuwait or southern Iraq in support 

of the main ground thrust, but staff studies and 

simulations run in the fall of 1990 raised the specter 

of heavy casualties in the face of enemy beach 

defenses and sea minefields. Therefore, General 

Schwarzkopf never seriously considered a major 

U.S. Marines roll into Kuwait International Airport in light armored vehicles, 27 February 1991. 

TSgt David McLeod, USAF

DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM 25
26 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

amphibious landing on the Iraqi-held shore. But 

rather than disembark the amphibious forces, he 

used them for deception operations. 

The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) 

made its combat debut during the first wave of 

coalition attacks. The Tomahawk was a long range 

cruise missile, launched by surface ships and 

submarines at targets on land. The missiles flew 

at low altitudes at high subsonic speeds, guided 

over evasive routes by different navigation systems. 

Variants could carry 1,000-pound high-explosive,

bomblet-dispensing, nuclear, and other kinds of 

warheads. Navy surface ships and submarines 

successfully launched 122 TLAMs on the first day 

and 282 throughout the course of the war. These 

weapons struck targets with remarkable 

accuracy hundreds of miles from the sea 

in heavily defended Baghdad without 

risking the life of a single naval aviator. 

Tomahawks added a new dimension 

to the traditional Navy mission of 

projecting power ashore.

In the first few days of Desert 

Storm, coalition air forces won air 

superiority and fragmented Saddam’s 

strategic air defenses and command, 

control, and communications network. 

For the rest of January the coalition 

focused the bulk of its air power 

against strategic targets. On 27 January, 

Schwarzkopf announced that the 

coalition had won air supremacy over 

Iraq and Kuwait. Iraqi air defenses 

retained the ability to react piecemeal 

to allied strikes but could no longer 

coordinate defensive actions.

In the early evening of 29 January 

1991, Iraqi armor and mechanized 

infantry in eastern and southern 

Kuwait attacked U.S. Marine and Arab 

coalition units along the Kuwaiti-Saudi 

Arabian border. At the same time, Iraqi 

commandos embarked in 15 small patrol 

boats sortied south along the coast with 

orders to infiltrate and create havoc in 

the coalition’s rear. Saddam sought to provoke a 

major ground engagement, hoping to inflict so many 

casualties on American forces that congressional 

and public opinion would turn against the war. The

Iraqis achieved tactical surprise and occupied the 

Saudi Arabian oil and resort town of Khafji, whose 

population had been evacuated long before because 

the town lay within range of Iraqi artillery in Kuwait. 

Coalition fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft 

struck back hard, decimating the attacking Iraqi 

columns, preventing reinforcement of engaged Iraqi 

units on land, and sinking or scattering all of the 

Iraqi patrol boats. By the time the battle ended on 

2 February, the coalition had forced elements of two 

Iraqi divisions to retreat in disarray back to Kuwait, 

An Iraqi patrol boat lies dead in the water after a Sea Skua missile attack by a 

British Lynx helicopter based on the destroyer HMS Gloucester (D 96). 

PH2 Robert Clare
destroyed some 600 enemy vehicles, and recovered 

all lost territory with minimal friendly losses. Khafji 

was the only major Iraqi offensive of the war and 

its outcome demonstrated the impotence of Iraq’s 

army in the face of coalition air power.

Although Phase I operations continued 

throughout the war, by early February the weight 

of the allied air attack had shifted from strategic 

targets in Iraq to Phase III targets—Iraqi ground 

forces—in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations. From 

Schwarzkopf’s perspective, this phase was intended 

to soften up enemy ground forces in preparation for 

Phase IV, the ground offensive. The plan for the final 

assault envisioned the main attack as a “left hook” 

by armor-heavy forces wheeling around the enemy 

right flank, cutting off Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and 

destroying the Republican Guard. The amphibious 

deception operations were designed to divert Iraqi 

attention from the main thrust and to pin Iraqi units 

to the coast. Supporting attacks by the I Marine 

Expeditionary Force (MEF) and Arab units along 

the Kuwaiti-Saudi border would fix and destroy 

Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

Navy and Marine Corps aviation proved essential 

to the success of the 43-day air campaign, during 

which allied air forces flew more than 100,000 

sorties at an average of 2,500 sorties per day. The 600

aircraft contributed by the naval services accounted 

for 28 percent of the coalition’s 2,300-plane armada 

and flew an average of 650 sorties per day. 

While naval aviation did its part to dismantle 

Iraq’s war machine, Admiral Arthur carried out 

his mission of convincing Saddam that the allies 

intended to launch an amphibious assault on Iraq’s 

left flank. To pull off this deception, Arthur planned 

a two-stage maritime campaign: establish sea and 

air control in the northern gulf, and then conduct 

inshore operations in the northern gulf. 

The first stage involved clearing a path to the 

coast of Kuwait along Saddam’s seaward flank. The 

obstacles included the Iraqi navy and enemy troops 

posted on oil platforms and islands in the northern 

gulf. Rear Admiral Ronald J. Zlatoper, Commander 

Carrier Group Seven and antisurface warfare 

commander in the gulf, devised an aggressive 

“rollback” concept to neutralize Iraqi naval vessels 

Oil well fires rage outside Kuwait City in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, 21 March 1991. Iraqi forces torched the wells before 

coalition forces drove them from Kuwait. 

TSgt David McLeod, USAF

DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM 27
28 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

and troops posted on oil platforms and islands. He 

aimed not only to defend the fleet from attack but 

also to seek out and destroy enemy naval forces at 

sea, along inland waterways, and in port. 

From 17 to 20 January, the U.S. guided 

missile frigate Nicholas (FFG 47) and the Kuwaiti 

guided missile patrol boats Istiqlal and al-Sanbouk

cleared Iraqi forces from the ad-Dorra offshore oil 

platforms, capturing the war’s first enemy prisoners 

of war in the process. From 22 January through the 

end of the month, allied aircraft flying offensive 

antisurface missions engaged Iraqi port facilities, 

Silkworm missile sites, or naval craft on a daily basis. 

On 30 January, in what became known as the Battle 

of Bubiyan Channel, or the Bubiyan “Turkey Shoot,”

a large force of Iraqi combatants based at Iraq’s 

Az Zubayr and Umm Qasr naval bases sortied on 

a high-speed dash for Iran. Saddam himself issued 

the sailing orders, hoping to preserve the boats 

for the postwar era. Coalition forces detected the 

movement and attacked the fleeing vessels for the 

next 13 hours. In 21 separate engagements, coalition 

naval aircraft destroyed or damaged seven missile 

boats, three amphibious ships, a minesweeper, 

and nine other Iraqi vessels in the shallow waters 

between Bubiyan Island and the Shatt-al-Arab 

marshlands. Only one missile boat and one 

amphibious ship, both shot up, escaped. 

By 2 February, coalition forces had destroyed 

or disabled all 13 enemy missile boats and many 

other combatants. Although the Navy conducted 

antisurface missions for the rest of the war, it had 

eliminated the principal surface threat to the 

coalition. On 8 February, Admiral Arthur declared 

that the coalition had established sea control in the 

northern Arabian Gulf. 

The successful offensive antisurface operations 

made it possible for the second stage of the 

maritime campaign to begin. In this stage, mine 

countermeasures forces cleared gunfire support 

areas and amphibious assault lanes to the Kuwaiti 

coast. Then, battleships moved in to bombard Iraqi 

Jubilant soldiers and civilians wave American, British, Saudi, and Kuwaiti flags after the retreat of Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait City, 

27 February 1991.

CW02 Ed Bailey, USMC
positions ashore while the amphibious task force 

feigned assaults and conducted raids. Task Group 

151.11, consisting of amphibious ship Tripoli (LPH 

10), battleships Wisconsin (BB 64) and Missouri 

(BB 63), 13 U.S., British, and Saudi MCM vessels, 

and 15 U.S. and British cruisers, destroyers, frigates, 

and support ships, steamed into the northern gulf on 

13 February. 

Mine countermeasures operations commenced 

three days later. U.S. forces consisted of the 

newly commissioned minehunter Avenger (MCM 

1), three 40-year-old minesweepers, and six 

MH-53E helicopters based on Tripoli. The Royal 

Navy deployed five Hunt-class vessels, the most 

sophisticated minehunter ships in the world. 

Since early fall NAVCENT had been receiving

reports that the Iraqis were placing mines in Kuwaiti 

and northern gulf waters. Unfortunately, the Navy 

could do little to monitor the situation because 

General Schwarzkopf had prohibited allied aircraft 

from flying north of 27o45' north latitude and naval 

forces from steaming north of 27o30' north latitude, 

fearing that reconnaissance operations closer to 

occupied Kuwait might trigger a war prematurely. 

As a result, allied naval forces could only guess at the 

location of Iraqi minefields. The initial intelligence

assessment, based on limited information, led the 

MCM staff to believe that the minefields lay much 

closer to the coast than they actually did.

The MCM ships began operations at a point 

they believed to be outside the Iraqi minefields, but 

they actually passed through the main minefields 

before turning on their equipment. Their initial 

mission was to clear a 15-mile-long, 1,000-yardwide transit lane and a 10-mile by 3.5-mile fire 

support area south of Failaka Island, in preparation 

for an amphibious raid there.

On 18 February, Tripoli and the cruiser Princeton

(CG 59) both struck mines. No one died as a 

result, but both ships received extensive damage. 

Nevertheless, the coalition got off relatively lightly 

in Saddam’s minefields. Prior to the mine strikes, 

several different allied warships had also been 

operating unknowingly in mined waters. And if Tripoli

and Princeton had not struck mines, the rest of Task 

Group 151.11 would have steamed westward into 

mine-infested waters. Fortunately, many of the Iraqi 

mines had been improperly deployed, rendering 

many of them ineffective. Nevertheless, the recently 

discovered minefields led Schwarzkopf to cancel the 

Failaka Island raid and reinforced his decision not to 

launch a major amphibious assault.

After leading the rest of Task Group 151.11 

east of mined waters, the MCM group resumed 

channel-clearing operations from a point farther out 

to sea, beyond the minefields, and worked westward. 

By the evening of 23 February, the MCM group 

had cleared a narrow, 1,000–2,000-yard-wide, 31-

mile-long swath of water, enabling Missouri, the task 

group’s new flagship, to commence bombardment 

of enemy positions ashore. From 24 to 28 February, 

MCM forces worked to clear a channel to the 

Kuwaiti port of Ash Shuaybah.

Despite the fact that Phase III air operations 

were steadily reducing the combat potential of the 

Iraqi army, Saddam showed no sign of capitulation. 

General Schwarzkopf launched the ground offensive 

on 24 February.

On the eve of the final assault, coalition forces 

stood along a line stretching 300 miles west from 

the Arabian Gulf into the desert, arrayed in four 

major formations. The Army’s XVIII Airborne 

Corps and VII Corps held the westernmost position 

and would launch the main attack. The Joint Forces 

Command-North, consisting of Egyptian, Syrian, 

Saudi, and Kuwaiti forces, occupied the center of 

the line. To their right stood the I MEF poised to 

drive into the heart of Kuwait. The Joint Forces 

Command-East, consisting of units from all six 

GCC states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi 

Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) anchored the 

coalition line on the coast. Out in the Arabian Gulf, 

the 4th and 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigades 

remained embarked in the 31 ships of Amphibious 

Groups Two and Three, ready to launch or to feign 

landings as necessary.

At 0800 on 23 February, Wisconsin commenced 

shelling targets in Kuwait just north of the border 

to support the Joint Forces Command-East, which 

would begin its attack the next day. Wisconsin’s 

DESERT SHIELD AND DESERT STORM 29
30 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

projectiles rained down on Iraqi artillery and 

infantry positions, ammunition storage facilities, 

and logistics sites. At 2315, Missouri began shelling 

Failaka Island to create the impression that a fullscale landing was coming in order to freeze Iraqi 

mobile reserves in position. That same night, SEALs 

created a similar impression with a mock attack on 

the Kuwaiti coast near Mina Saud.

The ground assault to liberate Kuwait began 

at 0400 on 24 February. I MEF thrust directly 

toward its ultimate objective, the al-Mutla Pass 

and the roads leading from Kuwait City. Over the 

next four days, the Marines breached both Iraqi 

defensive belts in Kuwait, fought their way through 

pockets of stiff enemy resistance, and fended off 

several armored counterattacks on their drive north. 

The Army’s XVIII and VII Corps executed their 

massive envelopment maneuver, rumbling north 

into Iraq then east to attack the Republican Guard 

units arrayed north of Kuwait. By 0800 on 28 

February, Army units had won several fierce tank 

battles and had reached a position 30 miles west of 

Basra. Meanwhile, Arab forces of the Joint Forces 

Commands–North and East had secured most of 

their objectives in Kuwait and had liberated the 

Kuwaiti capital.

Central Command dedicated numerous aircraft 

sorties to support the ground offensive. Although 

no U.S. Navy or non-U.S. coalition fixed-wing 

aircraft participated in close air support, they 

did fly interdiction missions during the ground 

campaign. At first, interdiction missions aimed at 

disrupting counterattacks on allied ground forces. 

Later, the focus shifted to destruction of a fleeing 

enemy. By the end of the first 48 hours, the front 

lines had moved so far north that Navy pilots 

shifted their attacks to Iraqi forces north of Kuwait 

City. Aircraft from Battle Force Zulu also struck 

targets on Failaka Island to support amphibious 

deception operations. 

On 25 February, the amphibious task force 

conducted a fake amphibious landing just north of 

the Kuwaiti port of Ash Shuaybah, involving gunfire 

from the battleship Missouri, a feint by helicopters 

of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), 

and charges detonated by SEALs along the beach. 

At 0452, an Iraqi Silkworm battery near al-Fintas 

fired two missiles at the bombardment group. One 

of the Silkworms splashed down near Missouri, 

possibly falling short because of countermeasures 

taken by the ships. The British destroyer Gloucester 

shot down the second Silkworm with two Sea Dart 

missiles. Naval air forces destroyed the Silkworm 

launch site. The next morning, helicopters from 

amphibious ships Nassau (LHA 4), Guam (LPH 9), 

and Iwo Jima (LPH 2) made feints toward Bubiyan 

and Failaka islands. The amphibious deception 

operations worked. Central Command later 

estimated that the operations pinned down 70,000–

80,000 Iraqi troops—more than six divisions.

By daybreak on 27 February, I MEF had secured 

all of its objectives. Leathernecks consolidated their 

positions and began to mop up the last pockets of 

enemy resistance. Organized Iraqi action within 

Kuwait City ceased. Arab forces passed through 

Marine lines to liberate Kuwait City. President 

Bush ordered the cessation of offensive operations 

at 0800 on 28 February 1991 (Arabian Gulf 

time)—100 hours after the final assault had begun. 

Coalition forces ceased offensive military 

operations at the appointed hour but stood by to 

resume fighting if necessary. Central Command and 

the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed 33 Iraqi 

divisions as combat ineffective. Most Iraqi army units 

had surrendered, had been destroyed, or had fled. U.S. 

losses were miraculously few. In all, between 3 August 

1990 and 15 December 1991, the United States lost 

313 dead as a result of Operations Desert Shield and 

Desert Storm. Of these, the Navy lost 56 Sailors. In 

return for their sacrifice, the coalition had won one of 

the most decisive victories in military history. 

Desert Shield and Desert Storm were pivotal 

operations in the history of Naval Forces Central 

Command. Not only did naval forces play a decisive 

role in the coalition’s victory, but the Gulf War 

accelerated the Navy’s transition from a Cold War, 

blue-water focus to a post-Cold War littoral focus, 

convinced the Navy to become a better player in the 

joint arena, and reaffirmed the Navy’s commitment 

to the Arabian Gulf region. ÈÈÈ
Enforcing the Peace

S addam Hussein worked extensively to evade the economic sanctions and 

military restrictions imposed on his regime by the U.N. coalition after Desert Storm. 

Violence erupted periodically as the United States implemented its policy to contain and 

disarm his regime. Naval Forces Central Command played a key role in enforcing the peace.

In March 1991, Kurds in northern Iraq and 

Shiites in the south rebelled against the Baathist 

government. The revolt revealed the hatred for 

Saddam that years of repression, torture, and 

murder had built up among Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds. 

The uprising 

confronted the regime 

with the most serious 

internal challenge it 

had ever faced. For a 

time the rebels seemed 

to be winning. Kurdish 

guerrillas gained control 

of three northern 

provinces and the 

important oil center of 

Kirkuk, while rebellion 

spread through all of 

the major Shiite cities 

and towns of the south, 

including Basra and the 

holy cities Najaf and 

Karbala. Angry Iraqi 

soldiers returning from 

the debacle in Kuwait 

took part in the rebellion.

Saddam Hussein 

retaliated by inflicting 

massive atrocities on 

his people. Enough Iraqi heavy equipment had 

survived Desert Storm to equip seven to nine 

divisions, and some twenty Iraqi divisions had not 

seen combat during the war. Although Iraq’s army 

had been virtually impotent against Western forces, 

these remnants crushed the lightly armed Kurds 

and Shiites. While retaking cities and consolidating 

control in rebellious areas, loyalist forces fired 

indiscriminately into residential areas; demolished 

many prominent Shiite shrines and institutions; 

executed people on the streets, in their homes, and 

in hospitals; gunned 

them down with 

helicopters; and hanged 

them from tank guns. 

Thousands of men,

women, and children 

perished. Hamstrung by 

rules of engagement that 

disallowed unprovoked 

movement into 

unoccupied portions of 

Iraq, American forces 

could not intervene to 

stop the slaughter.

Saddam’s brutal 

retribution precipitated 

one of the largest flights 

of refugees in modern 

times, an exodus of over 

10 percent of Iraq’s 

population. An estimated 

1.4 million Iraqis fled to 

Iran, 450,000 to Turkey,

35,000 to Saudi Arabia 

and Kuwait, and smaller numbers to Syria and Jordan. 

In the inhospitable mountain areas of Iraq, Iran, and 

Turkey, refugees died at a rate of 2,000 per day from 

dehydration, malnutrition, disease, and exposure. 

On 5 April 1991, the United Nations passed 

Resolution 688, which demanded that Saddam 

Tents cover a mountainside in the Kurdish refugee camp of Yekmel 

during Operation Provide Comfort, 11 May 1991.

PH2 (AC) Mark Kettenhofen

31
32 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

stop committing atrocities and permit unhampered 

humanitarian assistance to refugees. That same 

day, military forces from 11 nations, led by the U.S. 

European Command, launched Operation Provide 

Comfort to aid the refugees in northern Iraq and 

southern Turkey. Elements of the combined task 

force, about 20,000 people, including 11,000 

American service men and women, mostly Army 

personnel, entered northern Iraq in mid-April. 

The coalition warned Baghdad not to resist the 

movement, not to fly aircraft in a “no-fly zone” 

established north of the 36th parallel, and not to 

send troops into a “security zone” along the border 

with Turkey. Having just taken a beating and not 

inclined to risk another, Saddam complied. Refugees 

fleeing to southern Iran and the occupied portion 

of southern Iraq also received food, tents, cots, 

blankets, water, clothing, and medical attention 

from coalition forces. In the north, the presence of 

coalition troops made the Kurds feel safe enough 

to return to their homes or to special “way station” 

camps set up near Zakho. By mid-June, almost all 

of the refugees had left the squalid, mountaintop 

camps along the Turkey-Iraq border. 

Following withdrawal of coalition ground 

forces from northern Iraq in mid-July, coalition 

air units, including carrier aircraft flying from the 

Mediterranean, continued to patrol the northern 

no-fly zone. After Provide Comfort officially ended 

in December 1996, coalition aircraft out of Incirlik 

Air Base, Turkey, enforced the northern no-fly zone 

under Operation Northern Watch.

Despite Saddam’s brutality in crushing the 

rebellion, Shiites in the vast marshlands lying 

between the lower reaches of the Tigris and 

Euphrates rivers in southern Iraq remained restive. 

The Madan People, or Marsh Arabs, as the region’s 

inhabitants were known, had a distinctive culture 

based on farming, fishing, and hunting dating back 

thousands of years. The marshes, because of their 

terrain and proximity to Iran, had long served as 

a sanctuary for criminals and others hiding from 

the central authorities, such as deserters from 

the Iraqi army during the war with Iran. By the 

spring of 1992, the marshes contained the largest 

concentration of active resistance fighters in 

southern Iraq, with rebel commanders claiming 

10,000 fighters. The number was doubtless 

exaggerated, since the rebels mounted little more 

than sporadic hit-and-run attacks.

Nevertheless, Saddam determined to eliminate 

all resistance in the region. In early 1992, Baghdad 

ordered major counterinsurgency operations against 

the Marsh Arabs. That spring, brigade-size ground 

and air forces launched search and destroy operations 

in southern Iraq. To facilitate these operations, gain 

greater political control over the area, and punish the 

insurgents, the Baathist government launched a civil 

engineering project to drain the marshes and thereby 

to destroy the Madan People’s way of life. 

Aviation ordnancemen take cover after hooking containers to an 

SH-60F helicopter on the flight deck of the carrier Harry S. Truman 

(CVN 75), on station in the Arabian Gulf, 20 April 2001.

PHAN J. Parry Nesbitt
Since Saddam’s campaign against the Marsh 

Arabs violated Resolution 688, on 26 August 1992, 

the United States, United Kingdom, and France 

established a no-fly zone in southern Iraq, barring 

flights of Iraqi aircraft south of the 32nd parallel. 

The next day, U.S. naval and air forces launched 

Operation Southern Watch. This operation aimed at 

preventing Iraqi aircraft from threatening Iraqi Shiites 

and neighboring countries as well as at blocking 

cargo airplanes from delivering to Iraq technologies 

applicable to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 

On 27 August, naval aircraft from Independence and 

Tarawa (LHA 1), operating in the Arabian Gulf, 

began flying combat air patrols and reconnaissance 

missions over southern Iraq, ready to shoot down 

any Iraqi aircraft that trespassed into the southern 

no-fly zone. At that time, 23 U.S. naval vessels and 

more than 13,000 men and women were on hand 

in NAVCENT’s area of responsibility to support 

Southern Watch. U.S. Air Force, British, and French 

planes also participated in the effort. 

Marine General Joseph P. Hoar, who had 

succeeded General Schwarzkopf as CINCCENT

in September 1991, established a task force 

organization, designated Joint Task Force Southwest 

Asia (JTF-SWA), to manage Southern Watch and 

to plan for other contingencies. Because Central 

Command Air Forces then operated the greatest 

number of American aircraft in the theater, General 

Hoar directed Lieutenant General Michael A. 

Nelson, his Air Force component commander, to 

lead the task force. 

During Southern Watch, the Navy resolved 

the joint organizational and operational problems 

that had arisen during Desert Storm. Instead of 

sending relatively junior officers to the JTF-SWA 

staff, the Navy assigned as General Nelson’s deputy 

Rear Admiral David N. Rogers, who was then 

COMUSNAVCENT-Rear, a billet created during a 

NAVCENT reorganization in April 1991. Although 

Air Force officers predominated in the 200-person 

JTF-SWA staff, naval officers participated fully in 

ENFORCING THE PEACE 33

An F-14D Tomcat launches from George Washington (CVN 73) for a mission in support of Operation Southern Watch, 3 September 2000.

PH2 Shane McCoy
34 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

the planning and targeting functions, with Navy 

captains serving as deputies of the key Intelligence 

(J-2) and Operations (J-3) staff positions. 

The Navy, Army, and Marine Corps agreed 

that the Joint Forces Air Component Commander 

should be in control of Southern Watch. When naval 

aircraft took off from a carrier to patrol the no-fly 

zone, they “chopped” (change in operational control) 

to the JFACC with no difficulty. The task force

staff employed an air tasking order for every flying 

operation, including all air defense, air control, and 

rescue missions in the operational area. The fleet did

not maintain separate control as it had for the latter 

missions during the Gulf War. Moreover, the Navy 

had dramatically improved the communications and 

data link systems on board the carriers since Desert 

Storm, so working with the shore-based task force 

headquarters in refining the ATO presented no major

problems. Navy strike planners on board La Salle and 

the carrier task force assigned to Central Command 

received the ATO electronically. In contrast to the 

Desert Storm experience, the Navy’s involvement 

in joint air operations and the ATO process did not

generate anxiety among naval staff officers. 

The coalition forbade Iraq from taking hostile 

action against coalition aircraft patrolling the no-fly 

zone, though Saddam’s government denied it was 

bound by the rule and routinely attempted to shoot 

down coalition fighters it said were intruding in its 

sovereign airspace. In early September 1992, Navy 

EA-6B Prowler aircraft and other sources detected 

a rise in Iraqi air defense activity within the no-fly 

zone and an increased tempo of Iraqi air operations 

above the 32nd parallel. The coalition responded 

to this threat with a show of force to preempt any 

Iraqi moves to disrupt Southern Watch. U.S., British, 

and French planes, flying in a combined formation 

for the first time on 9 September, flooded the air 

over southern Iraq. The threatening Iraqi air defense 

activity soon subsided. 

In early November, the nuclear attack 

submarine Topeka (SSN 754), armed with 

Tomahawks, added a new dimension to the Navy’s 

presence in the littoral areas of the world when 

she joined the carrier battle group participating 

in Southern Watch. This deployment marked the 

first instance of a nuclear-powered U.S. submarine 

operating in the shallow waters of the Arabian Gulf.

In late December, the Iraqis began positioning 

and activating antiaircraft missile batteries south 

of the 32nd parallel. They also warned coalition 

pilots flying over Iraq that they would shoot down 

any intruding planes. Then, the batteries fired 

on allied aircraft over both no-fly zones. On 6 

January 1993, shortly before turning over power to 

President-elect William J. Clinton, President Bush 

delivered an ultimatum to Saddam to remove the 

missiles from the southern no-fly zone within 48 

hours or suffer the consequences. The Iraqis replied 

by expropriating four Silkworm missiles and other 

military equipment from a portion of their former 

naval base at Umm Qasr that they had ceded to 

Kuwait as part of the Gulf War settlement. 

Airman Kumba Calvin secures a sling during crash and salvage 

training on the flight deck of Harry S. Truman on station in the 

Arabian Gulf, 20 April 2001.

PHAN Christopher B. Stoltz
The allies responded quickly. On 13 January 

1993, 35 U.S. Navy warplanes from the carrier Kitty 

Hawk (CV 63), which had arrived in the Arabian 

Gulf on New Year’s Day, along with 75 U.S. Air 

Force, British, and French aircraft, attacked four 

air defense command and control centers and two 

concentrations of SA-3 surface-to-air missiles in the 

southern no-fly zone. Iraqi antiaircraft fire missed 

the planes, while the coalition aircraft destroyed 

only one mobile battery.

On 17 January, Iraqi antiaircraft artillery, missile 

batteries, and fighters once again threatened allied 

planes, this time in northern Iraq. The hostile 

aircraft repeatedly darted back and forth across 

the 36th parallel, attempting to draw allied planes 

toward surface-to-air missile batteries just below the 

boundary. No allied Airmen took the bait.

Again, the coalition responded quickly. Later 

that day, cruiser Cowpens (CG 63) and destroyers 

Hewitt (DD 966) and Stump (DD 978), operating 

in the Arabian Gulf, and destroyer Caron (DD 970), 

steaming in the Red Sea, launched 42 Tomahawk

ENFORCING THE PEACE 35

A KC-135R Stratotanker refuels an F/A-18 Hornet as an F-14A Tomcat waits its turn during their Southern Watch no-fly-zone patrol 

mission, 1 February 1993.

CDR T. B. Surbridge

Camels graze on grass near the docks at the port of Jebel Ali, 

United Arab Emirates. The carrier Carl Vinson (CVN 70) looms 

in the background.

MR3 Ted Boesch
36 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

cruise missiles against a multibillion-dollar factory 

complex in Zaafaraniyah, about eight miles southeast 

of Baghdad. This facility contained computeroperated precision machine tools that had been 

used to enrich uranium for Iraq’s nuclear weapons 

program. At least 30 Tomahawks got through, hitting 

every one of the targeted structures. U.S. Air Force 

F-15Es also severely damaged the Tallil Station Air

Operations Center.

Saddam had had enough. The next day, the 

eve of President Clinton’s inauguration, Baghdad 

declared a cease-fire and informed the United 

Nations that it would no longer attempt to restrict 

flights of U.N. weapons inspectors inside Iraq.

Only temporarily chastened, that spring Saddam 

sent a covert team into Kuwait to kill former 

President Bush, who was then visiting the emirate. 

As a result of the failed assassination attempt, the 

National Command Authority called on NAVCENT

to increase the pressure on the Iraqi dictator. On 

26 June 1993, the cruiser Chancellorsville (CG 

62) in the Arabian Gulf and the destroyer Peterson 

(DD 969) in the Red Sea successfully launched 23 

Tomahawks against an intelligence headquarters 

in the Iraqi capital. The TLAMs scored at least 13 

hits and severely damaged the targeted buildings. 

