The Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History of the First War with Iraq

Contents

Preface

1

The First Night: The Mother of

All Battles

2

Day Two: Saddam Strikes Back

3

Battle in the Skies

4

Whittling down Saddam

5

Prime Time War

6

The Battle of Khafji

7

Prelude to the Onslaught

8

The Gathering Storm

9

The Eight Days of the 100-Hour War

10

G Day

11

G + 1

12

The Mother of All Defeats

13

The Battle of the 73rd Easting

14

Crushing the Republican Guard

15

Mopping Up

16

The Cease Fire

Epilogue

APPENDIX A

Americans Killed in Desert Storm

APPENDIX B

Desert Storm Order of Battle

APPENDIX C

APPENDIX D

Bibliography

Preface

On the morning of February 27, 1991, I was sitting at my desk in my tiny cubicle at a giant military aerospace company designing specialized computer chips for the Space Based Interceptor, one of many Star Wars programs soon to be doomed to the budget ax.

When possible, I timed my breaks to coincide with the daily military briefings. I needed to know what was happening with our courageous men and women who were fighting to free Kuwait. To my delight, I caught an announcement that General Schwarzkopf would be conducting a special news conference to report on the status of the ground war. As the end-of-the-war news conference neared, I hurried to my car in the parking lot and listened intently on my car radio.

General Schwarzkopf explained the overall Allied strategy of his armored sweep through the Iraqi wasteland, reported certain victory, and mentioned in passing that a tank battle was still underway. I returned to work, finished my day, and raced home to watch the news.

Forrest Sawyer was in Kuwait, moving toward Kuwait City. The media began reporting the Victory. I sat dumbfounded. What about the tank battle? I wondered, What about the entire military operation? All of the media had shifted from reporting little or no detail of our military operation to reporting the liberation of Kuwait City—as usual, the advocates of Old News is No News.

As the days passed, reporters moved from the liberation of Kuwait City to the cease-fire, the return of American POWs, soldiers returning home, the Shiite rebellion, and the peace dividend. WHAT ABOUT THAT TANK BATTLE?

My daily viewing of the televised briefings and news turned into daily trips to the company’s technical library. The library had subscriptions to every major military trade magazine: Marine Corps Gazette, Army, Armor, Soldier, All Hands, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Air Force, Defense Weekly, and more. I scanned each issue looking for snippets of information on the military operations in Iraq and Kuwait. I began collecting individual stories, but nothing about the big picture.

Within several weeks, the first books hit the bookstores. I bought each account and read it immediately. To my amazement, each author presented a dramatically different view of the war. I concluded that the authors that published quickly paid very little attention to detail, or the facts, for that matter. I needed to tap other sources to gain a real understanding of the military events.

So, I turned to the U.S. Military. I wrote the commanding general of every major ground unit that was still in existence. I explained that I was curious about the details of the military operations, and that I wanted to write a factual military history of the First War with Iraq. My request for information produced mounds of military publications.

For the past twelve years, I have been compiling the data and trying to put together a readable account of the entire war. One thing is certain. I found out what happened in that tank battle. The Battle of the 73rd Easting initiated one of the largest armor battles in history. The U.S. Army’s encounter with the Republican Guard involved more than two thousand armored vehicles and stretched over a sixty-five kilometer front. The battle raged for thirty-six hours. The Iraqis not only stood and fought, they counterattacked several times.

This book is dedicated to the brave men and women who fought and served in the First War with Iraq, and, especially, to the two hundred sixty-three men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in the defense of freedom. I would also like to thank all of those at the Department of Defense who aided me in my search for the facts.

The United States truly has the finest military in the world. From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the newest Army private, our military is strong because of each individual contribution.

