A Military History of the Iraq War Part 1: "Shock and Awe"

the Iraq war is for many of us not quite history it lives in the space of a recent living memory a place where the passage of time has not yet allowed a motion to cool in fact feelings still burn red hot as one goes further back in history conflicts become detached from the partisan political struggles that consume so much of our daily lives and generate such visceral reactions for most consumers of History the fact that David Lloyd George was a member of the liberal party as opposed to what Tory is not a meaningful element of Great War history it would be fair to assume that for most World War II Buffs if Winston Churchill was actually a labor prime minister the way they conceptualized the war would be completely unchanged Iraq however is such recent history that it is still deeply embedded in the partisan struggles of today many of those watching this video will remember the bush presidency and their political affiliation will to a very large degree frame their understanding of the war this remains true even if you are not an American as the war was deeply polarizing all over the Western world indeed in actions like Australia and Britain who were active participants in the conflict Iraq was very much Tony Blair and John Howard's War but more than partisan politics perhaps the defining feature of the Iraq War at least in terms of its popular and non-specialist historiography is the manner in which it was justified we all desire a just War especially when so many young men and women served in Iraq and over 5 000 gave their lives in the pursuit of Victory there this is of course in addition to the 200 000 Iraqis who lost their lives as a result of the american-led invasion and ensuing Civil War when a conflict claims such a high price in Blood and treasure there is a natural desire for a just cause of spell iron the Strategic imperative Advanced by the Bush Administration justifying the invasion of Iraq was the danger posed by saddam's weapons of mass destruction Arsenal specifically his chemical weapons stockpile in a post-9 11 environment it was argued the United States could not tolerate a hostile regime with such a vast wmd capability as an active chemical terrorism could well make 9 11 look like a comparatively minor incident as we now know although there were some chemical weapons in Iraq these were simply remnants of a stockpile and capability that had been largely destroyed by 1999. these two features of the Iraq War its proximity to contemporary partisan politics and the question of the United States justification for the war make it a difficult topic to engage with for the military historian in my experience any discussion of the conflict immediately devolves into an argument about the war's justification its moral and legal status and the truthfulness of the Bush Administration obviously when so much blood has been spilled in so recent a memory the fact that the general public May well have been lied to in the weeks and months leading up to the war in other words the notion that the war was begun under deliberately false pretenses can be all-consuming ultimately we may never know exactly how much of this episode can be explained by the quite well-documented intelligence failure and how much was purely the neo-conservative elements in the Bush Administration pushing for a plausible pretext to remove Saddam Hussein by Force of Arms a policy many had been advocating for years where someone will fall on that Spectrum will again in my experience be largely determined by their politics and wider worldview as important as these questions are they can for these reasons poison a technical military analysis of the war obscuring a fascinating and historically vital conflict one which in many ways defines the unipolar moment and post-cold War Global Order thus for this reason the following discussion will not address the question of how truthful the Bush Administration was prior to the war I am a military historian and this channel is dedicated to Serious military history therefore not only will any discussion of the wars causes Bellow be unproductive it will detract from The Wider purpose of this video what follows is a military history of the Iraq War one that is purely concerned with an analysis of the campaign that is firmly rooted in military history and strategic studies it is simply not a Politico military history such discussions can be left to those who have both the aptitude and interest although questions of Washington's strategic calculus cannot be completely ignored the fundamental question of what actually drove Bush's decision to invade Iraq will not be addressed here on the afternoon of March the 3rd 1991 General Norman Schwarzkopf the Commanding General of U.S Central Command flew into sawfan air base in southern Iraq as he arrived at soften a facility that had only been captured by Coalition forces two days earlier Schwarzkopf and his staff prepared for a meeting of a real historical significance awaiting him at a tent at the edge of the Airfield was a rocky General Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-tai both men were shocked by the circumstances which now confronted them Schwarzkopf had faced a formidable challenge Bathurst Iraq was a globally significant military power when it invaded Kuwait in August 1990 Iraq possessed the fourth largest army in the world it fueled over 60 divisions more than the United Kingdom during the Great War although technologically the Iraqi Army may have lagged behind the premier Soviet formations it was armed and equipped primarily with Soviet equipment and utilized Soviet Doctrine indeed most Iraqi divisions were certainly comparable to second or third echelon Soviet formations its spearhead Republican guard divisions were more comparable to Elite Soviet units prior to the commencement of Operation Desert Storm areas of central Iraq were more heavily defended from Air Attack than Moscow or Eastern Europe furthermore the Iraqi military had been hardened by the fire of eight years of high-intensity war with Iran one of the 20th Century's forgotten conflicts this immense battle hardened and reasonably well-equipped Force had enjoyed some five months to fortify their positions the Coalition forces that were led by General Schwarzkopf spearheaded by the U.S third Army had no right to expect the campaign to liberate Kuwait to be anything other than a brutal slogging match one that would certainly be costly in Allied lives what actually occurred was one of the most lopsided victories in modern military history after a 39-day air campaign arguably the most effective application of air power in all of military history the Iraqi Army was routed in a land campaign that lasted just 100 hours after fainting towards the primary Iraqi defensive line along the Kuwaiti border the Coalition executed a left hook through the impossible desert of central Saudi Arabia culminating in the daring attack by the 18th Airborne Corps which severed the primary ground lines of communication between Baghdad and Kuwait the desert here is nearly impossible to navigate as there are very few roads or settlements but the Iraqis had not really understood the Revolutionary impact of satellite navigation completely outflanked and outmaneuvered by Schwarzkopf the Iraqi military collapsed some 20 000 Iraqis were killed with over 50 000 captured in response Coalition losses amounted to 245 killed although Schwarzkopf did not know it at the time the surrender he signed with General Hashim Ahmad altai on the 3rd of March 1991 was nothing more than a minor interlude in what would be a quarter Century of constant conflict between Iraq and the United States put simply the fighting did not end with the Iraqi surrender in fact from the opening blows of Operation Desert Storm the United States has been fighting in Iraq for some 30 years there are still U.S forces there in 2022 Ally success in Operation Desert Storm was largely the product of nearly two decades of technological and doctrinal development by the United States military although many have derided the capability of the Iraqi military in the subsequent years this is nothing more than an ex post facto justification of Iraq's defeat an attempt to diminish the importance of Desert Storm it was undeniably a revolutionary event one that caused a wholesale re-evaluation of fundamental doctrinal concepts that were the foundation of both Chinese and Russian military strategy of course Allied victory was expected but the ease with which such a large and battle-tested force was eviscerated by the third Army was a truly shocking event in Beijing and Moscow conventional conflicts in the early Cold War had demonstrated that an adequately Armed Force that could generate sufficient Mass would outweigh any possible technological lead a smaller Force could realistically have achieved for example despite their massive advantage in air power the Allied armies could not counter the sheer scale of Chinese forces in Korea the PLA and the Soviet Army tore much lesser degree calculated that even if they lagged behind the Western powers in specific areas of military technology large enough forces could overcome these deficiencies Desert Storm shattered these assumptions there are two primary Elements which are foundational in understanding American success in the Gulf War the first is something called the second offset strategy the Soviet Union was a truly formidable enemy although the United States was a much larger Nation with a larger population and higher GDP the nature of the Soviet economy and system of government allowed it to maintain colossal military forces in fact the USSR was one of the most militarized Nations on Earth various estimates placed direct Soviet military spending as high as 20 percent of GDP which balloons to 40 percent when industries that are connected to the military are included as a percentage of the Soviet economy this level of military expenditure was more than double the United States military budget in essence the highly centralized and authoritarian communist government could keep the Soviet economy on a permanent War footing although this colossal level of peacetime military spending was one of the reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s for the preceding 40 years it posed an immense security challenge for the Western allies warsaw-packed forces were not only extremely heavily armed they outnumbered NATO formations by three to one in Europe the United States could simply not allocate enough economic resources during peacetime to match these massive Soviet forces in order to solve this problem the Americans relied on offset strategies the main idea of an offset strategy is to leverage technology in order to offset your enemy's Superior forces redressing a force ratio disadvantage the first offset strategy was developed during the 1950s predictably enough it's centered on the use of nuclear weapons an area of Technology where the United States had a significant advantage nevertheless by the 1970s the Soviets had achieved a nuclear parity the development and proliferation of the intercontinental ballistic missile the hydrogen bomb and gargantuan nuclear stockpiles had eroded the nuclear Advantage once enjoyed by the allies and the status of mutually assured destruction that now existed between the nuclear Powers had weakened the deterrent effect of NATO's nuclear Arsenal after all if a nuclear exchange was likely to lead to Mutual Annihilation just How likely was a nato-nuclear response in the event of a conventional conflict with the Warsaw Pact thus the United States needed a new second offset strategy to redress the disastrous Force ratio facing nato in Germany something that was only emphasized by the DraStic reduction in military expenditure after Vietnam the second offset strategy specifically aimed to leverage the United States technological strengths in order to gain a significant lead over the Soviets in several key areas of warfare senses intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance precision-guided Munitions stealth and Communications the primary idea was that although the United States could not hope to maintain sufficient forces to match the Soviets during peacetime if the Allied armies were enabled by these new technologies they would stand a good chance of defeating the much larger warsaw-packed forces although this initiative began in the early 1970s arguably its fruits were only realized during operation Death Storm technological development alone is useless if it is not supported by advances in doctrine that are designed to leverage the new capabilities provided by breakthrough Technologies after all if the force operates in exactly the same way the benefits of technological development are unlikely to be realized the technological advances delivered by the second offset strategy were accompanied by a revolutionary doctrinal concept called air Land Battle released in the 1982 doctrinal publication FM 105 AirLand Battle completely upended traditional U.S Doctrine in effect it had changed the American way of War ever since Ulysses S Grant initiated the Overland campaign American Doctrine had been explicitly attritional the primary guiding principle of All American Military commanders through the Civil War to World War II to Vietnam was to bring the enemy's forces to battle and Destroy them for a nation with such vast military potential like the United States an attritional strategy had always been a clear path to Victory as any potential enemy could either be outlasted or outproduced but without nuclear weapons this strategy was unlikely to work against the Soviets yes in a low War the United States would probably have the advantage that that would not save Western Europe from immediate defeat and Soviet Conquest really for the first time in its history air Land Battle reorientated the U.S military away from attrition and towards maneuver maneuver and attrition are not mutually exclusive Concepts any military strategy requires some combination of both however doctrinal Concepts that rely primarily on maneuver aim to disrupt enemy formations by achieving a positional Advantage rather than to Simply destroy them perhaps the archetypal example of a doctrinal concept that emphasized maneuver is the incorrectly named German Blitzkrieg which is juxtaposed to the explicitly attritional French doctrine of methodical operations Airline battle was a doctrinal concept that fundamentally emphasized maneuver American planners identified clear Soviet weaknesses that they believed could be exploited by these new technologies these included predictable echelonment centralized Commander control and rigid battle plans Soviet Doctrine going all the way back to the Deep battle concept of the second world war emphasized the coordination of truly colossal forces to concentrate unimaginable amounts of combat power if allowed to operate freely the Soviet Steamroller was almost Unstoppable however in order to achieve the coordination of such massive heavy and unwieldy forces the Soviets had to rely on a relatively cumbersome command and control apparatus Soviet battle plans had to be highly detailed and allowing excessive low-level initiative was only likely to lead to disorganization and disorder attacking forces were Again by necessity arranged into predictable echelons with first second and third echelon units filling well-defined roles this in turn led to a predictable tempo of Soviet attacks basically in order to effectively coordinate these massive and heavy forces many of which were composed of conscripts the Soviet offensive had to be a well-oiled machine a ballet of Destruction in which everyone knew their role and followed their orders precisely AirLand Battle aimed to throw a wrench in this highly oiled Soviet machine the primary Doctrine or principle which guided Allied commanders was not to kill as many Soviet tanks as possible or to try and stop them cold it was to spread disorder and confusion hopefully leading to the paralysis of the Soviet command and control apparatus the way this was to be achieved was through three-dimensional maneuver through both the land and Air Land Battle emphasized a pair of related Concepts the extended and non-linear Battlefield Allied commanders were trained to think of the battlefield as an area that stretched deep into the enemy rear as far as 200 kilometers it was this area of depth rather than just the line of contact where Allied Forces were intended to operate rather than simply meeting Soviet combined arms armies head on with the aim of stopping them cold NATO core commanders would immediately feel for weak points deep counter attacks striking into the enemy rear were always to be prioritized this was the non-linear Battlefield in Action a series of deeply penetrating core level counter thrusts rather than a traditional line of contact the primary idea was that such a battlefield would impose so much confusion that the highly unwieldy Soviet command to control apparatus would simply be unable to adapt leading to paralysis and panic NATO forces conversely would be far more able to operate in this highly Dynamic battle space Not only was lower level initiative far more highly emphasized in Western militaries but NATO commanders would enjoy the technological fruits of the second offset empowered by pervasive sensors and digital battle networks Western commanders would possess a decisive situational awareness Advantage which would allow them to achieve a wider positional advantage as the name would suggest air power was critical to the AirLand Battle concept obviously air power has always been Central to American Doctrine indeed the Western powers specifically the United States and Great Britain are primarily Aerospace and Naval Powers rather than land powers therefore air power has always been Central to the way the Western allies approach Land Battle however under air Land Battle the application of air power moved away from attrition obviously close air support and interdiction were still core missions however the kind of deep maneuver envisaged by American doctoral planners was really enabled by the Western allies overwhelming air capability rather than simply acting as a force multiplier for land forces the extended Battlefield was to be exploited primarily by air power again enabled by pervasive sensors stealth and precision guided Munitions Western Air power would strike command and control facilities deep into the battle space and air superiority would allow for the maneuver of Airborne and Air mobile forces into the depths of the enemy rear the use of air power to both blind Soviet command and control and to maneuver air mobile forces would be critical in imposing a situation so confusing and dynamic that the highly rigid and centralized Soviet command apparatus would simply cease to function now at full maturity AirLand Battle was on full display during Operation Desert Storm the campaign opened with a hammer blow directed squarely at the Iraqi military central nervous system the first night of operations saw some 2759 combat Saudis employing every available element of Coalition air power from cruise missiles to F-117 Stealth bombers to B-52s although the full spectrum of strategic targets were struck the main weight of the campaign was directed at