Without risking the lives of any pilots, the Navy in 

the gulf once again enforced Washington’s will to 

restrain Saddam.

In the fall of 1994, Saddam began maneuvering 

Republican Guard armored and other forces toward 

Iraq’s border with Kuwait. On 6 October, American 

intelligence analysts concluded that Iraq would be 

capable of attacking Kuwait with five divisions in 

seven days. President Clinton immediately ordered 

the deployment of U.S. ground, air, and naval forces 

to the gulf in Operation Vigilant Warrior. The next 

day, he announced that U.S. forces would resist 

any Iraqi aggression. Military Sealift Command’s 

maritime prepositioning ships at Diego Garcia 

and Guam set sail for the gulf with full loads of 

ammunition, equipment, and supplies. The George 

Washington (CVN 73) carrier battle group, then 

operating off Bosnia, soon joined the naval forces 

already in position in the theater. These forces 

included ten surface ships and an attack submarine, 

with hundreds of Tomahawks among them, and the 

Tripoli amphibious ready group (ARG), with the 

15th MEU (Special Operations Capable [SOC]) 

embarked. During this operation, 6,400 naval 

and 301 Air Force personnel reinforced the 6,600 

Sailors and Marines and 4,000 Air Force men and 

women already in the Central Command area of 

responsibility.

Aviation Electronics Technician Airman Shannon Ireland 

maintains an F/A-18 Hornet on the flight deck of Carl Vinson, 

operating in the Arabian Gulf, 5 March 1999.

PHAN Jose Cordero
During the first days of the crisis, Marine forces 

constituted more than 50 percent of the American 

ground troops in the gulf. Moreover, during the first 

two weeks of the crisis, Navy and Marine Corps 

units accounted for 60 percent of the combat-ready 

U.S. aircraft in the region. These forces were not 

overwhelming, but their quick reaction to the Iraqi 

threat proved sufficient to convince Saddam of 

American resolve. Accordingly, long before major 

U.S. land-based ground and air forces reached the 

theater, delayed by overflight and basing problems, 

intelligence assets sighted Iraqi trains carrying 

hundreds of armored vehicles headed away from the 

Kuwait border.

Saddam Hussein’s postwar provocations 

continued to threaten peace in the Arabian Gulf 

region, but the quick and effective U.S. military 

response in each episode, routinely involving Naval 

Forces Central Command, prevented a return to 

the unfavorable balance of power that existed in 

August 1990. The coalition’s continuing vigilance 

and readiness to resist Iraqi aggression in the wake 

of Desert Storm paid huge dividends for stability in 

the Arabian Gulf. ÈÈÈ

ENFORCING THE PEACE 37

Lieutenant Chris Adams straps on his F-14 Tomcat prior to engine start on board Independence (CV 62) during Operation Southern Watch, 

17 April 1998. 

Front to back: Cruisers Lake Erie (CG 70) and Chosin 

(CG 65), ammunition ship Mount Hood (AE 29), and oiler 

Cimarron (AO 177) steam toward the NAVCENT area of 

responsibility, 14 April 1997.

PHAN John Sullivan

PH3 James W. Olive
Establishment of Fifth Fleet 

and Ev olution of NSA Ba hrain

While enforcing the peace, the Navy incorporated lessons learned from 

the Gulf War into NAVCENT’s command structure. The principal lesson involved 

a cultural shift away from the Navy’s preference to operate in support of Central 

Command toward joint operations as part of Central Command. This shift culminated on 1 July 

1995 in the establishment of the Fifth Fleet, the first stand-up of a fighting fleet in a half-century.

headquartered on board La Salle, home-ported 

in Bahrain, thus becoming Central Command’s 

only forward-deployed component commander. 

At the same time, Rear Admiral Robert Sutton 

became COMUSNAVCENT-Rear. That July, 

Rear Admiral David Rogers relieved Sutton and 

COMUSNAVCENTRear and his staff 

relocated to Tampa, 

Florida.

Admiral Frank 

B. Kelso II, Chief of 

Naval Operations, 

reasoned that a two-star 

admiral would lack the 

seniority necessary to 

command a large naval 

force in wartime, so 

the Pacific Fleet or the 

Atlantic Fleet would 

still have to provide a 

three-star flag officer 

to Central Command. Admiral Kelso decided to 

assign permanently a three-star flag officer to lead 

NAVCENT. On 19 October 1992, Vice Admiral 

Douglas Katz succeeded Rear Admiral Taylor. The 

assignment of a three-star flag officer symbolized 

the Navy’s acknowledgment of the need for a 

fully developed naval component within Central 

Command. That same year, the Administrative 

Support Unit Bahrain was renamed Administrative 

Support Unit Southwest Asia (ASU-SWA).

In the wake of Desert Storm, Vice Admiral 

Arthur encouraged the Navy to institutionalize 

some of the lessons learned during the war. He was 

especially interested in reorganizing the NAVCENT

command structure to facilitate jointness, particularly 

in improving COMUSNAVCENT’s relationships 

to the theater headquarters 

and the other component 

commanders. The war, he 

declared, “has shown the 

absolute need for a Navy 

component commander 

that has the staff, 

connectivity, and seniority 

to command a large naval 

presence.” 

On 9 March 1991,

Admiral Arthur proposed 

a reorganization scheme 

to General Schwarzkopf 

to make his successor as 

COMUSNAVCENT a

two-star naval officer “dual-hatted” as Commander 

Middle East Force. Because of its historical legacy 

and legitimacy in the eyes of America’s gulf allies, 

he reasoned, the Middle East Force should retain 

its identity. In the event of another large crisis, 

COMUSNAVCENT would relocate his headquarters

with Commander in Chief, Central Command. 

Rear Admiral Raynor A. K. Taylor assumed 

command of NAVCENT on 24 April 1991. Taylor 

was dual-hatted as Arthur had suggested and 

Idaho (BB 42) fires its 14-inch guns at targets on Okinawa, 

1 April 1945. Today’s Fifth Fleet is the namesake of the World 

War II fleet in which this battleship served.

U.S. Naval Historical Center

38
Bahrain.

Courtesy CIA
40 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

After serving as COMUSNAVCENT flagship 

for 21 years, La Salle departed Bahrain for the last 

time on 10 April 1993. She was overhauled in 

Philadelphia and then reassigned to the Sixth Fleet 

as flagship. 

When La Salle departed, the NAVCENT

staff moved into a trailer village prepared by the 

ASU-SWA Public Works Department. The admiral 

and his staff no longer needed a flagship, for 

COMUSNAVCENT intended to remain ashore 

in Bahrain permanently. In the event of war, they 

planned to relocate with CINCCENT in Riyadh.

Any of the carriers assigned to NAVCENT could 

readily handle the communications needed to direct 

forces afloat.

In September 1994, Vice Admiral John Scott 

Redd succeeded Katz as COMUSNAVCENT. 

The naval component commander’s duties had 

long included keeping watch on the military and 

political situation within the command’s area of 

responsibility. With Iraq and Iran still threatening 

peace and stability in the region, and carrier battle 

groups and amphibious ready groups operating in 

the AOR routinely, Admiral Redd and other naval 

leaders advocated establishing a fleet command. 

Back in the states, OPNAV, the Office of the 

Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and State 

Department debated the merits of establishing 

another fleet. Proponents argued that to do so 

would broadcast a strong signal of commitment to 

Naval Support Activity Bahrain front gate. 

COMUSNAVCENT PAO
the region, function as an echelon 

between COMUSNAVCENT and the 

operating forces, and involve minimal 

staff augmentation. Opponents 

questioned the need for a new fleet 

at a time when the Navy was retiring 

dozens of warships. The proponents 

made the better case. On 4 May 

1995, Secretary of Defense William J. 

Perry approved the stand-up of a new 

fighting fleet, designated Fifth Fleet. 

The Navy drew upon its World 

War II heritage for the designation. 

On 15 March 1943, Admiral Ernest 

J. King, Commander in Chief, 

United States Fleet, established 

numbered fleets as a basis for task 

force designations and for specific 

geographic areas. He designated 

Fifth Fleet to operate in the Central 

Pacific Ocean and placed Vice 

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance in 

command. Fifth Fleet fought some 

of the war’s most significant battles, 

including Philippine Sea, Iwo Jima, 

and Okinawa. In March 1945, 

Commander Seventh Fleet assumed 

responsibilities for the control of the 

areas and the forces assigned to Fifth 

Fleet, and the staff moved ashore 

to the West Coast. It remained there until January 

1947, when the Navy disestablished Fifth Fleet 

as part of the general postwar drawdown of naval 

forces worldwide.

On 1 July 1995, the Navy formally stood up 

the Fifth Fleet during a small ceremony at Admiral 

Redd’s office. The commander of Destroyer 

Squadron 50 became dual-hatted as Commander 

Middle East Force. The reestablishment of Fifth 

Fleet brought the naval organization in Central 

Command in line with the Pacific Command, which 

had the Third and Seventh fleets; the Atlantic 

Command, which had the Second Fleet; and the 

European Command, which had the Sixth Fleet. As 

Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it, the 

stand-up of Fifth Fleet demonstrated that the Navy’s 

commitment to the region was “ironclad.” 

In the new organization scheme, naval forces 

deployed from the Pacific and Atlantic fleets to 

the region, where they came under operational 

control of the Fifth Fleet. Commander Fifth 

Fleet was subordinate to and an additional duty 

of COMUSNAVCENT. The dual-hatted naval 

component commander reported to CINCCENT

for contingency planning and operational 

matters and to the Chief of Naval Operations for 

administrative concerns.

As they developed Fifth Fleet’s task 

organization, Admiral Redd and his staff established 

Task Force 50, which included all combatants in 

JO2 Denny Lester

Quartermaster 2nd Class Carolina Castanon, a Sailor in Naval Support Activity 

Bahrain’s Harbor Patrol Unit, makes her rounds, 28 September 2003. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF FIFTH FLEET AND EVO LUTION OF NSA BAHRAIN 41
42 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

the gulf during day-to-day operations. In the event 

of a major theater war or other large operational 

contingency, Fifth Fleet would transition to 

traditional task organizations. From its inception, 

Fifth Fleet considered joint and combined 

operations to be of paramount importance. 

On 1 January 1996, the Department of Defense 

added to the CENTCOM area of responsibility 

the entire Arabian Sea and a portion of the Indian 

Ocean running south from Pakistan to near Diego 

Garcia and west from Diego Garcia to the coast of 

southern Kenya. On 5 August 1999, Administrative 

Nico Janni drives his Petronas-Saubeer Formula One car at high-speed on Bahrain’s King Faisal Highway. In 2004 the island hosted its first 

F1 race at the most advanced racing facility of its kind in the world. 

Corbis
Support Unit Southwest Asia was redesignated 

Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain, a name 

denoting facilities that provide direct support to the 

fleet and reflecting the Navy’s permanent presence 

in the Arabian Gulf. 

Although the organization had evolved, the 

mission remained the same: ensuring stability in the 

region, countering the proliferation of weapons of 

mass destruction, and ensuring access to strategic 

natural resources. 

The Navy’s facilities in Bahrain, however, 

underwent substantial change. When Fifth Fleet 

stood up, a combination of old British-era stucco 

buildings and temporary prefabricated metal 

buildings dotted the 23-acre naval base. On 25 

June 1996, terrorists bombed the Khobar Towers,

an apartment complex housing Central Command 

personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 

Americans and wounding hundreds more. The blast 

was so powerful that many people in Bahrain felt 

the concussion. NAVCENT immediately launched 

a $6 million program to beef up force protection 

in Bahrain. Two Marine Corps platoon-size Fleet 

Antiterrorism Security Teams (FASTs) augmented 

existing Navy and Bahraini security forces by 4 July. 

The next month COMUSNAVCENT worked with 

the U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain to obtain 45 acres 

of land adjacent to the compound. 

In the years that followed, the Army Corps 

of Engineers, with assistance from Naval Facilities 

Engineering Command and the base’s Public 

Works Center, launched a construction program 

expected to total approximately $200 million by 

the year 2010. The program sought to facilitate 

operations and force protection while improving 

quality of life at NSA Bahrain. The construction 

Actor and comedian Robin Williams performs during an all-hands gathering at Naval Support Activity Bahrain, 19 December 2003. 

JO1 Dennis J. Herring

ESTABLISHMENT OF FIFTH FLEET 43
44 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

followed a master plan drafted after the Khobar 

Towers tragedy to move the activities with the 

largest staffs into a triangular area set well inside 

the base. The original 23 acres were cleared of 

vehicular traffic and became a pedestrian-only zone. 

A wall and guard towers designed to blend with 

local architecture were constructed around the base 

perimeter. Reinforced concrete “townhouses” were 

built to house several of the 42 tenant commands. 

Construction finished by 2005 included barracks; 

a medical and dental clinic; recreation, shopping, 

and banking facilities; and a childcare center. The 

jewel of the construction program was the 128,144-

square-foot, $25 million headquarters complex that 

opened for business on 4 January 2004.

The building program made a significant impact 

on the local economy. Before the Gulf War, no more 

than 100 Sailors had been stationed in Bahrain. 

By the fall of 2001, some 1,200 military men and 

women worked at the base. Not only did the building 

program benefit Bahraini contractors engaged in 

construction projects on base, but a huge new market 

for hotels, apartments, restaurants, and entertainment 

sprang up almost overnight. Juffair became Bahrain’s 

boomtown. For security reasons, the Navy placed 

strict limits on the number of Americans permitted 

to stay in each hotel or apartment. Building owners 

had to get non-Navy clients to fill up the rest of 

their space. As fortune had it, the Navy’s expansion 

coincided with Manama’s rise as the hub of 

commerce and banking in the region. 

Bahrain wasn’t the only Arabian Gulf nation 

whose economy benefited from the Navy’s presence. 

Before Desert Storm, no Arab nations other than 

Bahrain and Oman had granted U.S. forces the right 

to use shore facilities on a regular basis. By 2003, 

Vice Admiral David C. Nichols Jr. addresses Sailors during the change of command ceremony outside Fifth Fleet headquarters in which Vice 

Admiral Patrick M. Walsh relieved him as Commander U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet, 3 November 2005. 

PH2 Carolla Bennett
Vice Admiral Patrick Walsh tours Naval Support Activity Bahrain with Bahrain’s Crown Prince, His Highness Sheikh Salman bin Hamad 

bin Isa al-Khalifa, 28 November 2006. During the Crown Prince’s visit, Admiral Walsh discussed the Navy’s role in the Middle East as well 

as relations between Bahrain and the U.S. military.

MC2 Bobby Northnagle

ESTABLISHMENT OF FIFTH FLEET 45
46 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

however, the U.S. Navy used the shore facilities 

of all the GCC states. Throughout the 1990s, the 

United Arab Emirates welcomed U.S. naval warships 

on port and liberty calls and opened its huge Jebel 

Ali port facility to aircraft carriers for visits and 

repairs. For much of the 1990s the UAE also hosted 

U.S. air refueling assets, which supported Air Force 

and Navy sorties in Operation Southern Watch. 

U.S. Navy P-3s began flying maritime interception 

operations out of Masirah, Oman, in 1990.

The establishment of a new fleet, construction 

of extensive new base facilities in Bahrain, and use 

of facilities throughout the region emphasized the 

permanence of the Navy’s presence in the Arabian 

Gulf. Just as the presence of the Sixth Fleet in the 

Mediterranean during the Cold War reflected a 

resolve to maintain order and stability in Europe, 

so too did the rechristening of the U.S. Fifth Fleet 

signal a resolve to maintain order and stability in the 

Arabian Gulf region. ÈÈÈ

Situated on the King Faisal Highway close to Juffair, the al-Fateh Mosque, also called the Grand Mosque, is Bahrain’s largest religious 

building. Visitors are allowed to enter the mosque throughout the day, except during prayer times.

Adam Woolfitt/Corbis
Humanitarian Op erations

Since its birth in 1775, the United States Navy has existed primarily to fight in war or 

to prepare for war. Throughout its history, the Navy also employed ships and aircraft for 

humanitarian purposes. After the establishment of the Middle East Force in 1949, the Navy 

not only compiled a war-winning record in the Arabian Gulf region but also established a reputation 

for helping people in need, from mariners in distress to civilians ashore suffering from natural or 

man-made disasters. 

high seas. Capodanno transferred fuel to the boats, 

took one under tow for a brief time when it suffered 

an engineering casualty, and escorted all three 

safely to Mombasa, Kenya’s principal port. In 1998, 

Sailors from the frigate Gary (FFG 51), destroyer 

Harry W. Hill (DD 986), 

and oiler Tippecanoe 

(T-AO 199) treated a

badly burned mariner 

from the merchantman 

British Harrier and then 

transferred him to a hospital 

ashore. In August 2000, the 

carrier George Washington, 

destroyer Oldendorf (DD 

972), USNS Catawba (TATF 168), and Helicopter 

Combat Support Special 

Squadron Two, Detachment 

Two conducted a search 

and recovery mission

following the crash of 

Gulf Air Airbus 320. On 2

January 2004, a helicopter 

from the cruiser Gettysburg 

(CG 64) medevaced to the 

carrier Enterprise (CVN 65)

an Iraqi seaman seriously 

injured when a cable parted while his freighter was 

towing another ship. The list of instances of U.S. ships 

aiding mariners in distress is already long and will 

only grow in the years to come.

Ships assigned to the Middle East Force and 

to Naval Forces Central Command have answered 

countless distress calls. In June 1950, for example, 

an Air France DC-4 airliner crashed on approach 

to the Bahrain airfield. Sailors from Greenwich Bay

were the first to arrive on 

the scene and rescued nine 

passengers. In 1955, Sailors 

from Valcour boarded the 

blazing and abandoned 

Italian tanker Argea Primato

and extinguished the fire, 

thus averting a major 

environmental disaster. 

When devastating floods 

swept through Ceylon in 

1957, Sailors on board 

Duxbury Bay rushed food, 

supplies, and medical 

personnel to the disaster 

area; coordinated the efforts 

of other ships assigned to 

help; and helped prevent 

the outbreak of epidemics. 

In 1962, crewmen from 

Duxbury Bay and the 

destroyer Soley (DD 707) 

assisted a mariner from 

the Danish tanker Prima Maersk who had suffered 

third degree burns in an engine room fire. In 1974, 

the destroyer escort Capodanno (DE 1093) assisted 

three Kenyan patrol boats running low on fuel in 

47

A Kurdish man watches American forces arrive at a refugee 

camp near Zakho, Iraq, during Operation Provide Comfort, 

1 May 1991. 

PH2(AC) Mark Kettenhofen
48 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Ships en route to or outbound from the 

NAVCENT area of responsibility have frequently 

participated in relief efforts sparked by natural 

disasters. In May 1991, while on the way home 

after serving in the Gulf War, Amphibious Group 

Three, with the 5th MEB embarked, paused off 

Bangladesh to participate in Operation Sea Angel, 

after a cyclone devastated that nation during the last 

two days of April. While en route to the Arabian 

Gulf region in January 2005, the amphibious 

assault ship Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), flagship 

of Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) 5, and the 

embarked 15th MEU, conducted nine days of 

humanitarian assistance operations in support of 

Operation Unified Assistance, delivering more than 

a million pounds of humanitarian aid to tsunami 

survivors on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

In the decade after Desert Storm, some of 

the most significant challenges facing NAVCENT

involved the east African nation of Somalia. 

After years of political unrest, in January 1991, 

rebels overthrew the repressive regime of dictator 

Mohammed Siad Barre. Violence continued 

unabated as civil war broke out among 14 clans and 

sub-clans vying for power. 

On 5 January, the Guam and Trenton (LPD 

14) amphibious ready groups, with elements of the 

4th MEB embarked, arrived off the Somali capital, 

Mogadishu. COMUSNAVCENT had deployed the 

ships from the Arabian Gulf where they had been 

supporting Operation Desert Shield. That night, in 

Operation Eastern Exit, Marine Corps helicopters 

evacuated 281 people, representing 30 countries, 

from the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu.

Wounded anti-Taliban fighters get some fresh air and sunshine on the flight deck of the amphibious ship Peleliu (LHA 5), 9 December 2001. 

Many Afghanis who received medical treatment on board the ship had never before seen the ocean.

PH2 Michael Townsend
Horn of Africa. 

Courtesy CIA
50 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Meanwhile, an ongoing east African drought 

ravaged the Somali people. The combination of 

drought and civil war proved disastrous. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as the 

International Red Cross and the Red Crescent 

Society struggled in vain to stabilize the situation 

and provide food and other humanitarian assistance. 

Widespread looting, fighting between gangs, and 

other lawlessness, however, prevented 80 percent of 

relief supplies from reaching the hungry and sick. 

An estimated 25 percent of Somalia’s six million 

people died of starvation or disease. Famine and 

fighting displaced approximately two million people 

from their homes. Refugees fled to neighboring 

countries or to urban areas. All institutions of 

governance and at least 60 percent of the country’s 

basic infrastructure disintegrated. 

In 1992, the United Nations took action to try 

to help the stricken nation. The Security Council 

imposed an arms embargo on Somalia, brokered 

cease-fire agreements between the rival parties, 

and established United Nations Operation Somalia 

(UNOSOM) to monitor the cease-fire and to 

convoy supplies. 

Nevertheless, the situation in Somalia 

continued to deteriorate. Rival factions interfered 

with UNOSOM operations, firing on unarmed 

peacekeepers, hijacking vehicles, looting convoys 

and warehouses, detaining staffs, even shelling ships 

attempting to deliver supplies to Mogadishu. NGOs, 

the Organization of African Unity, the League of 

Arab States, and the U.N. secretary-general appealed 

to the Bush administration to do something. 

President Bush authorized humanitarian relief 

airlift missions, and on 28 August, Central Command 

launched Operation Provide Relief to airlift supplies

into Somalia from bases in Kenya. Military Sealift 

Command ships carried the supplies to the airheads. 

CENTCOM also helped to move a 500-man

Pakistani contingent of U.N. peacekeeping forces to 

Mogadishu from 12 September through 3 October

1992. The Tarawa ARG provided tactical command

and control of U.S. air operations in that effort and 

then turned these duties over to the Tripoli ARG. 

Lieutenant Amy Plant, a Navy dentist, examines an Afghan boy during a civil affairs project in the village of Najoy, Afghanistan, 22 April 2004.

GySgt Keith A. Milks, USMC
the United Task Force, a “blue beret” force of U.N. 

peacekeepers authorized by Resolution 794.

On 9 December 1992, the amphibious ships 

Tripoli, Rushmore (LSD 47), and Juneau (LPD 

10), with the 15th MEU(SOC) embarked, arrived 

on station off the Somali capital. That same day, 

the Marines landed in Mogadishu on a mission 

to restore order in southern Somalia. The Ranger 

carrier battle group steamed offshore, her air wing 

ready to respond, if necessary.

An initial force of 2,000 grew into a combined 

joint task force of more than 40,000 troops from 24 

countries—Australia, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, 

Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Kuwait, 

Morocco, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, 

Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, United 

Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, 

HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS 51

Sailors from the cruiser Vicksburg (CG 69) return Iranian mariners rescued from their sinking dhow to an Iranian civil authorities patrol 

craft, 15 August 2004.

U.S. Navy

By late fall, it became clear that the food still 

wasn’t getting through. On 3 December 1992, the 

U.N. Security Council adopted Resolution 794,

authorizing military force to help create a secure 

environment for the delivery of humanitarian aid in 

Somalia, and asking member nations to participate. 

President Bush responded to Resolution 794 by 

launching Operation Restore Hope the next day. 

Restore Hope was a peacekeeping mission, not 

a humanitarian-relief operation. Its commander, 

Marine Lieutenant General Robert B. Johnston, 

reported to CINCCENT. General Johnston had the 

authority to take any military action necessary to 

accomplish the mission, including the preemptive 

use of force. The plan involved establishing order, 

ensuring that the civil relief organizations were 

functioning, and then turning operations over to 
52 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

and Zimbabwe. Coalition forces, spearheaded by 

Marines and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, 

occupied the major Somali towns that served as 

distribution centers for the relief groups. As a result 

of negotiations with the warlords of the 14 principal 

clans and sub-clans, the militiamen stepped aside to 

let the coalition do its job. 

By the end of December 1992, coalition forces 

had restored order in southern Somalia. Airlift 

operations continued while 365,000 tons of cargo 

and 1,192 containers of supplies were unloaded at 

seaports and moved safely inland. The provisions 

mitigated the famine, but not before hundreds of 

thousands of Somalis had died. The airlift of food 

and other supplies under Operation Provide Relief 

continued through February 1993, totaling 2,500 

missions flown and 28,000 metric tons delivered.

On 26 March 1993, the United Nations 

established UNOSOM II to continue peacemaking 

operations in Somalia under U.N. leadership. 

Operation Restore Hope ended as UNOSOM 

II began. On 4 May, General Johnston turned 

over operations to the UNOSOM II commander, 

Lieutenant General Cevik Bir of Turkey. By then 

most U.S. forces had already been 

redeployed, but a residual American 

presence remained to support the 

U.N. command. 

Security in Mogadishu proved 

short lived. Although General 

Mohammed Farah Aideed had signed 

a disarmament agreement, he did not 

long abide by it. Violence erupted on 

5 June, when Somali militia killed 

25 Pakistani soldiers in Mogadishu. 

Other attacks on U.N. troops and 

facilities followed. In response, 

UNOSOM II pursued a coercive 

disarmament program featuring 

patrols, weapons confiscations, and 

operations against Aideed’s militia 

and depots. 

On 6 June, the Security Council 

passed Resolution 837 authorizing

UNOSOM II to “take all necessary 

measures against all those responsible” for the 

previous day’s attack. On 22 August, the Secretary 

of Defense directed the deployment of a joint special 

operations task force to support U.N. efforts in 

Somalia. The mission of Task Force Ranger, as it was 

called, was to capture Aideed and his lieutenants. 

On 3 October 1993, Task Force Ranger 

launched its seventh operation in Mogadishu against 

Aideed. The task force apprehended 24 suspects, 

including two of Aideed’s key aides. A fierce battle 

ensued. Somali militiamen shot down two Army 

Black Hawk helicopters, killed 18 American soldiers, 

and wounded 75 others, while U.S. forces killed an 

estimated 1,000 Somalis and wounded between 

3,000 and 4,000 more. Immortalized in a book and 

a movie entitled Black Hawk Down, the battle came 

to symbolize the bravery of the American Soldier as 

well as the violence of urban combat. 

As a result of this incident, on 7 October

1993, President Clinton announced that all U.S. 

troops would be withdrawn from Somalia by the 

end of March 1994. Meanwhile, additional U.S. 

forces were deployed to protect troops already in 

Somalia, support U.N. operations there, secure lines 

U.S. Marine Corporal Jose Serrano helps a Somali woman at a clinic in Mogadishu, 

where Navy doctors were conducting a medical civic action mission during Operation 

Restore Hope, 17 January 1993. 

PHCM Terry Mitchell
of communication, and redeploy U.S. 

forces by the President’s deadline. The

aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln (CVN

72) arrived that October on station near

Mogadishu, as did the New Orleans 

(LPH 1) and Guadalcanal (LPH 7) 

amphibious ready groups with their 

embarked Marine expeditionary units. 

All carriers departed by December. 

Withdrawal of U.S. forces from Somalia 

was completed on 25 March 1994. 

The United Nations, however, 

kept UNOSOM II in operation for 

another year, albeit with a reduced 

troop commitment. In early 1995, the 

Security Council decided to withdraw 

U.N. peacekeepers from Somalia by the 

end of March. Meanwhile, the United 

Nations brokered further cease-fire 

agreements among the warring factions 

in Somalia.

President Clinton committed U.S. forces to 

assist in the withdrawal, code-named Operation 

United Shield. Central Command deployed more 

than 4,000 men and women, supported by five naval 

combatants, support vessels, and combat support 

aircraft to conduct the operation. A coalition naval 

task force, including American, British, French, 

Italian, Malaysian, and Pakistani ships, stood by 

off Mogadishu. On 8 February 1995, a Pakistani 

brigade and a Bangladeshi battalion redeployed 

from Mogadishu’s airport to its seaport. Two weeks 

later an Egyptian brigade withdrew by air and sea. 

The final withdrawal began on 28 February, when 

1,800 U.S. and 350 Italian Marines landed at the 

eastern portion of the Mogadishu seaport to secure 

a lodgment area. These forces provided a rear guard 

for the departure of the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, 

and then completed their own withdrawal on 3 

March. Operation United Shield resulted in the safe 

withdrawal of 6,200 UNOSOM II peacekeepers and 

100 combat vehicles without a single casualty or 

significant damage to equipment.