1

The First Night: The Mother of

All Battles

Before midnight on the 16th of January 1991, the wheels had been set in motion for the most devastating air attack in history. Ships carrying Tomahawk missiles were in their assigned launch positions. E-3 Sentry, Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft were flying in four surveillance racetracks just south of the Saudi/Iraqi border. One hundred eighty tankers were orbiting south of the AWACS, just out of range of the Iraqi early warning radar. Fixed-wing and rotary aircraft were being readied for battle.

The staggering firepower of the United States Armed Forces had been brought to bear on the northern Saudi Arabian border in just a little over five months. The Marines were concentrated along the Persian Gulf and thinly dispersed along the Kuwaiti border in small, fast moving screening units. These Marines were mounted in High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) and Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs). The forward units were deployed to signal advance warning of Iraqi offensive thrusts into Saudi Arabia. Farther to the south, the remainder of the American force was positioned for counterattacks on advancing Iraqis or massed around forward supply and air bases. Every airfield within striking distance of Iraq and Kuwait was crammed full of Allied aircraft. Six Navy Aircraft carriers ringed Iraq in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Hundreds of aircraft, from America’s newest F-117A Nighthawks to the venerable B-52 Stratofortresses, were being readied for war. The airfields were so crowded that there was no room for the B-52s. They would fly their first missions directly from their bases in Spain, Diego Garcia, and even Louisiana.

The largest logistics chain in history stretched from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf all the way back to both coasts of the United States. The pipe was full. Supplies and additional heavy armor units from the United States and Europe continued to pour in to Saudi Arabia. The hammer was cocked. There were rounds in the chamber and the trigger was being squeezed.

January 17th heralded the culmination of years of acquisitions of high-tech systems and the build-up of a highly motivated and trained all-volunteer professional military; months of deployments, planning, and sharpening the sword; weeks of diplomacy; and days of tension. The U.S. was planning to fight a four-dimensional war for the first time. It was to be orchestrated in a precise time sequence. The Iraqis, on the other hand, were preparing to fight a two-dimensional war of attrition. They had no concept of air superiority, timing, or tempo. The Coalition would fight World War III while the Iraqis would fight World War I.

At 0001 on the 17th, two-dozen F-117 Stealth fighters from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron started taking off from a secret airbase located deep in the mountains of Saudi Arabia. These ultra-high-tech aircraft would lead the manned air assault deep into Iraq. Within an hour, over three hundred additional attack aircraft began taking off from aircraft carriers and airbases all over the Persian Gulf. These attack aircraft were refueled and stacked up south of the Saudi border like jets on approach to O’Hare airport on a snowy Christmas Eve. At exactly 0140 the USS Wisconsin started launching Tomahawk Cruise missiles to join other Tomahawks being launched from the USS San Jacinto in the Red Sea. Tomahawk missiles would be the first to penetrate Iraqi airspace, flying under the radar and racing toward their targets at an altitude of fifty to one hundred feet above the terrain. The Tomahawks were launched at precise times so that they would reach their targets in concert with the rest of the first attack.

At a remote base in Western Saudi Arabia two teams (each consisting of four AH-64 Apache helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)—the Screaming Eagles—and an Air Force Pave Low helicopter from the 20th Special Operations Squadron) took off at approximately 0100. Each Apache was armed with four Hellfire missiles, two 2.75-inch rocket pods containing fleshettes and 1,100 rounds of 30mm ammunition. The Pave Low helicopters accompanied the Apaches to provide the GPS navigation needed for the mission, additional Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) and rescue capability. This small but deadly force, commanded by Army Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cody, was code named TASK FORCE NORMANDY in honor of the Screaming Eagles’ spearhead operations nearly a half century earlier behind the beaches in France.

At 0215, the two teams of TASK FORCE NORMANDY crossed the border into Iraq in separate locations. Their objectives were two Early Warning RADAR facilities in Western Iraq. The Apaches of the 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment approached their objectives at high speed, acquired their targets at the maximum range of their night-vision sensors, locked on with their lasers, dropped down to only a few feet above the ground, and advanced on the objectives low and slow. All the lights in both facilities were on, suggesting that the Apaches’ approach had not been detected.