Iraq's air defenses air bases and the Iraqi militaries command and control complex within days Iraq's integrated air defense system was operating under local control as the centralized command apparatus had been destroyed the combination of new platforms such as the F-117 Nighthawk with pervasive sensors such as the joint Stars Airborne radar aircraft and the heavy use of precision guided Munitions including the Paveway laser-guided bomb allowed for the most impressive application of air power in modern history within a week the Iraqi integrated air defense system was utterly ineffective and Allied Air Forces were able to operate at high altitude with absolute impunity even before the majority of the air defense systems and Fighters were destroyed the lack of centralized Commander control had left them impotent and the Allied Fighters were free to turn on Iraqi Ground Forces when the lands campaign came it also showed the fruits of the Allied shift in Doctrine rather than the straightforward attritional approach which the Iraqis clearly expected Schwarzkopf Unleashed a rapid and deep series of maneuvers in just 100 hours the eight Iraqi Corps in Kuwait and Southern Iraq were completely outmaneuvered the powerful U.S seventh Corps the main Allied strength sliced through the Iraqi right flank like a lance driving over 200 kilometers in four days simply bypassing their main concentrations the 101st Airborne Division conducted the deepest and largest helicopter air assault in history the division moved its forces over 250 kilometers into Iraq reaching the Euphrates river and cutting Highway 8 the primary Iraqi ground line of communication they were 150 kilometers from Baghdad the Iraqis were absolutely stunned by these maneuvers before their main Force had even been engaged the seventh Corps had turned their right flank and Allied Air Assault forces were operating deep in their rear area paralyzed by the speed precision and lethality of Allied Forces Savaged by Allied air power and without any effective centralized command and control the Iraqi Army collapsed the combination of extremely rapid maneuver and precision strikes on a rock's command and control complex enabled by the attainment of air superiority induced a fatal paralysis saddam's forces were placed in Checkmate and less than a week after the ground campaign had begun General Schwarzkopf was its sore fan taking General hashem's surrender as he saw often the case in military history in the fruits of success laid the seeds of future failure and so many of the failings of the second Iraq war can be traced back to the crushing victory in the first encounter this is not due to arrogance or hubris but rather a simple misunderstanding of the implications of future Trends in conflict in essence some of the wrong lessons were learned the early 1990s were a transformational time in the history of the U.S army after the long and harrowing Vietnam experience it had become an organization that was fixated on large-scale conventional conflict in Europe with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War there was a large imperative to reduce the size of the U.S military and to reduce military spending generally in 1989 the army fielded some 18 active field divisions but by 1995 that had shrunk to just 10. the reduction in Personnel that reflected the smaller order of battle was also substantial some 510 000 compared to 770 000 the Marine Corps also shrank by about 10 percent this reduction in personnel and aggregate combat power occurred during a time where expeditionary Warfare began to dominate the US Military sustaining force is very far from their permanent bases posed additional challenges problems that were Complicated by the reduction in personnel in order to make this shortfall in capability the U.S military relied more and more heavily on civilian contractors many of which field critical roles in support and Logistics that had been core Army roles along with the political pressure to reduce the size and weight of the military Washington now faced a new strategic epoch the 30 years between 1991 and 2021 were a strange time within the International System called the unipolar moment during this period the United States assumed a position of global hegemony since the second world war America had been the dominant Western power but with the mighty Soviet Union acting as a counterbalance Washington's power was certainly not unchecked with the core mission of containment now gone the U.S military assumed a far more expeditionary role one that emphasized operations other than War more than high intensity conflict reasonably large-scale deployments in the Balkans Somalia and Haiti in addition to the constant need to deploy military forces to contain Saddam Hussein's still dangerous Iraqi regime imposed a severe operational burden on a military force that was under significant pressure to reduce cost and personnel as the technological advantages provided by the second offset strategy had been so decisive during Operation Desert Storm many military theorists argued that the fundamental nature of warfare had been changed by these new technologies they argued that a revolution in military Affairs or RMA was currently underway the specific technological developments that had been fielded by the United States especially sensors and digital battle networks had revolutionized the fundamental way Warfare was to be conducted RMA Advocates argued that these new systems and Technologies had effectively lifted the fog of War giving American commanders a God's eye view of the battle space with this informational High Ground gained U.S forces would have such a massive Advantage the force multiplication effects of these Technologies would be so profound that small and light American units would be able to easily defeat much larger foes although there were certainly RMA Skeptics throughout the US Army and Marine Corps these ideas gained grounds in the fires intelligence and attack Aviation communities it was not just military theorists who loved the RMA concept but the political class the idea that these critical new technologies would allow the US military to deploy with a much lighter footprint was extremely attractive to various secretaries of defense Donald Rumsfeld in particular became almost intoxicated with the notion that the technological dominance of the U.S military would allow future Wars to be done on the cheap with comparatively small Ground Forces deploying inordinate amounts of combat power these ideas would have a profound impact on the course of the war after the fall of saddam's regime by 1996 these peacekeeping and low intensity operations were consuming the equivalent of four of the Army's 10 active divisions this level of deployment was basically unsustainable as generally speaking a ratio of three to one was required for long-term deployments in order to maintain standards of training in order to generate more available forces the Army adopted a new primary unit of maneuver the Brigade combat team with a personal strength of 3500 these modular brigades were roughly one third of a division and contained all of the supporting assets and capabilities required to operate independently with Organic artillery intelligence engineering Logistics elements a brigade combat team could be deployed anywhere and operate alone nevertheless as the structure was modular divisions could be built from any combination of Brigade combat teams which could operate under any of the divisional headquarters this new flexibility and modularity allowed for the US military to much more rapidly deploy its forces by increasing strategic Mobility for Operation Desert Storm the Coalition was allowed nearly six months to build up their forces allowing for full divisions and core to be moved from Europe to Saudi Arabia this luxury was unlikely in future conflicts the flagship of these new more mobile formations was the striker Brigade unlike armored or light infantry brigades these formations relied on a family of wheeled light armored vehicles called a striker essentially a medium formation the striker brigades provided a speed of deployment and number of boots on the ground comparable to a light infantry Brigade but with the Tactical Mobility Firepower and protection there was more comparable to an armored formation these new lighter and more mobile formations would rely on technological advances in ISR to maintain situational awareness rather than using traditional combined arms organizations to conduct continuous reconnaissance and develop the situation in close contact with enemy forces as was more typical Doctrine thus as the year 2000 approached the U.S military was a much different beast in comparison to the army of General Schwarzkopf it was much lighter smaller and even more technologically advanced driven by a belief in the revolution in military affairs this process of emaciation was only accelerated under the Bush Administration much like Robert McNamara during the Vietnam war Donald Rumsfeld was a secretary of defense that had very strong beliefs about the way the U.S military should be structured and how it should operate a True Believer in the RMA Paradigm when it came to the implications of the second offset Technologies Rumsfeld stood at odds with U.S army leadership who wanted a far more evolutionary approach the Chiefs found themselves defending Legacy Force capabilities which were under severe threat of liquidation to be replaced by Cutting Edge though generally unproven Technologies the prospect of exchanging current capabilities for future possibilities was deeply unsettling for many within the upper command echelon fueled by the belief that U.S technology had fundamentally changed the nature of War ramsfeld's army would be lighter smaller and cheaper rather ironically during the 2000 presidential campaign Bush was deeply critical of the long-term low-intensity deployments that had characterized U.S posture throughout the 1990s in fact during his confirmation hearing Rumsfeld told Congress that I don't think it's necessarily true that the United States has to become a great peacekeeper and later remarked about Afghanistan that he deliberately intended to keep U.S forces in the theater small and to not engage in what some call nation building thus the U.S army of 2001 was a very different organization to 1991 and the fundamental assumptions and Concepts that had underpinned much of its reform were about to be tested in some of the longest wars the nation had ever waged as the U.S army was reorienting its forces for future high-intensity conflict the Iraqi military was on an altogether different course it too was undergoing transformational change Saddam Hussein had learned very different lessons from the Gulf War the fact that Coalition forces had stopped short of regime change in the wake of the devastating defeat in 1991 left him utterly bemused as there was literally nothing he could do to defend himself yet the Western allies had stopped short of a total victory that was all but assured what Saddam concluded from this puzzling level of restraint was that the Western allies had no appetite for changing the regime in Baghdad and thus inheriting the mess that would surely ensue therefore it became a fundamental strategic assumption in Baghdad that as devastating as the U.S led Coalition was from a military perspective the Western Powers did not pose an existential threat to his regime Saddam calculated the United States scarred by the recent and harrowing experience of Vietnam would not embark on another messy campaign of nation-building and counter-insurgency nevertheless and despite the reprieve George Bush Senior had given him for a short period in 1991 saddam's rule teetered on the brink Iraq under Saddam Hussein was ruled by a political party called the Arab socialist Bathurst party a pan-arab socialist movement that aimed to replace the colonial Powers with an Arab state in 1966 this pan-arab movement split into Iraqi and Syrian factions the later of which still exists under the leadership of Bashar al-assad a rock under the Bathurst was a one-party State one that used an iron fist to rule over a fractured Nation Iraq was deeply divided along political sectarian and ethnic lines like many post-colonial constructions modern Iraq is driven by centrifugal forces that constantly drive it towards fragmentation although primarily an Arab Nation the north of Iraq is a Kurdish area the Kurds are in Indo-European people who speak a different language and are ethnically distinct The Wider population of Mesopotamian Arabs are divided along sectarian lines almost uniquely from Muslim Nation Iraq is nearly evenly split between the two great houses of the Muslim faith Shia and Sunni Islam although reliable statistics are hard to find around a third of the population are Sunni with the other two-thirds shear whilst Bathurst Iraq was nominally a secular government saddam's regime was dominated by the Sunni minority fearful of the connections between Iraq's sheer population and the Iranian Islamic Republic also a sheer Nation Saddam had imposed a sectarian Purge leaving the majority of the Iraqi population excluded from government to add to this cauldron of instability Saddam also had many domestic political enemies who were opposed to his Monopoly on political power and brutal authoritarian dictatorship for Schwarzkopf and the other Allied commanders the Iraqis surrender at sorfan was the end of the war but for the Iraqi generals sitting across from them it was only the beginning on February the 15th 1991 President George Herbert Walker Bush employed the Iraqi people to remove Saddam themselves telling a global television audience there is another way for the Bloodshed to stop and that is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside the Iraqis did just that within days of the March 3 ceasefire sheer crowds and army deserters had overrun every major city in southern Iraq and were openly fighting Bathurst party loyalists with the share now on the streets the Supreme Council for the Islamic revolution in Iraq and the bada Corps two iranian-backed groups that had been established during the iran-iraq war crossed the border and took Basra Iraq's second largest city in the north Kurdish peshmerga of the Kurdistan Democratic party or KDP and patriotic Union of Kurdistan otherwise known as the PUK took control of the major cities in Iraqi Kurdistan the Kurds wish to create an autonomous Zone in the north and punish saddam's regime for the murderous NFL campaign waged against them by March the 20th the Iraqi interfada was in full swing and roughly half of the country had fallen to different Rebel groups the rebellion was short-lived however several Elite Republican guard divisions escaped Kuwait essentially intact and began advancing into the rebel-held territories neither the Kurds nor the sheer militias were a match for these heavily armed formations as Iraqi tanks began moving into Basra the bada Corps fought back the small arms but the issue was never really in doubt American formations in southern Iraq watched as the enemy they had just defeated crushed the uprising they themselves have called for desperation the rebels in bass recalled for American Aid but again not wanting to become embroiled in an Iraqi Civil War the Coalition forces remained in their positions this abandonment led to a generation of sheer resentment against the United States in the north the Kurds were in for a repeat of the unfail campaign an Iraqi operation that led to 100 000 Kurdish fatalities here the praetorian Republican guard retook Kurdish possessions with brutal efficiency this may have included additional chemical weapons strikes on civilian areas by April the regime had retaken all of Iraq's major cities saddam's rule had been firmly re-established and bathurst's death squads were now roaming Rebel areas leaving Mass graves in their wake tens of thousands of Iraqis had been killed in the interfada and over one million had fled to Iraq and turkey Operation Desert Storm and the resulting Rebellion had completely recalibrated saddam's strategic priorities as is often the case in authoritarian one-party States the interests of the party are synonymous with the interests of the state and thus the security services generally were now completely reorientated against what Saddam erroneously viewed as the primary threat to his regime his internal enemies after all the Americans had shown that they had no appetite for regime change but the Rebellion had nearly cost him everything the 60 divisions that were decimated by the Coalition in Kuwait were never fully reconstituted the post 1991 Iraqi Army shrank to five Corps of 18 divisions and two Corps of Republican guard not only were these very large forces no insurance against Western military aggression but without the foreign military aid of both the west and Soviet Union which Iraq had enjoyed throughout the war with Iran these forces were unsustainable in any case Lieutenant General rad hamdan the commander of the Republican guard argued that the massive and heavy armored forces that Iraq had relied upon were simply no match for the American Military given their technological advantages and therefore there was no point in building them Iraq would be better served especially given its new focus on internal security by lighter formations the greatest change in the Iraqi Army throughout the decade of the 1990s was the proliferation of paramilitary forces the Iraqi military had been dominated by the twin pillars of the army and Republican guard but by 1995 these had been supplemented by other forces that were more closely linked to the Bathurst party itself the largest of these new paramilitary forces was the federine Saddam a Bathurst militia that was commanded by saddam's eldest son the particularly unpleasant Uday Hussein the fiercely loyal fetty numbered about 40 000 and although most were sunnis a large number of Shia had been recruited from the lower class neighborhoods of baghdad's Saddam city which had been renamed Sada City in 2003. this area was essentially a Shia slum that had been created by the Bathurst party as a place for displaced tribesmen to live after the draining of the Marshland of Southern Iraq an act that had destroyed a tribal way of life which had persisted for millennia although these new paramilitary forces may have made saddam's regime more secure from his internal enemies especially the feared fitting in Saddam they only diverted scarce resources away from the Iraqi Army a force that was still reeling from the devastating defeat it had endured at the hands of Schwarzkopf one of the most important developments within the Iraqi military throughout the 1990s was its islamization the bathys were an explicitly secular party one that viewed the islamist movements as a threat nevertheless in an attempt to improve his internal legitimacy Saddam began to align the regime with Islam the national Faith campaign included the building of mosques the state's sponsorship of religious clerics and the inclusion of Allah Akbar on the Iraqi flag Saddam even ordered religious Scholars to discover his supposed descent from the Prophet Muhammad although much of this was simply for public consumption there were some significant changes thousands of Iraqi Military Officers and intelligence officials were