Ultimately, the U.N. efforts failed to bring 

lasting political stability to Somalia. Since 

UNOSOM II ended, three regions (Somaliland, 

Puntland, and Jubaland) have declared 

independence from Somalia, have functioned 

autonomously, and have attained a degree of peace 

and prosperity without U.N. help. Rival factions 

entrenched in different parts of Mogadishu and 

throughout southern Somalia continue to rule by 

violence.

America’s original purpose in becoming 

involved in UNOSOM I was to address the massive 

starvation and illness that resulted from the 

Somali civil war. The goal of UNOSOM II was to 

reconstitute a legitimate government in Somalia 

and then to withdraw peacefully. The support that 

the international community gave UNOSOM II 

proved totally inadequate to meeting that goal.

Although the U.N. effort failed to rebuild the 

internal structures of a functioning state in Somalia, 

the humanitarian relief operations did save tens of 

thousands of lives.

Whether delivering food and medical care to 

disaster victims or repairing the engine of a stranded 

fisherman’s dhow, Sailors assigned to Naval Forces 

Central Command have always answered the call of 

fellow human beings in need. ÈÈÈ

PHCM Terry Mitchell

Somali workers at the port of Mogadishu unload a ship carrying sacks of wheat donated by 

European countries during Operation Restore Hope, 1 December 1993. 

HUMANITARIAN OPERATIONS 53
Engaging America’s Allies

T he U.S. Navy’s role in the Middle East involves not only fighting and preparing 

for war but helping our friends prepare for war. Traditionally, Central Command’s 

theater blueprint has included forward presence, security assistance programs, and 

combined exercises. This cooperative engagement strategy has enabled America to maintain its 

access to the region, enhance the readiness of its allies, facilitate deterrence, stimulate coalition 

building, promote stability, and protect U.S. interests. Naval Forces Central Command supported 

CENTCOM’s cooperative engagement strategy by participating in joint and combined naval and 

military exercises—more than 40 per year after 2001—with members of the Gulf Cooperation 

Council and other allies and friends, as well as with other U.S. military forces. 

broad range of multilateral activities like maritime 

interception operations, command post exercises, 

port visits, development of common operating 

procedures, sharing of relevant information, and 

multilateral training programs in areas such as 

submarine surveillance and antisubmarine warfare. 

American policy objectives aimed at improving 

not only the combat readiness of the region’s 

armed forces but also their ability to operate as 

part of a team with Western military units. Toward 

these ends, CENTCOM leaders engaged their 

commands with the GCC states’ naval and air forces 

in combined military exercises. These exercises 

improved the coalition’s ability to project power, 

promoted forward presence, honed naval combat 

skills, and fostered better navy-to-navy relations.

Unlike the huge REFORGER (Return of 

Forces to Germany) exercises that NATO held in 

Europe from 1969 to 1988, many of the exercises 

NAVCENT conducted in the early 1990s were 

small, bilateral operations involving only a single 

ship or a handful of aircraft from the participating 

Arab country. But the U.S. and Arab navies also 

conducted larger exercises, including special warfare 

operations, night replenishments at sea, aerial 

strike operations, amphibious landings, equipment 

demonstrations, and communications testing. The 

commander of Destroyer Squadron 50 coordinated 

In the wake of Desert Storm, American 

diplomats encouraged the GCC states to improve 

their defensive capabilities, integrate their defense 

plans and programs, and involve external powers 

such as Egypt, Britain, and France. To help achieve 

these goals, the United States concluded defense 

agreements with Bahrain and Qatar for weapons 

sales, training, and combined exercises. The Kuwaiti 

government signed a 10-year security pact with 

the United States in September 1991, allowing 

U.S. forces to preposition military equipment and 

conduct exercises within Kuwait’s borders. 

Although the leaders of these Muslim states 

routinely opposed the permanent basing of Western 

ground and air forces in their countries, they 

enthusiastically supported a strong U.S. military 

presence in the gulf and an increase in multinational 

cooperation. In November 1993, Colonel Ahmed 

Yousef al-Mullah, Commander Kuwait Naval 

Forces, observed that he and other regional naval 

leaders were concerned about “offensive weapons 

acquisition programs” being undertaken by “our 

large non-Gulf Cooperation Council neighbors.” 

“Long-term regional security in the Arabian Gulf,” 

he said, “is vitally dependent on building a strong 

maritime coalition.”

During the 1990s, the U.S. Navy sponsored 

gulf maritime commanders conferences to discuss a 

54
the Navy’s regional exercise program for surface 

combatants. Besides improving the combat readiness 

of GCC military forces and their interoperability 

with Western forces, the purpose of these exercises 

included demonstrating both the determination and 

the growing capability of the GCC states to resist 

aggression.

In the year before the Gulf War, American and 

Arab naval forces carried out only two combined 

exercises in the gulf. But, during Rear Admiral 

Taylor’s tour as COMUSNAVCENT (April 

1991–October 1992), they accomplished at least 

125, a reflection of the changing nature of the 

security relationship between the United States and 

its friends in the CENTCOM region. In 1995 alone, 

U.S. naval forces in the gulf conducted more than 60 

exercises. Some of these exercises were one-timeonly events. Others occurred as one in a series of 

exercises, often conducted annually. 

On 3 January 1992, U.S. and Saudi forces 

launched Red Reef III, the largest bilateral 

naval exercise in which the Saudi navy had yet 

participated. The exercise involved almost two 

weeks of live surface-to-surface and air-to-surface 

missile firings and amphibious training in the North 

Arabian Sea and Arabian Gulf. The Royal Saudi 

Naval Forces, designed for coastal patrol, had never 

before operated for such a long time on the open 

sea. The following month, more than 70 U.S. Navy 

and U.S. Air Force and Royal Saudi Air Force aircraft 

executed Exercise Indigo Anvil, the largest bilateral 

evolution in which the Royal Saudi Air Force had 

participated to that date.

The Native Fury series of exercises, held annually 

in Kuwait since 1992, tested the global “forcein-readiness” concept. The exercises consisted of

practice in unloading maritime prepositioning ships, 

navigation and aerial strike drills, tests of command 

A formation of Egyptian and U.S. Navy aircraft over-fly a pyramid near Cairo during Exercise Bright Star ’83. Left to right: Egyptian F-4 

Phantom, Egyptian F-16 Falcon, Egyptian Mirage 2000, Navy F-14 Tomcat, Egyptian MiG-21, Egyptian MiG-19, Navy A-7D Corsair II, and 

Navy A-6E Intruder.

U.S. Navy

ENGAGING AMERICA’S ALLIES 55
56 ANCHOR

OF RESOLVE

A Seabee steps ashore in Egypt during Exercise Bright Star ’94. 

SPC Michael Halgren, USA
GROWING AMERICAN INTERESTS 57

and control procedures, intelligence and surveillance 

training, field training, and command post exercises. 

In 1994, Naval Forces Central Command 

launched the Eager Mace exercise series. Conducted 

yearly, Eager Mace was a combined amphibious 

training exercise with the Kuwaiti armed forces, 

intended to promote interoperability and enhance 

coordination between Kuwaiti military personnel 

and U.S. Sailors and Marines. An amphibious ready 

group and its embarked Marine expeditionary 

unit typically participated in Eager Mace, which 

variously consisted of helicopter, air-cushioned 

landing craft, light armored vehicle, and amphibious 

assault vehicle operations, as well as ground assault 

and live-fire exercises. In 2002, the exercise was cut 

short after terrorists killed one Marine and wounded 

another in Kuwait. 

One of the largest series of exercises was the 

Bright Star series, conducted every other year in 

conjunction with the Egyptian government since 

1981. In the fall of 1999, Bright Star 99/00 involved 

forces from 11 countries and 33 observer nations. 

Some 70,000 troops took part in this field training 

exercise, which emphasized interoperability, 

combined operations, and computer simulation. 

Bright Star 99/00 featured large-scale maneuver 

operations and demonstrated CENTCOM’s 

amphibious capabilities. U.S. participation in Bright 

Star was scaled back in 2001 and cancelled in 2003 

because the country assigned needed forces to the 

Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).

In early 1999, Fifth Fleet Sailors and 

Marines conducted a bilateral, combined arms 

training exercise with the armed forces of 

Kenya. Called Edged Mallet, the exercise was 

designed to strengthen military-to-military 

relationships, increase interoperability, familiarize 

American service men and women with Kenya’s 

environmental and operational characteristics, 

refine operational readiness of participating forces, 

and promote understanding between Kenyans 

and Americans. During the operation, Sailors and 

The Bahrain Self Defense Force frigate Sabha (F 90) steams beside the destroyer Higgins (DDG 76) during an exercise in the Arabian Gulf, 

30 January 2001. Bahrain acquired this Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate from the U.S. Navy in 1997.

PH1 Tina M. Ackerman
58 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Marines of the amphibious ship Harpers Ferry

(LSD 49) and 13th MEU(SOC) also distributed 

7,000 pounds of humanitarian, educational, and 

goodwill materials donated by American citizens 

and businesses to the people of Mombasa. American 

and Kenyan forces 

conducted another 

edition of Exercise 

Edged Mallet in 2002.

Naval Forces 

Central Command’s 

participation in 

combined exercises 

demonstrated 

America’s commitment 

to the security and 

stability of the Middle 

East, South Asia, and 

East Africa. While 

deterrence remained 

the ultimate goal of 

CENTCOM’s cooperative engagement strategy, 

preparing to fight as a team with the armed forces 

of America’s allies will enable Central Command 

to defeat any threat to the region’s security in the 

event of war. ÈÈÈ

Electricians Mate Senior Chief Hassan Salem of Bahrain enjoys a photo opportunity with Gas Turbine System Technician (Mechanical) 

3rd Class Houston Brooks during a visit to Higgins, 29 January 2001.

PH1 Tina M. Ackerman

A Saudi Arabian corvette fires a Harpoon antiship missile during Exercise Red Reef III, 10 January 1992. 

PHAN Rodney A. Green
Containing Iraq 

I

n the decade following the Gulf War, containment of Iraq (and Iran) remained 

the primary strategic consideration in shaping U.S. military planning and force posture for 

the Middle East, South and Central Asia, and East Africa. During the latter half of the 1990s, 

containment of Iraq largely meant enforcing the U.N. resolutions passed in the wake of Desert Storm 

and using force against Iraq when it violated those resolutions. Throughout this period, Naval Forces 

Central Command enforced the sanctions against Saddam. By the twenty-first century, the number of 

American warships, officers, and Sailors assigned to these Fifth Fleet operations at times exceeded the 

size of the forces committed to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.

the Oil-for-Food Program, 

as an economic war against

his regime, and he regarded 

Operations Northern Watch 

and Southern Watch as 

campaigns of that war. His 

strategy centered on breaking 

free of U.N. sanctions and 

liberating his economy to 

enable pursuit of his political 

and personal objectives 

unfettered. For the rest of 

his time in power, the Iraqi 

dictator performed a dangerous 

high-wire act, seeking to 

balance the need to cooperate 

with U.N. inspections—to gain 

support for lifting sanctions—

with his intention to preserve 

Iraq’s intellectual capital for 

WMD with a minimum of 

Western intrusiveness and loss 

of face.

At the same time, Saddam viewed the leaders 

of the other Arab gulf states as undeserving of 

the respect the West accorded them. They had 

done nothing to earn this respect, he believed; the 

West simply wanted their oil. Saddam especially 

resented Saudi Arabia, whose leadership of OPEC 

Iraq remained Central 

Command’s primary focus 

during this period. Operation 

Desert Storm had ended with an 

U.N. mandate for Iraq to submit 

to a Special Commission—

UNSCOM—that would oversee

the elimination of the regime’s 

weapons of mass destruction in 

return for Iraq’s reintegration in 

the international community and 

the lifting of economic sanctions.

Between the Gulf War and 

the end of his time in power, 

Saddam Hussein focused on 

one set of objectives—the 

survival of himself, his regime, 

and his legacy. To secure these 

objectives, the Iraqi dictator 

sought to exploit his country’s 

oil wealth, project the image 

of a strong military capability 

to deter internal and external 

threats, and portray himself as a great Arab leader. 

He believed that reconstituting Iraqi WMD would 

enhance both his security and his image. 

But to do so, the dictator reasoned, he first 

needed to end the U.N.-imposed sanctions against 

Iraq. Saddam considered these sanctions, along with 

The destroyer Russell (DDG 59) fires a Tomahawk 

during the opening hours of Operation Desert Strike,

in which allied forces bombed military targets in 

response to Iraqi aggression against its own Kurdish 

population, 4 September 1996.

U.S. Navy

59
60 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

and stature among Arab states in the Western world 

rankled him. Saddam sought to supplant the Saudi 

position of leadership in whatever way he could. 

During the summer of 1995, Saddam resorted 

to saber rattling to test American resolve, intimidate 

his neighbors, and divert Iraqi citizens’ attention 

from their economic woes. That August, the dictator 

moved a significant Iraqi military force close to his 

country’s border with Kuwait. 

Central Command responded by accelerating 

scheduled military exercises with Kuwait, deploying 

a second aircraft carrier to the region, and moving 

Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron Two 

from Diego Garcia to the area of responsibility 

in Operation Vigilant Sentinel. Through rapid 

movement of forces to the region, the Navy helped 

deter Iraqi aggression.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Kurdish population remained 

restive. Operations Provide Comfort and Northern 

Watch had created a semi-autonomous Kurdish 

region in northern Iraq. The city of Irbil, located 

48 miles east of Mosul, close to the Turkish and 

Iranian borders, served as its capital. In March 1996, 

Kurdish rebels operating from the region launched a 

failed attempt to topple Saddam. On 31 August, an 

Iraqi Republican Guard mechanized division, with 

support from regular Iraqi army soldiers, attacked 

and captured Irbil. This renewed Iraqi aggression 

alarmed the United States and its coalition partners. 

Saddam threatened GCC members if they assisted 

the United States, while Iraqi air defense forces 

launched surface-to-air missiles against U.S. aircraft 

patrolling the northern and southern no-fly zones. 

Central Command responded by planning and 

executing Operation Desert Strike. On 4 September

1996, the destroyer Laboon (DDG 58) of Task Force

50 and B-52 bombers from Barksdale Air Force Base, 

Louisiana, launched 12 cruise missiles against surfaceto-air missile and command and control facilities in 

southern Iraq. CENTCOM also deployed Air Force 

fighters, an Army heavy brigade task force, and a 

second aircraft carrier to the region. 

On the diplomatic front, the United States and 

the United Kingdom expanded the southern no-fly 

zone from the 32nd to the 33rd parallel and promised 

a disproportionate response if the Iraqis repaired the 

damaged air defense sites. The expanded no-fly zone

nearly reached southern Baghdad and forced Iraq’s 

air force to relocate all of its tactical aircraft to more 

northerly bases, thereby reducing the air threat to 

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and coalition aircraft flying in 

support of Operation Southern Watch.

On the flight deck of Enterprise, a Marine Corps F/A-18C Hornet waits in afterburner for the signal to launch during Operation Desert Fox.

AN Brian C. McLaughlin
In the fall and winter of 1997, Saddam rattled 

his saber once again, violating the no-fly zones, 

threatening to shoot down reconnaissance aircraft, 

and interfering with U.N. weapons inspection 

teams. In February 1998, he denied UNSCOM 

access to presidential palaces believed to function as 

weapons depots or factories. That same month, U.N. 

Secretary-General Kofi Annan traveled to Iraq in 

person to negotiate with the Iraqi dictator. 

To pressure Iraq into compliance with 

UNSCOM and to bolster the U.N. negotiating 

position, Central Command on 18 January 1998 

launched Operation Desert Thunder, a large-scale 

deployment of U.S. and coalition forces into the 

theater. The George Washington and Nimitz (CVN 

68) carrier battle groups had been standing watch in 

the region since the previous 

fall. Independence relieved 

Nimitz in February and 

John C. Stennis (CVN 74) 

relieved George Washington

in March to maintain a 

two-carrier presence in 

the gulf until mid-May. 

These Fifth Fleet forces, 

combined with coalition 

ships such as the British 

carriers Invincible (R 05) and 

Illustrious (R 06), comprised 

a fleet of 50 ships and 

submarines and 200 naval 

aircraft, which assembled 

in a matter of weeks to put 

weight behind diplomatic 

efforts. Eventually, Central 

Command mustered more than 35,000 Soldiers, 

Sailors, Marines, and Airmen, most of them 

American. Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Czech 

Republic, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, Romania,

Slovakia, United Kingdom, and Kuwait rounded 

out the force by providing liaison teams, aircraft 

support, special operations elements, base defense 

units, and medical personnel. This highly visible 

deployment resulted in short-lived compliance by 

Iraq with U.N. inspection requirements. 

Saddam continued to play cat and mouse with 

the United Nations. Baghdad stopped cooperating 

with UNSCOM in August 1998, only permitting 

the inspections to resume in late November, while 

denying the inspectors the documents necessary for 

verification. 

The latter action was the last straw. The U.N. 

withdrew its inspectors from Iraq permanently. On 

15 December, UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler 

formally declared that verifying Iraq’s compliance 

with U.N. resolutions was not possible given the 

legacy of Iraqi obstruction. 

The next day, Central Command launched 

Operation Desert Fox, a punitive air campaign 

against Saddam’s regime. For four days, American 

and British manned aircraft and cruise missiles 

struck installations thought to be associated with 

WMD development, units providing security to 

such programs, and Iraq’s national command and 

control and air defense networks. Missions targeted 

television transmitters, Republican Guard barracks, 

surface-to-air missile sites, missile production 

centers, airfields, a Basra oil refinery involved in 

oil smuggling, and L-29 trainer aircraft believed 

to be undergoing conversion into unmanned 

aerial vehicles for carrying biological weapons. 

Lieutenant Carol Watts, an F/A-18C pilot, describes a night strike against Iraq on 17 December 

1998 during Operation Desert Fox.

PH3 Tedrick E. Fryman

CONTAINING IRAQ 61
62 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

CENTCOM estimated that the strikes killed at least 

1,600 Republican Guard soldiers. U.S. strike forces 

included Navy tactical aircraft from the carriers 

Enterprise and Carl Vinson (CVN 70) and 325 

Tomahawks, as well as Air Force tactical aircraft, 

bombers, and 90 conventional air-launched cruise 

missiles. Carl Vinson chopped to Fifth Fleet during 

the operation, while the other ships had already 

been on station in the region supporting Southern 

Watch and maritime interception operations. Kuwait 

and Oman provided access to bases and overflight 

rights; Bahrain and Saudi Arabia permitted support 

operations. 

In the wake of Desert Fox, Saddam tried 

harder than ever to bring down a coalition aircraft. 

According to an Iraqi news report published in 

January 1999, the dictator offered a $14,000 bounty 

to any unit that shot down an American or British 

plane over the no-fly zones and an additional $2,800 

reward to anyone who captured a coalition pilot. 

Between then and 2001, Iraq mounted more than 

1,000 antiaircraft artillery attacks, launched 600 

rockets, and fired 60 surface-to-air missiles against 

coalition aircraft. 

The United States responded by striking back at 

Iraq’s air defenses. On 27 January 1999, the Clinton 

administration promulgated rules of engagement 

that permitted American aircraft patrolling the nofly zones to target a wider range of Iraqi air defense 

systems and related installations in an effort to 

reduce Iraq’s overall air defense capability. By early 

2001, coalition aviators had entered the southern 

no-fly zone in Iraq about 153,000 times since the 

first sortie nearly nine years earlier. Although these 

missions remained dangerous, they had become 

so routine that British pilots referred to them as 

“recreational bombing.” The Iraqis failed to bring 

down a single manned aircraft during this period.

Although these operations weakened Iraq’s 

military infrastructure, Saddam continued to refuse 

to submit to U.N. inspections, terminating all ties to 

UNSCOM. Members of the Arab League, as well as 

Iran, France, Russia, and China, criticized the United 

States and Britain over the strikes. This criticism 

represented but one manifestation of a growing 

erosion of support for the sanctions among certain 

U.N. members and other nations and played neatly 

into Saddam’s strategy. ÈÈÈ

After seven days on the ground in support of Operation Desert Fox, these Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit will return by air 

on Christmas morning 1998 to the Belleau Wood (LHA 3) Amphibious Ready Group.

Cpl R.M. Katz, USMC
Maritime Interception Op erations

Although the Desert Storm cease-fire had ended the fighting between 

coalition and Iraqi forces, coalition navies continued to conduct maritime interception 

operations (MIO) in the Arabian Gulf against Saddam’s regime for more than a decade. 

Designed to enforce U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq in the wake of the invasion of Kuwait, these 

operations cut off the flow of military supplies, equipment, and weapons into Iraq during the Gulf 

War and hindered Saddam’s efforts to rearm. 

On 16 August, President Bush directed Central 

Command to begin enforcing an embargo of Iraqi 

trade and NAVCENT began maritime interception 

operations the following day.

The U.N. resolutions resulted in the creation 

of the Multinational Interception Force (MIF), as 

coalition countries committed ships and aircraft to 

ensure compliance with the embargo as well as the 

United Nations Security Council resolutions 

(UNSCRs) underpinned maritime interception 

operations in the Arabian Gulf. Resolution 661 

(6 August 1990) prohibited export of cargo 

originating in Iraq and forbade import of cargo into 

Iraq, except medical supplies and food. Resolution 

665 (25 August 1990) called on coalition naval 

forces to verify compliance with the sanctions. 

Two members of a boarding team from the destroyer Goldsborough (DDG 20) disembark from the Iraqi merchant vessel Zanoobia after 

inspecting the ship’s cargo, 4 September 1990. 

Cpl R.M. Katz, USMC

 63
64 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

smooth, efficient flow of legitimate maritime traffic 

in the Arabian Gulf. Its goals included deterring 

violation of UNSCRs; facilitating the timely flow 

of humanitarian goods, imports, and authorized 

crude oil exports; and minimizing the burden on 

legitimate commerce. In the absence of a permanent 

U.N. military organization and staff, the U.S. Navy 

took the lead in developing a command and control 

system for MIF operations.

The Multinational Interception Force, however, 

was truly an international force. Eventually, scores 

of warships from 21 nations had participated in 

the MIF: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, 

Canada, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, 

Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman,

Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United 

Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the 

United States. The U.S. Navy and Royal Navy had 

participated continuously since the beginning. 

During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 

coalition naval forces conducted interception 

operations in the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Gulf 

of Aden, and Red Sea, paying particular attention 

to the choke points at the Strait of Hormuz, Bab 

al-Mandab, and Strait of Tiran. After the Gulf War, 

the MIF focused on the Northern Arabian Gulf.

UNSCRs passed after Desert Storm also affected

maritime interception operations. Resolution 687

(3 April 1991) demanded that Iraq destroy, remove, 

or render harmless chemical and biological weapons 

and all ballistic missiles with a range greater than 

150 kilometers; forbade Iraq from developing 

nuclear weapons; demanded that Iraq submit to onsite inspections; and authorized import of food and 

Six allied warships assemble in the Gulf of Oman, 6 May 2004. 

PH1 Bart Bauer
medical supplies under U.N. supervision. Resolution 

986 (14 April 1995) permitted Iraq to use profits 

from the sale of oil for humanitarian relief, the socalled Oil-for-Food Program.

Resolution 1284 (17 December 1999) removed 

the cap on oil sales by Iraq under the Oil-for-Food 

Program and streamlined the application process 

for a broad range of selected goods. As a result, 

the amount of Resolution 986 authorized cargo 

flowing into Iraq increased, and the number of 

queries and boardings made by the MIF doubled 

between the years 2000 and 2001. Resolution 1382 

(29 November 2001) created a Goods Review List,

implemented 30 May 2002, to streamline approval 

of items under the 986 program.

Throughout this period, the government of 

Iraq violated U.N. sanctions by supporting the 

smuggling of oil from its ports. Smugglers purchased 

oil directly from the Iraqi State Oil Marketing 

Organization. The illegal sale of oil provided the 

Iraqi government with quick, untraceable revenue 

gained outside of U.N. oversight. Saddam Hussein 

used the profits for purposes other than authorized 

under Resolution 986. Oil sold to smugglers 

represented a loss of revenue to the Oil-for-Food 

Program, but apparently the Iraqi government 

preferred to sell a ton of fuel oil for $30 hard cash 

for unregulated use, rather than for $140 for the 

purchase of food and other 986 authorized goods. 

Under the 986 program, the only authorized 

maritime loading of Iraqi oil was at al-Basra Oil 

Terminal at the mouth of the Khawr Abd Allah 

(KAA), where the territorial waters of Kuwait, Iraq, 

and Iran converge in a narrow bight. 

Most smugglers obtained oil from the Iraqi 

government terminal in the KAA, too. After loading 

the oil, the smugglers would wait in the mouth 

of the KAA for an opportunity to slip past the 

Multinational Interception Force. Smugglers used 

the Shatt-al-Arab for transport of illegal oil loaded at 

Basra, Iraq, until the Iranians shut the river down in 

the summer of 2000. Periodically the MIF conducted 

“MIO surge” operations, focusing on shallow water 

surveillance, interception, boarding, search, and divert 

of sanctions violators coming from the KAA.

Smugglers took more than 90 percent of the 

illegal oil to the United Arab Emirates, with Dubai 

and al-Fujairah the most frequently used destinations. 

Other destinations included Bandar Abbas in Iran 

and ports in Pakistan and India. Smugglers brought 

contraband into Iraq as well. While larger steel-hulled 

vessels made for UAE facilities almost exclusively, 

some smaller wooden dhows attempted to skirt 

coastal waters for destinations in India, Yemen, or the 

Horn of Africa. 

Although smugglers had a 50 percent chance 

of being caught, they also had a 50 percent chance 

of making lots of money. The Iraqis sold oil to 

smugglers at a price 70–80 percent lower than that 

available in the oil market outside Iraq. A smuggler 

could make the transit from Iraq to the UAE in 

several days and realize a profit of five to six times 

the price he paid for the oil. The run to the UAE did 

not involve the risks of an open-ocean transit.

Most smugglers had solid ties to the UAE. 

Although a violation of Resolution 661, UAE 

terminals accepted illegal Iraqi oil and allowed 

transfer of Iraqi oil between ships in and adjacent 

to their territorial waters throughout the 1990s. In 

June 2001, the Multinational Interception Force 

began turning over to UAE authorities vessels 

caught smuggling oil with a traceable tie to UAE 

citizens. Virtually all of these vessels were in poor 

or unseaworthy condition. In February 2002, an 

auction was held in the UAE to sell 28 of these 

derelict vessels for scrap. At the time, the auction 

appeared to be a major step towards curtailing the 

smugglers and demonstrating the resolve of the UAE 

A P-3 Orion flies a maritime patrol mission on a clear day. 

PH1 Michelle R. Hammond

MARITIME INTERCEPTION OPERATIONS 65
66 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

government, but unfortunately at least half of the 

vessels were never scrapped. They returned to the 

smuggling business, some under new names. Even 

more disturbing, 26 of the 28 auctioned vessels 

were sold back to their original owners. The lack of 

strong action by the UAE government prevented the 

MIF from achieving complete success in enforcing 

U.N. sanctions. 

Command and control of the MIF usually fell to 

an American destroyer squadron commander. Royal 

Navy and Royal Australian Navy officers also took 

turns as MIF commanders.

In a typical interception, the MIF warship 

queried the vessel’s master by radio, requesting the 

vessel’s identity, point of origin, destination, and 

cargo. MIF ships queried all traffic north of 29o north 

latitude in the Arabian Gulf. Most vessels were 

allowed to proceed without further ado. When a 

suspicious merchantman was directed to stop for 

boarding, the MIF warship would then dispatch a 

boarding party to inspect the vessel and its papers. 

Inspection teams boarded the vessel either by small 

boat or helicopter. After boarding, the team secured 

the ship’s bridge and engine-room and had the ship 

go dead in the water. They checked for discrepancies

between the ship’s crew list and who was actually on 

board. Vessels needing closer inspection or deemed to 

be in violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution 

were diverted to coalition ports. Vessels that refused 

to stop underwent noncompliant boardings. 

Diverting oil smugglers required an 

ocean of paperwork. The process began with

COMUSNAVCENT approval of the divert. Then,

an officer from the NAVCENT operations branch 

would forward an after action report to the U.S. 

State Department. After these two entities agreed 

on where to divert the vessel, the State Department 

would send a message to the American Embassy in 

the selected country. The embassy, in turn, would 

send a diplomatic note to that country’s ministry 

of foreign affairs. After examining the evidence, 

including the results of tests of oil samples sent to the 

U.S. Customs Laboratory, the Navy Judge Advocate 

General’s office would prepare a formal report and 

forward it to the American Embassy in that country. 

 Smugglers employed numerous tactics in 

attempting to evade the MIF. They tried to use 

the cover of darkness and changing tides to their 

advantage. When leaving the KAA they often 

attempted to run along the edges of Kuwaiti 

territorial waters or through Iranian territorial 

waters. Iranian forces, however, either imposed a 

“fine” on the smugglers they intercepted or escorted 

them to international waters. 