When the Apaches came within range they ripple-launched their Hellfire missiles. At exactly 0238, the first missile struck its target like a thunderbolt from the skies. Several missiles knocked out the facilities’ electric power generators. The Apaches (firing twenty-seven Hellfire missiles) destroyed radar antennas, operations centers, generators, and barracks. All of the missiles hit their targets. When the Apaches ran out of Hellfire missiles, they raked the area with rockets and thousands of rounds of 30-mm cannon fire. Both facilities were disabled within thirty seconds and completely destroyed in less than four minutes!

Eight U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles streaked into Iraq behind TASK FORCE NORMANDY and destroyed the local air defense command and control center. These three attacks created a twenty-mile wide blackened radar corridor for our attack planes to enter Iraq.

Within minutes, F-117s from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron bombed a radar control center one hundred sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, a radar facility in western Iraq, and an air defense site outside Baghdad extending the corridor farther into Iraq. Swarms of waiting attack aircraft then swept north through the corridor and fanned out toward their targets. EF-111 Ravens, EA-6B Prowlers, and EC-130 Compass Call Aircraft led the charge through the night sky. These electronic marvels of the night bombarded Iraq’s surveillance and communications equipment with billions of electrons. The Compass Call aircraft attacked the communications airwaves, disrupting military radio traffic. The Ravens and Prowlers targeted surveillance and air defense radars. F-14 Tomcats and F-15C Eagles raced into Iraq to their assigned Combat Air Patrol (CAP) areas. Their mission was to fly cover for the allied planes and engage any approaching Iraqi aircraft.

Air Force Captain Steve Tate approached Baghdad in his F-15C, along with his four wingmen just before 0300. Their assigned CAP area was over Baghdad and extending sixty miles to the east of the city.

Captain Tate had a bird’s eye view for the opening moments of the war. "Baghdad was a really pretty city that night. As we started flying over the populous areas…F-117 s started dropping their bombs and then we started getting concussions all over the entire country. You could see it. At that point then, the sky started lighting up with AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery)…It looked like little sparkles going off all over…I figured we had some kind of cosmic weapon system out there just sprinkling all over the city…Then I started looking a little closer and I said, man—that’s triple-A that they’re shooting." Shortly after 0300, Captain Tate was alerted to the approach of an Iraqi fighter by an AWACS controller. He maneuvered his plane into attack position. At 0315 he shot down an Iraqi F1 Mirage with a single radar-guided Sparrow missile. This was the first air-to-air kill of the war and one of nine Iraqi aircraft to be shot down on the first night.

Prior to the Gulf War, Baghdad was considered to have had one of the most formidable air defense systems on Earth. The Iraqi air defenses over Baghdad were poised for an American attack. Russian ZSU23-4 radar-guided Anti-Aircraft-Artillery (AAA) guns were trained at altitudes below nine thousand feet. Between nine and twenty thousand feet, 57-mm and 85-mm flak could blanket the city with deadly, red-orange fireballs. Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) were deployed to strike aircraft at higher altitudes. An integrated Air Defense System containing an interconnected, nationwide, network of RADARs and Command and Control centers directed all of these weapons. In order to penetrate these defenses, the Allied air strategy was first, to blind the Iraqis by knocking out their surveillance radars using invisible F-117A Stealth fighters, Apache attack helicopters, and low-flying Tomahawk missiles; next, to disrupt any remaining radars with the high-tech ECM capabilities of Ravens and Prowlers; and then to attack from very high altitudes with the remaining aircraft. Each strike package was accompanied by F-4G Wild Weasels to destroy any SAM and AAA radars that would illuminate the attack aircraft. Many, if not all, American attack aircraft carried their own ECM pods for additional protection. One pilot reported that when a SAM was launched against his aircraft, he immediately activated his ECM and the SAM went stupid, roaring off harmlessly into the night. For an extra measure of safety, all attacks on downtown Baghdad were limited to the invisible F-117s and unmanned Tomahawk missiles.