sent to study under salafi clerics a Sunni movement that Saddam thought of as less threatening than the Muslim Brotherhood this would have very serious consequences after the invasion the 12-year interlude between operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom should certainly not be Called Peace with saddam's regime still intact there was a need to contain Iraq with U.S military power for most of the decade the U.S imposed a no-fly zone over large areas of Iraq which had to be constantly patrolled and enforced combat between Iraqi surfaced to wear missile batteries and Allied aircraft was not uncommon as an example in 2002 alone Iraqi air defenses attacked Coalition aircraft on 500 occasions prompting 90 Coalition airstrikes in response patrolling the contested northern and southern no-fly zones eventually involved as many as 200 aircraft and 7500 Airmen on a daily basis this policing action was interspersed by more serious air campaigns the largest of which was Operation Desert Fox launched in late 1998 as a response to persistent interference with un weapons inspectors desert fox was a large-scale four-day air campaign Angel Iraq's chemical and biological weapon capability over 200 aircraft were involved in the operation which led to the destruction of more than 100 Iraqi facilities including much of Iraq's wmd manufacturing capacity ground forces were also deployed to Kuwait in order to deter future Iraqi aggression which for most of the 1990s amounted to a single Brigade or armored Cavalry Regiment this force was supplemented by several battalions deployed along Iraq's northern border to protect the Kurdish refugees that had concentrated there in all these military operations constituted a low intensity conflict between Iraq and the United States that lasted until 2003 a state of affairs described by military historian Richard Swain as neither War nor not war indeed tensions between the Clinton Administration and Iraq only grew as the 1990s Drew on Saddam was undeterred from irritating the International Community writ large especially by taking such actions as intervening in a Kurdish Civil War and constantly interfering with U.N mandated weapons inspectors in June 1996 U.N officials had destroyed a germ warfare facility in the desert 60 kilometers from Baghdad but they were prevented from Gaining access to other wmd sites in the pre-911 period the security challenge posed by Iraq dominated the U.S political and strategic community many pundits and politicians especially near conservative writers such as Paul wolfowitz were advocating the removal of saddam's regime by Force of Arms in an example of how much Iraqi regime change had become a U.S strategic priority in October 1998 the Iraq Liberation Act was passed with widespread bipartisan support the Act made regime change in Iraq an official U.S strategic objective although the president was not authorized to use Force to achieve it as much as the post-9 11 discussion of weapons of mass destruction dominated the political discussion around the 2003 Invasion and indeed is still Paramount in most people's conception of the war it is perhaps not the best Paradigm through which to understand the conflict I would argue that operation Iraqi Freedom was merely the second act in a war that had begun in 1990 and although saddam's chemical and biological warfare capability was always of importance it was never the driving Factor behind us policy towards Iraq that the Bush Administration portrayed us in many ways there was as much continuity in Bush Junior's Iraq policy as there was Radical change with this simmering low-intensity conflict with Iraq occasionally boiling over the Pentagon began planning for a full-scale invasion the Iraq Liberation act had clearly shown that regime change was a strategic objective for the Clinton Administration and thus U.S Central Command began laying the foundations for a large-scale land invasion of Iraq in 1999 under General Anthony C zinni U.S centcom Commander U.S military planners conducted exercise desert Crossing which was designed to simulate an Iraqi regime collapse its results were not positive cine's planners judged that political and Military planning for an invasion and post sadharma Rock should begin immediately because of the immense long-term challenges regime collapse would pose They concluded that an intervention in Iraq would be costly in terms of casualties and resources and regime change may not bring stability because of factors including hostile neighbors fragmentation along religious and or ethnic lines and Chaos created by rival forces bidding for power 911 brought a new sense of urgency to U.S planning for an invasion of Iraq within just six weeks of the terror attacks whilst the invasion of Afghanistan was still raging the U.S political and Military leadership began to focus on Iraq on the 27th of November 2001 the new centcom Commander General Tommy Franks was asked to provide updated options for a ground invasion of Iraq he was given the following campaign objectives 1. Iraq's regime enablers leadership and power base destroyed 2. Iraq's wmd capability eliminated three Iraq retains sufficient forces to defend itself but no longer has the power to threaten Neighbors 4. Iraq has an acceptable provisional government in place and five Iraq's territorial Integrity remains intact this request reportedly left General Frank's incredulous he and his staff were fully engaged with the campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and now Rumsfeld wanted options for a completely unrelated invasion of Iraq nonetheless sent com staff assembled a small team and began planning in earnest the initial campaign plan for the invasion envisaged a single Army Corps augmented by Marines advancing out of Kuwait and only securing Southern Iraq this would act as a prerequisite for follow-on operations towards Baghdad as the plans for the invasion of Iraq began to mature Franks came under intense pressure from runsfeld and his Deputy wolfowitz to reduce the size of U.S forces the relative ease of American victory over the Taliban with what was primarily special forces in air power seemed to validate rumsfeld's belief in the RMA he was adamant that the Afghanistan model could be applied to Iraq as well which was a foundational Assumption of the invasion planning at every turn Franks was implored to reduce the footprint of U.S forces and the timeline for their deployment the constant back and forth between centcom and the Secretary of Defense consumed valuable planning time the second assumption that underpinned the campaign was that the United States could simply liberate Iraq rather than occupy it and leave the rest to the locals this was a favorite pet of wolfowitz who continually compared the operation to World War II wolfowitz and Rumsfeld argued that the large elements of Iraqi society that were hostile to Saddam would welcome U.S forces and establishing an acceptable provisional government would not be difficult finally it was assumed that the majority of the Iraqi Army would not fight and indeed much of it could be called back into service by the coalition to provide security further reducing the need for the United States to deploy large enough forces to provide security themselves it was these fundamental assumptions that led to the development of a disastrous campaign plan one that had a relatively light ground component for The Invasion and near simultaneous air and ground attack and few forces or detailed planning dedicated to post regime Iraq ramsfeld argued that just as Afghanistan had shown the Americans would be welcomed as liberators and the Iraqi Army would be able to provide security for the new enlightened and hopefully Democratic Iraqi government the first pass set of plans provided by General Franks were two options codenamed running start and generated start the primary plan was Generator start here sent com envisaged a force of two full core composed of between five and six Army Marine and Coalition divisions from the president's order to initiate the operation the Pentagon would have 90 days to deploy the First full core to Kuwait D-Day would commence whilst the remaining Corps was on route Maneuvers to isolate Baghdad would take approximately 45 days with regime destruction taking an additional 90. the total campaign was estimated to last 215 days after which time U.S forces could begin to withdraw of the two running start had the far smaller footprint the main idea of running start was to initiate combat operations without a lengthy deployment time in stock contrast to Operation Desert Storm running start envisaged the immediate initiation of combat operations by a force of just two divisions one marine and one Army whilst the main combat force a full core was still redeploying the air campaign would begin on day one of combat operations running start was really more of a contingency plan designed to enable centcom to react rapidly if Saddam took some drastic action such as initiating a spoiling attack against Kuwait for both plans the air campaign would begin on D-Day this was designed to surprise the Iraqis who certainly expected a repeat of Operation Desert Storm The increased precision and lethality of U.S air power would make a lengthy Preparatory air campaign unnecessary as air superiority could be basically achieved on day one or two unsurprisingly Rumsfeld had a very different vision for the campaign he wanted smaller forces and shorter deployment times he argued that the contingency plan running start should be the foundational campaign plan ramsfield was a micromanager he was known to constantly send ideas to his subordinates called snowflakes in the Pentagon because of the Avalanche of paperwork they generated in April 2002 Rumsfeld sent Franks a paper written by Harlan K Ullman and James P Wade called Shock and ore a piece of military Theory shock and or Advance the argument that rapid dominance could be achieved over an enemy by quick and decisive military campaigns in essence by rapidly striking the enemy with successive Hammer blows enabled by lethal long-range strike systems a much smaller Force could impose its will on a larger Enemy by inducing shock and ore in the opposing command echelon the core idea was related to the fundamental principles upon which AirLand Battle Doctrine was built specifically targeting the enemy Command Decision cycle oodle Loop and command and control apparatus more generally however shock and awe took the idea to its extreme Harlan and Wade argued that speed was much more important than Mass stating that a relatively small Ground Force must arrive suddenly strike without remorse and terminate their presence quickly before the adversary had the opportunity to recover both argued that the United States could topple saddam's regime with a division-sized element or less roughly 10 000 troops these ideas had a profound influence on Rumsfeld and would thus do much to shape the campaign Army leadership however was highly skeptical of the rather grandiose claims made by Rumsfeld ulman and Wade although the core concept of the shock and all Paradigm creating paralysis in the enemy command Echelon was generally seen as desirable the tiny forces advocated were they argued both in Practical and unsound the initial Force Level for generated start with some 385 000 personnel by the late spring of 2002 that Force had been whittled down to 275 000 a level which rum spelled still called way too heavy Rumsfeld suggested that the two brigades that were already in Kuwait roughly 7 000 Personnel would suffice for an invasion of Iraq Franks strongly disagreed with this ridiculous proposal studying the rather obvious fact that even if the Iraqis chose not to fight those forces lacked the logistics to even make it to Baghdad in the summer of 2002 the final campaign plan was developed essentially a hybrid option the new campaign plan would try and match the speed of running start with the force levels of generated start initial combat operations on D-Day would be initiated by just two divisions one Army and one Marine supported by Special Forces a force of some thirty thousand however as these formations moved into Iraq the full generated start force of over 200 000 would deploy to Kuwait and follow the spearheads all of which would be operational within two months if possible a division size formation would attack through turkey and into Northern Iraq it had taken nine months of arguing with Rumsfeld and wolfowitz to get even this limited hybrid plan approved they were two amateurs who were enamored by the promise that the technology the United States military now fielded had fundamentally altered the nature of warfare meaning the foundational principles of military campaigns such as sustainment Logistics Force protection and projection no longer mattered to Rumsfeld Franks and the Army leadership were preparing to fight the last war they were stuck in an Antiquated Paradigm that prevented them from seeing the Revolutionary implications of the technological lead the United States had now acquired the old rules that dominated Frank's planning no longer applied events would show just how mistaken Rumsfeld was as even the hybrid plan he derided as being still too heavy would prove to be woefully inadequate as 2003 turned into 2004. in any case the constant back and forth had consumed so much planning time and the timeline for the invasion was constantly being reduced that almost no time and resources had been expended on what turned out to be the most critical part of the campaign actually securing saddam's wmd capability and phase four post hostility operations when Frank's returned from meeting the president in June 2002 he announced to his staff at centcom that it was no longer a matter of if they were going to invade Iraq but when clearly the decision had been made long before Colin Powell made his Infamous speech to the U.N General Assembly or Hans Blix presented his report on the state of Iraq's wmd program to the U.N security Council both of which occurred in February 2003 evidently Iraq's wmd program was not the primary factor driving U.S policy towards Iraq at least not in the way it was portrayed to the public in fact barely any planning time was devoted to dealing with saddam's wmd infrastructure once the regime fell an indication of just how lower priority this actually was for the administration Saddam was slow to realize the danger he was now in as these fateful decisions were being made in Washington the Bathurst regime was still squarely focused on its internal enemies Iraq's wider military and security posture was still centered on regime's Survival rather than conventional conflict with the United States the Iraqi military was organized in concentric Rings raiding out from Baghdad saddam's center of gravity the regular Iraqi Army was deployed along the South and Eastern borders covering Kuwait and Iran the closer one moved towards Baghdad itself the stronger the defenses became with the internal security services the Federal in Saddam Elite Republican guard divisions and the majority of the air defenses all concentrated there despite the tough sanctioned regime the Iraqis had improved their integrated air defense system with dedicated fiber optic Communications linking surface-to-air missile batteries with a centralized Fire Control complex although the scale of Iraq's integrated our defense system was certainly smaller than it had been in 1991 and the Iraqi Air Force was basically non-existent what was left had all been concentrated around Baghdad in the south of the country there were two Iraqi Corps facing Kuwait and a number of Republican guard formations had been deployed to keep an eye on the Kurds in the North and the Shia in the south the interwar years had been hard for the regular Iraqi Army Shattered by the defeat suffered at the hands of the Coalition and starved by years of tight sanctions its morale was low and its equipment which was although not altogether outdated in 1991 had not been markedly improved they were still generally Fielding last generation Soviet Armament such as the t-72 main battle tank and bmp2 infantry fighting vehicle these were certainly still serviceable platforms but they were no longer at The Cutting Edge of military technology Iraqi formations were heavily armed however with large contingent of main battle tanks towed artillery and infantry fighting vehicles primarily composed of conscripts these regular Army divisions were generally of a low fighting quality and U.S plan has expected many of these formations to surrender rather than fight Saddam fielded 16 regular Army divisions arrayed in five core with a total strength exceeding 300 000. the Republican guard divisions were however far more formidable composed almost completely of contract soldiers these formations received better pay more training and the best equipment available to the regime they were saddam's primary form of regime security protecting him from both internal rebellion and any attempted a coup the Republican guard was under the command of saddam's son kusai Hussein a rock fielded six of these divisions deployed into core about a single field Army's worth with a total strength of some seventy thousand the final major element of the Iraqi military the paramilitary ferian Saddam were generally dispersed amongst Iraq's major cities the fetty in was really more suited to counterinsurgency Adept at using brutal violence and indiscriminate killing they were ideologically motivated and loyal to the regime but generally lacked the heavy weapons required to take on a western military in a heads-up engagement in an open field they were however more dangerous in the cities where the urban environment provided cover in all including the other Security Services Saddam deployed a force of roughly half a million men although the majority aware of dubious value even at maximum strength Coalition forces would be at number two to one in the opening phase that force would be approximately five to one such was the technological and qualitative Advantage enjoyed by the United States and its allies by late 2002 even Sudan began to realize his enemy's intentions once their position in Kuwait was Secure the United States and United Kingdom began a very public campaign to gain support for an invasion both to their domestic political audiences and the International Community despite a decade of conflict with the West Saddam had not really prepared the regime for this storm to come U.S restraint in Desert Storm and operations such as Mogadishu had convinced him that Washington was incapable of sustaining even a moderate level of military casualties and thus was so risk-averse that an invasion was all but impossible this was a fatal mistake it was only a matter of months before the war that direct planning for the defense of Iraq began Iraq's defensive concepts for the campaign was a form of Defense in depth he would array his forces in a series of concentric circles or rings with his elite units concentrated around regime's strongholds such as to crit and his center of gravity Baghdad arax geography meant these Rings were really just a series of defensive positions along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the south of Baghdad and a comparable series of positions along his Northern flank around masul and kirkuk