As the MIF gained experience against large, 

laden steel-hulled vessels, the smugglers developed 

two tactics for using large vessels to smuggle 

relatively small oil loads. The first tactic involved

hiding relatively small amounts of oil in concealed 

On board the destroyer Donald Cook (DDG 75) in the Red Sea, 

Ensign Patrick Tamakloe and Lieutenant (jg) Jonathan Keffer 

record contact with a nearby merchant vessel, 19 March 2003.

CPO (JO) Alan J. Baribeau
or nonstandard tanks. Smugglers tried to hide cargo 

tanks by removing all topside fittings, figuring that 

without drawings, a boarding team would not know 

how many cargo tanks the ship should have and 

might not discover the hidden tanks. The second

tactic involved tankers entering Iraq with empty 

cargo tanks and near-empty ship’s fuel tanks. This

move proved especially frustrating, for the MIF could 

not prevent them from entering Iraq without cargo. 

When asked about their intentions, these smugglers 

commonly declared they were going to “have their 

hull cleaned” or “change out their crew.” In Iraq, the 

smugglers would fill the ships’ fuel tanks with far 

more fuel than was necessary to reach a bunkering 

port in the Arabian Gulf. Upon departing Iraq, they 

would claim to be empty, noting their empty cargo 

tanks. A few ships that carried legitimate, U.N. 

authorized cargo into Iraq also used this ploy. 

Many smugglers were repeat offenders. The MIF 

documented more than 25 steel-hulled vessels that 

engaged in Iraqi oil smuggling more than once. Such 

ships often changed their names or falsified their 

documents to evade the MIF. 

Most smuggling vessels produced false certificates 

of registry. Many vessels claimed affiliation with flag 

states that they believed would be difficult to trace, 

such as Sao Tome, Honduras, Belize, and Georgia. 

The MIF contacted these countries to validate these 

claims and, on almost every occasion, the registries 

turned out to be forgeries. Many of these stateless 

vessels belonged to smuggling “fleets.” 

Many repeat offenders operated small dhows. 

Some oil-laden dhows attempting to exit Iraq were 

sent back only to return day after day. In many 

such cases, the Iraqis would not allow the vessels to 

off-load their contraband cargo. Eventually, however, 

either the Iraqis would relent and permit the dhows 

to return the oil, or the MIF would remove the oil 

from them.

In 1997, a UNSC 661 committee letter (S/

AC.25/1997/CC.5560 of 17 December) authorized 

ferries to operate between ports in Iraq and other 

A French commando trains in boarding techniques.

Marine Nationale

MARITIME INTERCEPTION OPERATIONS 67
68 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

gulf ports, provided the ferries transported only 

passengers and personal effects (later modified to 

include personal vehicles); did not load cargo in Iraq, 

including fuel; and so forth. Soon, however, smugglers 

used the ferries to transport contraband goods into 

Iraq in violation of United Nation sanctions.

The Iraqi government worked hand-in-hand 

with the smugglers. Increasing intercept rates 

by the MIF led smugglers to acquire dedicated 

reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering platforms 

to monitor MIF movements and activities. The first

two reconnaissance vessels noticed by the MIF were 

“former” Iraqi-flagged fishing trawlers, joined later 

by a trawler and a former research vessel. Whether 

run by smugglers or Saddam Hussein’s regime, 

these vessels represented direct support by the Iraqi 

government to the smuggling network.

Smugglers posed a danger to the environment. 

To maximize their profits, they kept their costs as low 

as possible and avoided risking high-value assets. The

typical smuggling vessel was 30 years old and in poor 

condition. Smugglers ignored maintenance of their 

vessels, disregarded safety equipment, and allowed 

their state registries to expire. Unregulated and 

unmonitored, these stateless vessels became floating 

hazards. Often loaded in excess of safety standards, 

they leaked oil or became dangerously unseaworthy, 

even in calm seas. Several of them foundered. 

In order to avoid the MIF, smugglers sometimes 

dumped their oil overboard, polluting coastal 

waters and fouling beaches in the Arabian Gulf. A 

significant number of vessels used for smuggling 

would be banned from major world ports because 

they presented a potential environmental hazard. 

Enforcing the existing pollution prevention standards 

would have prevented many vessels from operating.

Smugglers posed a danger to their own 

crews. Conditions on board most vessels were 

awful. Unwilling to fund improvements, owners 

of smuggling vessels forced ship crews to endure 

unsanitary, oppressive conditions, compounded by 

time at sea. Rat and roach infestations were common.

During summer months temperatures in interior 

spaces often exceeded 122 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Boarding oil smugglers was a risky business. 

The poor conditions on most smugglers took a toll

on the health of MIF Sailors who boarded several 

vessels each day. Boarding teams even risked their 

Sailors on a VBSS mission motor two RHIBs through Arabian Gulf chop as they head for a cargo dhow, 13 June 2004. 

PM1 Brien Aho
lives. On 11 November 2001, the 

MV Smara was detained after a 

boarding party from the destroyer 

O’Kane (DDG 77) discovered oil 

hidden in her cargo holds. Smara

was a dry cargo vessel crudely 

modified to carry liquid cargo. An 

eight-member security team from 

the destroyer Peterson was posted 

on board the vessel to keep watch 

over the 14-man crew. On 17

November, the Smara foundered, 

drowning two American Sailors 

and four Iraqi crewmen.

The results, however, justified 

the risks. By curbing outlawed 

imports and exports, maritime 

interception operations inhibited 

Iraqi development of weapons of 

mass destruction and buildup of 

conventional warfighting capacity, 

facilitated the Oil-for-Food 

Program, and restricted the cash 

flow directly to Saddam Hussein’s 

regime. As of 18 August 2000, the tenth anniversary 

of the first maritime interception operation to 

enforce the U.N. embargo of Iraq, U.S. and coalition 

naval forces had queried 29,307 merchant ships, 

boarded 12,763 of them, and diverted 748 to 

coalition ports for inspection.

 Beginning in spring 2001, the MIF increased 

the pressure on the smugglers. Coalition warships 

queried more than 2,500 vessels that year. In 2002, 

the coalition queried nearly double that number. 

At the same time, illegal loading of oil in Iraq 

declined 62.3 percent from 2001 to 2002. This 

drop resulted from the MIF’s aggressive tactics. 

Smugglers that had eluded the MIF before and had 

returned became trapped in Iraqi waters. Unable to 

avoid detection, many of these vessels remained in 

the KAA waterway laden with their illegal cargoes, 

waiting for any perceived exit opportunity. The 

size of the average smuggling ship decreased as it 

became increasingly difficult for large, steel-hulled 

vessels to evade the MIF. The typical smuggler, 

therefore, began to load smaller steel-hulled vessel 

and wooden cargo dhows with oil. Finally, many 

smugglers left the business, citing their failures at 

the hands of the MIF. In short, the MIF essentially 

stopped illegal oil smuggling in the Arabian Gulf. 

Before Operation Iraqi Freedom toppled Saddam 

Hussein’s government in March 2003, maritime 

interception operations were slated to continue as 

long as U.N. sanctions were in force. Lifting of the 

embargo was subject to Saddam’s compliance with 

U.N. sanctions. With Saddam Hussein no longer in 

power, on 16 April 2003, President Bush called upon 

the United Nations to lift its economic sanctions 

against Iraq. Three weeks later (7 May 2003), Bush 

lifted U.S. sanctions on Iraq.

Maritime interception operations constituted 

an indispensable tool for enforcing sanctions against 

Iraq both during and after the Gulf War, undermined 

Saddam’s effort to rearm in the wake of Desert 

Storm, and provided a means for many countries to 

signal their support for U.N. objectives. ÈÈÈ

An Iranian ship’s master looks on as Lieutenant (j.g.) Vincent C. Watson from the destroyer 

John S. McCain (DDG 56) inspects documents during a maritime interception operation in 

the Arabian Gulf, 6 March 1998.

PH2 Gloria Barry

MARITIME INTERCEPTION OPERATIONS 69
A New Threat Emerges

Meanwhile, a new threat to America and its allies emerged as virulent 

Islamic fundamentalism manifested itself in a terrorist organization known as

al-Qaeda. In the decade after the Gulf War, this organization mounted increasingly 

violent attacks on American interests and citizens in CENTCOM’s area of responsibility and 

elsewhere. Naval Forces Central Command was engaged not only in containing Saddam Hussein’s 

regime during this period but also in conducting operations against terrorists.

Communist Chinese leader Mao Zedong once 

said, “The guerrilla must move amongst the people 

as a fish swims in the sea.” The Mujahidin enjoyed 

popular support, food, and shelter from rural 

villagers throughout Afghanistan. The Soviets tried 

to cut off this support by draining the sea—forcing 

the people from the countryside. Afghanistan’s 

economy rested almost exclusively on subsistence 

agriculture, with irrigated wheat the major crop. 

Soviet jets bombed farms, orchards, and irrigation 

systems that had taken generations of Afghan 

peasants centuries to establish. Soviet helicopters 

dropped mines on fields and pastures and machinegunned livestock. With their means of subsistence 

destroyed, some 5.5 million of Afghanistan’s 17 

million people fled to refugee camps in Pakistan and 

Iran, while another 2 million fled to shantytowns 

crowded around Afghanistan’s cities. 

Nevertheless, the Mujahidin fought tenaciously, 

defending their country against what they perceived as 

an atheistic ideology, an oppressive government, and 

a foreign invader. The United States, Britain, France, 

Saudi Arabia, China, the United Arab Emirates, and 

other Western and Islamic nations provided aid to the 

Mujahidin. Pakistan’s intelligence service distributed 

the aid and provided military training to the guerrillas. 

Non-Afghan Muslims supported the Mujahidin 

because they saw the Soviet invasion as a war on 

Islam. Throughout the 1980s, large numbers of Arabs 

traveled to Afghanistan to join the guerrilla war against 

an infidel invader. These Middle Eastern guerrillas

became known as “Afghan Arabs.” 

Much of twenty-first century Islamic terrorism 

was rooted in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, 

which caused one of the great human upheavals 

of the late twentieth century. Afghanistan became 

unstable in the 1970s as both its Communist Party 

and its Islamic movement grew stronger and became 

increasingly bitter opponents. In December 1979, 

Soviet tanks rumbled into Afghanistan in response 

to a call from the Afghan Communist government 

for help in a civil war against Mujahidin (holy 

warriors) insurgents in the countryside. Soviet forces 

entered the country, occupied the key cities and 

airfields, and installed their own government. The 

Soviets intended to prop up the puppet regime, 

garrison the cities and airfields, establish control 

in the country, and then withdraw most of their 

troops within two to three years, after stabilizing 

Afghanistan’s orbit as a Soviet satellite.

Despite modern equipment, air dominance, 

and overwhelming firepower, however, Soviet 

leaders soon realized that the job was going to be a 

lot tougher than they had anticipated. Afghanistan 

consisted of mountainous desert interspersed with 

isolated valleys, river basins, and oases, extending 

eastward from the Iranian plateau and incorporating 

the foothills of the Himalayas. The Soviet force grew

to the equivalent of six divisions, its size limited 

by what Red Army logistics could support over 

Afghanistan’s primitive and vulnerable road network. 

By intervening in Afghanistan, Soviet leaders had 

locked the Red Army into someone else’s civil war on 

some of the most rugged terrain on the planet.

70
One of the most prominent Afghan Arabs was 

Usama bin Laden, son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian 

construction magnate. Bin Laden used his personal 

wealth and connections with rich Arab contributors 

to finance an entity called the Maktab al-Khidmat, 

or “Bureau of Services,” to facilitate the flow of 

fighters into Afghanistan. This organization operated 

a recruiting network in Muslim communities 

through the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Western 

Europe, and the United States. Bin Laden provided 

travel funds and accommodations in Pakistan and 

training camps and weapons in Afghanistan for the 

fighters his organization recruited. 

The Red Army never gained control of more 

than 15 percent of Texas-size Afghanistan. Security 

missions—guarding cities, garrisons, airfields, and 

lines of communication or escorting convoys—tied 

down 85 percent of the Soviet force. By late 1985, 

the Russians realized that they couldn’t win the war. 

They negotiated a settlement and completed their 

withdrawal in February 1989. 

Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia a hero. 

He believed that the subsequent fall of the Soviet 

Union resulted directly from the Mujahidin victory 

in what he called the Afghan jihad or “holy war.” 

He discounted the impact of the Cold War on the 

Soviet economy. He built upon the Maktab to 

create a new terrorist organization dedicated to 

waging holy war against infidels around the world. 

That organization was named al-Qaeda, which, in 

English, means “the Base” or “the Foundation.”

Bin Laden’s relations with the Saudi royal 

family soon deteriorated. When Saddam’s forces 

invaded Kuwait, bin Laden offered to summon 

Mujahidin to defend Saudi Arabia from possible 

further Iraqi aggression and to push Iraqi forces out 

of Kuwait. The Saudi monarchy rebuffed him. Bin 

Laden considered the American forces that entered 

Saudi Arabia during Desert Shield as an army of 

occupation, and he viewed Desert Storm as a war 

on Islam. When it became clear that a U.S. presence 

would remain in Saudi Arabia after Desert Storm, 

Afghani resistance fighters return to a village destroyed by Soviet forces, 25 March 1986.

Defense Visual Information Center

A NEW THREAT EMERGES 71
72 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

he declared that the Saudi king had desecrated 

sacred soil, home to the Mecca and Medina, the 

holiest sites in Islam. Bin Laden also denounced 

the royal family for siding with Christians and Jews 

because of American support for Israel. The royal 

family, he proclaimed, would have to go the way 

of the Shah of Iran. Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 

April 1991 and never returned.

Bin Laden lived in Afghanistan until 1992, when 

he moved to Sudan at the invitation of the fledgling 

Sudanese Islamic government. He brought resources 

into Sudan, built roads there, and helped finance 

the government’s war against African Christian 

separatists in the south. In return, he received 

permission to establish an operational infrastructure 

to support terrorism. With al-Qaeda as the 

foundation, he sought to create an Islamic army that 

also embraced terrorist groups from Egypt, Libya, 

Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Tunisia, Jordan, Iraq, 

Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Not all groups from 

these states joined al-Qaeda, but at least one group 

from each state did. 

Bin Laden then set his sights upon the United 

States. Early in 1992, al-Qaeda issued an edict 

calling for a jihad against Western “occupation” of 

the holy lands and singling out U.S. forces for attack. 

Thereafter, bin Laden delivered an oft-repeated 

lecture on the need to cut off “the head of the snake.”

Over the next several years, bin Laden facilitated 

terrorist attacks against Americans and American 

interests in Muslim lands. In December 1992, an 

explosion outside a hotel in Aden used by American 

forces as a stopover on their way to Somalia killed 

an Australian tourist. A Yemeni terrorist group 

whose leader was close to bin Laden had planted the 

bomb. In October 1993, when Somali militiamen 

shot down two Black Hawk helicopters and killed 

18 American soldiers, bin Laden’s organization had 

been heavily engaged in supporting the warlords 

responsible for the attack. On 13 November 1995,

a car bomb exploded in Riyadh outside the Office

of Program Management of the American-trained 

Saudi Arabian National Guard, killing five Americans 

and two Indians. The perpetrators claimed to have 

Afghani citizens from the village of Markhanai rest beside a poppy field, 5 May 2002. Soviet destruction of Afghanistan’s agricultural 

infrastructure forced farmers to substitute opium poppies for wheat as the country’s principal cash crop.

SSgt Jeremy T. Lock, USAF
been influenced by bin Laden. On 26 June 1996, 

an explosion ripped through the Khobar Towers 

apartment complex housing U.S. Air Force personnel 

in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans and 

injuring 372 others. Although a Saudi Shia Hezbollah 

group had carried out the attack with assistance 

from Iran, bin Laden was almost certainly involved, 

according to The 9/11 Commission Report. It remains 

unclear whether the Saudi terrorist played a role in 

the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New

York City or the thwarted 1995 Manila “Bohinka” 

plot to blow up a dozen U.S. commercial airliners 

over the Pacific.

Bin Laden wore out his welcome in Sudan by 

supporting the June 1995 assassination attempt on 

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Pressure on the 

Sudanese government from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, 

Libya, and the United States—all countries targeted 

by al-Qaeda—made Sudan too hot for bin Laden 

to remain there. In May 1996, he went back to 

Afghanistan.

Bin Laden returned to a devastated land. The 

war with the Soviets had despoiled Afghanistan’s 

countryside, ruined its cities, and killed at least a 

million of its people. No sooner had the Red Army 

departed than various Mujahidin factions, once 

united against a common enemy, began fighting 

against one another, pitting village against village. 

Three more years of fighting followed the Soviet 

withdrawal before the Soviet-backed government 

fell. Thereafter different groups struggled for control 

of the capital, Kabul, while the rest of Afghanistan 

A Taliban fighter shoulders a machine gun in Kandahar’s main bazaar during a visit by foreign journalists, 2 November 2001.

Mian Khursheed Reuters/Corbis

A NEW THREAT EMERGES 73
74 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

area in the Panjshir mountains in the northeast, 

relative calm prevailed. In others, particularly 

Kandahar, anarchy reigned.

In 1994, a group of ethnic Pashtun religious 

extremists, outraged at the behavior of the 

Mujahidin leaders fighting for power in the 

Kandahar region, decided to restore law and order 

themselves. Calling themselves the “Taliban,” the 

Pashtun word for “students of Islam,” these fanatics 

sought to establish a puritanical, medieval form 

of Islamic law throughout the country. Young 

people from rural areas and refugee camps on the 

Pakistan border, disillusioned with the Mujahidin, 

joined the Taliban as they advanced through 

southern Afghanistan, imposing their ruthless 

brand of religious rule by force of arms. The Islamic 

madrassas in the refugee camps, where Islam was 

taught by recitation of the Koran, proved fertile 

ground for recruits. Mullah Muhammad Omar 

emerged as the leader of the Taliban. By September 

Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, after a terrorist bombing killed 19 Americans and wounded hundreds more, 

26 June 1996.

Defense Visual Information Service

functioned as separate fiefdoms, controlled more 

or less by different Mujahidin leaders. Banditry and 

extortion flourished, and opium poppies became 

the principal cash crop. In some places, like the Tajik 

Navy SEALs found this poster of Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

U.S. Navy
1996, the Taliban had seized control of Kabul, along 

with most of the rest of the country. Infamous for 

edicts banning everything from makeup to kite 

flying, as well as for punishments including flogging, 

amputation, and public stoning, the Taliban became 

one of the most hated regimes in the world. Their 

draconian rule led to the oppression of women, 

mass hunger, and the flight of nearly one million 

refugees.

Bin Laden forged a close alliance with the 

Taliban. Both espoused a vision of a pure Islamic

state. The Saudi terrorist provided significant financial

aid to the Afghan fanatics and supplied hundreds, 

if not thousands of fighters to help them wage 

war against an alliance of Tajik, Uzbek, and other 

ethnically based militias in northern Afghanistan, 

known as the Northern Alliance. Bin Laden’s aid 

was so extensive that, by the end of the decade, 

Afghanistan had become a terrorist supported state. 

In return, the Taliban permitted bin Laden to use 

Afghanistan as a base and training center to support 

Islamic insurgencies in Tajikistan, Kashmir, Chechnya, 

Algeria, Indonesia, and the Philippines. 

In August 1996, bin Laden issued a declaration 

of war against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, calling 

on all Muslims to attack U.S. forces in the desert 

kingdom. By the end of the year, the U.S. intelligence 

community had become aware of al-Qaeda’s 

organizational and financial structures, participation 

in previous attacks, and dedication to attacking the 

United States. In February 1998, bin Laden and 

Egyptian terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri published 

an edict calling upon Muslims to kill Americans, 

whether civilian or military, everywhere.

Volunteers help a victim a few minutes after an al-Qaeda bomb blast ripped through the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, 7 August 1998.

George Mulala/Corbis/ SYGMA

A NEW THREAT EMERGES 75
76 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Thereafter bin Laden intensified his campaign 

of terror against U.S. interests in Muslim lands. On 7 

August 1998, massive truck bombs exploded nearly 

simultaneously outside the U.S. embassies in the 

East African capitals of Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar 

es Salaam, Tanzania. The blasts killed more than 

200 people, including 12 Americans, and injured 

thousands of others. Al-Qaeda planned, directed, 

and executed these attacks under the direct 

supervision of bin Laden and his chief subordinates.

Almost immediately, Central Command 

launched Operation Resolute Response, a rescue 

and recovery effort. Fifth Fleet Sailors and Marines 

deployed to both countries to locate people still 

trapped in buildings, treat the injured, airlift those 

who needed treatment elsewhere, and deal with the 

Americans who died in the blasts. 

On 20 August 1998, Naval Forces Central 

Command launched Operation Infinite Response, 

a simultaneous strike against targets in Afghanistan 

and Sudan in retaliation for the embassy attacks. Five 

surface warships and submarines launched more than 

seventy Tomahawk missiles against the Zhawar Kili 

al-Badr terrorist facilities outside Khost, Afghanistan, 

near the Pakistan border, where intelligence indicated 

bin Laden and senior lieutenants would be meeting. 

Meanwhile, two ships in the Red Sea launched six

Tomahawks against the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant

near downtown Khartoum, Sudan, thought to be 

producing a precursor for the deadly VX nerve gas

for al-Qaeda. Both targets sustained heavy damage 

and at least 11 terrorists were killed, but bin Laden 

and his principals escaped unharmed before the 

missiles arrived. 

The cruise missile attack did not deter alQaeda from mounting further operations against 

Americans. On 12 October 2000, the destroyer Cole

(DDG 67) made a brief refueling stop in the harbor 

of Aden, Yemen, while en route to the Arabian Gulf. 

The ship had been taking on fuel for less than two 

SCPO (EN) Lyle G. Becker

Sailors and Marines patrol past the destroyer Cole (DDG 67) following the al-Qaeda attack on the ship in Aden, Yemen, 12 October 2000. 
hours when a small boat laden 

with explosives drew alongside. 

Witnesses saw two men in the 

boat raise their hands, and then 

the boat exploded, ripping a 

40-by-40-foot hole in the port 

side of Cole, crushing bulkheads, 

and peeling back the deck. The 

blast killed 17 U.S. Sailors and 

wounded 40 others. For three 

days, surviving crewmembers 

fought damage below the 

waterline that threatened to sink 

the ship. Their heroic effort saved 

Cole and enabled her to limp 

home on board the Norwegian 

transport ship Blue Marlin for 

repairs. The Cole bombing was 

another full-fledged al-Qaeda 

operation, supervised directly by 

bin Laden. 

In the wake of this attack, 

Central Command launched 

Operation Determined Response, 

a rescue, recovery, force 

protection, and support effort 

in Yemen. The frigate Hawes 

(FFG 53), destroyer Donald Cook 

(DDG 75), and tug Catawba

(T-ATF 168), as well as the 

amphibious ships Tarawa, Duluth 

(LPD 6), and Anchorage (LSD 

36), converged on the scene to 

provide assistance and support 

for the Cole’s crew and to stand 

by to respond to operational 

taskings. The Air Force furnished 

airlift aircraft, the Army contributed transportation 

and medical assistance, and the Marine Corps 

provided security. Other countries pitched in, too. 

Yemen provided medical and security support, 

France and Djibouti helped with initial medical 

evacuation and treatment, and Royal Navy frigates 

Marlborough and Cumberland provided damage 

control and other assistance. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, 

Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar granted 

overflight rights and the use of bases. The Clinton 

administration failed, however, to respond to the 

Cole attack with military action against al-Qaeda.

In any event, the men and women of Naval 

Forces Central Command were fighting against the 

Islamic terrorist threat before many of their fellow 

Americans knew it even existed. ÈÈÈ

Anja Niedringhaus/epa/Corbis

A Taliban prisoner glowers in front of the Red Cross office in Kabul, 10 February 2002. 

A NEW THREAT EMERGES 77
Operation Enduring Freedom

Bin Laden’s next major attack struck the American homeland and made 

the whole world aware of the Islamic fundamentalist threat. In response, the United 

States launched a Global War on Terrorism, conceived as “a new kind of war” involving 

multifaceted military, intelligence, law enforcement, financial, and cyberspace operations. Operation 

Enduring Freedom (OEF), the military phase, unfolded mostly in the Central Command theater, 

mainly in Afghanistan. Naval Forces Central Command played the predominant role in taking the 

fight to the enemy. 

and 18,000 people on 

station in the North 

Arabian Sea ready to 

launch strikes or other 

combat operations.

In a televised 

speech to the 

American people on 

the evening of 11 

September, President 

Bush characterized 

the terrorist attacks as 

“acts of mass murder” 

and pledged “to find 

those responsible and 

bring them to justice.” 

“We will make no 

distinction between 

the terrorists who committed these acts,” he 

declared, “and those who harbor them.” Dubbed the 

Bush Doctrine, the latter statement underpinned the 

strategy for America’s Global War on Terrorism.

At that time Central Command had plans for

striking al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan

with Tomahawk missiles and manned bombers, but 

no plans for conventional ground operations. Nor 

had the United States made diplomatic arrangements 

with Afghanistan’s neighbors for basing, staging, 

overflight, and access rights. Since naval aircraft 

went to war on board their own bases, naval aviators 

predominated in air operations over Afghanistan.

On 11 September 

2001, al-Qaeda suicide 

operatives hijacked four 

commercial jet airliners 

and crashed one each 

into the Pentagon and 

the twin towers of New 

York City’s World Trade 

Center. The fourth 

airliner crashed in a 

field near Shanksville, 

Pennsylvania, as 

passengers overpowered 

the terrorists. The 

attacks destroyed the 

World Trade Center, 

stove in the southwest 

side of the Pentagon, 

and killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children. 

Half a world away, satellites beamed images of 

the attacks to the men and women of the Enterprise 

carrier battle group as they were steaming south 

toward their departure from the CENTCOM 

area of responsibility near the end of a six-month 

deployment. Instead of proceeding as scheduled, 

Enterprise came about and made best speed for the 

North Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, the Carl Vinson

carrier battle group, slated to relieve Enterprise in 

the AOR, made best speed toward the theater chop 

line. With the arrival of the carriers, Naval Forces 

Central Command had 24 U.S. ships, 177 aircraft, 

A fireball erupts from the World Trade Center as al-Qaeda hijackers crash 

United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, 11 September 2001. 

Sean Adair/Reuters/Corbis

78
Afghanistan. 

Courtesy CIA
80 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

In the absence of an appropriate “off-the-shelf” 

operations plan, joint planners followed crisis 

action procedures to formulate and implement 

Operation Enduring Freedom. During a meeting on 

12 September with his war cabinet comprising a 

half-dozen top officials, President Bush decided to 

start the war with the perpetrators of the attack and 

their accomplices and then move on to terrorism in 

a broader sense. The plan combined air strikes with 

what planners called “boots on the ground”—small 

numbers of U.S. troops deployed inside Afghanistan. 

It called for attaching CIA paramilitary and 

Special Forces teams to Northern Alliance and 

anti-Taliban Pashtun units to make U.S. airborne 

firepower available to them. Army General Tommy 

R. Franks, Commander in Chief, U.S. Central 

Command, exercised combatant command from his 

headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Taliban forces numbered an estimated 45,000–

60,000 fierce but poorly trained and equipped 

fighters, including bin Laden’s Afghan Arabs. By the 

fall of 2001, they controlled about 90 percent of 

Afghanistan. The Taliban arsenal consisted mostly 

of outdated equipment left over from the Soviet 

era, including approximately 650 tanks and armored 

vehicles, as many as 100 MiG-21s and MiG-23s, an 

assortment of armed and utility helicopters, and an 

unknown number of surface-to-air missiles. One 

military analyst said that this equipment was so old 

that it could not be “sustained in combat” and was 

largely “irrelevant to U.S. forces.” Northern Alliance 

leaders numbered their forces at about 15,000 

fighters, and they weren’t any better equipped.

After 11 September, however, al-Qaeda and 

the Taliban faced a far more formidable foe as an 

unprecedented coalition formed to fight terrorism.

CPL Jason Ingersoll, USMC

Smoke and flames rise from the Pentagon after hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, 11 September 2001. 
On 12 September, the United Nations Security 

Council passed Resolution 1368, condemning the 

terrorist attack. That same day, the North Atlantic 

Council invoked Article V of the NATO Charter

for the first time, thereby considering the attack on 

the United States as an attack on all member states, 

and pledged any necessary assistance. Australia and 

New Zealand also invoked their ANZUS treaty 

obligations to support the United States. By April 

2002, 197 countries and jurisdictions had expressed 

support for the campaign and its objectives, 136 

countries had offered military assistance, 89 had 

granted over-flight authority, 76 had granted 

landing rights, and 23 had granted bed-down and 

basing authority.