Iraqi surveillance radars that were not destroyed in the opening moments of the assault either whited-out or displayed a multitude of phantom targets. The Iraqis knew they were under attack but they did not know from which direction. The Iraqis were forced to activate their AAA and SAM radars. The Wild Weasels immediately locked-on to these radars and launched High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) at these radar antennas. The Iraqis learned quickly that, if they activated their SAM radars they were signing their own death warrants. The SAM suppression effort was so successful on the first night that for the remainder of the war not one medium or high altitude SAM was fired under RADAR control. The only option left to the Iraqis was to fire blindly into the night sky, hoping that the massive amount of undirected fire would hit something.

A significant number of the initial attacks were aimed at Baghdad and the surrounding area. The Iraqi military had a highly centralized command structure wherein commanders had to receive approval from Baghdad for nearly every action. So, telephone switching stations, communication relay stations, and television transmitters were hit early. Electrical power plants and transfer stations were taken out. The Allies were not content with knocking out Saddam’s ability to see and hear. General Charles Horner and the Central Command CENTCOM staff were hell-bent on bringing Saddam Hussein’s military machine to its knees. Ten major Command and Control Centers in Baghdad were attacked in the first twenty-four hours. These targets included:

1.     The Ministry of Defense National Computer Complex

2.     The Ministry of Defense Headquarters

3.     Air Force Headquarters

4.     Republican Guard Headquarters

5.     The New Presidential Palace

6.     Government Control Center (South)

7.     The Presidential Palace Command Center

8.     The Presidential Palace Command Bunker

9.     Iraqi Intelligence Service Regional Headquarters

10.     The National Air Defense Operations Center

In addition, government bureaucratic centers, an oil refinery, a Scud factory, an Army storage depot, a railroad yard, a military airfield, a secret police complex, and three bridges were also attacked in Baghdad on the first day of the war. A fourth bridge in downtown Baghdad was intentionally not targeted. U.S. intelligence agencies knew that this bridge had military communications cables running under it. At some point just prior to the conflict or shortly after the fighting started, a Special Forces team infiltrated Baghdad on a PAVE LOW helicopter and tapped into these cables, giving the Allied coalition real-time Iraqi intelligence.

Imagine being the Iraqi Command Duty Officer in the Presidential Palace Command Center. At 0238, you lose contact with several early-warning radar sites. You suspect a technical problem at first. Then, as time passes and you begin to lose communication with other facilities, the thought crosses your mind that The Mother of All Battles has begun. You scramble fighters and alert all air defense units. They start firing blindly into the night sky.

At 0300, 2,000 lb. guided bombs and Tomahawk missiles begin hitting their targets with deadly precision. In your command center, you are becoming ever more isolated. In the middle of a telephone conversation with your counterpart at the National Air Defense Operations Center, the line goes dead. You ring up the Air Force Headquarters and, just as the phone is answered, the phone goes dead again. Panic starts to set in. The phone is now completely dead. You get on a secure underground line to the Ministry of Defense. A 2,000 lb. bomb lands on the Ashudad Highway Bridge, severing your line. Next, the lights go out.

As soon as the emergency lights kick in, you get on the radio back to the Ministry of Defense. You have trouble making contact. All you can hear is static. Finally, screaming into the microphone, you establish contact with the Ministry. In the middle of your conversation, you hear a loud explosion and then just static. While you are trying to decide who to call or what to do next you are thrown to the floor by a thunderous explosion. Smoke and flames fill the air. At least half of the staff with you in the Command Center is dead. You crawl toward the stairwell leading to the underground passage to the Palace Command Bunker. Wounded and frightened you scramble through the tunnel to the secure bunker. As you pull the heavy door leading into the bunker open, you notice the look of utter terror in the eyes of the personnel in the bunker. You recognize the fright immediately because their faces are mirroring the feeling in your stomach. SAFE, you are safe at last!