generally speaking Iraq is its rivers and river valleys this is where the population is and it is in these areas that the major road networks are to the West is the endless western and southern desert and to the East are the mountains of Iran Iraqi command was concerned about an attack from Jordan as U.S forces began to concentrate there and some limited formations called the Western desert Force were dispatched describe this axis Saddam assumed that he would lose territory in the South but concluded that it would take Coalition forces several months to breach his Southern defenses and threatened Baghdad which would buy him significant time to Garner support from the International Community many major Powers including U.S allies such as France and Germany were vocal critics of the invasion and Saddam was counting on his ability to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on the Bush Administration Iraq's military leaders were much more sanguine Lieutenant General Kenan mansua Khalil al-ubaidi the dean of the Iraqi Military Academy later remembered that we Military Officers knew that the war was coming and it would be the end I knew U.S forces would go for Baghdad and those forces would go all the way we also knew of the U.S fighting capabilities both Saddam and his generals were in agreement about one thing The Invasion would only come after a long air campaign in the vein of Desert Storm to counter this threat Iraqi command decided to disperse its forces Supply dumps and command and control facilities as widely as possible they judge that the Americans would utilize three primary axis of attack which would all Converge on Baghdad one from Turkey in the north driving along the main highways that ran from mosul to cook from Jordan in the west through ramadi and then the main effort from Kuwait in the South the major ground lines of communication ran through Basra Iraq's Second City then split with highways leading to nasseria and amra before converging on could and continuing up the Tigris to Baghdad these assumptions were badly flawed and it was only on the very Eve of the invasion when it finally became clear that turkey would not allow U.S forces to attack from the north that Saddam actually reinforced his Southern defenses in what was actually a very skillful and well-executed operation the whole Nebuchadnezzar division of the Republican guard left their vehicles in place at Kirk cook and quietly moved to the Babel promise near Kabbalah a large-scale troop movement that went completely undetected by the coalition despite these defensive plans and Maneuvers simple reality was the Iraqi military was completely unprepared for the storm that was about to be Unleashed upon them despite their relatively small numbers the Coalition forces that were gathering in Kuwait represented a truly awesome concentration of military power whether the revolution in military Affairs turned out to be myth or reality the simple fact is the combination of pervasive sensors digital Communications and precision guided Munitions had a powerful impact on the Western Way of War especially in the use and utility of air power these systems technologies and platforms acted as Force multipliers drastically increasing the combat power a certain platform or formation could generate as opposed to the nearly 30 Iraqi divisions under Saddam Hussein just four Coalition divisions were concentrated in Kuwait on the Left Flank was the U.S fifth Corps which would Advance up the Euphrates towards karbala and najaf there were two formations under the fifth core headquarters the 101st Airborne and third infantry divisions the 101st was composed as an air assault formation meaning the division could conduct Airborne operations by helicopter whole battalions could be inserted by helicopter hundreds of miles Behind Enemy territory which was a key capability underpinning U.S Doctrine the main body of the fifth core was the heavy third infantry division which in many other armies would be considered an armored formation in 2003 the division fielded three combined arms brigades including four regiments of tanks and six regiments of mechanized Infantry the two divisions complemented one another the 101st could conduct deep Air Assault operations that would pave the way for the armored spearheads of the Third to the right of the fifth core was the first Marine Expeditionary Force the main component of which was the first Marine Division this formation would be responsible for engaging the major formation to the southern Iraq the Iraqi third and fourth Corps establishing a Bridgehead over the Euphrates at nasseria and then driving on Baghdad through the Tigris River Valley Baghdad saddam's Fortress and center of gravity would then be attacked by a pincer with the fifth core advancing up the Euphrates and the first Marine Expeditionary Force along the Tigris on the right of the Marines was a British formation the first Armored Division which would attack towards the city of bassron a fifth was planned to enter Iraq from Turkey the fourth infantry division augmented by the 173rd Airborne Brigade however this operation was canceled when the Turkish Parliament withdrew its support for the invasion the 10th Special Forces Group would however begin operations in Iraqi Kurdistan the fourth infantry division would be rooted through Kuwait and enter Iraq as a second Echelon formation reinforcing and exploiting the advance made by the first four divisions these units were under the third Army's Coalition forces land component command and army Level headquarters that coordinated the operations of all large units of maneuver this american-led Coalition was really more of an anglo-american alliance operating alongside the Americans was a significant British contingent centered on the powerful first Armored Division with special forces and Royal Marine elements in support the British contingent made up a full quarter of the initial attacking Force as previously stated the first Armored Division constituted the Allied right flank which would Advance on Basra Iraq's Second City this would become Britain's tactical area of responsibility throughout the war the other major Coalition Partners were Australia and Poland who both deployed significant Special Forces contingents along with their British and American counterparts Australian Special Air Service patrols were operating inside Iraq in the weeks prior to the invasion for a period in February an Australian sasr Patrol was the closest Allied element to Baghdad both the Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force contributed fast jet elements supporting the Coalition armies was a powerful concentration of air power at its peak the Coalition Air Force has deployed some 1 801 aircraft including tactical Fighters bombers tankers and ISR platforms in all the U.S Air Force contributed some 863 aircraft to the campaign with the remainder taken up by the U.S Navy and Marine Corps U.S allies primarily the Royal Air Force and Royal Australian Air Force squadrons contributed some 80 tactical Fighters the naval power allocated to the operation was no less formidable by March 20 2003 there were no less than five U.S Navy carrier battle groups operating in the Persian Gulf with the carrier's USS Kitty Hawk constellation Theodore Roosevelt Abraham Lincoln and Harry S Truman all operational in the theater these carrier forces were supported by four amphibious ready groups composed of seven major amphibious ships either lhds or lhas providing escort for these carrier and amphibious forces were five nuclear attack submarines nine Ticonderoga class cruises 15 Ali Burke and Superman's class destroyers and six Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates undeniably it was not only the coalition's commanding technological superiority that allowed for The Invasion to be conducted with such small Ground Forces but this awesome mass of air and Naval power the preliminary air campaign that everyone had assumed would come before The Invasion began on March the 9th however it was not the mass PGM bombardment that the Iraqi generals had imagined rather than laser-guided bombs the Americans were dropping leaflets these small paper documents urged Iraqi soldiers to capitulate rather than fight Special Forces operating in Northern Iraq delivered signed letters to couriers who were supposed to take them to Iraqi generals offering them immunity if they surrendered to the coalition others warned Iraqi officers and men not to destroy oil infrastructure or employ chemical weapons the success of these psychological operations was at best patchy although very few oil wells were destroyed by the Iraqi Army this may be explained by Iraqi officers simply ignoring commands from Baghdad and in the end most Iraqi units decided to fight rather than surrender although some units faced widespread desertions after the leaflet drops the expected large-scale capitulations did not materialize post-war interrogations showed that threats from the regime prevented many from leaving their posts and that the Arabic on the documents were so poor that many Iraqis were confused as to what they were being told to do the leaflet campaign did have one unintended impact Iraqi generals and officers were reportedly badly shaken by the accuracy of the leaflet drops Coalition aircraft dropped the unguided pdu-5b leaflet dispenser right on top of supposedly well camouflaged fighting positions and divisional headquarters if the Americans could drop paper so precisely what would happen when they switched to high explosive things came to a head on the 17th of March 2003. speaking on national television President Bush announced the United States intention to go to war with Iraq citing U.N security Council resolution 1411 which when read favorably authorized the use of force to disarm Iraq Bush presented the Iraqi regime with an ultimatum Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours it was in essence a declaration of war on the evening of the 19th of March the Coalition had received intelligence that Saddam and his sons would be staying at a bunker complex just outside of Baghdad called Dora Farms briefing the president the CIA believed that effective strike now could decapitate the regime possibly ending the war before it had begun they assessed that Saddam would be there between 1 and 3 A.M local time Bush agreed to an airstrike but decided to wait until the 48-hour ultimatum had passed at 4 30 a pair of F-117 Nighthawks proud the dark sky Over Baghdad each one carried a pair of two thousand pound e gbu27 laser and GPS guided bunker Blaster bombs at 4 42 am these weapons impacted the Dora Farms complex leaving nothing more than a massive crater But Not only was Saddam not there the command marker did not exist the first blow strap in the war was perhaps paradigmatic of the conflict as a whole the technological Brilliance of a PGM strike by stealth aircraft in the heart of Baghdad still one of the most heavily defended pieces of airspace in the world combined with an abject intelligent failure it was a taste of what was to come in response to the strike on Dora Farms Iraq launched a barrage of 17 scud missiles at Coalition bases in Kuwait all of which either missed their targets or were shot down by ground-based air defense systems Saddam now knew the war had begun centcom's original plan had envisaged a nine Hour Air bombardment prior to the initiation of the conventional ground campaign supplemented by a large Special Forces insertion 48 hours prior to both nevertheless the striker Dora Farms had necessitated a change in plan not only were the Iraqis now fully aware of the coalition's intentions UAV footage showed what appeared to be attempts to destroy oil infrastructure in southern Iraq the time now against him Franks decided to act he ordered the ground forces to attack before the air campaign had begun right as the Coalition armies began preparing to advance out of Kuwait General Franks was informed that British forces may have to be withheld British Prime Minister Tony Blair faced a mutiny within the labor party one that nearly brought down his government and there were questions in London over the legality of military action against Iraq with just 24 hours notice Franks was informed that a quarter of his heavy forces may have to remain in Kuwait General abizade the deputy land Force Commander concluded that the loss of the British division would jeopardize the whole mission it was only six hours before Coalition forces crossed the border the centcom got final confirmation that British forces would participate in the invasion protecting Iraqi oil infrastructure was a key Coalition objective as using oil Revenue to fund the Reconstruction effort was a key element of the campaign plan thus with the detected threat to oil infrastructure in the South the third Army combined forces Commander General David McKeon decided to attack as soon as possible ordering the third and 101st divisions and first Marine Expeditionary force to move rapidly to their Attack start lines the border between Iraq and Kuwait was defined by a high sand berm which had to be physically deconstructed before Coalition forces could advance once sufficient holes have been made by bulldozer the first Battalion seventh Marines crossed the border into Iraq the time was 4 AM March the 21st 2003. because of the complex targeting plan the Coalition forces air component Commander Lieutenant General Michael Buzz Mosley could not bring forward the air campaign thus to the shock of the Iraqis for 17 hours the heavy Coalition Ground Forces attacked into Iraq without major air support this proved to be a stroke of Genius the leaflet drops had supported saddam's assumption that the initial Ally blow would be struck by the Air Forces with a lengthy air campaign followed by a limited ground offensive thus none of the Iraqi forces or commanders were expecting to fight a land battle on the 21st of March many fled at the mere site of heavy mechanized brigades advancing upon them by attacking early and without air support centcom had achieved strategic surprise as soon as the Allied Forces crossed the burn they began advancing rapidly towards their objectives indeed over and above the surprise of a land Invasion without an air campaign the ability of Coalition forces to maneuver also came as a shock to the Iraqis on the right flank the U.S Marines and first Armored Division began advancing on L4 um kasar and the rumala oil fields the first unit to make contact with Iraqi forces were British Royal Marines aided by Special Forces and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit third Commando Brigade Advanced on un kasar Iraq's largest port the Iraqi 51st mechanized division was rapidly pushed back with several Bridges taken by Coalition forces however as they entered the city the Marines faced determined resistance throughout the 23rd an intense pitched battle was fought in the industrial area between USMC elements and Iraqi infantry who held their positions resolutely pinned down by sniper and machine gun fire the Marines were unable to advance only after several Special Forces teams both Navy Seals and polish Grom elements launched a night assault was the town cleared although some Iraqis had surrendered clearly many were determined to fight with umkasar handed over to British forces the 15th Emmy you rejoined the first Marine Expeditionary Force as it secured the southern oil fields and drove on its first major objective nazarea leaving the city of Basra to the first Armored Division apparently the Ground Force Commander had expected British forces to advance with the Marines towards nasseria however they were ordered by their own National command to focus on Basra on the Left Flank the fifth Corps began rapidly advancing North General McKinnon responded by directing the third infantry division fifth core's main effort to attack towards talil Airfield near nasseria here the third Army intended to establish its main Logistics base to support the drive on Baghdad nasseria is the key to Southern Iraq a major road Junction from this city the two major highways the only major axis of Advance Branch out with one leading North to the Tigris River at Kut and the other following the Euphrates river to karbala and najaf once these areas have been taken the pincer attack on Baghdad would be possible as the powerful third infantry division approached nasseria it encountered the remnants of the Iraqi 11th division in a one-sided battle the heavily armored third division routed their Iraqi opponents Advanced sighting and targeting systems gave us armor a critical advantage in open terrain such as this whilst the armored columns were preparing to move over the burn and Advance on nasseria and Basra quietly some 31 American British and Australian Special Forces teams entered Iraq one of the major concerns facing centcom operational planners was that Iraq would fire ballistic missiles at Israel from its Western desert area and thus a heavy Special Forces presence was inserted into Western Iraq supported by Coalition air power these small teams had effectively conquered these vast and sparsely populated areas well before the war had begun one British SAS element inadvertently clashed with Iraqi Special Forces who were on their way to link up with the Western desert Force after a fierce battle the outgunned British operators were forced to withdraw and some ended up across the Syrian border several Special Forces elements crossed into Iraq from the Saudi Arabia with the objective of seizing the strategically vital H2 and H3 air bases and Hadith the dam special forces in air power have a powerfully synergistic relationship as one of these teams Advanced on its objective it encountered a large concentration of Iraqi armor using laser designators to directly guide Munitions in one night they were able to destroy 17 zsu-23 anti-aircraft artillery systems and 23 other Iraqi vehicles in the north of the country several Special Forces teams have linked up with Kurdish forces from the Kurdistan Democratic party KDP and patriotic Union of Kurdistan these elements would prove invaluable to the Kurds providing both enhanced Firepower and access to Allied air support the Special Forces presence in Iraqi Kurdistan would eventually be reinforced by the 173rd Airborne Brigade which would be inserted by a combat jump on March the 26th with Coalition forces already advancing on Basra and nasseria the belated air campaign began Saddam and the upper Iraqi command Echelon have simply not appreciated how much had changed in the air domain by 2003 obviously the Iraqi military was a much smaller Target in comparison to Operation Desert Storm but the Precision of the Coalition forces in combination with pervasive ISR had alleviated the requirement for a long and nutritional air campaign in 1991 the Allied Air Forces had to take apart iraqi's integrated air defense system piece by piece first attacking radar installations surface to air missile systems and air bases with large strike packages and only then moving on to iads Commander control it was only once the integrated air defense system itself had been degraded that the full weight of Coalition air power was shifted to targets of strategic importance only in the later stages of the campaign once air superiority had been achieved at