Coalition navies participated heavily in OEF. 

The United Kingdom deployed its largest naval 

task force since the Gulf War; Italy and France sent 

their only carrier battle groups to support combat 

operations in the North Arabian Sea; the Canadian 

and German navies deployed a high percentage of 

their naval forces; and Japanese ships delivered fuel 

to coalition warships. The number of non-U.S. ships 

steaming in the CENTCOM AOR during Operation 

Enduring Freedom often exceeded the number of 

U.S. ships present. 

The inherent flexibility of naval forces enabled 

the U.S. Navy to surge more than three times the 

number of ships normally assigned to Fifth Fleet 

without straining organizational relationships, to 

rotate and relieve forces in place without disrupting 

operations, and to provide a broad range of 

warfighting capabilities and support functions. In the 

first six months of Operation Enduring Freedom, the 

Navy committed to the theater six aircraft carrier 

battle groups, four amphibious ready groups, and 

a total of 60,000 active duty Sailors and Marines 

plus another 13,000 Reservists. The carrier Kitty 

Hawk, on station in the North Arabian Sea from 12 

October to 12 December 2001, served as an afloat 

forward staging base for special forces. The Navy 

maintained at least two carriers in the CENTCOM 

AOR until 18 April 2002. Vice Admiral Charles 

W. Moore Jr. served as Commander Naval Forces 

Central Command/Commander Fifth Fleet and 

Combined Joint Forces Maritime Component 

Commander until relieved by Vice Admiral Timothy 

J. Keating in February 2002.

A Navy SEAL covers teammates advancing on a suspected enemy location in Afghanistan, 24 January 2002.

PH1 (AW) Tim Turner

OPERATIONS ENDURING FREEDOM 81
82 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

As in previous operations, most of the fuel and 

ordnance used by U.S. aircraft over Afghanistan came 

to the region by sea. The Navy’s long-standing shore 

basing at Masirah, Oman, and the British Indian Ocean

Territory of Diego Garcia facilitated the deployment 

of both U.S. Air Force and special operations forces. 

Besides providing logistic support to the Department 

of Defense, the Navy defended the sea lines of 

communication along which supplies flowed.

While U.S. forces surged to the Central 

Command theater, the U.S. government demanded 

that the Taliban surrender bin Laden to American 

authorities. Taliban representatives stated that bin 

Laden was their guest and had become a resident 

of Afghanistan before they had taken control. They 

refused to give him up. 

Since the President sought to bring to justice 

those who harbored terrorists as well as the terrorists 

themselves, the Taliban’s decision meant war. On 7

October 2001, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, and 

allied air forces commenced strike operations against 

the terrorists and their enablers in Afghanistan and 

in support of Northern Alliance opposition forces 

on the ground. Targets included air defense sites,

airfields, military command and control centers, and 

other facilities near major cities and installations. 

An F/A-18 pilot from Marine Fighter Attack 

Squadron 251 carried in his cockpit during one of 

the first bombing runs against terrorist targets in 

Afghanistan the Stars and Stripes raised by firefighters 

over the remains of the World Trade Center in New

York, subject of one of the iconic photographs of 11 

September. The carrier Theodore Roosevelt flew the 

same flag during subsequent strike operations.

Aircraft carriers and Tomahawk shooters 

served as force providers to the Combined Forces 

Air Component Commander (CFACC), who was 

located at the Combined Air Operations Center 

(CAOC) at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia. 

CFACC produced the air tasking order, which 

included Tomahawk strikes as well as tactical air 

strikes. Because Air Force fighters lacked access to 

modern bases in the region, Navy tactical aircraft 

flew approximately 80 percent of the strike missions 

over Afghanistan during the war.

Air operations over Afghanistan demanded a 

high degree of interservice cooperation. The Navy 

had no heavy bombers and the Air Force had no 

electronic jamming capability—both key elements 

in the war. Although the Navy was the majority 

force provider to the air tasking order run by the 

Air Force, it could not have conducted its mission 

Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 grade the runways at Camp Rhino, Afghanistan.

CDR Dan Struble
without Air Force tankers and airborne command 

and control, and would have been hard pressed to 

take over the development of the ATO. Navy pilots 

found Air Force AWACS and tanker crews helpful 

and professional in supplying fuel. Royal Air Force 

tankers played an important role as well.

During Desert Storm, the Navy had bristled at 

top-down control inherent in the JFACC concept, 

had initially harbored doubts that the ATO system 

would work, had lacked communications equipment 

to receive the ATO electronically on the carriers, 

and had been underrepresented in numbers and 

rank on the air component staff.

In contrast, Operation Enduring Freedom 

unfolded with relatively little difficulty between 

the services. The Navy not only had adapted to 

the ATO system during Desert Storm but had 

operated with it for more than ten years afterward 

while conducting Operation Southern Watch. 

The Navy had strong senior representation in the 

CAOC throughout the war. Navy and Air Force 

tactical aviation, airborne early warning, electronic 

countermeasures, combat search-and-rescue, tactical 

recovery of aircraft and personnel, and air logistics 

systems were fully integrated.

The war shifted rapidly from strikes against 

preplanned targets to a combination of preplanned 

and flexible targets. After the first week, naval 

aviators usually didn’t know what targets they 

would be hitting when they launched. As emerging 

targets became predominate, the key was to keep 

aircraft on station over Afghanistan long enough to 

acquire good targets for their weapons. 

To keep up the pace, two carriers typically 

swung into a day-night rotation. Navy strike fighters 

averaged two aim points per aircraft per sortie, a 

significant increase in capability since Desert Storm. 

A full 93 percent of the Navy strike sorties delivered 

precision-guided ordnance. Once on station, aircraft 

became a roving strike force positioned over the 

battlespace to provide pinpoint firepower on 

demand. Meanwhile, unmanned aerial vehicles, 

satellites, and other intelligence sources tracked 

“time-sensitive targets,” particularly Taliban and 

al-Qaeda officials.

Navy P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft proved 

particularly effective as tactical intelligence platforms. 

Orions became highly coveted for overland

intelligence in support of ground forces as well as 

for their traditional search mission over water. As 

SSgt Wayne Clark, USAF

An F/A-18C on a mission over Afghanistan. 

OPERATIONS ENDURING FREEDOM 83
84 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

a result, naval aircraft flew the bulk of overland 

reconnaissance missions during the Afghan war.

Although operational success hinged mainly 

on the linkage between air and ground forces, 

the Northern Alliance was not instantly ready for 

coordinated air and ground offensives. Aid ranging 

from ammunition to horse fodder had to be flown 

into the theater and air-dropped to the Northern 

Alliance forces, while U.S. special operations teams 

and air controllers had to link up with assigned 

elements of the Northern Alliance. 

Central Command had in place all the pieces 

needed for rapid success on the ground by late 

October. With American special operators calling 

in air support, the Northern Alliance rolled over 

Taliban and al-Qaeda forces and captured the 

northern Afghan cities Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, 

Jalalabad, and Kabul, the capital, by mid-November. 

Navy SEALs on horseback with mobile 

telephone and global positioning system equipment 

became a characteristic image of the Afghan war. 

Naval Special Warfare Forces formed the nuclei 

of two joint and combined special operations task 

forces. Combined Joint Special Operations Task 

Force North, or Task Force Dagger, worked with the 

Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban government. 

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force 

South, or Task Force K-Bar, focused on destruction 

of al-Qaeda’s ability to conduct operations in 

Afghanistan. Together these task forces completed 

more than 60 special reconnaissance, direct action, 

and sensitive site exploitation missions; called in 

nearly 150 air strikes; and destroyed more than half 

a million pounds of enemy explosives and weapons. 

A third special operations task force, TF-Sword,

operated initially from Kitty Hawk.

The swift success of the campaign in the north

led General Franks to deploy larger U.S. forces on the 

ground in the south to complete the destruction of 

the Taliban and carry the fight directly to al-Qaeda. 

The 15th MEU(SOC) embarked on board the

Peleliu ARG and the 26th MEU(SOC) embarked on

the Bataan (LHD 5) ARG formed the core of the

amphibious force for Enduring Freedom. Because 

A CH-46 helicopter lands Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit on a mountaintop in Afghanistan.

PHC Johnny Bivera
their mission focused on operations ashore, Vice 

Admiral Moore chose a Marine Corps general officer, 

Major General James N. Mattis, as commander of his 

amphibious forces designated Task Force 58.

To get men and materiel inside Afghanistan, 

TF-58 Marines established three intermediate 

staging bases in Pakistan—two inland and one on the 

beach to allow surface off-load of equipment—for 

deploying and supplying forces in Afghanistan, 

refueling aircraft, and regrouping forces on the way 

out. To provide a base for strikes against Taliban 

and al-Qaeda elements and a safe haven for Marine 

forces in Afghanistan, General Mattis established 

a forward operating base (FOB) at an old desert 

airfield south of Kandahar, code-named Rhino. The 

distance between the Peleliu ARG and FOB Rhino 

was more than 400 nautical miles. 

The 15th MEU(SOC) began the seizure of 

Rhino on 25 November 2001. The Marines met no 

resistance during the initial insertion and completed 

the buildup of forces there by 3 December 2001.

Two days later, the Marines launched interdiction 

operations along the main road leading to Kandahar. 

On the night of 12 December, elements of the 15th 

MEU(SOC), with assets from the 26th MEU(SOC),

secured the Kandahar airfield. Seabees from Naval 

Mobile Construction Battalion 133 maintained 

runways and provided other invaluable support 

to the Marines. The 15th MEU(SOC) began to 

withdraw from FOB Rhino on 24 December 2001.

From 16 December 2001 through turnover 

with the 101st Airborne in January 2002, the 

26th MEU(SOC) participated in raids of sensitive 

sites in southern Afghanistan. The 101st Airborne 

relieved the Marines at Kandahar on 28 January. 

TF-58 was redeployed to Bahrain on 5 February and 

disestablished three weeks later as the amphibious 

command structure in theater returned to its preOEF form.

Meanwhile, enemy forces had been reduced to 

pockets of resistance by mid-December 2001, with 

some hiding in caves and others on the run. Areas of 

Members of Special Boat Team 12 prepare for a mission in the Gulf of Oman, 21 April 2004. The cruiser Leyte Gulf (CG 55) appears in 

the background. 

PH1 Bart Bauer

OPERATIONS ENDURING FREEDOM 85
86 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

U.S. Marines approach an Afghan cave to search for hidden weapons caches, 27 June 2004.

GySgt Keith A. Milks, USMC
strong enemy resistance in eastern Afghanistan, most 

notably Tora Bora and Zawar Kili, kept coalition 

and opposition forces busy for the remainder of 

the month. In 2002, the pattern of operations 

in Afghanistan shifted from the “hot war” of the 

previous fall to “presence,” punctuated by periods of 

hot war operations. 

On 2 March 2002, coalition forces from 

Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, and 

Norway joined U.S. troops in Operation Anaconda, 

one of the costliest operations of the war up to 

that point. Anaconda was designed to assault 

enemy forces in southeastern Afghanistan. When 

the operation concluded on 18 March, a total of 

eight American servicemen had been killed and 82 

wounded in action.

In mid-May 2002, General Franks established 

Combined Joint Task Force 180 to assume 

responsibilities for the majority of the forces 

operating in Afghanistan. For the next several years 

U.S. forces continued searching for al-Qaeda and 

Taliban remnants and dealt with sporadic outbreaks 

of violence. Afghanistan remained a dangerous place, 

with random sniper or grenade attacks and routine 

rocket attacks on U.S. bases near the Pakistan border. 

At a press conference in Kabul on 1 May 2003, 

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared 

that major combat operations in Afghanistan had 

ended and that U.S. forces there were shifting their 

focus to stabilizing and rebuilding the country. 

Rumsfeld noted that small-scale combat operations 

would continue in Afghanistan against pockets of 

Taliban and al-Qaeda resistance. The United States 

committed $1 billion a year in aid to Afghanistan 

in 2002 and 2003, including $230 million to train 

and house 9,000 soldiers in a new Afghan army. A 

functioning Afghan army remained a prerequisite to 

any withdrawal of U.S. troops.

The United States Navy was crucial to 

every aspect of Operation Enduring Freedom 

in Afghanistan. It played the lead role in strike 

operations, maritime and leadership interdiction by 

sea, and overland manned tactical surveillance. The 

Navy also provided key support for the ground war, 

contributed in significant ways to special operations, 

and led the OEF maritime coalition. ÈÈÈ

Ships from five nations steam in parade formation during Operation Enduring Freedom, 18 April 2002. From top row left to right: Italian 

frigate Maestrale (F 570), French destroyer De Grasse (D 612), U.S. carrier John C. Stennis (CVN 74), U.S. cruiser Port Royal (CG 73), 

French carrier Charles De Gaulle (R 91), British helicopter carrier Ocean (L 12), French frigate Surcouf (F 711), U.S. carrier John F. 

Kennedy (CV 67), Dutch frigate Van Amstel (F 831), and Italian destroyer Luigi Durand de la Penne (D 560).

 PH3 Alta I. Cutler

OPERATIONS ENDURING FREEDOM 87
Operation Iraqi Freedom

While war raged in Afghanistan, U.S. leaders grew increasingly concerned 

over terrorists getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction, particularly 

weapons thought to belong to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration 

concluded that regime change in Iraq was the only way to curb this threat to U.S. national security. 

When diplomacy failed to persuade Saddam to step down from power peacefully, the United States 

and a “coalition of the willing” launched Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) to topple his regime. The men 

and women assigned to Naval Forces Central Command were crucial to the success of the operation.

In the days following 11 September 2001, several 

of President Bush’s principal advisors believed that 

Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the 

attacks on America. They debated about whether

going after his regime would be an appropriate initial 

step in the war on terrorism. Bush concluded that 

he would have to put off 

the Iraq question until the 

United States dealt with 

Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Saddam was 

longing for the day when 

he could uncork the WMD 

genie again. To make this 

dream a reality, Saddam tried 

to get the U.N. sanctions 

lifted. Since kicking out the 

U.N. weapons inspectors in 

1998, he had managed to make steady progress on the 

economic, military, Arab relations, and international 

affairs fronts. By 2001, he had mitigated many of the 

effects of sanctions and undermined their international 

support. The increase of illicit revenue from oil

smuggling, broadening international sympathy for the 

humanitarian plight of Iraq’s people, and complicity 

of some of Iraq’s neighbors in evading the sanctions 

led elements within the Baathist regime to boast that 

U.N. sanctions were slowly eroding. In August 2001, 

the Iraqi foreign minister declared in an al-Jazeera TV

interview that the sanctions had collapsed. 

Although the Iraqi dictator had abandoned his 

nuclear program after the Gulf War, members of 

his inner circle assumed he would resume nuclear 

weapons development once the sanctions ended. 

Beginning in 1992, Baghdad had transferred its 

former nuclear scientists to related research projects, 

hoping to retain the 

intellectual capacity to 

resume a nuclear program 

in the future. Throughout 

the period between 

Desert Storm and Iraqi 

Freedom, Saddam took 

a variety of measures to 

conceal key elements 

of the nuclear program, 

including ordering 

subordinates to hide 

and preserve documentation associated with the 

program from U.N. inspectors. 

Saddam also intended to resume a chemical 

weapons program when the time was right. He 

believed that the war with Iran had proven such 

weapons an effective antidote to an enemy’s 

superior numerical strength. But U.N. sanctions 

had crippled Iraq’s chemical weapons program and 

adversely affected its legitimate chemical industry, 

which had only begun to recover in the mid 1990s. 

Thereafter Iraqi chemists conducted a modest 

amount of dual-use research, which, like the nuclear 

U.S. Marines in amphibious assault vehicles drive up an Iraqi 

highway through a sandstorm, 24 March 2003.

Sgt Kevin R. Reed

88
Iraq.

Courtesy CIA
90 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

weapons program, preserved the knowledge base 

needed to restart a chemical weapons program. 

Baghdad apparently harbored no plans, however, for 

a biological weapons program.

For as long as Saddam had been in power, 

Iraq had been a state sponsor of terrorism. During 

the 1970s, Iraq supported Palestinian groups 

against Israel, including the Palestine Liberation 

Organization and the Abu Nidal Organization.

During the 1980s, Saddam backed off from 

sponsoring international terrorism so as not to lose 

assistance from the United States and Western 

Europe against Iran. During the 1990s, Saddam 

invited terrorists to Baghdad and provided some 

of them with weapons and supplies. Iraq also used 

its own intelligence service in terrorist operations. 

In 1993, the Iraqi secret service attempted to 

assassinate Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmed 

al-Jaber al-Sabah and former President George H.W. 

Bush. And although Saddam and bin Laden did not 

develop close ties, they had a common enemy in the 

United States. U.S. officials feared that Iraq might 

someday provide WMD to al-Qaeda or to another 

terrorist organization.

While no proof emerged that Saddam was 

involved in 11 September, the Bush administration 

remained concerned about Iraq’s ties to terrorists 

and alleged WMD programs. In his January 

2002 State of the Union address, President Bush 

named Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, as 

part of an “axis of evil.” In the National Security 

Strategy released later that year, Bush said that 

the United States must work with other nations 

to “deny, contain, and curtail our enemies’ efforts 

to acquire dangerous technologies,” by which he 

meant weapons of mass destruction. “As a matter 

of common sense and self-defense,” he declared, 

“America will act against such emerging threats 

before they are fully formed.” This strategy of 

preemption underpinned Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

In the fall of 2002, President Bush began seeking 

U.N. support for action against Iraq. Administration 

officials declared Iraq to be in defiance of 17 Security 

Council resolutions involving WMD. Further delay in 

An explosive ordnance disposal team inspects ocean mines hidden inside oil barrels on an Iraqi shipping barge captured during the early hours 

of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 21 March 2003.

PH2 Richard Moore
taking action against Iraq, they argued, 

would endanger national security. In 

October 2002, Congress authorized 

the President to use the armed forces 

to defend the country against the Iraqi 

threat and to enforce all relevant U.N. 

resolutions regarding Iraq.

In November 2002, the Security 

Council adopted Resolution 1441,

declaring Iraq “in material breach” of 

U.N. resolutions and giving Saddam 

a final opportunity to “comply with 

its disarmament obligations” or “face 

serious consequences.” Iraq accepted 

the resolution and invited inspectors 

back into the country that same month. 

In December, Iraq issued a WMD 

declaration as required by Resolution

1441. The U.N. Monitoring, Verification, 

and Inspection Commission judged

this document to be incomplete and a 

rehash of old information. 

During January and February 

2003, President Bush, other top U.S. 

officials, and British Prime Minister 

Sailors from the nuclear attack submarine Toledo (SSN 769) stand by to receive supplies from Donald Cook, 27 March 2003. Toledo was 

among the first submarines to launch TLAMs during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

JOC Alan J. Baribeau

OPERATIONS IRAQI FREEDOM 91

Embodying the timeless image of a combat infantryman, a U.S. Marine charges forward 

into battle, 23 March 2003.

LCpl Brian L. Wickliffe.
92 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Tony Blair repeatedly stated that Iraq had little 

time left to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons 

inspectors. Leaders of France, Germany, Russia, and 

China, however, insisted upon giving the inspections 

process more time. 

Meanwhile, Central Command had revamped its 

operations plan for war against Iraq. The process had

begun in November 2001, when Secretary Rumsfeld

ordered General Franks to produce a “commander’s 

estimate” of the status of the Iraq war plan. The plan

current at the time, described by Franks as “Desert 

Storm II,” had been approved in 1996 and updated 

in 1998. It premised a six-month buildup of 400,000 

people to the theater. Rumsfeld wanted something 

much faster and leaner.

After many weeks of hard staff work, Central 

Command completed a new plan to disarm and 

depose Saddam’s regime, code-named Operation 

Iraqi Freedom. Its centerpiece consisted of a ground 

offensive in which two main forces—one Army 

and one Marine—would attack from Kuwait along 

separate lines of advance and then converge on 

Baghdad. The Army would advance along a long arc 

west of the Euphrates River, while the Marines would 

march farther east along the Tigris River. Meanwhile, 

a division-plus-size British ground force would pivot 

northeast out of Kuwait and isolate Basra, securing 

the southern oil fields. U.S., British, and Australian 

Special Operations Forces would gain control of 

Iraq’s western desert, denying Saddam the option to 

launch missiles toward Jordan and Israel. Originally

the 4th Infantry Division was to advance into 

northern Iraq from southern Turkey, but the Turkish 

parliament made a last-minute decision not to allow

coalition forces to invade Iraq from their country.

The coalition faced an Iraqi military about half 

as strong as it had been during Desert Storm. In 

1991, Iraqi ground forces had numbered about 

1 million men, 10,800 armored vehicles, and 4,000 

artillery pieces. Ten years later, their ground forces 

numbered about 390,000 men, 6,000 armored 

vehicles, and 2,400 artillery pieces. Six Republican 

Guard divisions made up the cream of the Iraqi 

military. Most other Iraqi soldiers were poorly 

disciplined, organized, and trained. Iraq’s air force 

fielded fewer than 200 serviceable combat aircraft; 

its naval force consisted of nine small, outdated 

combat vessels and unknown numbers of mines and 

Silkworm land-based antiship missiles.

To fight the Iraqi armed forces, the coalition 

deployed approximately 290,000 men and women 

to the region. The major ground formations 

included the Army’s V Corps, the I Marine 

Expeditionary Force, and the 1 (UK) Armoured 

Division (Reinforced), which consisted of British 

Army and Royal Marine forces. These forces fielded 

about 1,100 armored vehicles and 210 artillery 

pieces. Coalition air forces supporting OIF peaked 

at approximately 1,800 aircraft, including 863 Air 

Force, 408 Navy, 372 Marine Corps, 113 British, 

22 Australian, and 3 Canadian aircraft. Fifteen Air 

Force air wings operated in the region; strategic 

bombers flew from the British airbase at Diego 

Garcia and airbases in the Middle East, Europe, and 

the United States. Coalition naval strength peaked 

at 176 ships, 115 of which were American. The 

major combat units assigned to Naval Forces Central 

Command included five carrier battle groups, two 

amphibious ready groups, two amphibious task 

forces, and a British amphibious task group. United 

Kingdom naval, ground, and air forces numbered 

more than 47,000 men and women. Australia 

deployed approximately 2,000 people, primarily 

Exiled for his role in the uprising against Saddam Hussein’s 

regime after Desert Storm, Khuder al-Emiri (center), a 

translator for the Marines, reunites with his family after a 

12-year absence, 7 April 2003.

SSgt Bryan P. Reed
special operations forces. Poland contributed 200 

special operations troops.

The OIF plan relied on mobility, speed, precision, 

and information dominance instead of massive forces 

to achieve its objectives. It featured rapid maneuver 

by ground forces across a large operating area to keep 

the enemy off balance; air and naval forces supported 

the main advance and struck strategic targets.

Sealift made execution of the plan possible. 

From January through April 2003, Military Sealift 

Command moved almost 21 million square feet 

of war-fighting cargo and equipment and more 

than 261 million gallons of fuel for the Army, 

Marine Corps, and Air Force units involved in 

Operation Iraqi Freedom. At the same time, MSC 

ships pumped more than 117 million gallons of 

ship and aircraft fuel and transferred 5.3 million 

square feet of food, spare parts, equipment, and 

munitions to Navy combat ships around the world. 

Altogether, Military Sealift Command moved more 

than one-third of a billion gallons of fuel and nearly 

26 million square feet of war-fighting supplies and 

equipment in four months.

On 17 March, President Bush issued an 

ultimatum demanding that Saddam Hussein and 

his sons leave Iraq within 48 hours. Otherwise, 

Bush declared in a televised speech to the 

American people, there would be “military conflict, 

commenced at the time of our own choosing.” 

Saddam chose not to step down peacefully. 

On 19 March, six U.S. cruisers, destroyers, and 

submarines launched Tomahawks and Air Force 

aircraft dropped bombs in an attack on a bunker 

in Dora Farms, a residential compound south of 

Baghdad where intelligence had indicated Saddam 

and top lieutenants were meeting. Known as 

the “decapitation strike,” this was an attack on a 

target of opportunity, not an early start to the air 

campaign. The dictator survived.

Saddam expected Iraqi Freedom to repeat the 

pattern of Desert Storm, with a massive, weeks-long 

air campaign preceding the ground assault. He 

believed the interim would give him time to gather 

international support to end the war, torch oil fields, 

dump oil into the gulf, and dig in his ground forces. 

The Turkish government’s decision not to allow U.S. 

forces to attack from Turkey reinforced Saddam’s

belief that a ground war was far off. As a result, Iraqi 

formations were placed to suppress a rebellion, 

not to repel an invasion. Saddam didn’t believe 

A naval aviator and his wingman enter Iraqi airspace in F/A-18 Hornets, 28 March 2003.

U.S. Navy

OPERATIONS IRAQI FREEDOM 93
94 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

that coalition forces would get as far as Baghdad, 

whenever the ground attack began. It was his last 

major strategic miscalculation. 

Coalition forces mounted the OIF air and 

ground campaigns simultaneously. The initial 

objectives involved securing the Rumaila oil 

fields, the oil industry infrastructure in the al-Faw 

Peninsula, and the al-Basra and Khor al-Amaya oil 

terminals (ABOT and KAAOT). The Rumaila oil 

field, located north of Kuwait and west of Basra, 

remained one of the world’s greatest petroleum 

deposits. Oil wells, gas-oil separation plants, and 

refineries studded the flat, desert terrain. Pipelines 

and pumping stations on the al-Faw Peninsula fed 

the offshore terminals, Iraq’s only loading points for 

tankers. ABOT alone could pump 1.6 million barrels 

of oil per day and maintained a standing volume of 

.8 million barrels when not filling tankers. 

If the Iraqis torched the wells and opened 

the pipeline into the Arabian Gulf as they did in 

Kuwait during Desert Storm, the world would face 

the greatest oil pollution catastrophe ever. A single 

day’s discharge from ABOT alone would have 

been 12 times greater than the total spilled from 

the supertanker Exxon Valdez. Such an ecological 

catastrophe would hamper efforts to locate and 

neutralize floating contact mines, interfere with plans 

to bring humanitarian assistance into Iraq through 

the port of Umm Qasr, and cripple the desalination 

plants along the shores of the Arabian Gulf upon 

which the people of the region depended for water.

After dark on 20 March, five SEAL platoons 

and one Polish special forces platoon from the Naval 

Special Warfare Task Group swept in on board 

helicopters and boats, seized the offshore terminals, 

and secured the shore-based metering station and 

pipeline valves that fed oil to the terminals. They 

accomplished their mission in less than 40 minutes.

That same night, British Royal Marines launched

an amphibious assault on the al-Faw Peninsula, 

with one Australian and three British frigates 

providing naval gunfire support. Meanwhile, I MEF 

and 1 (UK) Armoured Division thrust north from 

Kuwait towards Basra, as SEALs, elements of the 

15th MEU(SOC), and 3 Commando Brigade Royal

Marines assaulted the port of Umm Qasr. SEALs also 

The coastal minehunter Cardinal (MHC 60) returns to Naval Support Activity Bahrain after 45 days at sea conducting mine clearing 

operations in the Northern Arabian Gulf, 24 April 2003.

PH1 Arlo K. Abrahamson
assisted British troops in safeguarding the waterways 

leading to Basra. 

By late in the afternoon of 21 March, British 

and American forces had secured the entire oil 

industry infrastructure on the al-Faw Peninsula 

and in the Rumaila fields. Although the Iraqis had 

booby-trapped these facilities extensively, coalition 

forces captured them intact and began clearing the 

demolition charges. The simultaneous start of the 

ground and air campaigns surprised the Iraqis and 

averted an oil spill of unprecedented scope. 

Coalition naval forces began patrolling Umm 

Qasr and the associated waterways that same day. 

American, Australian, and British Sailors captured 

a number of cleverly disguised Iraqi minelayers in 

the Khawr Abd Allah waterway before the vessels 

could sow their mines. Meanwhile, U.S., U.K., 

and Australian minesweeping and EOD teams 

commenced operations that enabled provision of 

humanitarian aid through the port of Umm Qasr by 

the end of the month. British ground forces entered 

Basra on 6 April. 

Although the OIF air campaign officially 

kicked off on 21 March, coalition forces had been 

waging aerial warfare against Iraq since the early 

1990s while conducting Operations Northern 

Watch and Southern Watch. Although Iraq had 

stopped shooting at aircraft engaged in no-fly-zone 

patrol missions after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, they 

resumed doing so two months later. In 2002, Iraq 

fired upon coalition aircraft about 500 times. At the 

peak of these attacks, Iraqi forces fired more than a 

dozen missiles and rockets per day. 