As the bombs fell on Baghdad, attack aircraft were taking out targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait. The Coalition’s first goal was Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). Military airfields; Command, Control, and Communications C3; and air defense radars and weapons were attacked and destroyed.

U.S. Air Force B-52s from Diego Garcia and Royal Air Force Tornados and Jaguars attacked Iraqi airfields. In Southern Iraq, twelve B-52s flew in at three hundred feet and dropped cluster bombs, leaving giant swaths of destruction. As the British Jaguars destroyed the Iraqi RADAR with ALARM missiles, the Tornados darted over the runways at more than six hundred miles per hour and less than a hundred feet, dropping JP-233 runway attack weapons.

The JP-233 is a weapon specifically designed to destroy enemy runways. The British developed the pod system to make repairs to the runway difficult, if not outright dangerous. One half of the pod contains thirty 50-lb bombs that can penetrate concrete and leave large craters. The other half of the pod contains two-hundred-fifteen 4-lb. bomblets. These smaller munitions have a variety of fuse settings. The delayed fuses virtually turn the runway into a minefield.

The secondary goal, although equal in priority to the SEAD effort, was the destruction of all known fixed and mobile Scud launchers. Iraq had constructed fixed Scud launch sites within range of Israeli targets at two facilities in the far reaches of Western Iraq, known only as H2 and H3. F-15Es from the 336 Tactical Fighter Squadron, British Tornados, and carrier-based aircraft from the Red Sea were assigned the job of destroying the fixed missile launchers as well as the Scud storage facilities and airfields at H2 and H3. These missions were highly successful on the first night; H2 and H3 were rendered incapable of launching Scuds. However, the Allies had underestimated the number of mobile launchers in Iraq’s inventory. Scores of mobile launchers avoided the first night’s onslaught.

Much to the amazement of the world—and the Allied command—each of the fifty-six aircraft in the first wave returned safely to base. As the first wave returned to refuel and rearm, more Tomahawk missiles slammed into their targets, keeping pressure on the Iraqis. The second wave struck with even greater intensity.

At 0409, a forty-eight-plane Marine strike package made up of F/A-18s and A-6Es attacked the airfield and Scud missile maintenance buildings at Qurnah, thirty miles northwest of Basrah; Tallil and Shaibah air bases; and a thermal power plant at Nasiriyah. The Marines’ first air strike of the Gulf War was the largest Marine Corps air attack since World War II.

Twenty other aircraft from the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and the Royal Air Force supported the Marine aircraft. British GR-1s darted in at low level and attacked the runways, while USAF F-4G Wild Weasels and Navy F/A-18s attacked Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries. Navy EA-6B Prowlers swept in with the attacking aircraft and disrupted the Iraqi radars.

Lieutenant Colonel W. Beaman Cummings, Jr. led a flight of four A-6 Intruders in one of the attacks against the Scud maintenance buildings at Qurnah. As we penetrated Iraqi airspace, I looked down and saw the biggest light show I had ever seen. Continuous lines of red and orange tracers covered the black void below us. It seemed like every Iraqi who could put his finger on a trigger had it pressed down and wouldn’t let it go. Colonel Cummings’ strike dropped twelve 2,000 lb. bombs on the Scud facility and left it engulfed in flames.

The Allied command wanted to impress Saddam with the fact that the Coalition could attack any target in Iraq with impunity. However, aircraft flying from Saudi Arabia would have been forced to refuel over enemy territory to be able to reach targets in Northern Iraq. General Horner did not want to risk flying a tanker over Iraq. So B-52s from Barksdale Air Force Base and Diego Garcia were assigned the northern targets.

As the second wave returned to rearm, thirty-five AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) were launched against communications and air defense sites, as well as airfields in Northern Iraq from seven B-52s that had flown into combat from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. The longest wartime mission in U.S. Air Force history lasted thirty-five hours. Wave after wave streaked into Iraq and Kuwait as the ferocity of the air assault continued.