least over ten thousand feet that the ground forces were subjected to large-scale bombardment in 2003 these strategic targets were struck on the very first night the significantly increased precision and lethality of Allied air power in addition to the non-existent air threat alleviated the requirement for a month-long preliminary bombardment although pgms like laser guided bombs stole the headlines in Operation Desert Storm the vast majority of the Munitions expanded were not Precision guided rather there were simple iron bombs as an example only five percent of all audits used in 1991 were the laser-guided Paveway by 2003 only 30 percent of all bombs dropped were not Precision guided during the whole campaign some 8618 laser-guided bombs and 6452 GPS guided J dams were expended these accounted for over 50 of all weapons used the greater use of PGM has meant that fewer aircraft could effectively hit more targets more precisely only 293 USAF Fighters were deployed in support of the operation Additionally the introduction of new standoff weapons such as the agm-154 Jason allowed non-stealthy aircraft to more effectively strike heavily Defender targets accommodation these new technological developments allowed for an air campaign plan that was much more compressed the targeting information available to centcom air planners was later described as exceptional in Stark juxtaposition to 1991 the Coalition intelligence staff had spent a decade cataloging critical regime infrastructure Iraq's defenses were also far less formidable with most of its 300 or so strong Air Force considered inoperable due to lack of spares and the number of radar-guided sound systems being whittled down to 60 by nearly constant low-intensity combat with U.S aircraft however Baghdad itself was now more formidable than it was during Desert Storm as the Iraqis had concentrated their air defense systems there it was still one of the most heavily defended cities in the world nonetheless the initial tempo of air operations over the first 40 hours was modest as most focused on supporting Special Forces operations there was some hope that war could be averted with a strike on Dora farms and the early advance of the heavy Ground Forces it quickly became clear that such hopes were unlikely to bear fruit the full air campaign began exactly as originally planned 8 Hour was 9 pm Bagdad time on the night of the 21st of March that evening Coalition Air Forces flew more than 1700 sorties with 700 strikes sorties hitting over 1 000 Target aiming points this was in addition to a volley of over 500 Tomahawk cruise missiles political targets command and control installations ammunition and fuel bunkers iads elements and air bases these were all struck in the very first evening one of the main reasons why AR could not be altered was the complex airspace management that was necessitated the Coalition Air Force has included flights from carriers Kuwait air bases in the Gulf the United Kingdom and even the continental United States with aircrafters varied as the B-52 stratafortress and tornado GR4 although Air Supremacy was not officially declared until the 16th of April the first few days of operations were so successful the general Franks was able to tell secretary Rumsfeld that the Coalition had achieved Air Supremacy in the battle Space by the evening of March the 19th the impact of this initial bombardment was crippling with centralized command and control essentially obliterated and major regime figures moving from place to place in fear of their lives the conduct of the Iraqi defensive devolved to the local divisional Commanders in such an environment the maneuver of large units was essentially impossible the Iraqi military had been paralyzed although the rapid advance of the third Army's armored spearheads had completely wrong foot of the Iraqis who had assume that any large-scale ground offensive would only come after a lengthy aerial bombardment Franks and centcom were also surprised by Iraq's defensive strategy centcom planners had assumed that much like Operation Desert Storm the main engagements would take place with large concentrations of Iraqi armor Frank's expected the toughest fighting would be in pitched battles with the Republican guard divisions in the open ground along the major ground lines of communication between Baghdad and Southern Iraq but as the third infantry division Advanced on nasseria it was not the tanks of the Republican guards Medina division that U.S Special Forces observed moving south through the Kabbalah Gap but trucks full of Men In Black shirts the lightly armed but fanatical fitting Saddam were moving to the defense of the Southern cities these formations had no intention of engaging the Americans in a tank battle in open ground they would use the urban environment to try and hold the South one of the reasons why the major land battles in Operation Desert Storm were so one-sided was the advantage Western forces had in long-range engagements the combination of thermal imaging systems with Fire Control computers allowed the Western tanks to effectively engage Iraqi armored fighting vehicles at a range where they were basically immune from Return fire this is one of the reasons why the Coalition suffered so few casualties however when operating in an urban environment the engagement ranges shrink substantially simply because of the constrained lines of sight this range compression removed much of the long range Advantage enjoyed by Coalition forces and although they were generally victorious in these Fierce Urban battles they began to suffer casualties Coalition forces first began to encounter these new tactics in nasseria Samoa and zubaya in accordance with the operational plan the third infantry division remained outside of the city of nasseria proper bypassing it and leaving blockading forces to the south and east as well as securing a crossing over the Euphrates the first major combat formation to enter the city was task force Tarawa composed of the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade commanded by Brigadier General Richard F netonsky the tonsky's orders were to hold the Highway 1 Crossing and secure a further two bridges in the eastern part of the city which would facilitate the first Marine Expeditionary forces drive to the north he was to do this without getting bogged down in urban combat as the city itself was to be bypassed rather than secured as the heavily armed Marines rolled through the city they were met with a barrage of artillery and Small Arms fire rather than main battle tanks they were engaged by groups of light infantry moving around in pickup trucks with makeshift heavy machine guns known as a technical despite their General lack of modern heavy weapons the fettying put up tenacious and ferocious resistance and what was supposed to be a quick dash for the bridges soon turned into what McKinnon described as a damned tough urban fight the fitting actually employed a coherent and well-rehearsed infantry doctrine that emphasized asymmetric tactics they would attack in small groups in an apparently haphazard formation before melting back into the civilian population most wore civilian clothes they operated from Bath party headquarters mosques hospitals and schools not hesitating to use human Shields knowing that Coalition air power would be reluctant to struck these Targets in general the fetian were suicidally Brave showing a fighting spirit that the regular Iraqi Army lacked there are numerous reports of viciously close fighting between the Coalition units and paramilitary elements as they wore civilian clothes many fettying were able to crawl or walk right up to American tanks and armored fighting Vehicles requiring crew members to fight them off with pistols and even Iraqi akms as the British first Armored Division began advancing into Iraq's second largest city Basra they too encountered the fitting in Saddam after coming under heavy fire from men wearing civilian clothes around the Sunni majority suburb of zuppaia British forces decided to Halt and focus on reconnaissance setting up several checkpoints and isolating the area with such a large civilian concentration British local commanders determined that careful tactics were warranted during the course of the day a pair of Iraqi Army regulars surrendered they were able to provide accurate Intelligence on the Republican guard fedeen and bath party headquarters and strong points inside the suburb under the cover of Darkness with a threat of Civilian casualties would be lowest the division conducted a series of nighttime raids rolling in with heavily armed columns British forces hit these critical Iraqi targets although the Defenders put up staunch resistance they were unable to deal with the Firepower of British armored forces all the major targets were cleared leading to the destruction of ammunition stockpiles and inflicting significant enemy losses by Daybreak all British forces had evacuated and were back at their start lines back in Baghdad Iraqi Central Command began hearing reports that the Coalition forces were simply bypassing the southern cities especially nasseria they were astonished that the U.S forces were apparently leaving these Urban centers completely uncontained with the heavy forces of the first Marine Expeditionary force and fifth Corps apparently moving North this left Coalition ground lines of communication running along the highways one and five vulnerable to interdiction although the centralized command and control apparatus of the Iraqi military had been badly disrupted by the initial air bombardment the unconventional Communications utilized by paramilitary forces were harder to disrupt using civilian phones to coordinate large fettying elements began moving south towards nasseria the coalition's vast and hugely impressive intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capability struggled to track these paramilitary forces for example The Joint star's Airborne radar aircraft gave Franks A God's eye view of the battlefield showing the movement of every vehicle within its 50 000 square kilometer footprint this provided third Army Headquarters with very accurate Intelligence on Iraqi armored formations in real time but in a nation of 25 million people these Airborne sensors stood little chance of tracking the movements of paramilitary forces using civilian vehicles by March the 23rd third Army Headquarters concluded the bulk of regular Iraqi Army formations in southern Iraq had been destroyed or surrendered but the loyal Security Forces especially the federal Ying still represented a serious threat this change in the composition of the enemy's forces confounded third Army's operation level ISR and Analysis systems which were far more optimized to collect and display information on large conventional forces for example the digital battle maps at third Army HQ struggled to display the large number of company-sized elements in a template that was designed to show the movements of division and core fact these shortcomings generated an outdated and inaccurate enemy picture that would persist at centcom until the end of the invasion with the coalition's heavy forces advancing in the South Special Operations expanded their campaign in Western and Northern Iraq one of their primary missions was reconnaissance from nasseria to Kabbalah to najaf Coalition Special Forces teams spent days Gathering intelligence including locating fitting headquarters artillery positions and large-scale enemy concentrations in order to pave the way for the advance of third infantry with the unexpected Iraqi Reliance upon irregular forces and therefore the limitations of Airborne ISR systems such as uavs the intelligence gathered by Special Forces elements was absolutely critical at this time Northern Iraq was almost exclusively a special course it's theater and by early April some 50 Special Forces teams were operating alongside their 65 000 Kurdish allies and the 173rd Airborne Brigade the Kurds were facing several heavy and formidable Iraqi divisions including Republican guard formations special forces were critical in enabling Kurdish victory over these formations as they provided the Firepower the peshmerga lacked in Western Iraq vehicle-mounted patrols of the British and Australian Special Air Service scoured the desert searching for the Mobile's guide ballistic missile launchers that sent com feared would launch a chemical weapon strike on Israel within the first seven days Western Iraq had been basically sanitized of all major Iraqi elements by March the 23rd centcom headquarters were forced to change their operational plan despite the rapid victory over the two Iraqi Corps in southern Iraq the paramilitary forces operating out of the Southern cities posed an unforeseen threat to Coalition ground lines of communication Supply convoys moving behind the armored spearheads came under unexpected attack with several ambushed by fettying the worst incident occurred when the ill-fated 507th maintenance company a support element of the third infantry division took a wrong turn rather than driving around nasseria the unit inadvertently drove right through the city although the likely armed fetty in often struggled to effectively Engage The Heavy forces spearheading the Coalition offensive support elements pose less of a challenge as the 507th drove through the city they blunded into a devastating ambush the lightly armored vehicles were raked by Machine Gun small arms and RPG fire within minutes the 507th had lost 11 killed and nine wounded with the burning and destroyed Vehicles overrun by Iraqi Infantry of the nine wounded seven were captured amongst them was 19 year old private Jessica Lynch hailing from Palestine West Virginia Lynch had joined the military because her working-class mother could not afford to send her to college despite her relative obscurity this incident would Propel private Lynch to become an International Celebrity news of the disaster which befell the 507th spread rapidly and the fate of the missing Jessica Lynch captured the imagination of millions of Americans unlock the other casualties of the 507 Lynch was a young and beautiful woman and her potential fate dominated the American Media cycle despite the widely discussed fears of her rape and torture at the hands of the Iraqi military Lynch was simply taken to nasseria hospital for treatment while she was recovering from her wounds there American forces were tipped off to her Presence by an Iraqi lawyer in one of the most famous incidents of the invasion Delta Force operators led a daring rescue operation one that was of course at least partially captured on live TV with embedded camera Crews recording the drama on April the 1st Special Forces elements sprayed at the hospital they found private Lynch in a hospital bed being cared for by Iraqi nurses and doctors no resistance was encountered as the Iraqi military had abandoned the hospital and private Lynch the day before despite its in Acuity the capture and rescue of private Jessica Lynch presented a golden propaganda opportunity and is portrayal to the American people would become a symbol of the dishonesty and mistrust that surrounded the 2003 invasion of Iraq for many Americans one that private Lynch herself would later come to resent clearly given the experience of the 507th and other support elements some forces would be required to contain these cities General McKinnon ordered significant elements to contain these large Urban centers including the clearing of major Villages and towns that sat alongside the main highways in nasseria most of task force Tarawa was ordered to remain in the city and continue clearing operations until all of the bridges over the Euphrates and Saddam Canal were secure the Marines faced a tough nine-day battle which would eventually cost the Coalition 32 killed and 60 wounded as the Marines were facing unexpectedly stiff resistance on the streets of nasseria fifth Corps was planning its Most Daring maneuver of the operation U.S Doctrine specifically Airline battle which was still foundational in U.S military thinking in 2003 emphasized rapid maneuver and deep penetrations with the objective of disrupting the enemy Command Decision cycle as stated previously AirLand Battle aimed to impose a rate of change in the Tactical picture confronting enemy command that they simply could not react quickly enough just as in Operation Desert Storm Air Assault operations were one of the primary methods by which these doctrinal principles were to be applied the two divisions of the fifth Corps were designed to have a synergistic relationship the Firepower of the heavyweight third infantry division would be married to the mobility of the 101st Airborne deep Air Assault penetrations would not only complicate the Tactical picture facing Iraqi Central Command but paved the way for the rapid advance of the armored spearheads on March the 23rd the 101st prepared to undertake one of these deep strikes as an air assault division much of the 101st Firepower lay in its attack helicopter regiments Fielding the deadly ah-64d Apache attack helicopter these formations were capable of devastating attacks on Armored and mechanized concentrations and the Long Reach of the attack helicopter allowed these Mass strikes to be deployed well into the deep battle area hundreds of kilometers behind the line of contact as the armored Columns of the third infantry division Advanced North from nasseria towards Kabbalah to their left out in the desert the 101st Airborne was busy establishing a number of small bases refueling points for helicopters that would extend the division's reach into Iraqi territory at 1am on the morning of March the 23rd 31 Apaches of the 11th attack helicopter regiment took off from a forward refueling station and began flying North their objective was the Medina division of the Republican guard specifically its second armored Brigade which Airborne surveillance had detected south of Baghdad if the 101st Apaches could locate this armored concentration it was likely to be eviscerated in a barrage of Hellfire missiles the attack was preceded by a substantial suppression of enemy air defense operation f-16cjs equipped with high-speed anti-radiation missiles the famous wild weasels swept the flight path striking several Radars and surface-to-air missile systems this was very effective with all radar-guided sound systems in the area either suppressed or destroyed however the Iraqis became accustomed to American Doctrine and these strikes gave them ample warning that a helicopter operation was probably imminent this was only exacerbated by a two hour delay desynchronizing the suppression operation and the attack itself most of the flight path took the 11th attack helicopter regiment out over the desert but in the Kabbalah Gap there was no choice but to fly over large built up areas as the regiment passed over the cities of al-haswa and al-iskandaria the pilot saw the street lights below blink on and off twice as if someone had cut the electricity for a second nearly instantaneously the entire regiment was engulfed in a torrent of Fire the city erupted with fire from Small Arms machine guns RPGs and light anti-aircraft artillery practically every house seemed to have someone shooting the Apaches were easy targets silhouetted as they were against the clouds by the