Central Command responded by mounting 

an air campaign against Iraq’s air defense network 

in the southern no-fly zone called Operation 

Southern Focus. Between June 2002 and March 

2003, coalition aircraft struck nearly 400 targets 

in Iraq. The pace increased during the first 20 days 

of March, as coalition pilots flew 4,000 strike and 

support sorties in the no-fly zones, knocking out 

radars, air defense guns, and fiber-optic links. This 

effort to “shape the battlefield” was equivalent to 

Phase II of Desert Storm, “Suppression of Enemy 

Navy Chaplain Lieutenant Commander John Denton visits Marine Corporal Marco Chavez at Fleet Hospital Three in southern Iraq, 

8 April 2003.

JOC Al Bloom

OPERATIONS IRAQI FREEDOM 95
96 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Air Defenses.” Southern Focus cleared the air route 

to Baghdad of opposition, allowing initial OIF aerial 

efforts to concentrate on establishing air supremacy 

over all of Iraq and attacking strategic targets. 

On OIF’s first night, coalition air forces 

saturated the skies over Iraq with more than 1,700 

sorties, including 504 Tomahawks and conventional

air-launched cruise missiles. Air operations during 

the first four days focused on strategic targets, 

including bunkers and presidential palaces in and 

around Baghdad; national command, control, and 

communications systems; and facilities associated 

with WMD. Dubbed “shock and awe” by planners 

and symbolized by televised images of multiple 

explosions lighting up the Baghdad skyline, this part 

of the campaign aimed at paralyzing Iraq’s leadership. 

After a large shamal or sandstorm blasted Iraq 

on 24–27 March, the focus of air operations shifted 

to tactical targets, largely Republican Guard and 

other Iraqi ground forces south of Baghdad, in 

support of coalition ground forces. Ultimately, air 

support of land operations accounted for some 80 

percent of the coalition air component’s effort.

The Navy began the war with two carrier battle 

groups operating from the eastern Mediterranean 

and two from the Northern Arabian Gulf. Another 

carrier arrived in the gulf after the shooting started. 

Naval aviation flew 65 percent of the power 

projection sorties, while 35 coalition surface ships 

and submarines fired approximately 800 TLAMs. 

The Navy’s ability to project air power from the 

sea proved critical, since limited basing restricted the 

number of tactical aircraft that could be based ashore. 

Of the approximately 650 fixed-wing tactical aircraft 

in theater, just under half were sea-based. 

Operation Iraqi Freedom featured the most 

successfully integrated joint air operations in 

American military history. Air Force Lieutenant 

General T. Michael Moseley, Commander U.S. 

Central Command Air Forces, led the combined 

forces air component, directing operations from the 

Combined Air Operations Center. Rear Admiral 

David C. Nichols Jr., Commander Naval Strike and 

Air Warfare Center at Naval Air Station Fallon, 

Nevada, served as General Moseley’s deputy 

during OIF’s major combat operations, and a large 

Navy liaison element represented carrier aviation 

in the CAOC. Integrated coalition intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance systems provided 

data to the Air Force and Navy air component staff 

members, who developed the ATO jointly with 

minimal inter-service difficulties. 

OIF air operations showcased many of the fruits 

of “transformation,” broadly defined as the adoption 

and integration of new technologies, organizational 

structures, and business practices throughout 

the Department of Defense during the Bush 

administration. Instead of large numbers of unguided 

munitions, U.S. forces used a relative handful of 

precision-guided munitions to destroy critical targets. 

Guided munitions accounted for 68 percent of the 

bombs dropped during major combat operations. 

If the question during Desert Storm had been 

how many sorties would it take to destroy a given 

target, the question during Iraqi Freedom became 

how many targets could be destroyed in a given 

sortie. This economy of force enabled the practice 

of “effects-based” bombing, which entailed using 

precision air power to produce effects rather than 

simply to maximize physical damage. Instead of Iraq’s 

infrastructure, coalition air forces targeted power, 

communications, and fuel supplies to Iraq military 

forces. Integration of Air Force, Navy, and other 

U.S. Marines prepare to enter one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in 

Baghdad, 9 April 2003. 

LCpl Kevin C. Quihuis Jr.
coalition intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

systems gave Central Command a better picture 

of Iraqi forces than Iraqi leaders had themselves. 

The flexibility of the command and control system

allowed the CAOC to reassign airborne aircraft to 

targets that emerged after the aircraft had taken off. 

All told, coalition air forces delivered about 20,000 

strikes, 15,800 of which were directed against Iraqi 

ground forces, 1,800 against the Iraqi government, 

1,400 against the Iraqi air force and air defense 

targets, and 800 against suspected WMD sites.

U.S. forces benefited from unprecedented 

situational awareness through a common operational 

picture provided by a new system called the Blue 

Force Tracker. Some V Corps and I MEF vehicles 

were equipped with transponders that automatically 

reported their positions as they maneuvered across 

the battlefield, greatly reducing the potential for 

blue-on-blue engagements.

The two-pronged thrust by Marine and Army 

forces drove more than halfway to Baghdad in the 

first five days. By the evening of 24 March, elements 

of V Corps had reached Karbala, 50 miles from 

the capital, while I MEF had captured key bridges 

over the Euphrates River and Saddam Canal at An 

Nasiriyah. Soldiers and Marines bypassed numerous 

population centers and military formations along 

the way, relying on air power to secure their lines 

of communication. Iraqi forces fought ferociously 

at times but inflicted few casualties on the coalition 

and generally died where they stood.

The shamal roared in during the night of 

24–25 March. The Iraqis attempted to maneuver 

their forces under the cover of this “mother of all 

sandstorms” to parry the Marine and Army thrusts. 

Coalition aircraft, however, could “see” through the 

cloud cover, rainsqualls, and blowing sand and dust 

and pummeled Iraqi armor in the open and troops 

Navy Master Diver David Daniels and two Kuwaiti counterparts surface during a debris-clearing operation in Kuwait, 15 April 2003.

JO1 Joseph Krypel

OPERATIONS IRAQI FREEDOM 97
98 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

remaining in defensive positions. The weather 

cleared on 27 March, revealing the devastation 

wreaked by one of the fiercest and most effective 

aerial bombardments in military history. 

During the shamal, coalition ground forces slowed 

their tempo of operations to consolidate supply 

lines, allow the bombing to do its work, and address 

the threat from Iraqi paramilitaries known as the 

Fedayeen Saddam. Founded by Saddam’s son Uday in 

1995, these “Men of Sacrifice” comprised 30,000 to 

40,000 young thugs whose duties included torturing 

and murdering domestic enemies of the regime. 

Although U.S. leaders knew the Fedayeen existed, 

they had underestimated their potential to conduct 

guerrilla operations. Thousands of Fedayeen had taken 

up positions in Nasiriyah and other southern cities, 

determined to put down any Shiite rebellion and to 

repel the invaders. The Fedayeen not only engaged 

combat units in fierce firefights but also ambushed 

convoys. Militiamen from other Iraqi groups and 

other Islamic countries also participated in guerrilla 

operations. Many of these irregulars continued 

fighting after major combat operations ended.

In northern Iraq, coalition forces mounted 

operations similar to those conducted in Afghanistan 

during OEF. Instead of a big armored thrust as 

originally planned, the coalition used scaled-down 

ground forces to support operations against Iraqi 

troops by Kurdish guerrillas, collectively known as 

Peshmerga. About two-fifths of Iraq’s conventional 

forces, stiffened with two Republican Guard 

divisions, Fedayeen Saddam, and Baath Party 

militia, were arrayed along the border of the semiautonomous Kurdish zone. On 26 March, Army 

paratroopers landed in Bashur, augmenting the 

special operations forces that had entered northern 

Iraq four days earlier. Other conventional Army, 

U.S. Marine, and British special forces units soon 

arrived. Peshmerga militiamen and coalition forces 

attacked terrorist training camps along the Iranian 

border, fought Iraqi troops near Kirkuk and Mosul, 

and prevented Iraqi formations arrayed in the 

north from moving against Marine and Army units 

advancing on Baghdad from the south. Support by 

carrier and land-based aircraft proved just as crucial 

to the Peshmerga in Kurdish Iraq as it had been to 

the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. SEALs and 

other special forces operated in western Iraq as well.

On 3 April, elements of V Corps fought their 

way into Saddam International Airport outside 

Baghdad. Two days later, Army forces conducted 

the first of two armored raids into Baghdad, 

named “thunder runs” for Vietnam War armored 

reconnaissance-in-force missions into urban areas. 

The Marines advanced up the central 

Mesopotamian valley and, on 3 April, fought one 

of the war’s fiercest battles at al-Aziziyah, halfway 

between al-Kut and Baghdad. Five days later, 

elements of I MEF crossed the Diyala River, seized 

the Rasheed military airfield, and entered the Iraqi 

capital from the east. 

Navy Seabees facilitated the Marines’ advance. 

More than 3,000 Seabees along with 1,000 Marine 

and Army engineers served under the I Marine 

Expeditionary Force Engineer Group (I MEG) in 

Kuwait and Iraq during Iraqi Freedom. A command 

element and three task forces made up the MEG. 

Task Force Mike (Mobility) moved forward 

directly behind Marine combat units and built and 

maintained bridges, roadways, and airfields. Task 

Force Charlie (Construction) followed in trace 

of Task Force Mike, upgrading and maintaining 

roads and convoying bridging materials, culverts, 

construction items, food, water, and other materials 

A precision strike takes out an insurgent stronghold in Fallujah, Iraq, 

10 November 2004.

LCpl Thomas D. Hudzinski, USMC
to forward units. Task Force Echo (Endurance) 

followed the others, repairing battle damage to 

infrastructure and preparing for long-term postwar 

projects. Task Force Echo’s first civil-military 

operation started before major hostilities ended, as 

a Seabee detachment helped to restore Umm Qasr’s 

electrical power and to develop a system for water 

purification and distribution. 

All coherent enemy resistance in Baghdad 

collapsed on 9 April and people turned out in the 

streets in droves to celebrate the fall of Saddam 

Hussein. Televised images of a Marine tank retriever 

helping civilians tear down a statue of the dictator 

in Firdos Square symbolized the Iraqi people’s 

hope for a better tomorrow. The next day Kurdish 

Peshmerga fighters seized the city of Kirkuk, while 

Iraqi forces outside Mosul surrendered. Tikrit fell 

to the Marines on 14 April. Although pockets of 

Iraqi and foreign resistance remained in many urban 

areas, coalition forces had gained relative control 

of all major cities. On 1 May 2003, President Bush 

delivered a speech on the flight deck of the carrier 

Abraham Lincoln, announcing the end of major 

combat operations in Iraq. 

The United States Navy contributed decisively 

to the success of the joint and combined team 

in facilitating the introduction of democracy in 

Iraq. Naval aircraft flew 65 percent of the power 

projection sorties during major combat operations. 

Naval surface and special operations forces averted 

a potentially unprecedented environmental 

catastrophe. Naval mine countermeasures and 

EOD forces cleared the way for shiploads of 

humanitarian relief supplies. Seabees helped pave 

the way for the Marines’ drive to Baghdad. And 

Military Sealift Command ships delivered the 

supplies and equipment necessary to topple the 

Baathist regime. ÈÈÈ

Operation Iraqi Freedom marked the first time that six large deck amphibious ships from the East and West coasts deployed together for one 

war. Led by the flagship Tarawa (LHA 1), the ships in the second row from bottom to top are Saipan (LHA 2) and Kearsarge (LHD 3); and 

in the third row, Boxer (LHD 4), Bataan (LHD 5), and Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), 20 April 2003.

 PHC Tom Daily

OPERATIONS IRAQI FREEDOM 99
Global Wa r On Terrorism: 

Continuing the Commitment

Naval Forces Central Command continued operations in Afghanistan and Iraq 

after the major combat phases had ended. The Navy also conducted combat operations, 

civil affairs missions, maritime interception operations, humanitarian aid, and combined 

exercises in support of the Global War on Terrorism elsewhere in the Central Command theater. In 

short, NAVCENT continued to do the same sorts of things it has always done in the Middle East, 

South Asia, and East Africa. 

As Northern Alliance forces swept through 

Afghanistan in late 2001, U.S. leaders thought that 

if Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders reached a Pakistani 

port, they might try to escape by sea. As a result, in 

November 2001, Naval Forces Central Command 

broadened the scope of maritime interception 

operations in its area of responsibility to include 

visit, board, search, and 

seizure (VBSS) patrols 

in the North Arabian 

Sea and off the Horn of 

Africa. Named leadership 

interception operations 

(LIO) and later called 

Operation Enduring 

Freedom maritime 

interception operations 

(OEF MIO), the early 

effort focused mainly 

on ships transiting the 

Arabian Sea from Pakistan. 

Because al-Qaeda had 

been so active in the Horn 

of Africa during the 1990s, 

U.S. leaders considered 

the region a likely 

destination for terrorists fleeing from Afghanistan. 

In the fall of 2001, Naval Forces Central Command 

began intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

operations in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and 

western Indian Ocean.

On 3 February 2002, COMUSNAVCENT

established Combined Task Force (CTF) 150

to deny the sea to terrorists by countering the 

illegal movement of weaponry, people, and other 

materials. Its operating area included the Red

Sea, Gulf of Aden, Horn of Africa, and Somalia 

Basin, as well as the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman,

and Strait of Hormuz, 

covering more than 2.4 

million square miles of 

ocean and 6,000 miles 

of coastline bordering 

12 countries. To 

accomplish its mission,

CTF-150 maintained

a constant U.S. and 

coalition maritime 

presence in these areas, 

and ships assigned to 

Naval Forces Central 

Command began 

conducting interception 

operations there. 

Commanded at 

first by an American 

naval officer, CTF150 operated thereafter under coalition flag 

officers. Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, 

Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Portugal, Spain, 

Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States 

contributed ships and aircraft to the task force. 

U.S. Navy Captain Sinclair Harris, Commander Amphibious 

Squadron Four, and German Rear Admiral Heinrich Lange, 

Commander Combined Task Force 150, discuss the World War II 

battle for Iwo Jima during Lange’s visit to the amphibious ship 

Iwo Jima (LHD 7), 2 September 2006.

MC2 Julianne Metzger

100
In July 2002, LIO and OEF MIO became 

expanded maritime interception operations (EMIO)

when President Bush authorized European Command 

as well as Central Command to interdict terrorists and 

their resources at sea. In 2003, the President approved 

EMIO to interdict terrorists and their resources

globally. Interdiction became a significant mission for 

every deployed battle group, especially along maritime 

transit lanes and choke points. These operations 

resulted in lower insurance premiums in the shipping 

industry and fewer crimes at sea.

The changing acronyms notwithstanding, the 

typical CTF-150 mission involved monitoring,

inspecting, boarding, and stopping suspect ships 

and dhows. These operations sought to gather 

intelligence, inhibit terrorism, and curb piracy, 

armed robbery, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, 

and other illegal activity. Between the beginning of 

Operation Enduring Freedom and the summer of 

2005, CTF-150 boarded nearly 1,500 ships within 

its area of responsibility.

CTF-150 conducted humanitarian operations 

too. In April 2004, the German frigate Augsburg 

(F 213) airlifted a crewman with appendicitis 

from an Iranian dhow and provided immediate 

medical treatment. In January 2005, the guided 

missile cruiser Bunker Hill (CG 52) rescued a 

mariner suffering from a life-threatening illness 

on a Japanese-owned tanker in the Gulf of Oman.

In March 2005, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter 

Munro (WHEC 724), working with the British 

warships Invincible (R 05) and Nottingham (D 91), 

intercepted a hijacked Thai fishing vessel in the Gulf 

of Aden. CTF-150 ships also conducted exercises 

with regional nations such as Yemen, Oman,

Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. And after 

earthquakes devastated Pakistan in October 2005,

the dock landing ship Pearl Harbor (LSD 52) took a 

break from searching vessels at sea to deliver nearly 

300 tons of heavy equipment and relief supplies to 

the port city of Karachi.

In October 2002, Central Command established 

Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa (CJTFHOA) to combat terrorism in the “the total airspace

and land areas out to the high-water mark of Kenya, 

Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, and 

A visit, board, search, and seizure team from the destroyer Bulkeley (DDG 84) approaches a dhow, 23 April 2004.

PH1 Brien Aho

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 101
Yemen.” Its mission included defeating terrorists, 

denying terrorists access to the region, and facilitating 

stability there. Combined Task Force 150 became, in 

part, the maritime component of CJTF-HOA.

The command ship Mount Whitney (LCC 

20), operating in the Gulf of Aden, served as the 

CJTF-HOA headquarters from December 2002 to 

May 2003, when the staff moved ashore into Camp 

Lemonier, an 88-acre former French Foreign Legion 

post owned by the government of Djibouti. The 

staff included approximately 2,000 U.S. military, 

U.S. civilian, and coalition force members.

CJTF-HOA spent most of its time training 

with other coalition forces and selected units from 

Djibouti, Kenya, and Ethiopia in counterterrorism 

and counterinsurgency tactics. The task force also 

conducted a variety of civil affairs missions such as 

rebuilding schools and medical clinics and providing 

medical services. 

In Afghanistan, U.S. forces went through six 

major troop rotations between the fall of 2001 

and the spring 2005. On 31 May 2002, Central 

Command stood up Combined Joint Task Force 

180 to assume control of operations in Afghanistan. 

In February 2005, approximately 18,000 American 

troops were serving in and around the country, with 

six coalition nations providing another 1,600 troops. 

U.S. Special Forces, including SEALs, had operated 

in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war, and 

their primary mission remained capturing or killing 

Taliban and al-Qaeda members.

After Secretary Rumsfeld declared the end of 

major combat operations on 1 May 2003, Taliban 

and al-Qaeda remnants continued to conduct 

A utility landing craft and an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter answer a distress call off the coast of Kenya, 31 January 2006. Naval forces gave 

the crew a 10-day supply of food and water to tide them over until a tugboat could tow their disabled ship into port.

PO3 Andrew King

102 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE
guerrilla warfare against the Afghan government, 

with occasional attacks against coalition forces, 

while U.S. forces mounted combat operations to 

root them out. In March 2005, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

Chairman General Richard Myers said that the 

insurgency appeared to be weakening.

According to an April 2005 Congressional 

Research Service report, Afghanistan’s stabilization 

was gaining strength. Since the defeat of the 

Taliban, the country no longer served as a safe base

of operations for al-Qaeda. Afghan citizens were 

enjoying new personal freedoms that were forbidden 

under the Taliban, and women were participating

in economic and political life. In January 2004, the 

Afghan government adopted a new constitution. The

following October, the Afghan people turned out in 

large numbers in what many international observers 

reported was a “free and fair” presidential election, 

resulting in victory for Hamid Karzai. The election

went off with minimal violence and a new cabinet 

was sworn in on 27 December. President Karzai 

cited the militias controlled by regional leaders as the 

principal threat to his country’s stability, greater than 

that posed by continuing Taliban attacks. Growing 

trafficking in narcotics also became a major challenge 

in Afghanistan. Most observers agreed that a 

significant U.S. military presence would remain there 

until the Afghan government became self-sufficient.

The major challenges in Iraq included 

establishing a democratic political structure, 

quelling an insurgency, and training sufficient Iraqi 

forces to assume responsibility for their country’s 

security. The Bush administration asserted that 

establishing a democracy in Iraq would seed 

democracy throughout the Middle East and prevent 

Iraq from becoming a terrorist haven and breeding 

ground. In May 2003, the administration set up 

a U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) 

Naval aviators head toward a P-3C Orion aircraft to embark on a mission over the Arabian Gulf, 22 October 2002. 

PH2 Michael Sandberg

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 103
104 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

to govern Iraq. The following July, the head of 

the CPA appointed a 25-member Iraq Governing 

Council that had the power to nominate ministry 

heads, recommend policies, and draft an interim 

constitution, but did not have sovereignty. The 

council dissolved on 1 June 2004 when an Iraqi 

interim government was named. On 28 June, the 

United States handed over sovereignty 

to this interim government and 

dissolved the CPA. On 30 January 

2005, Iraq held national elections for 

a transitional national assembly, 18 

provincial councils, and the Kurdish 

regional assembly.

Bush administration officials had 

expected the process of establishing 

democracy in Iraq to go relatively 

smoothly, but a Sunni Arab-led 

insurgency of unexpected intensity 

took them by surprise. In July 2003, 

Army General John Abizaid, the newly 

appointed CENTCOM commander, 

said that the United States faced a 

“classic guerrilla war” in Iraq. After 

U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein 

in December 2003, U.S. commanders 

said the United States had “turned the 

corner” against the resistance, but nine 

months later Secretary Rumsfeld said

that the insurgency was “worsening.” 

One observer, writing in August 2005, 

described what was happening in 

Iraq as a “multidimensional conflict” 

including “international terrorism,” 

“banditry,” and “civil war.”

The insurgency comprised 

several disparate groups. According 

to October 2004 CENTCOM 

estimates, insurgent ranks included 

approximately 10,000 “former regime 

elements” (mostly Baathists), 1,000 

foreign fighters, 5,000 criminals and 

religious extremists, and 3,000 Shiite 

fighters led by radical cleric Moktada 

al-Sadr. Some Iraqi officials estimated 

the number of active insurgents to be as high as 

40,000, with another 150,000 people playing 

supporting roles. U.S. officials believed that the 

insurgency was coordinated loosely at the regional 

level, but not at the national level.

Insurgent operations sought to drive away 

international workers, diplomats, and peacekeeping 

Navy explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technicians work with Army counterparts 

to prepare unexploded ordnance for safe demolition near Baghdad, 11 October 2003. 

Joint Army-Navy EOD teams destroyed munitions throughout Iraq to reduce the 

amount available to insurgents.

JO (SN) Erica Gardner
Sailors assigned to Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi train members of the 

Iraqi riverine police force in special boat maneuvers and weapons handling, 23 October 2006.

MC1 Brien Aho

Seabee Carlos Hernandez supervises an Iraqi worker near Fallujah, Iraq, 19 May 2004. Seabees taught Iraqis construction skills to help 

them rebuild their communities.

Cpl Christopher M. Tirado, USMC

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 105
106 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Tankers load oil at al-Basra Oil Terminal, 12 December 2004. Defending Iraq’s gulf oil platforms was one of the Navy’s most important 

missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

PH1 Richard J. Brunson PH3 Todd Frantom

Seabees patrol the streets of Fallujah on 29 January 2005, one day before Iraq’s historic democratic elections. 
forces; minimize turnout in elections; impede 

reconstruction; dissuade Iraqis from joining 

government forces; and provoke civil conflict among 

Iraq’s various groups. The insurgents targeted 

coalition forces; Iraqi officials, security forces, 

and civilians working for U.S. authorities; foreign 

contractors; and oil industry, water, and other 

infrastructure facilities. Insurgent tactics included 

ambush, murder, kidnapping, beheading, planting of 

roadside improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and 

suicide bombings. A brief lull in attacks followed the 

January 2005 elections, but afterward the attacks 

resumed and then worsened considerably during the 

second half of 2006. 

U.S. and Iraqi forces periodically launched 

offensives against the insurgents, particularly those 

in Iraq’s al-Anbar province, especially in the city of 

Fallujah, with U.S. carrier aircraft flying in support. 

Between May 2003 and July 2005, approximately 

1,600 Americans were killed in Iraq, 1,350 of them 

by hostile action.

In June 2003, Combined Joint Task Force 

7 stood up to assume operational control of all 

coalition forces within Iraq. Central Command 

deactivated the task force in May 2004, replacing 

it with Multinational Corps Iraq and Multinational 

Force Iraq because of concern that a combined 

joint task force headquarters was not sufficient to 

handle the military workload in Iraq. Multinational 

Corps Iraq focused on tactical operations, while 

Multinational Force Iraq focused on strategic aspects 

like training, equipping, and fielding Iraqi Security 

Forces. 

U.S. forces in Iraq went through three major 

troop rotations between the beginning of OIF 

and the summer of 2005. The initial invasion 

force came to be called OIF-1. The first postwar 

occupation force, referred to as OIF-2, began 

deploying in January 2004. The United States began 

implementing another troop rotation, OIF-3, in July 

2004, with the goal being to send new active and 

reserve forces into the theater for up to 12-month 

tours of duty. Units of the fourth rotation, OIF-4,

began deploying in the summer of 2005. That July, 

approximately 140,000 U.S. troops were serving in 

Iraq, along with 23,000 troops from 27 coalition 

countries. U.S. leaders planned to keep forces in 

Iraq until the Iraqi government became capable of 

securing the country on its own.

Naval forces proved instrumental in supporting 

the coalition’s goals of establishing security and 

stability in Iraq. Since the end of major combat 

operations, the Navy maintained a presence of one 

carrier strike group (CSG) and one expeditionary 

strike group (ESG) in the Central Command area, 

while the Marines kept one expeditionary force 

and three expeditionary units there. The CSG and 

ESG concepts arose as a result of the Global War 

on Terrorism. The former was centered on aircraft 

carriers and the latter on amphibious ships, in 

both cases combined with other types of warships. 

Expeditionary Strike Group One, led by Peleliu, 

was the first ESG to deploy overseas, arriving in the 

CENTCOM area of responsibility in September 

2003.

Naval forces maintained a significant presence in 

Iraqi waters in support of Resolution 1483, passed 

by the U.N. Security Council on 22 May 2003. 

Under this resolution, coalition forces provided 

law enforcement and security functions for the 

area until an Iraqi maritime security force stood up. 

By thwarting smuggling and other forms of illegal 

An Iraqi citizen drops his vote into a ballet box during the election 

for the new Iraqi constitution, 15 October 2005. 

LCpl Shane S. Keller, USMC

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 107
108 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

activity, naval forces helped commercial shipping 

return to normal in Iraq. Toward these ends coalition

naval forces queried more than 6,000 vessels, boarded 

close to 3,500, diverted approximately 430, and 

returned to the Iraqi people approximately 60,000 

barrels of fuel by the end of 2006. Resolution 1483

also lifted the U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

Naval forces also helped the Iraqi economy try 

to get back on its feet. Navy Seabees and Marine 

engineers undertook construction initiatives, 

building and repairing major roadways and bridges 

and completing major utility restoration projects. 

Naval EOD forces worked with the Army and Iraqi 

police in collecting unexploded ordnance.

With oil at the heart of Iraq’s economy, 

the United States focused substantial effort on 

rebuilding its petroleum industry. The al-Basra 

and Khor al-Amaya oil terminals constituted key 

components of the industry, as they enabled Iraq 

to export oil by tanker and thereby to generate 

critical revenue. ABOT resumed operations shortly 

after the war; KAAOT reopened in February 2004. 

Some 90 percent of Iraq’s oil exports went through 

the al-Basra terminal, which, by October 2004, was 

handling about 1.6 million barrels per day. Between 

July 2003 and April 2004, Iraq exported 370 million 

barrels, mainly from ABOT .

It fell to Naval Forces Central Command to 

protect the al-Basra and Khor al-Amaya terminals. 

Combined Task Force 58, consisting 

of U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, 

Royal Navy, Royal Australian 

Navy, and Iraqi Navy vessels, was 

stood up and given responsibility 

for maritime operations in the 

Northern Arabian Gulf. Naval 

Mobile Security Sailors guarded 

the terminals themselves while 

coalition ships and aircraft patrolled 

nearby. 

Between April 2003 and 

late September 2004, more than 

120 attacks took place on Iraq’s 

energy infrastructure, including its 

4,350-mile-long pipeline system 

and 11,000-mile-long power grid. 

On 24 April 2004, three dhows 

pulled near the offshore terminals. 

As CTF-58 boarding teams sent 

to intercept them drew near, 

the dhows exploded. One of the 

explosions flipped over a Navy boat, 

killing two Navy Sailors and a Coast Guard Sailor 

and wounding five others. The two other dhows 

exploded about 50 yards from the al-Basra terminal 

when interception teams fired on at least one of 

them. The blast inflicted minor damage on the 

terminals, which were back in business the next day. 

The incident marked the first known attack on these 

maritime facilities since the war. 

Coalition forces also dealt with piracy in the 

Northern Arabian Gulf. In April 2004, an armed 

group raided a vessel carrying Australian wheat. 

The ship was anchored at some distance from the 

port of Umm Qasr when the incident occurred. 

The next month, pirates armed with AK-47 assault 

rifles and posing as policemen attacked the crew 

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Baranof (WPB 1318) passes a fishing dhow while 

patrolling the waters just off Iraq’s Khor al-Amaya Oil Terminal, 7 May 2003. As 

it had in Operation Desert Storm, the Coast Guard deployed port security units, law 

enforcement detachments, and patrol boats to the Middle East to support Operation Iraqi 

Freedom and the Global War on Terrorism.

PA1 John Gaffney, USCG
Cpl Brian M Henner, USMC.

Lance Corporal Wyatt C. Zimminger patrols a palm grove in Haditha, Iraq, 11 August 2006. 