At 0530, twelve French Jaguar fighter-bombers of the 11th Escadre de Chasse took off from their base south of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Their target was the Iraqi air base at Ahmed-al-Jabar, eighteen miles south of Kuwait City. USAF F4Gs led the attack and knocked out the enemy’s radar and communication sites with SHRIKE and HARM munitions. The French crossed the border at approximately 0600 and raced toward their targets while dodging Iraqi AAA at one hundred fifty feet. They attacked their target and darted back across the border. The entire mission over Kuwait lasted only six minutes. The French pilots wiped out a Scud storage facility and heavily damaged the runways. Four aircraft were damaged and one pilot was slightly wounded, but all returned safely.

In the first night, over three hundred American attack aircraft flew missions against Iraq and Kuwait and over one hundred Tomahawk missiles were launched toward heavily defended targets. Twenty-three Iraqi fighters were destroyed in their hardened shelters at Tallil Air Force Base, twenty-eight power plants were destroyed, and nine Iraqi aircraft were shot down.

Our losses in the first twelve hours were miraculously low. A British Tornado was shot down while conducting a low-level attack on the runway at an airfield that had been initially attacked the night before. A Kuwaiti Air Force A-4 Sky-hawk was downed over Kuwait. The pilot, Muhammad Mubarak, ejected safely and was captured by the Iraqis. A U.S. Navy F/A-18 from VFA-8 aboard the USS Saratoga was hit head-on by a SAM missile while conducting a HARM attack near H3. The pilot, Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher, was the first American to lose his life[1] in Desert Storm.

After the initial attacks, General Schwarzkopf issued the following message:

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines of the United States Central Command, this morning at 0300, we launched Operation DESERT STORM, an offensive campaign that will enforce the United Nation’s resolutions that Iraq must cease its rape and pillage of its weaker neighbor and withdraw its forces from Kuwait. My confidence in you is total. Our cause is just! Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm. May God be with you, your loved ones at home, and our country.

2

Day Two: Saddam Strikes Back

During the diplomatic bantering leading up to the early morning attack, President Bush and Secretary Baker both tried to explain to the Iraqis that they didn’t understand what the U.S. Military capabilities truly were. Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, made it quite clear that Iraq understood completely and Iraq would prevail in an embarrassing Coalition defeat.

The Iraqis’ understanding was based on their recent experiences in the Iran/Iraq War. From 1980 to 1989 Iran and Iraq were entangled in a war of attrition on the ground. Neither country had any experience in modern-day warfare. The revolution in Iran had purged all of the military commanders that had been trained in the West. In Iraq, the political situation compelled mediocrity in the military leadership. So, both countries hurled tens of thousands of poorly trained ground forces at each other, each trying to overwhelm the other. Neither country effectively integrated air power into its operations. Iraq’s massive artillery barrages slaughtered Iranian teenage infantry and finally turned the tide after EIGHT long bloody years.

Lacking any experienced military advice, Saddam Hussein could only imagine the Coalition’s capabilities with a perspective from the Iran/Iraq war. He had to believe that his air defense system would deter any air assault and his superior numbers on the ground would inflict thousands of American casualties. He further believed that the American people would not allow the war to continue after the body bags started streaming home. What he did not understand was the nature of modern-day, high-tech warfare and America’s resolve. He could not possibly have imagined his entire air-defense system being rendered impotent from the opening moments of the war. He could not, in his worst nightmare, have envisioned the terror that was about to rain down from the skies with such intensity and deadly accuracy. In the first twenty-four hours, the Coalition flew more sorties than Iraq had seen in the entire eight-year war with Iran, dropping five million pounds of ordnance on targets throughout Iraq and Kuwait.

Two hours after the first bombs fell on Baghdad, the Iraqis initiated a feeble response to the massive punishment