bright full moon every single platform was hit by Small Arms fire with one Apache shot down and every helicopter damaged the mission was aborted although all but one returned to base when they arrived support Crews found them riddled with bullet holes one had a total of 29 impacts but somehow had been able to keep flying not only had the mission been a failure but the entire regiment had been rendered combat ineffective it would be another 30 days until it could reach full operational capability the Iraqis had used new and Innovative tactics to adapt to U.S technological superiority although high-end air search Radars and Sam systems were easy targets for U.S air power suppressing hundreds of machine guns and light Triple A was essentially impossible and the wild weasels could not strike thousands of human eyeballs rather than using military Communications which were disrupted by Coalition electronic warfare aircraft the Iraqi commanders simply used telephones to communicate their defensive forces were simply told that if they saw the lights turn on and off to begin firing putting up a wall of lead through which helicopters would have to fly this need not be accurate fire if its mass was sufficient this new Iraqi air defense system was an ingenious adaptation to the challenges the Iraqi military faced it could not be suppressed nor could it be effectively counted General Wallace the fifth Corps Commander later recalled that from that point on I was not at all confident we could execute a successful deep operation with helicopters and we didn't need to with a failed attack on the Medina division the weather intervened decisively on the campaign the mother of all sandstorms as it would be dubbed by Western media descended on Iraq in arid areas of the world the arrival of a large gust front will often generate a sandstorm lifting countless tons of dust dirt and sand into the air on March the 24th 2003 a particularly strong Sandstorm swept across the area with Coalition forces blanketed in dust restricting both visibility and air operations the third Army implemented an operational pause despite conjecture at the time the campaign plan had always included an operational pause before Coalition forces Advanced on Baghdad proper allowing for supporting elements and Logistics to catch up with the spearheads with the brief breaking the offensive the American commanders met to discuss their operational plan generals McKinnon and Wallace the third Army and fifth Corps commanders advocated a change in strategy the fetty inn and other paramilitary forces operating in the towns and cities were posing an unexpected problem along the main axis of attack the major highways the many towns and Villages provided the fitting in with perfect cover for Ambush and counter-attack although they're only posed a limited threat to Western heavy formations and were often slaughtered by a mechanized infantry the lightly armed Supply battalions were another story altogether the two generals wanted to redeploy both elements of the 101st Airborne Division and the only operational reserve one Brigade of the 82nd Airborne which was in Kuwait to clear these towns and Villages along the ground lines of communication running to the South Frank's was unconvinced of the need to do this back at centcom HQ the highly sophisticated computerized battle displays were not showing these paramilitary forces all of which were hard to identify by American ISR systems only after a long and lengthy argument was Frank's convinced that there really was a threat to Coalition supply lines one which could jeopardize the operation with Advanced elements of the third infantry division and first Marine division now on the outskirts of baghdad's main defenses the sandstorm provided a perfect opportunity by the 24th the third infantry division was approaching the major defensive line around the Kabbalah Gap and the Marines were approaching the Tigris they were about to encounter the elite Republican guard divisions which formed saddam's primary defenses these areas were held by the Medina Nida Baghdad and Hammurabi Republican guard divisions although the progress had been very rapid the two main drives from nasseria one towards the Kabbalah Gap and the other towards could had left a large opening between the Marines and the third infantry division this was now becoming somewhat of a fettying stronghold and McKinnon wanted this area to be secured before advancing on Baghdad thus the 101st was ordered to isolate and clear najaf and Kabbalah with the 82nd focusing on Samoa with the new operational plan agreed on by all the supporting elements of the first Marine Expeditionary force and fifth core were rushing to catch up with the armored spearheads the advance had been so rapid that the combat elements of the division had outrun their administrative Tales a common problem during a rapid Advance the need to allow logistic and support elements to move forward is one of the reasons why attacking forces often need to pause even if enemy resistance is weak large forward Supply bases were quickly established and thousands of tons of suppliers were moved forward along the major highways the sandstorm also provided some opportunity for rest tanks and infantry fighting Vehicles may be able to advance for seven days straight but human beings cannot and most of the fighting men and women had been operating on very little sleep for almost a week they would need their strength for the decisive battle to come for the Republican guard divisions defending Baghdad the poor weather brought them little relief the Coalition Air Forces may have been unable to conduct low-level attacks but the sandstorm was no obstacle to higher altitude operations in fact it proved to be a target-rich environment for the Allied Airmen with the Coalition forces now approaching baghdad's main defensive ring the Iraqis deployed the bulk of the Republican guard divisions to positions to the south and east of the city unlike the encounters with the paramilitary forces this was the kind of enemy that the coalition's vast ISR capability was optimized to engage back at Coalition air component command General Mosley watched E8 joint Stars radar imagery that showed a clear line of armor pouring out of Baghdad moving to the new defensive positions around the city platforms like the Escape Coalition commanders and informational advantage that the Iraqis could only dream of compounding this problem was the fact that unlike the first Gulf War Coalition aircraft were now able to strike through dust sand and Cloud American Tactical Fighters were now widely employing satellite guided bombs The Joint direct attack munition or jdam unlike a laser-guided bomb the J Dam uses a GPS signal combined with an inertial navigation system to guide itself to a Target when combined with an aircraft's synthetic aperture radar mode which allows the fcr to take radar images of the ground Coalition Fighters were able to hit stationary targets such as tanks that were in a hold down fighting position through the sandstorm In The End by the time they encountered the major Ground Forces many republican guard battalions were already Shattered by the impact of Allied air power as the American generals debated their campaign plan similar discussions were ongoing in Baghdad despite the Deep penetrations made by Coalition Ground Forces Iraqi command was actually pleased with the outcome of the first week of fighting Allied setbacks at Basra and nasseria had given Saddam the impression that Coalition forces would hesitate to enter the major cities especially Baghdad for fear of sustaining casualties the High fighting Spirit of the fatian had also inflated saddam's estimation of the Iraqi military's capability despite these apparently promising signs the upper Iraqi command Echelon had a confused operational picture that led them to completely misjudge Coalition dispositions and intentions Saddam was convinced that he was being attacked along three major axis from Kuwait Jordan and Iraqi Kurdistan this confusion showed the value of Coalition Special Forces which had a disproportionate military impact because of the widespread destruction being reeked in Western Iraq Saddam concluded that a conventional military force was operating there confirming his prior beliefs about allied strategy he also believed that the drive on cushed by the Marines was the primary threat to Baghdad the Coalition main effort the third infantry division was considered a tertiary operation thus for some unexplained reason saddam's son who say denied Republican guard request to destroy a main Euphrates Bridge leading into the Kabbalah Gap a move that would have slowed the fifth cause Advance substantially as the operational pause came to its close baghdad's Southern defenses were not substantially strengthened with significant formations still operating to its north and west the main Southern defensive line which was pushed as far forward as possible was composed of three Republican guard divisions the Medina division which formed the right wing of the Iraqi lion defended the karbala gap the Nebuchadnezzar division deployed near Hiller held the center and the Baghdad division faced the Marines around could the 26th division was ordered to advance into the salience between the two Allied spearheads and threaten their Communications only a single Regiment of Iraqi Special Forces remained in Baghdad with the sandstorm easing on March the 27th Coalition forces began clearing the lines of communication back in nasseria the Marines are task force Tarawa which had been reinforced by two Marine Expeditionary units essentially battalion-sized battle groups began to clear the city as opposed to the Assumption held by many in both the Iraqi command and Western media the Marines hardly shied away from Urban combat over nearly a week of house to house fighting where the advantages enjoyed by the American Military such as air power was certainly less relevant the Marines cleared the city several Fierce firefights occurred near 30 in stronghold such as the bath party headquarters but the superior fighting spirit and Technical skill of the Marines quickly showed the fitting may have been brave but they were outclassed by Western infantry who imposed devastating and disproportionate casualties by April the 2nd General natonski declared the city secure and redeployed the bulk of his forces towards the drive uncut by March the 28th on the Coalition Left Flank fifth Corps began a five-pronged offensive designed to set the foundation for an eventual attack on Baghdad itself the third division's objective was to drive from nasseria along the West Bank of the Euphrates river through the cities of Samoa and najaf towards the Medina division holding Kabbalah the Kabbalah Gap was a good defensive position here the Medina division's right flank would be anchored on the shores of rosaza lake with its left on the Euphrates River in the center of this position sat the city of Kabbalah itself which would provide good defensive Terrain the only problem with this plan was the need to clear many of the towns and cities along the 250 kilometer drive from nasseria to karbala which was diluting the power of the third infantry division with the sandstorm clearing units of the 101st and 82nd divisions relieved the third Brigade allowing it to concentrate with the rest of the third division as the main thrust of the fifth cause attack moved towards Kabbalah the 101st division was ordered to attack Hiller on the East Bank of the Euphrates their objective was to threaten the central approach to Baghdad and pin the Nebuchadnezzar division in place so it could not reinforce Kabbalah this set of Maneuvers emphasized the extreme dexterity of U.S forces the ability of the United States military to rapidly maneuver large units and redeploy them in the theater often Crossing one another in the process without large-scale confusion or disorder was truly impressive this was only possible because of the technical skill possessed by the command apparatus as a whole with mid-level commanders even in the logistic and administrative elements of these formations executing operational plans adeptly with the sandstorm now long gone and the ground lines of communication firmly secured the Advance on Baghdad began this was the kind of Engagement in which the American Military truly excels a conventional battle fought against a roughly equal force of elite armored divisions waged in reasonably open Terrain here the Americans were able to bring all of their technological doctrinal and qualitative advantages to bear one small demonstration of this technological Mastery occurred in early April as the first Marine Division Advanced towards Baghdad from current its lead elements made contact with the Baghdad division of the Republican guard has its typical Doctrine the Marine Advance was led by lightly armed Recon companies one such element found itself about to be attacked by a heavy formation a large column of Iraqi armor was detected advancing down the road towards them driving Humvees the small Marine elements stood little chance against a tank of Battalion however they were not without fire support within minutes a B-52 orbiting at 30 000 feet was given Target coordinates and a pair of cbu-105 cluster bombs had left its Bombay the cbu-105 otherwise known as the sensor fused weapon is a Marvel of military technology typically cluster bombs aim to saturate an area with smaller submunitions the size of a mortar bomb or grenade thereby achieving a very large area of effect even in their most basic form they are devastating weapons large enemy concentrations are particularly vulnerable especially when they are out in the open one of the major moral complications of using cluster Munitions is caused by their failure rate no matter how well they are made cluster bombs will always leave some percentage of their subunitions unexploded these tend to act as unintentional landmines and therefore can pose a threat to civilians for a very long time to say the sensor fused weapon is a smart cluster bomb would be an understatement the bomb itself is guided to its Target by the wind corrected Munitions dispenser much like the J Dam Tail kit this turns any cluster bomb into a GPS guided smart bomb greatly increasing accuracy and allowing for high altitude employment the 1 000 pound CBU 105 is essentially just a canister when the weapon approaches the target coordinates it releases three side panels exposing its deadly contents 10 Blu 108 subunitions the 10 subunitions are released by an airbag dispersing them over an area of 15 Acres or 61 000 square meters after a descent by a parachute when the blu-108 reaches a preset altitude perhaps 100 meters it fires a rocket motor this rocket burn is designed to both Stop The Descent and cause the rod-shaped submunition to spin once the weapon now hovering in mid-air has reached the required revolutions per minute it releases four smaller weapons called skeets basically each B Oru 108 is a miniature cluster bot these Skeets are small Puck shaped weapons that are flung out in all directions each one is about four inches in diameter and weighs 10 pounds or four and a half kilograms they contain both an infrared and Laser sensor which scan a cone of ground beneath the skeet as it falls a microprocessor within the skeet looks for either the heat of a tank engine or its outline which is measured by the laser if the ski detects a tank beneath it the weapon detonates the skate kills a tank by creating an explosively formed penetrator essentially the explosive within the weapon shapes and accelerates a slug of metal this molten slug is more than capable of penetrating the weak top armor of most tanks and infantry fighting vehicles if no vehicle is detected the skate self-destructs at an altitude of 15 meters it has a failure rate of less than one percent alleviating most of the persistent risk to civilians in essence the GPS guided sensor fuse weapon is really a dispenser for 40 fire and forget anti-tank missiles just one can decimate a whole tank battalion needless to say this is a devastatingly effective weapon when the front of the armored column that was advancing on the Marines north of Kut was decimated by the effects of two cbu-105s the rest of the formation simply left their vehicles and surrendered to the lightly armored Marines despite heavily outnumbering them the United States military deployed weapons of this sophistication in 2003. that is the kind of Technology produced by the second offset strategy it was not only in the area of air power generally that the United States had an overwhelming technological advantage one of the greatest breakthroughs delivered by the second offset strategy was in battle Space Management the combination of digital battle networks pervasive ISR and computerized Commander control gave American Force commanders an unprecedented view of the battle space Imaging satellites provided daily photo reconnaissance over the entire country revealing large-scale Force movements orbiting over Kuwait the rc-135 rivet joint electronic surveillance aircraft swept up the torrent of electromagnetic information generated by an Army in the field collecting voice Communications and data links geolocating Radars and surface-to-wear missile sites and even fixing enemy headquarters alongside them was the E8 joint surveillance Target radar system or joint Stars essentially an a-wax aircraft that monitored the ground rather than the air The Joint star's apy-7 radar could track the movements of vehicles over a footprint that is larger than 25 000 square kilometers by 2003 the role of the joint Stars aircraft was being supplemented by the global hawk UAV the most advanced drone in the world at the time the global hawk could provide both high resolution synthetic radar imagery and ground moving Target indicator information over a vast footprint unlike the joint Stars Global Hawks lack of a flight crew and flight ceiling of 60 000 feet meant it could effectively operate over enemy territory at least once the High Altitude surface to where missile threat had been effectively suppressed this Deluge of information was all transmitted in real time through data links forming a digital Battle Network and then collated by a dedicated command and control computer system U.S generals at centcom were able to view this real-time information fused and synthesized on simple digital displays for them the war was able to compute a game the Iraqi commanders on the other hand had to rely on paper maps which were often updated by reports transmitted over the civilian phone network it was as if one century was at war with its predecessor it would be both unfair and inaccurate to Simply attribute U.S conventional Supremacy over the Iraqi military to a technological lead alone very clearly across the organization as a whole the American and British armies were qualitatively Superior to their Iraqi opponents the individual fighting men were far better trained better equipped had a higher morale and fighting spirit generally speaking in much of the tough Urban fighting where Western technological dominance mattered much less Coalition infantry consistently out fought the Iraqi military in Saddam may have been fanatically brave but when they engaged Coalition infantry battalions as opposed to support