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 109
110 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

of supertanker Nord Millennium about 10 nautical 

miles from the al-Basra terminal. The pirates 

assaulted the master and made off with money. The 

supertanker signaled mayday and a coalition warship 

soon arrived on the scene.

CTF-58’s other main mission involved training 

Iraqi marines and the new Iraqi navy. Eventually, 

the Iraqis will assume responsibility for security and 

stability in the Northern Arabian Gulf region. This 

mission was in keeping with the overall U.S. policy 

to train and equip Iraqi Security Forces capable of 

securing Iraq by themselves and enabling U.S. forces 

to draw down. “Our strategy can be summed up this 

way,” President Bush said in a 28 June 2005 speech, 

“as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” At that 

time, according to the Department of Defense, Iraqi 

Security Forces numbered about 169,812 members. 

The new Iraqi forces included a navy numbering 

about 600 sailors. The Iraqi navy consisted of a 

patrol boat squadron and a coastal defense regiment 

and was equipped with donated small boats. Its 

mission was to patrol Iraq’s waterways 

to prevent smuggling and infiltration. In 

March 2005, it took control of its own 

naval base at Umm Qasr, and as of July 

2005, U.S. Navy personnel were turning 

over security responsibility for the alBasra and Khor al-Amaya terminals to 

Iraqi naval forces. 

Bush administration officials pointed 

to the successful elections and progress 

in developing the Iraqi Security Forces 

as evidence that their policy in Iraq was 

succeeding. Time will tell.

In April 2005, Naval Forces Central 

Command launched the term Maritime 

Security Operations (MSO) to describe 

its mission in the Global War on 

Terrorism. CENTCOM’s Combined 

Maritime Force conducted MSO to deter 

terrorists from using the sea as a venue 

for attacks; to deny the sea to terrorists 

for transporting people, weapons, or other 

materials; and to disrupt terrorist attack 

planning. Maritime Security Operations 

set the conditions for security and 

stability at sea, as well as complemented 

regional nations’ counterterrorism and 

security efforts. MSO embodied nearly 

all of NAVCENT’s traditional missions: 

protecting sea lines of communication; 

engaging America’s allies; conducting 

visit, board, search, and seizure 

operations; protecting key infrastructure nodes, such 

as the gulf oil platforms; deterring and disrupting 

piracy; assisting mariners in distress; providing 

humanitarian assistance; and conducting combat 

operations.

“K-Dog,” a bottle nose dolphin trained for EOD work, during an exercise in 

the Arabian Gulf, 18 March 2003.

PH1 Brien Aho 
Under the MSO vision CTF-58 continued to carry 

out its mission in the Northern Arabian Gulf to protect 

Iraq’s oil platforms and to train the Iraqi navy, while 

CTF-150 continued to secure the sea throughout its

massive operating area. Another naval organization, 

Combined Task Force 152, patrolled the central and 

southern Arabian Gulf. All three task forces reported 

to the Combined Maritime Forces Component 

Commander, Vice Admiral Patrick M. Walsh, who took 

command of Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth 

Fleet in November 2005. Usually the forces involved in 

Maritime Security Operations numbered about 20,000 

men and women and 45 ships—30 from the U.S. Navy 

and 15 from coalition navies, including units from Gulf 

Cooperation Council countries.

“We are all humans first, not Christians or 

Muslims,” said Pakistani seaman Azad Bukhari. 

“As humans, our needs and wants are equal, and 

we all want freedom. Terrorism threatens freedom. 

By fighting terrorists at sea, we are an iron wall 

against that threat. We are saving the world from 

terrorism.” ÈÈÈ

Smoke and fire belch from vehicles destroyed by an IED on a street in Baghdad, 27 August 2006. This particular blast killed two innocent 

people and wounded approximately thirty others. 

MC2 Eli J. Medellin

Navy Hospital Corpsman Seaman Eduardo Rivera, assigned to 

the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, provides security for his 

fellow Marines and Sailors as they search rooms during a cordon 

and knock mission outside Forward Operating Base Camp Kalsu, 

Iraq, 11 November 2004.

Sgt Zachary A. Bathon, USMC

GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR ISM 111
112 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

A Marine pilot signals thumbs-up before launching from Harry S. Truman into Arabian Gulf skies, 24 January 2005. 

PHAN Kristopher Wilson
The United States Navy followed American 

merchant ships into the North Arabian Sea and 

Arabian Gulf in the nineteenth century, when 

the Royal Navy ruled those waters. The U.S. 

Navy’s presence grew as America’s interests and 

commitments in that part of the world increased. 

With the establishment of the Middle East Force 

in 1949, the Navy became America’s first line of 

defense in the region and the Navy’s presence 

became permanent. With the departure of British 

forces east of Suez in the 1970s and the creation 

of Central Command in 1983, the United States 

Navy became the preeminent maritime force in the 

Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea. 

Over the next twenty years, epic sagas of 

human misery unfolded in Iran, Iraq, Somalia, 

and Afghanistan as war ravaged those lands and 

consumed millions of lives. Throughout this 

period, Naval Forces Central Command helped 

to mitigate the impact of regional warfare on 

America and its allies, as well as to alleviate some 

of the suffering. During Operation Earnest Will, 

the Navy’s presence prevented Iran from inhibiting 

the free flow of commerce through the Arabian 

Gulf. During Operations Desert Shield and Desert 

Storm, the Navy’s ability to control the sea and 

project power ashore proved crucial to evicting Iraqi 

forces from Kuwait. Throughout the 1990s, surface 

ships conducting VBSS operations, naval aircraft 

flying patrol and strike missions in no-fly zones, 

submarine and surface ships launching Tomahawk 

missiles, and sealift vessels surging combat forces 

to the theater helped contain Saddam Hussein’s 

regime, avert aggression against his neighbors, and 

prevent him from rebuilding a potent war machine. 

At the same time, naval ships and aircraft brought 

food to starving Somalis while naval combat 

forces stood by in case United Nations troops 

ashore needed help. During Operation Enduring 

Freedom, the naval forces served as the coalition’s 

primary instrument in destroying al-Qaeda’s ability 

to operate effectively from Afghanistan. During 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Navy played a crucial 

role in eliminating Saddam Hussein’s regime. 

During the Global War on Terrorism, Maritime 

Security Operations denied terrorists the use of 

the sea and inhibited smuggling, piracy, and other 

illegal maritime activity. Meanwhile, U.S. Sailors in 

the region routinely rescued mariners in distress; 

provided relief to victims of floods, hurricanes, and 

volcanic eruptions; and participated in combined 

exercises designed to help America’s allies provide 

their own security.

Since its establishment, Naval Forces Central 

Command/Fifth Fleet has been an anchor of resolve 

in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Africa, 

always ready to support American policy in that 

part of the world. ÈÈÈ

Conclusion

T hroughout its history, Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet has successfully 

carried out its mission to promote peace, stability, and prosperity in the Central Command 

area of responsibility. The Navy has accomplished this mission by keeping open the 

region’s sea lines of communication, engaging America’s allies in combined exercises, conducting 

VBSS operations for a variety of purposes, protecting key portions of the region’s infrastructure, 

deterring and disrupting piracy, assisting mariners in distress, conducting humanitarian assistance 

operations, and, when necessary, fighting and winning.

113
Acknowledgments

Many of my colleagues at the Center provided 

invaluable help. I am indebted to Gina Akers, John 

Hodges, Ariana Jacob, Allen Knechtman, Kathy Lloyd, 

Tim Pettit, Joel Westphal, and Wade Wyckoff of the 

Operational Archives, as well as Linda Edwards, Davis 

Elliott, Glenn Helm, Heidi Myers, Young Park, and 

Tonya Simpson of the Navy Department Library for 

research support. Sandy Doyle, the Center’s Senior 

Editor, did her usual excellent job in preparing the 

manuscript for publication and guiding it through 

production. Morgan Wilbur, the art director of Naval 

Aviation News magazine, has my gratitude for his 

advice on the imagery and the layout. I am indebted 

to historians John Sherwood, Jeff Barlow, and Randy

Papadopoulos for their constructive criticism and 

insights. Morgan Wilbur and John Sherwood did 

most of the nitty-gritty work on the exhibit panels. 

I thank John Barnes, Lieutenant Travis Bode, Jack 

Green, Jill Harrison, Ruby Hughlett, Yeoman 2nd 

Class Deborah Johnson, Kishia Murray, Randy Potter, 

Donna Smilardo, and Yeoman 1st Class Stacey 

Thomas, and Lieutenant Christine Tully for providing 

administrative support. I am particularly indebted to 

the men and women of the Center’s Navy Reserve

Combat Documentation Detachment 206 who spent 

many months in the field collecting records and 

interviewing Navy men and women so that the nation 

may forever remember the Navy’s role in Operation 

Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the 

Global War on Terrorism.

I am especially indebted to Captain Michael 

H. McDaniel, USNR, who served in Bahrain during 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, making the Center known 

to the NAVCENT staff, bringing the exhibit and 

book projects back to Washington, and guiding our 

civilians through the proper military channels to see 

these projects to fruition.

Most of all I want to thank the men and women 

in uniform who make history by their selfless service 

to our nation. ÈÈÈ

I

am fortunate to work at the Naval Historical 

Center, the U.S. Navy’s official history agency, 

and I’m indebted to the leadership of Naval 

Forces Central Command for the opportunity to 

work on the exhibit and book projects. I would 

especially like to thank Vice Admiral David C. 

Nichols Jr. and Rear Admiral William E. Gortney 

who, as COMUSNAVCENT and NAVCENT Chief 

of Staff, envisioned, launched, and funded the 

projects. I am also grateful to Vice Admiral Patrick 

M. Walsh and Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff for 

seeing the book through to completion. 

Other NAVCENT staff members deserve 

special thanks. I am indebted to Captain Jamie 

Graybeal and Commander Lisa Brackenbury who, 

as PAO and Deputy PAO, identified the Center 

as the logical organization to create the exhibit 

and write the book. I am also grateful for their 

hospitality in hosting Center historians during two 

trips to Bahrain. Thomas M. Kirby and Commander 

Jeffrey Breslau have my gratitude for reviewing the 

manuscript. I thank Lieutenant Commander Charles 

W. Brown and Mass Communications Specialist 1st 

Class (SW/AW) Katt Whittenberger for their help 

with photographs.

I couldn’t have written this book without help 

from fellow Naval Historical Center staff members. 

I thank Rear Admiral Paul E. Tobin Jr., USN (Ret.),

Director of Naval History, and Dr. William S. 

Dudley, former Director of Naval History, for their 

leadership and encouragement from the book’s 

inception through its publication. I also thank 

Captains Duane Heughan and Peter Wheeler, 

successive deputy directors during that period. I 

am particularly grateful to my supervisors, Edward 

J. Marolda, Senior Historian/Chief, Histories and 

Archives Division; Gary E. Weir, the former head of 

the Contemporary History Branch; and Commander 

Gregory Contaoi, USN, for their guidance, support, 

and management of this project.

114
Further Reading

Books, 2002) stands as the most insightful book on 

al-Qaeda. 

The best introduction to the history of the 

U.S. Navy’s presence in the Arabian Gulf region 

remains Michael A. Palmer’s On Course to Desert 

Storm (Washington: Naval Historical Center, 1992), 

which covers the period through the Tanker War. 

Palmer’s Guardians of the Gulf (New York: Free 

Press, 1992) covers the same 

ground, plus presents one of the 

first accounts of the Gulf War to 

appear in print. A good history 

of the Navy’s relationship with 

Bahrain is David Winkler’s Amirs, 

Admirals and Desert Sailors: 

Bahrain, the U.S. Navy, and 

the Arabian Gulf (Annapolis: 

Naval Institute Press, 2007).

These books constitute the only 

overviews of the Navy’s history 

in the region published to date. 

Otherwise, the history of Naval 

Forces Central Command must 

be gleaned largely from books 

written about specific military 

operations.

Although many books have 

been published about the Gulf 

War, most of them appeared 

within a year or two after Desert 

Storm, and therefore suffer from 

the pitfalls of “instant history,” 

such as lack of perspective, narrow focus, limited 

access to primary sources, and polemical intention. 

That said, several good books on the Gulf War 

have been written. The best one-volume history of

naval operations in that war is Edward J. Marolda and 

Robert J. Schneller’s Shield and Sword: The United 

States Navy and the Persian Gulf War (Annapolis, 

MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001). Marvin Pokrant’s 

Desert Shield at Sea: What the Navy Really Did 

(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999) and Desert 

While the historical literature on 

America’s political and military 

involvement in the Arabian Gulf 

region is fairly large, the literature on the Navy’s 

role in the region is quite small. The following essay 

highlights the best works on these subjects. 

Those interested in the history of Naval Forces 

Central Command/Fifth Fleet might want to begin 

by gaining an understanding of 

the broader context. The best 

one-volume history of the U.S. 

Navy in the twentieth century 

is George Baer’s One Hundred 

Years of Sea Power: The U.S. 

Navy, 1890–1990 (Stanford, CA: 

Stanford University Press, 1994). 

Albert Hourani’s A History of 

the Arab Peoples (Cambridge: 

Harvard University Press, 1991, 

2003) is the best survey of 

Middle Eastern history. Malise 

Ruthven’s Islam in the World 

(New York: Oxford University 

Press, 1984, 2000) provides an 

excellent introduction to the 

region’s predominant religion. 

Daniel Yergin’s The Prize: The 

Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and 

Power (New York: Simon and 

Schuster, 1991) presents the 

best general history of the 

geopolitics of oil. Kenneth M. 

Pollack’s Arabs at War: Military 

Effectiveness, 1948–1991 (University of Nebraska 

Press, 2002) offers a good analysis of warfare in the 

Middle East. For a good short introduction to the 

background of the Global War on Terrorism, see 

Bernard Lewis’ The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and 

Unholy Terror (New York: Modern Library, 2003). 

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer’s Through Our 

Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, 

and the Future of America (Washington: Potomac 

PH1 Ronald V. Woxland

American Sailors help off-load the British 

logistic ship RFA Sir Galahad (L 3005) at 

the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, 28 March 2003. 

Sir Galahad was the first vessel to deliver 

humanitarian assistance supplies to the port 

during Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

115
116 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

Storm at Sea: What the Navy Really Did (Westport, 

CT: Greenwood, 1999) examine the Navy’s role 

in greater detail. The best work on Desert Storm

air operations is the Gulf War Air Power Survey, 5 

volumes and a summary volume (Washington: GPO, 

1993), directed by Eliot A. Cohen. An excellent 

official history of Army operations is Certain Victory: 

The United States Army in the Gulf War (Washington: 

GPO, 1993), directed by Robert H. Scales Jr. Rather

than a one-volume study of the Gulf War, the 

Marines produced a series of short monographs. 

Begin with Charles J. Quilter’s With the I Marine 

Expeditionary Force in Desert Shield and Desert Storm 

(Washington: GPO, 1993).The best accounts by

journalists are Rick Atkinson’s Crusade: The Untold 

Story of the Persian Gulf War (Boston: Houghton 

Mifflin Co., 1993) and Michael R. Gordon and 

Bernard E. Trainor’s The Generals’ War: The Inside 

Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (New York: Little, 

Brown, and Co., 1995), although neither book says 

much about the Navy.

Many instant histories and good books have been 

published on Operation Iraqi Freedom, relatively 

fewer on Operation Enduring Freedom. General 

Tommy Franks’ memoir American Soldier (New York: 

Harper Collins, 2004) presents the commander’s 

perspective of both operations. Benjamin Lambeth’s 

American Carrier Air Power at the Dawn of a New 

Century (Arlington: Rand Corp., 2005) details the 

contributions of carrier aviation to the major combat 

periods in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is available 

online at www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG404/. 

A good overview of Operation Enduring Freedom 

is Norman Friedman’s Terrorism, Afghanistan, and 

America’s New Way of War (Annapolis: Naval 

Institute Press, 2003). The unclassified official

histories of Operation Iraqi Freedom published to 

date include Nicholas E. Reynolds’

Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. 

Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War 

(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005) 

and Gregory Fontenot, E. J. Degen, 

and David Tohn’s On Point: The United 

States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom 

(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 

2005). Michael R. Gordon and Bernard 

E. Trainor’s Cobra 2: The Inside Story 

of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq 

(New York: Random House, 2006) and 

Thomas E. Ricks’ Fiasco: The American 

Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: 

Penguin Press, 2006) are outstanding 

journalistic accounts of Iraqi Freedom. 

Robert Fox’s Iraq Campaign 2003: 

Royal Navy and Royal Marines 

(London: Agenda Publishing, 2003) is 

a picture book offering anecdotes on 

British naval participation in OIF. No other books 

have appeared on naval operations in the Afghan and 

Iraqi wars.

No books have been published on what the 

Navy did in the region apart from the big post-Cold 

War operations, a subject worthy of research. Good 

places to start include the bibliographies of works 

cited here as well as Internet search engines and 

online bookstores. Serious research should include 

bibliographies, articles published in defense journals, 

reports produced by the Center for Naval Analyses, 

and primary source materials housed at the Naval 

Historical Center’s Operational Archives. ÈÈÈ PH1 Brien Aho

Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Victoria Masako Nigorizawa cleans a machine gun 

during a force protection watch near the bridge of the amphibious ship Comstock

(LSD 45), 11 March 2003. 
ABOT Al-Basra Oil Terminal

AGF Miscellaneous Command Ship

ANZUS Australia, New Zealand, 

United States

AOR Area of Responsibility

ARG Amphibious Ready Group

ASU-SWA Administrative Support Unit 

Southwest Asia

ATO Air Tasking Order

AVP Small Seaplane Tender

AWACS Airborne Warning and Control 

System

BB Battleship

CA Heavy Cruiser

CAOC Combined Air Operations Center

CENTCOM U.S. Central Command

CFACC Combined Forces Air 

Component Commander

CG Guided Missile Cruiser

CHOP Change in Operational Control

CINCCENT Commander in Chief, 

Central Command

CINCPAC Commander in Chief, 

Pacific Command

CJFMCC Coalition Joint Forces Maritime 

Component Commander

CJTF Combined Joint Task Force

CJTF-HOA Combined Joint Task Force Horn 

of Africa

COMUSNAVCENT Commander U.S. Naval Forces 

Central Command

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority

CSG Carrier Strike Group

CTF Combined Task Force

CV Aircraft Carrier

CVE Escort Aircraft Carrier

Acronym glossary

PHAN Ryan O’Connor

The carrier Carl Vinson (background) relieves Harry S. Truman in the Arabian Gulf, 19 March 2005. 

 117
118 ANCHOR OF RESOLVE

CVN Aircraft Carrier (Nuclear 

Propulsion)

DD Destroyer

DDG Guided Missile Destroyer

DE Destroyer Escort

EMIO Expanded Maritime Interception 

 Operations

EOD Explosive Ordnance Disposal

ESG Expeditionary Strike Group

FAST Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team

FFG Guided Missile Frigate

FOB Forward Operating Base

FSS Fast Sealift Ship

GCC Gulf Cooperation Council

GPS Global Positioning System

GWOT Global War on Terrorism

HOA Horn of Africa

IED Improvised Explosive Device

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JFACC Joint Force Air Component 

Commander

JTFME Joint Task Force Middle East

JTF-SWA Joint Task Force Southwest Asia

KAA Khawr Abd Allah (waterway)

KAAOT Khor al-Amaya Offshore 

 Terminal

LCC Amphibious Command Ship

LHA Amphibious Assault Ship 

(General Purpose)

LPD Amphibious Transport Dock

LPH Amphibious Assault Ship

LSD Landing Ship, Dock

MCM Mine Countermeasures

MEB Marine Expeditionary Brigade

MEF Marine Expeditionary Force, 

Middle East Force 

MEG Marine Expeditionary Force 

Engineer Group

MEU(SOC) Marine Expeditionary Unit 

(Special Operations Capable)

MIF Multinational Interception Force

MIO Maritime Interception Operations

MPSRO N Maritime Prepositioning Ship 

Squadron

MSC Military Sealift Command

MSO Maritime Security Operations

NATO North Atlantic Treaty 

 Organization

NAVCENT Naval Forces Central Command

NGO Non-governmental Organization

NSA Naval Support Activity

OEF Operation Enduring Freedom

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom

OPEC Organization of the Petroleum 

Exporting Countries

OPLAN Operation Plan

OPNAV Office of the Chief of Naval 

 Operations

RDJTF Rapid Deployment Joint Task 

Force

REFORGER Return of Forces to Germany

SEAL Sea-Air-Land

SSN Submarine (nuclear powered)

T-AO Fleet Oiler

T-ATF Fleet Ocean Tug

TF Task Force

TLAM Tomahawk Land Attack Missile

UAE United Arab Emirates

UNITAF United Task Force

UNOSOM United Nations Operation 

Somalia

UNSCOM United Nations Special 

Commission

UNSCR United Nations Security Council 

 Resolution

VBSS Visit, Board, Search, Seizure

WHEC High Endurance Cutter

WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
INDEX

119

Abizaid, John, 104

Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), cover, 53, 99

Abu Nidal Organization, 90

Adams, Chris, 37

Aden, Yemen, 6, 76

Administrative Support Unit Bahrain, ix, x, 7, 38

Administrative Support Unit Southwest Asia, x, xi, 38, 

42–43

Afghan Arabs, 70–71, 80

Afghanistan: elections in, 103; and Enduring Freedom, 

xi, 78–80; map of, 79; post–major combat operations 

in, 102–3; Soviet invasion of, ix, 9, 70–71; suffers 

retaliatory strikes for U.S. embassy bombings, 76 

Aideed, Mohammed Farah, x, 52

Air Tasking Order, 22, 34, 82, 83, 96

Algeria, 72, 75

al-Qaeda: and 9/11, xi, 78; and Enduring Freedom, 84, 87, 

100; founding of, 70–71; post–major combat operations 

against, 102–3; pre-9/11 operations of; x, 72–73, 75–77 

America (CV 66), 24, 25

American Airlines Flight 77, 80

Amphibious Group Three, 29, 48

Amphibious Group Two, 29

Anaconda, Operation, 87

al-Anbar Province, Iraq, 107

Anchorage (LSD 36), 77

Annan, Kofi, 61

Antares (T-AKR 294), 9

ANZUS, 81

Arab League, 62

Arabian Gulf, carrier operations, 15–16, 23

Arabian Gulf region, map of, 5

Aramco, viii

Argea Primato (Italy), 47

Argentina, 23, 61, 64

Arthur, Stanley, 24, 27, 28, 38

Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait, 29, 30

Atlantic Fleet, 38, 41

Augsburg (Germany), 101

Australia: in Anaconda, 87; in Combined Task Force 

58, 108; in Combined Task Force 150, 100; in Desert 

Shield/Storm, 23; in Desert Thunder, 61; in Enduring 

Freedom, 81; in Iraqi Freedom, 92–93, 95; in maritime 

interception operations, 64, 66; in Restore Hope, 51 

Avenger (MCM 1), 29

AWACS, 83

“axis of evil,” 90

Azerbaijan, Iran, 3

Aziz, Saud bin Abdul, viii 

al-Aziziyah, Iraq, 98

Azores, 11

Baath Party, ix, 12, 98

Bab al-Mandeb, xiii, 64

Baghdad, Iraq, xi, 98–99, 111

Bahrain: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; and Combined Task 

Force 150, 101; COMUSNAVCENT establishes 

headquarters in, x; defense agreement with, 54; and 

Desert Fox, 62; in Determined Response, 77; economic 

boom in, 44; gains independence, 7; homeporting of 

La Salle at, 11, 38; map of, 39; and maritime 

interception operations, 64; official Navy visits to, 6; 

and oil, 2, 4; and Tanker War, 15 

Bandar Abbas, Iran, 65

Bangladesh, 48, 53

Baranof (WPB 1318), 108

Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, 60

Barre, Mohammed Siad, 48

Bashur, Iraq, 98

Basra, Iraq, 1, 31, 65, 92, 95

al-Basra Oil Terminal, 65, 94, 106, 108, 110

Bataan (LHD 5), 84, 99

Battle Force Yankee, 24

Battle Force Zulu, 24, 30

Belgium, 15, 23, 51, 64

Belize, 67

Belleau Wood (LHA 3), 62

Bernsen, Harold J., 18

bin Laden, Usama, 71–73, 74, 75–77, 78; and Saddam 

Hussein, 90; and Taliban refusal to surrender him, 82 

biological weapons, 90

Bir, Cevik, 52

Black Hawk Down (book, movie), 52

Blair, Tony, 91–92

Blue Force Tracker, 97

Blue Marlin (Norway), 77

Blue Ridge (LCC 19), 22

Bohinka plot, 73

Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6), 48, 99

Botswana, 51

Boxer (LHD 4), 99

Boxer (U.S. schooner), 1

Bradley fighting vehicles, 9

Bridgeton (Kuwait), 16, 18

Bright Star, Exercise, 8, 9, 55, 56, 57

British Harrier (United Kingdom), 47

Brooks, Dennis M., 17, 18

Brooks, Houston, 58

Bubiyan Island, Kuwait, 28, 30

Bukhari, Azad, 111

Bulkeley (DDG 84), 101

Bunker Hill (CG 52), 22, 101

Bush Doctrine, 78

Page numbers in italics indicate illustration captions. Unless otherwise mentioned all ships and units are United States forces.
Bush, George H.W.: assassination attempt on by Saddam 

Hussein, x, 36, 90; authorizes humanitarian relief 

mission to Somalia, 50; delivers ultimatum to Saddam 

Hussein to remove missiles from southern no-fly 

zone 34; orders cessation of Desert Storm offensive 

operations, 30; orders U.S. forces to Saudi Arabia, 20

Bush, George W.: annunciates “Bush Doctrine,” 78; 

authorizes European Command to interdict terrorists 

at sea, 101; congressional authorization to use force 

against Iraq, 91; decision regarding war with Iraq, 88; 

declares end of major combat operations in Iraq, xi, 99; 

and Enduring Freedom plan, 80; issues ultimatum to 

Saddam Hussein, 93; lifts U.S. sanctions against Iraq, 

69; seeks U.N. support for war in Iraq, 90; and U.N. 

weapons inspections in Iraq, 91–92 

Bushehr, Iran, 1, 13

Butler, Richard, 61

Calvin, Kumba, 34

Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, 102

Camp Rhino, Afghanistan, 82. See also Forward Operating 

Base Rhino

Canada: and Anaconda, 87; in Combined Task Force 150,

100; in Desert Shield/Storm, 23; in Desert Thunder, 61; 

in Enduring Freedom, 81; and Iraqi Freedom, 92; 

in maritime interception operations, 64; in Restore 

Hope, 51 

Cape of Good Hope, 1

Capodanno (DE 1093), 47

Cardinal (MHC 60), 94

Carl Vinson (CVN 70), 35, 36, 62, 78, 117

Caron (DD 970), 35

carrier strike group, 107

Carter, Jimmy, ix, 9

Carter Doctrine, 9

Castanon, Carolina, 41

Catawba (T-ATF 168), 47, 77

Caucasus, Russia, 2

Central Command. See U.S. Central Command

Central Intelligence Agency, 80

Ceylon, 47

Chancellorsville (CG 62), 36

Charles De Gaulle (France), 87

Charles H. Roan (DD 853), 6

Chavez, Marco, 95

Chechnya, 75

chemical weapons, 12, 88, 90

China, 14, 62, 70, 92

Chosin (CG 65), 37

Christopher, Warren, 41

Churchill, Winston, 1

Cimarron (AO 177), 37

Clinton, William J., 34, 36, 52, 77

coalition forces, 24 (Desert Storm); 80–81 (Enduring 

Freedom)

Coalition of the Willing (Iraqi Freedom), 88, 92

Coalition Provisional Authority, 103–4

Coast Guard. See U.S. Coast Guard

Cold War, 3, 20

Cole (DDG 67), xi, 76, 76–77

Combined Air Operations Center, 82, 83, 96–97

combined exercises, 54–58

Combined Forces Air Component Commander, 82. See 

also Joint Force Air Component Commander

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force North, 84. 

See also Task Force Dagger

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force South, 84. 