elements they typically suffered a bloody defeat prone to making basic tactical mistakes they simply lacked the technical skill to engage Coalition forces on equal terms Coalition leadership from the small unit to the division showed a level of professionalism and skill that was simply far superior to their opponents this included critical supporting elements such as Logistics and administration which allowed the divisions to maneuver with a speed and dexterity with which the Iraqi military simply could not cope Western Doctrine was also better the effective combination of the three arms the integration of supporting fires especially air power and the application of basic tactical principles were excellent across the organization as a whole this stood for both the American and British armies and the USMC all of these advantages manifested on the battlefields to the south of Baghdad rather than the long and bloody defensive battle envisaged by Saddam American forces Scythe through baghdad's defensive perimeter in a matter of days on March the 31st the third infantry began the long-awaited battle with the Medina division around Kabbalah at the beginning of the war the Kabbalah Gap had been held by two Republican guard divisions however the bulk of the Nebuchadnezzar division had been redeployed to the north of Baghdad hoping to thwart the non-existent threat from Turkey although the Medina division had been under persistent air bombardment since the start of the war the majority of its Vehicles were still intact learning from Desert Storm the Iraqis would build a defensive line complete with hull-down fighting positions and decoys and then disperse their vehicles around the towns parking them under palm trees and next to mosques this proved to be quite effective although any movement withdrawal withering air attacks if Iraqi units could remain dispersed they were spared from the worst impacts of Allied air power the Coalition air Commander had estimated that 80 of the Medina division's Vehicles had been destroyed but when the battle began the third infantry encountered hundreds of tanks and armored fighting vehicles rather than attacking Kabbalah from the south the third infantry executed a large-scale flank attack exploiting a gap between the Iraqi divisions U.S armored columns drove up Highway 8 bypassing the majority of the Medina division around Kabbalah again the speed of U.S forces caught the Iraqis by surprise before Central commands had even realized the attack was underway U.S forces had broken through capturing the town of musayab and its all-important bridge over the Euphrates just 40 kilometers from the outskirts of Baghdad itself just to the north of musaib is a vital Road Junction called objective Saints where highways 1 and 8 meet objective Saints is the key to the southern approach to Baghdad dominating the two main ground lines of communication from Southern Iraq leading the attack on objective Saints was a tank platoon of the third Squadron 7th Cavalry at its very head the lead tank in the lead company in the lead Brigade was commanded by Sergeant First Class Pyle as Pyle drove down the highway his tank was engaged by groups of startled Iraqi Infantry engaging these small groups of men with his coaxial machine gun the fighting was so Fierce that within minutes piles Abrams had run out of coaxial ammunition ordering the tank to advance pile manned the 50 caliber machine gun mounted on the outside the tank was raked with fire suffering several RPG impacts whilst Manning the weapon Pyle was wounded twice including being shot in the arm nonetheless he continued to man the weapon until he ran out of 50 caliber ammunition eventually the Abrams sustained an RPG hit in an external auxiliary power unit causing a fire on the back of the tank now out of all machine gun ammunition Pyle re-entered the tank and ordered it to drive on engaging dismounted infantry with his main gun despite being told to pull over he continued to lead the attack piles Abrams now on fire would roll into objective Saints still at the head of the column it's 120 millimeter main gun barking out deadly responses to the RPG teams that tried in vain to destroy it the news that the Americans had taken were saved and established a Bridgehead over the Euphrates shocked the Iraqis into action their main defensive line had essentially been breached without a major battle the hole had to be plugged on the night of the 2nd of April the Iraqis decided to try their luck elements of the 10th and 22nd armor brigades assembled for a masked armored attack on the American Bridgehead the attack was well executed with the Iraqis able to achieve a formidable concentration of armor despite its mass the assault was Savaged by the American Defenders as the Iraqi t-72s approached they were decimated by accurate tank fire attacking at night May well have been a hindrance rather than an aid considering the American advantage in night vision systems the closely packed tanks were Prime targets for mlrs artillery fire which raked the formation with hundreds of M77 subunitions Lieutenant General rad alhamdani who personally led the attack remembered the impact of the American rocket artillery fire a fierce battle took place the enemy used enormous Firepower it looked like Napalm rocket launchers with fire groups of rockets about 12 Rockets each that would explode in the air burning whatever it faces on its way with its flames within minutes every single Iraqi tank had been destroyed by artillery anti-tank missile and 120 millimeter main gun fire the third infantry division did not sustain a single casualty during the attack dozens of destroyed Vehicles littered the outskirts of musaeb and not one was American with the objective Saints secured most of the forces defending the Iraqi Capital had effectively been bypassed the road to Baghdad lay wide open seizing Saddam International Airport was a logical Next Step Coalition forces would need a forward Logistics base and the ability to use the Airfield would be critical in sustaining the forward elements the airport was defended by some of the Iraqi military's finest units a brigade of the special Republican guard reinforced by Special Forces contingent these heavily armed formations received the best equipment available and were well trained and motivated the attack began on the evening of the 3rd of April the first brigade conducted a combined arms attack with tanks infantry fighting vehicles and dismounted infantry advancing under the cover of artillery by 11 pm they had breached the outer wall and infantry companies began clearing operations the fighting within the airport was some of the most intense throughout the whole conventional phrase of the war The Defenders had done a series of trenches tunnels and fighting positions the effectiveness of which was only Amplified by the large open spaces and cleared fields of Fire clearing these features would take two days and require the aid of a special forces detachment here the Iraqis fought tenaciously on the morning of the 4th of April they conducted a fierce counter-attack members of the 11th Engineer Battalion who were busy constructing a holding area for prisoners were nearly swamped by a force of over 100 Iraqi Infantry under withering fire the Detachment was nearly overrun it was only saved by the actions of Sergeant First Class Paul R Smith who entered a damaged Bradley Ife and manned its heavy machine gun Sergeant Smith alone saved the company breaking up the attack with 50 caliber fire until he was killed Sergeant Smith received the Medal of Honor for his sacrifice and his bravery although Saddam International Airport was now largely secured there were still very significant enemy formations in the third division's rear the majority of the Medina division were still entrenched around Kabbalah expecting an attack from the south they're in action whilst American units were advancing on Baghdad is crystalline evidence of the paralysis afflicting Iraqi Central Command this Force had to be dealt with before any attack on Baghdad could be realistically contemplated Colonel David Perkins commander of the second infantry Brigade was given orders to clear karbala and destroy the Medina division his original plan for the battle envisaged a pincer attack with the Cavalry Squadron moving up from the south and fixing the Iraqis whilst the heavy units attacked from the north around musaeb in the end only the northern pincer was able to make the attack but this was all that was required the two brigades of the Medina division were largely intact but both were deployed facing south they were completely unprepared for the attack Perkins was about to unleash on them it began on the 4th of April two tank battalions Advanced line abreast one down Route 8 and the other along Route 1. when they made contact the Iraqis were completely surprised to see Heavy forces in their rear tanks and ifv scrambled to leave their fighting positions and redeploy to face the new threat leaving them vulnerable with t-72s and bmps exploding around them the Medina's position melted within minutes they had American tanks between their fighting positions and command and control immediately collapsed the attack happened so rapidly Lieutenant General Al hamadi the commander of the second Republican guard Corps had a tank rampaging through his headquarters his men desperately tried to hold their positions but with American infantry going from building to building the staff all dropped their weapons and ran the division had been absolutely routed it was unable to cope with the speed of the American advance and with its command and control paralyzed individual t-72s were forced to fight their own battles with the rampaging Americans by Nightfall hundreds of vehicles had been destroyed and the Medina division had ceased to exist as the third infantry division was approaching Baghdad to the South the British were closing in on Basra after Fierce fighting in its outskirts especially with paramilitary forces the first Armored Division approached the largest city with caution Basra is a sprawling Metropolis it is home to more than a million people here the British hope to have far more support from the local Shia population but were concerned about the prospect of heavy Urban combat in a densely populated area instead the British decided to lay Siege to bassro by the 23rd six days after the beginning of the war the first Armored Division had completely isolated the city with elements dominating all the major approaches but for three weeks the British forces simply waited these tactics caught the Iraqi Defenders by surprise they hoped to rely on the urban environment to counter their qualitative and technological disadvantage but the British simply held their positions unable to hold their nerve the Iraqis made several sorties from the besieged city attacking British positions on several occasions as could be expected engaging British forces that were deployed on good defensive ground outside the city Only led to heavy casualties on the 30th of March the first Armored Division initiated operation James the first major assault into the city itself its objective was the suburb of Abu al-qasib in a careful Advance the Marines of 40 Commando supported by armor from the Scots Dragoon guards engaged in Fierce firefights with elements of freddying the combat here was often housed at house and several t-55s were destroyed by the supporting challenges by March the 31st the suburb had been secured in response the Iraqis attempted a large-scale breakout operation a force of 120 vehicles in total including tanks bmps and trucks and around a thousand infantry concentrated and drove out of the city the column Advanced Southeast towards positions gained by 40 Commando over the previous two days as a colonel throughout the war any time Iraqi armor attempted to move it attracted the attention of Coalition air power the formation was Savaged by U.S Navy fa-18 hornets and Royal Air Force harriers which struck the column with laser-guided bombs and cluster munitions reeling from these airstrikes the armored column dispersed into marshy ground which had seen significant rain over the previous days stuck in the mud the t-55s were easy prey for the challenges of the seventh almond Brigade and within 48 Hours the whole Force had been destroyed this was the largest British tank battle since the Second World War the main concept behind the siege of bastra was to bring about the collapse of the Iraqi forces defending the city rather than simply destroying them this would both reduce British casualties and limit the amount of Collateral Damage Done to the city and its civilian population this objective was achieved by both the isolation of the city and smash and grab raids typically conducted at night British forces usually accompanied to Battalion strength would enter the city striking known fettying concentrations and command posts and then Retreat to their starting positions these operations steadily eroded Iraqi morale by April 6th three weeks into the siege the situation was ripe for a larger offensives in a major attack the seventh armored Brigade Advanced into the center of the city their objective was the bath party headquarters the FedEx base of operations in an intense Urban battle dismounted mechanized infantry assaulted a well-constructed defensive complex of bunkers pillboxes and fortified houses the area was eventually cleared but three British soldiers were killed in the fighting a force of 313 made a final stand at the College of literature in a three-hour battle their position was demolished by British infantry and tanks after this defeat Iraqi resistance was broken to the South the Royal Marines of 42 Commando Advanced on the presidential Palace this was the probable location of the local Iraqi Commander Ali Hassan al-majid known as chemical Ali because he orchestrated the chemical weapon attack on the Kurdish city of halaja Ali Hassan al-majjad was a highly feared individual especially amongst the local share population as the Royal Marines advance from the south the presidential Palace was hit with an airstrike this proved to be the breaking point with chemical R Lee believed to be dead and mechanized forces in control of the major Bathurst facilities Iraqi military resistance collapsed by the evening of April the 7th the British military was in complete control of bassro British tactics had been careful and cautious but highly effective although certainly some Iraqi civilians had been killed in the fighting Basra had been taken with relatively little damage inflicted on the city itself a more direct approach could have leveled large areas especially considering the sheer size of the Iraqi forces holding it in the end the battle only cost the British three killed in action with the British now moving into Central Basra the Americans were in position to strike saddam's true center of gravity Baghdad much like bastra taking a major city like Baghdad required a new set of tactics engaging the Medina division in a large-scale tank battle was one thing but trying to use that kind of Mass to conquer a city of seven million people was not only sure to lead to widespread destruction but reasonably heavy Coalition casualties clearly with the forces available to the third army fighting a street-to-street battle throughout the suburbs of Baghdad was simply not a realistic option instead General Wallace the fifth Corps Commander intended to use a similar approach to the British although with a higher and more aggressive tempo rather than surrounding Baghdad third infantry division would establish a number of major bases on its outskirts from these secure and highly fortified positions heavy U.S formations would conduct raids into the city extremely powerful armored and mechanized columns would drive into Baghdad strike major regime targets and then simply leave and return to base with the immense Firepower of a fully concentrated American mechanized Brigade which included over 100 main battle tanks and infantry fighting Vehicles there would be little that could stop these raids as they pass through the city these powerful armored formations would demonstrate the weakness of the Iraqi military to both baghdad's Defenders and its people unable to protect the very heart of the regime from U.S Ground Forces it was hoped that the morale of Iraqi forces would simply collapse dubbed a thunder run by American command Wallace intended to conduct these raids for about 30 days after which was hoped that the regime would surrender the first Thunder Run was initiated on April 5th rather than simply probing baghdad's defenses the third infantry divisions Commander Major General Buford C buff blout ordered his tanks to drive right through the city Blount was convinced that the Defenders were not capable of putting up coherent resistance to his forces indeed the primary Iraqi combat formations the Republican guard divisions had all been deployed well outside the city those that encountered U.S heavy forces suffered the same fate as the Medina Division and the formations to the north of Baghdad were unable to redeploy due to heavy and sustained aerial bombardment apart from a single Regiment of Iraqi Special Forces and some Republican guard formations the primary units defending the city were fedeen who simply lacked the anti-tank capability to engage the third infantry division effectively fresh from its victory at Saddam International Airport second Brigade was given the task of being the first American unit to enter the city Brigadier General Perkins the second Brigade Commander defined his task as to enter Baghdad for the purpose of displaying combat power to destroy enemy forces and to Simply show them that we can the first of these raids was conducted by the 64th armored regiment it began at the intersection of Highway 8 and Highway 1. about seven kilometers from the outskirts of Baghdad itself Perkins objective was simply to move along Highway 8 passing through the Rashid District to the Tigris and then follow the highway to the airport which was held by friendly forces this 30 kilometer route would take the regiment close to Central Baghdad but keep it out of the dense suburbs as the tanks of the 64th began rolling through the streets of Southern Baghdad they encountered determined but sporadic resistance moving through the city Perkins tanks were engaged by one company-sized element of light infantry after another these were both paramilitary forces wearing sibling clothes and Iraqi regulars the fighting here was intense and the Iraqis fought with bravery and commitment but they simply lacked the Firepower to deal with the M1 Abrams wave after wave were engaged by the 64 but their light anti-tank weapons had virtually no effect numerous tanks were hit with RPG 7 rounds but the Abrams chobam armor simply Shrugged off the abuse one was finally damaged when an RPG impact ruptured an external fuel tank causing a fire crew were unharmed but had to abandon the vehicle major Ricky nusio described the fighting on April 5th as some of the most intense mounted combat in close Urban Terrain the US Army had seen since World War II by the time the 64th drove into Baghdad International Airport they estimated that the regiment had destroyed 50 Vehicles 25 guns and killed 800 dismounted infantry including capturing