See also Task Force K-Bar

Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, 101–2

Combined Joint Task Force 180, 87, 102

Combined Joint Task Force 7, 107

Combined Task Force 58, 108, 110–11

Combined Task Force 150, 100–102, 111

Combined Task Force 152, 111

Comstock (LSD 45), 116

COMUSNAVCENT Pearl Harbor, 22

COMUSNAVCENT-Rear, 33, 38

Constellation (CV 64), 15

containment policy, 3 (Cold War); 59 (of Iraq and Iran)

Cosgriff, Kevin J., inside back cover

Cowpens (CG 63), 35

Cpl. Louis J. Hauge, 11

Crist, George B., 16, 17

Crowe, William J., 17, 18

Cumberland (United Kingdom), 77

Czech Republic, 61

Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 2

Daniels, David, 97

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, xi, 76

D’Arcy, William Knox, 1

De Grasse (France), 87

Denmark, 23, 64, 87

Denton, John, 95

Desert Fox, Operation, xi, 60, 61, 61–62, 62

Desert Shield, Operation, ix, 20–30

Desert Storm, Operation, ix, 20–30, 95-96

“Desert Storm II,” 92

Desert Strike, Operation, xi, 60

Desert Thunder, Operation, xi, 61

Destroyer Squadron 50, 41, 54

Determined Response, Operation, 77

Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, x, 73, 74

Diego Garcia, 10, 11, 36, 60, 82, 92

Diyala River, Iraq, 98

Djibouti, 9, 77, 102

Donald Cook (DDG 75), 66, 77, 91

Dora Farms, Iraq, 93

ad-Dorra oil platforms, Kuwait, 28

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 65

Duffy, Philip F., 17

Duluth (LPD 6), 77

Duxbury Bay (AVP 38), 4, 47

Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), 20

120 INDEX
Eager Mace, Exercise, 57

Earnest Will, Operation, ix, 14, 15–19

Eastern Exit, Operation, ix, 48

Eastwood, Earl R., 6

Edged Mallet, Exercise, 57–58

“effects-based bombing,” 96

Egypt: and Bright Star 1983, 55; and Bright Star 1994, 56; 

in CENTCOM AOR, 9; in Determined Response, 77; 

and Essex (CV 9), 6; and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 2; in 

Joint Forces Command-North, 29, 30; in Restore Hope, 

51; and terrorism, 72, 73; in United Shield, 53

al-Emiri, Khuder, 92

Enduring Freedom, Operation, xi, 78–87

Enterprise (CVN 65), 47, 60, 62, 78

Eritrea, 10, 72

Essex (CV 9), 6

Essex (U.S. frigate), 1

Ethiopia, 2, 9, 10, 102

Euphrates River, Iraq, 92, 97

European Command, 10, 101

exercises. See Bright Star; combined exercises; Eager Mace; 

Edged Mallet; Mid Link ’74; Native Fury; Red Reef;

Reforger 

expanded maritime interception operations, 101. See also 

leadership interception operations; Operation Enduring 

Freedom Maritime Interception Operations

Expeditionary Strike Group Five, 48, 107

Expeditionary Strike Group One, 107

Exxon Valdez, 94

ibn Fahd, Abdul Aziz, 20

Failaka Island, Kuwait, 29, 30

Fallujah, Iraq, 98, 106, 107

Farouk al-Awwal, 2

fast sealift ships, 11

al-Fateh Mosque, Manama, Bahrain, 46

al-Faw Peninsula, Iraq, 94–95

Fedayeen Saddam, 98

15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations 

Capable), 36, 48, 51, 84, 85, 94

Fifth Fleet. See U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth 

Fleet

5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 29, 48

al-Fintas, Kuwait, 30

Firdos Square, Baghdad, Iraq, 99

V Corps, 92, 97, 98

Fleet Hospital Three, 95

Fogarty, William, 22

Forward Operating Base Rhino, 85. See also Camp Rhino

4th Infantry Division, 92

4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 29, 48

Fox, Mark, 23

Fox (CG 33), 16

France: in Anaconda, 87; in Combined Task Force 

150, 100; criticizes air strikes against Iraq for no-fly 

zone violations, 62; in Desert Shield/Storm, 23; in 

Determined Response, 77; in Enduring Freedom, 81; in 

Iraqi Freedom, 92; in maritime interception operations, 

64; in Restore Hope, 51; in Southern Watch, x, 33–35; 

and support for Afghan Mujahidin, 70; and Tanker War, 

15; in United Shield, 53

Franks, Tommy R., 80, 84, 87, 92

al-Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, 65

Gani, Mohammed Hashi, 8

Gary (FFG 51), 47

Gas Prince (Kuwait), 16

George Washington (CVN 73), viii, 33, 36, 47, 61

Georgia, 67

Germany: in Anaconda, 87; in Combined Task Force 150,

100; in Desert Shield/Storm, 23; in Enduring Freedom, 

81; in Iraqi Freedom, 92; in Restore Hope, 51; in World 

War II, 2, 3

Gettysburg (CG 64), 47

Global War on Terrorism, 78, 100–112

Gloucester (United Kingdom), 26, 30

Goldsborough (DDG 20), 63

Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense 

Reorganization Act of 1986, 16

Grahm, Chris, xii

Grand Mosque, Manama, Bahrain, 46

Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, 2

Great Britain. See United Kingdom

Greece, 23, 51, 64

Greenwich Bay (AVP 41), 4

Grenada, 16

Guadalcanal (LPH 7), 53

Guam, 11, 36

Guam (LPH 9), 30, 48

Gulf Cooperation Council, 9, 29, 46, 54, 60, 111

Haditha, Iraq, 109

Harpers Ferry (LSD 49), 58

Harris, Sinclair, 100

Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), 32, 34, 112, 116

Harry W. Hill (DD 986), 47

Hawes (FFG 53), 77

Helicopter Combat Support Special Squadron Two, 47

Herat, Afghanistan, 84

Hernandez, Carlos, 105

Hewitt (DD 966), 35

Higgins (DDG 76), 57, 58

Hinden, Alain, inside back cover

Hoar, Joseph P., 33

Honduras, 67

Horn of Africa, 9, 65, 100; map of, 49

Horner, Charles, 22

humanitarian operations, 47–53, 101, 102

Hungary, 61

Hussein, Saddam: capture of, 104; and “decapitation 

strike,” 93; in Desert Shield/Storm, 23, 24, 27, 28; and 

invasion of Kuwait, 20, 71; and Iran-Iraq War, 12–13; 

and Iraqi Freedom, xi, 93; and massing of forces on 

Kuwait border (1994), 36–37; and massing of forces 

INDEX 121
near Kuwait border (1995), 60; and oil smuggling, 

65–69, 88; post–Desert Storm goals of, 59, 88; refuses 

to cooperate with U.N weapons inspections, 61–62, 88; 

suppresses 1991 Kurdish and Shiite rebellions, 31; takes 

power in Iraq, ix, 12; and terrorism, 90; and Usama bin 

Laden, 90; and violations of no-fly zones, 34–36, 61–62; 

WMD program of, 88, 90, 91

Hussein, Uday, 98

Idaho (BB 42), 38

Illustrious (United Kingdom), 61

improvised explosive device, 107, 111

Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, 32

Independence (CV 62), 20, 23, 33, 37, 61

India, 51, 65

Indonesia, 75

Infinite Response, Operation, xi, 76

International Red Cross, 50

Invincible (United Kingdom), 61, 101

Iran: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; criticizes air strikes against 

Iraq, 62; and hostage crisis, 8, 16, 19; and oil, 1–2, 12; 

and Kurdish and Shiite rebellions (1991), 31; revolution 

in, ix, 8; and Twin Pillars policy, 7; and war with Iraq, 

12–19; and World War II, 2

Iran Ajr (Iran), 17, 18

Iran-Iraq War, 12–19

Iraq: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; and Combined Task Force 

58, 108; and coup (1968), 12; Desert Storm forces of, 

24; and fall of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime, 99; 

and invasion of Kuwait, ix, 20, 71; and Iraq Governing 

Council, 104; and Iraqi Freedom, Operation, xi, 88–99; 

and Kurdish and Shiite rebellions (1991), 31–32; 

map of, 89; and massing of forces on Kuwait border 

(1994), 36–37; and massing of forces near Kuwait 

border (1995), 60; national elections in, 104, 107, 107; 

navy of in Desert Storm, 24, 26, 28; and oil, 2; and oil 

smuggling, 65–69, 88; post–major combat operations 

in, 103–11; and terrorism, 72, 90; U.S. troop rotations 

in, 107; violates no-fly zones, x, 34–36, 61–62; and war 

with Iran, ix, 12–19; WMD declaration of, 91; WMD 

program of, 88, 90-91

Iraqi Security Forces, 110

Irbil, Iraq, 60

Ireland, Shannon, 36

Istiqlal, 28

Italy: in Combined Task Force 150, 100; in Desert 

Shield/Storm, 23; in Enduring Freedom, 81; in maritime 

interception operations, 64; in Restore Hope, 51; in 

Tanker War, 15; in United Shield, 53

Iwo Jima (LPH 2), 30, 100

Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 84

Janni, Nico, 42

Japan, 81

Jarrett (FFG 33), 18

Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates, 35, 46

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2

John C. Stennis (CVN 74), 61, 87

John F. Kennedy (CV 67), 24, 87

John S. McCain (DDG 56), 69

John Young (DD 973), 18

Johnston, Robert B., 51, 52

Joint Force Air Component Commander, 22, 34, 83. See 

also Combined Forces Air Component Commander

Joint Forces Command-East (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, 

Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE), 29, 30

Joint Forces Command-North (Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi 

Arabia, Syria), 29, 30

Joint Task Force Middle East, ix, 17–19

Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, x, 33

jointness, 16–17, 33–34

Jordan, 9, 31, 72

Jubaland, 53

Jubayl, Saudi Arabia, 23

Juffair, Bahrain, ix, 4, 7, 44

Juneau (LPD 10), 51

Kabul, Afghanistan, 73, 75, 84, 87

Kandahar, Afghanistan, xi, 74, 85

Karachi, Pakistan, 101

Karbala, Iraq, 31, 97

Karzai, Hamid, xi, 103

Kashmir, 75

Katz, Douglas, 38, 40

Kazakhstan, 10

Kearsarge (LHD 3), 99

Keating, Timothy J., 81

Keffer, Jonathan, 66

Kelso, Frank B., 38

Kelley, P. X., 9

Kenya, xi, 9, 57–58, 76, 102

Khafji, Saudi Arabia, 26–27

al-Khalifa, Isa bin Salman, 6, 7

al-Khalifa, Salman bin Hamad, 6

al-Khalifa, Salman bin Hamad bin Isa, 45

Khartoum, Sudan, 76

Khawr Abd Allah waterway, 65, 66, 69, 95

Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia, x, 43–44, 73

Khor al-Amaya Oil Terminal, 94, 108, 108, 110

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 8, 12

Khost, Afghanistan, 76

Khuzestan Province, Iran, 12

King, Ernest J., 41

Kingston, Robert C., 8

Kirkuk, Iraq, 31, 98, 99

Kitty Hawk (CV 63), 35, 81, 84

Kurds, 31–32, 60, 98

al-Kut, Iraq, 98

Kuwait: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; in Desert Fox, 62; and 

Desert Shield/Storm, 23; in Desert Thunder, 61; in 

Determined Response, 77; Iraqi invasion of, ix, 20; map 

of, 21; and maritime interception operations, 64; and oil, 

1, 2; in Restore Hope, 51; and security pact with U.S., 

54; and Tanker War, 14–15, 15 

122 INDEX
Kuwait City, Kuwait, 27, 28, 30

Kyrgyzstan, 10

La Salle (AGF 3), x, 4, 34, 38, 40

Laboon (DDG 58), 60

Lacy, Robert, vi

Lake Erie (CG 70), 37

Lange, Heinrich, 100

leadership interception operations, 100

League of Arab States, 50

Lebanon, 6, 10, 16, 19

Lend Lease Program, 2

Less, Anthony, 18

Leyte Gulf (CG 55), 85

Libya, 13, 72, 73

Luigi Durand de la Penne (Italy), 87

MacDill Air Force Base, 9

Madan People. See Marsh Arabs

madrassa, 74

Maestrale (Italy), 87

Maktab al-Khidmat, 71

Malaysia, 53

Manama, Bahrain, 4

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251, 82

maritime interception operations, 63–69

maritime prepositioning, 10–11

Maritime Prepositioning Squadrons: One, 11; Three, 11; 

Two, 10, 11, 23, 60

Maritime Security Operations, 110–11

Maritime Strategy, 17

Markhanai, Afghanistan, 72

Marlborough (United Kingdom), 77

Marsh Arabs, 32–33

Masirah, Oman, 46, 82

Masjid-i-Suleiman, Iran, 1

Mattis, James N., 85

Mauz, Henry H. Jr., 22, 23

Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, 84

Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 2

Middle East Force: activities of, 4, 6; combined with 

Joint Task Force Middle East, 18; commander dualhatted with Commander Destroyer Squadron 50, 41; 

commander dual-hatted with COMUSNAVCENT, 38;

established, ix, 4; reassigned under Central Command, 

10 

Midlink ’74, Exercise, 15

Midway (CV 41), 24

Military Airlift Command, 11

Military Sealift Command, 10, 11, 23, 36, 50, 93, 99

Military Traffic Management Command, 11

Mina Saud, Kuwait, 30

mine countermeasures, 18, 19, 29, 90, 95

Missouri (BB 63), 29–30

Mogadishu, Somalia, ix, x, 48, 50–53

Mombasa, Kenya, 47, 58

Moore, Charles W. Jr., 81, 85

Morocco, 51, 72

Moseley, T. Michael, 96

Mosul, Iraq, 60, 98, 99

Mount Hood (AE 29), 37

Mount Whitney (LCC 20), 102

Mubarak, Hosni, 73

Mujahidin, 70–71, 73, 74

al-Mullah, Ahmed Yousef, 54

Multinational Corps Iraq, 107

Multinational Force Iraq, 107

Multinational Interception Force, 63–69

Munro (WHEC 724), 101

Murphy (DD 603), 2

Muscat, Oman, ix, 1

al-Mutla Pass, Kuwait, 30

Myers, Richard, 103

Nairobi, Kenya, xi, 75, 76

Najaf, Iraq, 31

Najoy, Afghanistan, 50

an-Nasiriyah (Iraq), 97–98

Nassau (LHA 4), 30

Native Fury, Exercise, 55

NATO , 81

Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, 24, 96

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133, 82, 85

Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training 

School, Stennis Space Center, Mississippi, 105

Naval Special Warfare Forces, 84

Naval Special Warfare Task Group, 94

Naval Station Diego Garcia, 10

Naval Support Activity Bahrain, xi, 40, 43–44

Nelson, Michael A., 33

Netherlands, 23, 64, 15, 100

New Orleans (LPH 1), 53

New Zealand, 51, 61, 64, 81, 100

Nicholas (FFG 47), 19, 28

Nichols, David C. Jr., 44, 96

Nigeria, 51

Nigorizawa, Victoria Masako, 116

Nimitz (CVN 68), 7, 61

Nixon, Richard M., 7

Nixon Doctrine, 7

no-fly zone, x, xi, 32, 33, 60, 62, 95. See also Hussein, 

Saddam 

non-governmental organizations, 50

Nord Millennium, 110

Northern Alliance, xi, 75, 80, 82, 84, 100

Northern Watch, Operation, 32, 59, 95

Norway, 23, 51, 64, 87

Nottingham (United Kingdom), 101

nuclear weapons, 88

Ocean (United Kingdom), 87

Office of Program Management of the Saudi Arabian 

National Guard, x, 72

oil, 1–2, 12, 14

INDEX 123
Oil-for-Food Program, 59, 65, 69

O’Kane (DDG 77), 69

Okinawa, Japan, 38

Okinawa (LPH 3), 14

Oldendorf (DD 972), 47

Oman: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; and Combined Task 

Force 150, 101; and Desert Fox 62; and Determined 

Response, 77; and maritime interception operations, 64; 

and terrorism, 72 

Omar, Mullah Muhammad, 74

1 (UK) Armoured Division, 92, 94

I Marine Expeditionary Force, 27, 29, 30, 92, 94, 97, 98; 

Engineering Group, 98–99

101st Airborne Division, 85

OPEC, 59

operations. See Anaconda; Arabian Gulf, carrier operations; 

Desert Shield; Desert Storm; Desert Fox; Desert 

Strike; Desert Thunder; Determined Response; Earnest 

Will; Eastern Exit; Enduring Freedom; humanitarian 

operations; Iraqi Freedom; Infinite Response; leadership 

interception operations; maritime interception 

operations; maritime security operations; Northern 

Watch; Praying Mantis; Provide Comfort; Provide 

Relief; Resolute Response; Restore Hope; Sea Angel; 

Southern Focus; Southern Watch; Unified Assistance; 

United Shield; Vigilant Sentinel; Vigilant Warrior 

Operation Enduring Freedom maritime interception 

operations, 100–101

Operation Plan 1002-90, 20, 22

opium poppies, 72

Organization of African Unity, 50

Pacific Fleet, 16, 17, 38, 41. See also U.S. Pacific Command

Pahlavi, Muhammad Reza, 7–8

Palestine, 2

Palestine Liberation Organization, 90

Pakistan: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; in Combined Task 

Force 150, 100, 101; and Enduring Freedom, 85; in 

Provide Relief, 50; in Restore Hope 51; and smuggling, 

65; soldiers killed by Somali militia, 52; and support 

for Afghan Mujahidin, 70, 71; and the Taliban, 74; in 

United Shield, 53

pan-Arabism, 12

Pashtuns, 74

Paul F. Foster (DD 964), 22

Peacock (sloop), 1

Pearl Harbor (LSD 52), 101

Peleliu (LHA 5), 48, 84, 85, 107

Pentagon, xi, 78, 80

Perry, William J., 41

Persia. See Iran

Peshmerga, 98–99

Peterson (DD 969), 36, 69

Philippines, 75

piracy, 108–9

Plant, Amy, 50

Poland, 23, 61, 64, 93, 94

Port Royal (CG 73), 87

Portugal, 23, 150, 100

Powell, Colin, 23

Praying Mantis, Operation, ix, 19

preemption strategy, 90

Prima Maersk (Denmark), 47

Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, 82

Princeton (CG 59), 29

Provide Comfort, Operation, x, 31, 32, 60

Provide Relief, Operation, x, 50, 52

Puntland, 53

al-Qaeda: and Enduring Freedom, 84, 87, 100; founding 

of, 70–71; in 9/11, xi, 78; post–major combat operations 

against, 102–3; pre-9/11 operations of; x, xi, 72–73, 

75–77 

Qatar, 2, 9, 54, 64, 77

Quincy (CA 71), ix, 2, 3

Ranger (CV 61), 24, 51

Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, ix, 8, 9

Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, xiii, 4

Rasheed military airfield, Iraq, 98

Ready Reserve Force, 11

Reagan, Ronald, 9

Red Crescent, 50

Red Reef, Exercise, 55, 58

Redd, Scott, 40–41

Reforger, Exercise, 54

Rendova (CVE 114), 6

Republican Guard (Iraq): in attack on Irbil, 60; and defense 

of Kuwait 24; deployment of near Kuwait border (1994), 

36; in Desert Fox, 61–62; in Desert Storm, 30; in invasion 

of Kuwait, 20; in Iraqi Freedom 96, 98

Resolute Response, Operation, 76

Restore Hope, Operation, x, 51–52, 52, 53

Rivera, Eduardo, 111

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, x, 22, 40, 72

Rogers, David N., 33, 38

Romania, 61

Roosevelt, Franklin D., ix, 2, 3

Royal Navy, 1

Royal Saudi Air Force, 55

Royal Saudi Naval Forces, 55

Ruble, R. W., viii

Rumaila oil fields, Iraq, 94–95

Rumsfeld, Donald, xi, 87, 92, 102, 104

Rushmore (LSD 47), 51

Russia, 1, 62, 92. See also Soviet Union

al-Sabah, Jaber al-Ahmed al-Jaber, 90

Sabha (Bahrain), 57

Saddam Canal, Iraq, 97

Saddam International Airport, Iraq, 98

al-Sadr, Moktada, 104

Said, Saiyid, 1

Saipan (LHA 2), 99

124 INDEX
Salem, Hassan, 58

Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58), ix, 18

al-Sanbouk (Kuwait), 28

Sao Tome, 67

Saratoga (CV 60), 24

Saud, Abdul Aziz Ibn, ix, 2, 3

Saudi Arabia: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; in Desert Fox, 62; 

in Determined Response, 77; in Enduring Freedom, 

82; friction with Egypt over Yemen, 6; and Iraqi 

Kurdish and Shiite rebellions (1991), 31; and maritime 

interception operations, 64; and oil, 2, 4; in Restore 

Hope, 51; Saddam Hussein’s opinion of, 59–60; and 

support for Afghan Mujahidin, 70; and Tanker War, 15; 

and terrorism, 72, 73; and Twin Pillars policy, 7; and 

Usama bin Laden, 71–72

Schwarzkopf, H. Norman Jr., 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 33, 38

Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, 11

Sea Angel, Operation, 48

Sea Isle City (Kuwait), 18

Seabees, 98–99

Selassie, Haile, 2

September 11, 2001, xi, 78, 78, 80

Serrano, Jose, 52

VII Corps, 29, 30

7th Marine Expeditionary Brigade, 23

Seychelles, 10

Shanksville, Pennsylvania, xi, 78

Shatt-al-Arab waterway, 1, 12, 13, 28, 65

al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant, Sudan, 76

Shiites, 8, 12, 31, 33, 104

“shock and awe,” 96

Shufeldt, Robert Wilson, 1

Sir Galahad (United Kingdom), 115

Slovakia, 61

Smara (Iraq), 69

Soley (DD 707), 47

Somalia, ix, x, 9, 48–53, 72

Somaliland, 53

Southern Focus, Operation, 95–96

Southern Watch, Operation, x, 33–35, 35, 37, 59, 60, 83, 

95

Soviet Union: in Cold War, 3; and Desert Shield/Storm, 

23; invades Afghanistan, ix, 8–9, 70–71; and reflagging 

Kuwaiti tankers, 14–15; sends task force into Indian 

Ocean, 7; in World War II, 2, 3 

Spain, 23, 64, 100

Special Boat Team 12, 85

Spruance, Raymond A., 41

Stalin, Joseph, 3, 12, 20

Strait of Hormuz, xiii, 1, 64

Strait of Tiran, 64

strategic sealift, 11

Sudan, 9, 72–73, 76

Suez Canal, xiii, 2, 6

Sumatra, Indonesia, 48

Sunnis, 12, 104

Supply (T-AOE 6), viii

Surcouf (France), 87

Sutton, Robert, 22, 38

Sweden, 51

Syria, 10, 12, 13, 31

Tajikistan, 10, 75

Taliban: 73; Enduring Freedom, xi, 84, 87, 100; forces of, 

80; post–major combat operations, 102–3; refusal to 

surrender bin Laden, 82; rise of, 74–75, 77 

Tallil, Iraq, 36

Tamakloe, Patrick, 66

Tampa, Florida, 9, 38, 80

Tanker War, 13–19

Tanzania, 76

Tarawa (LHA 1), 33, 50, 77, 99

Task Force Charlie, 98

Task Force Dagger, 84. See also Combined Joint Special 

Operations Task Force North

Task Force Echo, 99

Task Force 50, 41, 60

Task Force 58 (northern Arabian Gulf naval forces). See

Combined Task Force 58

Task Force 58 (OEF amphibious task force), 85

Task Force K-Bar, 84. See also Combined Joint Special 

Operations Task Force-South

Task Force Mike, 98

Task Force 150. See Combined Task Force 150

Task Force 152. See Combined Task Force 152

Task Force 126, 4

Task Force Ranger, x, 52

Task Force 70, 11

Task Group 151.11, 29

Tanzania, xi

Taylor, Dan, 19

Taylor, Raynor A.K., 38, 55

Tehran, Iran, ix

10th Mountain Division, 52

Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), 25, 82

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations 

Capable), 30, 58

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations 

Capable), 62

3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines (United Kingdom),

94

“thunder runs,” 98

Ticonderoga (screw sloop), xiv, 1

Tigris River, Iraq, 92

Tikrit, Iraq, 99

Tippecanoe (T-AO 199), 47

Toledo (SSN 769), 91

Topeka (SSN 754), 34

Tora Bora, Afghanistan, 87

“transformation,” 96

Trenton (LPD 14), 48

Tripoli (LPH 10), 29, 50, 51

Truman, Harry S., 3

Truman Doctrine, 3

INDEX 125
Tunisia, 51, 72

Turkey, 31–32, 51, 92, 93, 100

Turkmenistan, 10

26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations 

Capable), 84, 84, 85

Twin Pillars policy, 7

Umm Qasr, Iraq, 34, 94, 95, 99, 108, 110, 115

Unified Assistance, Operation, 48

Unified Command Plan, 9–10

United Airlines Flight 175, 78

United Arab Emirates: in CENTCOM AOR, 9; and 

Combined Task Force 150, 101; and maritime 

interception operations, 64; and oil smuggling, 65–66; 

and Restore Hope, 51; and Southern Watch, 46; 

supports Afghan Mujahidin, 70; and Tanker War, 15

United Kingdom: and Cold War, 3; in Combined Task 

Force 58, 108; in Combined Task Force 150, 100; in 

Desert Shield/Storm, 23; in Desert Thunder, 61; in 

Determined Response, 77; ends defense commitment 

“east of Suez,” 7; in Enduring Freedom, 81; in Iraqi 

Freedom, 92, 94–95, 98; in maritime interception 

operations, 64, 66; and oil 1; in Restore Hope, 51; in 

Southern Watch, x, xi, 33–35, 60; supports Afghan 

Mujahidin, 70; in Tanker War, 14–15; in United Shield, 

53; in World War II, 2, 3 

United Nations: and Iraqi Freedom, 90–92; sanctions by 

against Iraq, 59, 61, 88; and UNOSOM I (Somalia), 50, 

53; and UNOSOM II (Somalia), 52–53; and UNSCOM 

(Iraq), 59, 61, 62; and weapons inspectors, xi, 36, 59, 

61, 88, 91–92 

U.N. Security Council Resolutions: 661 (6 August 1990), 

63, 67; 665 (25 August 1990), 63; 687 (3 April 1991), 

64; 688 (5 April 1991), 31–33; 794 (3 December 

1992), 51; 837 (6 June 1993), 52; 986 (14 April 

1995), 65; 1284 (17 December 1999), 65; 1368 (12 

September 2001), 81; 1382 (29 November 2001), 65; 

1441 (8 November 2002), 91; 1483 (22 May 2003), 

107

United Shield, Operation, x, 53 

U.S. Air Force, 55, 82, 83, 96–97

U.S. Central Command: area of responsibility of, 9–10; 

establishment of, ix, 9; Desert Storm plan of, 25, 27; 

Enduring Freedom plan of, 78, 80; Iraqi Freedom plan 

of, 92–93 

U.S. Coast Guard, 108

U.S. embassies, 75, 76

U.S. European Command, 32

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/Fifth Fleet: 

area of responsibility, iv-v (map), x, xiii, 9–10, 42; 

COMUSNAVCENT as CENTCOM’s only forwarddeployed component commander, 38; establishment of 

Fifth Fleet (1995), x, 38, 40–42; establishment of U.S. 

Naval Forces Central Command, ix, 9–10; and Fifth 

Fleet (1943–1947), 41; headquarters of, 11, 40, 43–44

U.S. Navy: aviation of, Enduring Freedom, 82, 84; aviation 

of, Iraqi Freedom, 99; and carrier operations inside 

Arabian Gulf, 15–16, 23; command structure of in 

Middle East, 9–10, 16–19, 20–22, 33–34, 38–43; and 

jointness, 16–17, 33–34; and Middle Eastern oil, 4

U.S. Pacific Command, 11, 20, 22. See also Pacific Fleet

U.S. Readiness Command, 9

U.S. Seventh Fleet, 22

U.S. Transportation Command, ix, 11

Uzbekistan, 10

Valcour (AVP 55), 4, 6, 47

Valley Forge (CV 45), viii, 4, 6

Van Amstel (Netherlands), 87

Vella Gulf (CG 72), viii

Vicksburg (CG 69), 51

Vietnam War, 7

Vigilant Sentinel, Operation, 60

Vigilant Warrior, Operation, 36–37

Vincennes (CG 49), 19

visit, board, search, and seizure missions, 68, 100, 101

Walsh, Patrick M., 44, 45, 111

Watson, Vincent, 69

Watts, Carol, 61

weapons of mass destruction, 33, 59, 61, 64, 89–91, 96–97

Williams, Robin, 43

Wilson, Harold, 7

Wisconsin (BB 64), 29–30

World Trade Center, xi, 73, 78, 82

World War II, 2, 3

Wright, Timothy W., 22

Yalta Conference, 2

Yekmel, Iraq, 31

Yemen, 6, 9, 10, 65, 101

Zaafaraniyah, Iraq, x, 36

Zakho, Iraq, 32

Zanoobia (Iraq), 63

al-Zawahiri, Ayman, 75

Zedong, Mao, 70

Zhawar Kili, Afghanistan, xi, 76, 87

Zimbabwe, 52

Zimminger, Wyatt C., 109

Zlatoper, Ronald J., 27

126 INDEX
“Without a decisive 

naval force we can 

do nothing definitive, 

and with it, 

everything honorable 

and glorious.” 

—George Washington 

to Marquis de Lafayette, 

15 November 1781.