one Iraqi colonel The Raid had cost them one tank destroyed one killed in action and five wounded with the success of the first Thunder Run third Army command decided to alter its approach General mattis's first Marine Division had Advanced up the Tigris Valley and was now in position to enter back down from the south east and the whole third infantry division was concentrated to the city Southwest the regime's reaction to the first Thunder Run was to pretend that it didn't happen claiming on state TV that there were no American forces in Baghdad concerned that Saddam would use any delay to strengthen his defenses in the city Wallace bleout and Mattis all concluded that the situation demanded bold action making an aggressive but risky attack now may very well precipitate a collapse in the regime as a whole a full-blown assault on the city was decided upon on the 6th of April in order to protect his Left Flank blouse ordered the third Brigade to make a left hook sweep around the Western outskirts of the city and secure the bridges to its North holding these positions would be critical in isolating Central Baghdad from the still significant Republican guard formations to its North the attack went smoothly elements of the hamrabi Republican guard division were easily pushed aside and by the evening of April the 6th the third Brigade was in a powerful blocking position on the Northern suburbs with its Left Flank anchored on The Tigress Baghdad was now cut off from the remaining Iraqi forces to the north of the country unless these Bridges could be retaken the capital would surely fall in order to redress this disastrous tactical situation the remaining Republican guard units concentrated for a breakout operation they were able to mass a force of about a brigade in strength with armor infantry fighting Vehicles artillery and even miscellaneous engineering equipment Adorn the Iraqi struck moving out of Sada City they fell upon the third brigade's Left Flank with the objective of taking the strategically vital muthahana Bridge in this attack the Iraqis displayed almost suicidal bravery waves of armor and infantry fell upon the Americans advancing through a heavy artillery bombardment in order to do so for 60 hours straight the Iraqis attacked one wave after another and despite fearful losses they came on at one point the most forward units were nearly overrun and had to call down artillery fire on their own positions in fact the situation was so desperate that for the first time since Vietnam artillery was used in a direct fire role this was the most intense fighting of the entire Invasion and all throughout the attack the possession of the bridge was in doubt certainly the third Brigade was now in the most dangerous situation any large American unit had faced since the invasion began but despite the onslaught they held notwithstanding The Bravery of the Iraqi Defenders by concentrating their forces to the north of the city they had left themselves vulnerable in the south by April 7th Perkins second Brigade was ready for another Thunder Run however this time the whole formation would attack into the city they followed the same route as the 64th regiment attacking up Highway 8. this time the Iraqis were better prepared they had fortified the route with roadblocks and other Ambush positions but again they simply lacked the Firepower to have any meaningful impact on the American armor the fighting here was intense with fetty in and Iraqi Special Forces engaging the column as it Advanced but with such a concentration of combat power they did little more than slow the advancing Americans down as Perkins man reached the center of Baghdad instead of following Highway 8 out to the airport they made a hard right turn this took them into the very heart of saddam's regime downtown Baghdad here the second Brigade captured the main political and administrative facilities including the presidential and Republican palaces this really was the bureaucratic political and administrative center of the Baptist regime this time Perkins ordered his Brigade to dig in he had no intention of going anywhere this daring attack was not without risk the third infantry division was badly stretched and providing security to the forces within Baghdad and keeping Communications open was a serious challenge somehow the force is now in the heart of Baghdad had to be supplied there were three critical Road Junctions which ensured the ability of U.S forces to use the highway Network within the city itself each was a large Cloverleaf Road complex the connected Highway 8 to the other major roads these three Road Junctions codenamed objectives Mo Larry and Curly after The Three Stooges were all held by combined arms battle groups if any of them fell Perkins Brigade would be cut off the Iraqis hit these positions with fierce counter-attacks and objective curly the junction between Highway 8 and the Dora Expressway the Third Battalion 15th infantry found themselves in a fight for their very survival originally only 50 men strong the American Detachment was soon fighting a pitched battle with 500 Syrian volunteers this close combat was fought in the rubble underneath the highway interchange over 18 hours waves of Iraqi infantry assaulted the position only to be stopped in front of the Americans fighting positions the Third Battalion became dangerously low on ammunition and Fuel and was close to being overrun this desperate situation was only rectified when a relieving unit of mechanized infantry broke through the encircling fettying two servicemen were killed and 40 were wounded the other American positions all came under serious assaults during the day the Brigade headquarters was also hit by a short-range surface-to-surface missile killing four and destroying some 15 vehicles but these battles were The Last gasps of a Dying regime although the ferian Republican guard and Iraqi special forces units in the city were fighting hard and dying in droves all centralized Commander control was now gone Iraq's political leadership Saddam and his sons had gone to ground and the military command apparatus as a whole simply no longer existed every Republican guard Corps and divisional headquarters had now been destroyed Iraqi forces were simply attacking the nearest American units without any coordination although the third division was in a precarious situation large Coalition forces were now approaching Baghdad General mattis's Marines had not only annihilated the Republican guard divisions defending baghdad's outskirts they were now within the city itself the first Marine Division had crossed the Tigris River on the 6th of April and on the 8th they attacked into the city from the southeast the fighting here was just as intense but the Marines soon penetrated into inner Baghdad linking up with the third division's positions which had been under such pressure the intervention of the Marines finally decided the issue with third divisions Communications now secure and thousands of dead fetty and littering Baghdad streets all resistance collapsed the Bathurst regime had now ceased to exist the near simultaneous capture of Baghdad and Basra had ended saddam's rule almost overnight even though there were still large Iraqi military formations in the field with Saddam now running for his life and much of the upper command Echelon dead or missing many Iraqi soldiers simply took off their uniforms and went home on April the 11th the Australian Special Forces task group concentrated for an attack on al-assad air base elements of the Special Air Service regiment and Commandos of the fourth Battalion Royal Australian regiment had been operating in Western Iraq hunting scuds and monitoring the major highways to Syria and Jordan as The Operators assaulted the air base they found it essentially undefended over 50 military aircraft including the 29s the remnants of the once Mighty Iraqi Air Force was simply abandoned to the coalition their Crews support personnel and security forces nowhere to be found although there were some Iraqi forces intact around tikrit and masul saddam's regime had fallen the invasion was over the conventional phase of operation Iraqi freedom is one of the most brilliant military campaigns in modern history a fact that is often obscured by both the pretenses under which it was launched and the vicious Insurgency in Civil War which followed despite these obvious strategic blunders as a pure military campaign the invasion of saddam's Iraq was astoundingly successful despite the setbacks and unexpected Iraqi defense it had taken just 20 days to successfully invade a country of 25 million people and defeat an army some half a million strong what is even more impressive is the fact that the Coalition achieved this feat with such tiny land forces when considering a force ratio required to launch an attack on a well-dugging enemy a typical rule of thumb is the attacking Force usually requires a three to one advantage in numbers obviously this does not necessarily scale up to the level of a campaign as a whole but generally speaking a positive force ratio is typically required launching a large-scale offensive with a negative Force ratio is exceedingly rare in modern military history if one side believes it has a technological doctrinal or qualitative Advantage then inferior numbers are acceptable operation barbarosso being the primary example in the 20th century in Iraq the Coalition successfully divided an army of 22 conventional divisions and tens of thousands of paramilitary Fighters with just four eventually five divisions in terms of combat forces the Coalition was outnumbered by nearly five to one despite this disadvantage in Mass the heavy American Division simply sliced through the Iraqi defenses and pierced the Beating Heart of the regime Baghdad ending the war in less than three weeks by no means was this Victory won through Iraqi cowardice the Republican guard formations in the 13 had fought tenaciously and often with suicidal bravery but the qualitative Advantage enjoyed by Coalition forces both in terms of technology and the quality of their military as a whole was simply overwhelming the entire Medina division of the Republican God was annihilated in a Close Quarters tank battle with a third infantry division quite literally hundreds of Iraqi Vehicles were destroyed and thousands of its fighting men fell in the Battle of Kabbalah third infantry division on the other hand lost a single tank this cannot purely be explained by Iraqi incompetence or poor fighting quality the elite Republican guard formations were well trained and staffed by highly motivated contract soldiers they were equipped with the best equipment available to the regime such as the t-72 main battle tank which is still used extensively by both sides in the Ukraine war today indeed the Medina division may not have looked all that different to Russian forces that are currently deployed in Ukraine however even in this kind of close range knife fight and despite their suicidal bravery they were unable to lay a finger on the third infantry division American tanks were simply much more technologically advanced and their command and control was so much better that they were able to outmaneuver large Iraqi concentrations attacking them from vulnerable directions when placed in a difficult situation Coalition forces were able to rely on fearsome fire support both in the air and organically from the division's artillery the accuracy and immense power of American artillery impressed the Iraqis as much as their air power but technology alone cannot explain if Victory as rapid and complete as this the technical skill and quality of Coalition forces really cannot be overstated the ability of U.S divisions to maneuver with such speed is perhaps the primary reason for the rapid Iraqi collapse before Iraqi command could even react U.S armored spearheads were at the gates of Baghdad itself and by the time they realized the danger the third infantry division had isolated the city the speed of this campaign paralyzed the Iraqis they simply could not react to a situation as dynamic as this and with command and control facilities heavily engaged by air power the defense of Iraq devolved first to the level of division and core and then to the Battalion and Company Commander no Iraqi officer had an accurate operational picture and this blindness led to inaction at the operational level of warfare despite their smaller numbers U.S forces were able to concentrate overwhelming Firepower at small critical points giving them a tremendous advantage even when the entire operational plan had to be changed in order to secure the ground lines of communication U.S divisions responded instantly with formations like the 101st Airborne repositioning within hours the speed with which U.S forces were able to maneuver is largely due to the quality of their supporting elements the administrative tale of a division its maintenance and Logistics battalions are often the least glamorous parts of an army but it is these forces which allow the formation to maneuver it was the speed with which Supply was moved up and forward logistic hubs were established that allowed the armored spearheads to move so rapidly and penetrate so deeply like a lightweight boxer the US military moved around the ring so quickly and landed so many blows the slow and heavy Iraqis were unable to cope this paralysis was the core objective of AirLand Battle Doctrine and it had worked even more thoroughly in 2003 than it did in 1991. to be fair some of the campaign success has to be attributed to Iraqi weakness and incompetence the Iraqi military had shown its willingness to fight indeed it had displayed almost suicidal bravery at several places but saddam's defensive strategy was incoherent and unrealistic by massing his Republican guard divisions outside of Baghdad he precipitated the kind of maneuver battle that his forces were completely unprepared to fight especially against an enemy as dexterous and Nimble as the Americans as strange as it may seem near is leading up to the war the Iraqi military was not preparing to fight this campaign it was optimized to put down iranian-backed revolts in the sheer South and the Kurdish North although the fettyin had achieved significant and unexpected success in the city's wrong footing setcom planners the Iraqi military as a whole lacked the command and control capability to effectively adapt to the opportunities these events provided obviously Coalition targeting of Iraqi command and control only aided in this process and the whole concept which underpinned U.S Doctrine was facilitating command paralysis but Iraqi weakness in this area only helped this to occur in fact despite their Superior numbers the Iraqis were unable to mount an operational level counter-attack throughout the entire campaign in the words of the U.S official history they never stood a chance and perhaps against a more competent foe Washington could not count on such small American forces to achieve so much nevertheless it appeared as though the revolution in military Affairs had been proven correct rumsfeld's faith in U.S technological superiority and thus his deep skepticism of the requirement for a larger footprint in Iraq was spectacularly Vindicated rather than the 70 to 120 days that had originally been planned the conventional phase of the war was over in 20. The Invasion itself had shown vast Improvement in joint and combined arms operations and had included the largest Special Forces campaign in history the Special Forces elements had exceeded expectations despite their tiny size these units had achieved all of their objectives effectively conquering Western Iraq single-handed the speed and surprise wielded by Franks and centcom to dismember the Iraqi regime seemed to completely validate rumsfeld's belief about the nature of warfare speaking to the Senate armed services committee secretary ramsfeld argued that The Invasion had shown that in the 21st century overmatching power is more important than overwhelming Force in the past under the doctrine of overwhelming force force tended to be measured in terms of mass the number of troops that were committed to a particular conflict in the 21st century Mass May no longer be the best measure of power in a conflict after all when Baghdad fell there were just over one hundred thousand American forces on the ground General Franks overwhelmed the enemy not with the typical three to one advantage in Mass but by over matching the enemy with Advanced capabilities and using those capabilities in Innovative and unexpected ways despite the overwhelming success of the invasion there were however some very concerning flaws in the RMA concept which had been revealed firstly the pervasive ISR capabilities that RMA Advocates had argued would replace traditional Recon elements such as the joint stars were completely ineffective when the enemy was not a conventional military formation masking for a tank battle but was rather a paramilitary force hiding amongst the civilian population monitoring the fetty Ying quickly became the task of Special Forces and Recon elements thus when facing an Insurgent America's overwhelming technological advantage upon which the RMA concept was based would be far less important the second major floor in rumsfeld's reasoning became apparent in the immediate wake of the fall of the regime with the evaporation of Bathurst rule including its security forces the people of Baghdad entered the streets not to fight the Coalition but to loot as American forces stood by and watched in the week from April 7th to April 14. looters ravaged the national museum of Iraq the University of Baghdad the Saddam art center and two of the city's major Hospital only one of which continued to function on April the 14th the Iraqi National Library and National Archives were burned down leading to the destruction of countless archaeological Treasures perhaps a hundred thousand pairs of boots on the ground was enough to topple Saddam Hussein and defeat the Iraqi military but it was nowhere near a large enough Force to provide security for a nation of 25 million people one that was Riven by Deep ethnic and sectarian tensions if the Iraqi Army could not be rapidly reconstituted the resulting power vacuum would give America's enemies both the Iranians and the jihadis ample room to not only operate but thrive this was a critical window of opportunity when the Coalition could turn a brilliant operational Triumph into a true strategic victory there was even some Goodwill amongst elements of the Iraqi population especially those who had suffered badly under Saddam but if things went badly then the Coalition would be facing a catastrophe yet it was at this most critical moment that the Victorious American forces seemed to have the least strategic Direction when the fifth Corps had finally seeked Baghdad its Commander General Wallace asked third Army operations Chief General Thurman okay Bubba we're here now what for many Coalition officers this single sentence seems to have summed up the situation even as they watched crowds of Iraqi pull down statues of Saddam in Baghdad the lack of planning for post Bathurst Iraq was ensuring that for the Coalition this war was not over in fact it was only just beginning

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Published: Fri Oct 07 2022