Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

At about 1700, Stan returned. Because Tom Rhame was forward in a tank, Stan had not been able to find him to deliver the order and brief him personally. He had been able to leave the order with the 1st INF TAC CP, however, so that was reassuring. But the lack of comms with Tom, the fact that we hadn't been able to get to him, and the fact that all of us were tired raised my concerns.

A little after 1700, Ron Griffith called.

'JAYHAWK 6, this is IRON 6,' he said.

'JAYHAWK 6.'

'My 3rd Brigade is in contact and we had some casualties. Cannot execute maneuver to get 1st CAV through in north. Believe it hazards my force to do that while we are in contact.'

Damn, I thought. All that work racing around all day to personally tie this together, and now at the last minute we can't do it.

Chance. The unpredictable. It is part of war. My first emotion was anger that it was intervening to screw up our scheme of maneuver, but I let it pass. I had to adapt the plan to the circumstances. There is not much you can do about chance. And if in Ron's judgment they could not do it, then I had to consider options, not act as though chance never happened.

'IRON 6, JAYHAWK 6, confirm you cannot execute maneuver for PEGASUS.'

'Affirmative. We have contact in 3rd Brigade sector and deep, plus casualties, and cannot execute by dark.'

'Wait,' I said. I wanted a minute to consider this.

That radio call was the biggest personal tactical disappointment I had ever experienced in my army life, either in training or in war. We had the Iraqis on the run. The Hammurabi was within our reach, and the majority of that division (we still thought) was in our sector. With the double-envelopment maneuver, we would have completed the destruction of at least the heavy forces of the RGFC — our mission. Additionally, it is not often in training or in war that you have an opportunity to execute a double envelopment. It is like a grand-slam home run for the whole unit. The disappointment was not so much personal (though it was that) as it was for the entire VII Corps. If we could end this war with an envelopment of Iraqi forces, our troops would have that success to point to for the rest of their lives. It would have been not only mission accomplished, but rather mission accomplished with a bang at the end.

That's what I had in mind. And now this news from Ron. I pushed the anger down and forced myself to consider the options:

First, I could force it. Tell Ron, just do it. You handle your contact, but get it done. I need the 1st CAV in the fight tonight, so we'll bull our way through this. That is sometimes a workable option.

Second, I could adapt tactics; that is, order 1st CAV and 1st AD to make a forward passage of lines, just as the 1st INF had done with the 2nd ACR, rather than have 1st CAV pass to the north. But the 2nd ACR was well practiced in passage of lines and had time to set it up. This would be from a standing cold start, with planning and execution in the dark. Not only was there the risk of fratricide, it would probably take them all night. Besides, in the morning I'd have two exhausted divisions on my hands from all the coordination and passage, and the Iraqis left alone most of the night.

Third, I could absorb the chance by adjusting for time; that is, we could wait until Ron got things under control and then pass the 1st CAV, probably by first light next morning. We had that time, it would involve less risk, and even though we would be giving the Iraqis who weren't in contact with the 1st AD another twelve hours, we would still get the mission done. On the other hand, the RGFC still seemed to be fighting rather than running away (after the Medina Ridge fight experience, it did not look as though the RGFC would be going anywhere soon), and we had theater air to isolate the battlefield and keep them from running.

Fourth, I had to consider Ron's judgment, which I totally trusted. He knew what I wanted to do and had ordered him to do. He knew the significance of attacking east into the Hammurabi. He also knew his current situation. He wanted to finish the fight. I had always trusted the loyalty and judgment of my subordinates. I had never given a mission that I knew was not possible to execute. That principle had never failed me in over thirty-one years, not once in peace and war. Why abandon it now? Besides, we had the next day — or so I thought at the time.

'IRON 6, this is JAYHAWK 6. Roger your situation. I want you to pass PEGASUS at first light tomorrow without fail. Contact him directly and coordinate.'

'WILCO.'

'PEGASUS 6, JAYHAWK 6, did you monitor my call to IRON 6?'

'Roger, JAYHAWK, understand BMNT to attack east same axis and objective.' It was John Tilelli talking; I could hear the disappointment in his voice. They had busted their ass to be in Area Horse by 1100 that day, moving almost 250 kilometers in a little more than twenty-four hours. And now this.

'Affirmative, coordinate directly with IRON for passage.'

That was it. We still had time, I thought.

Stan and the troops had heard both ends of this exchange. They made the necessary adjustments.

At 1800, I made my usual call to John Yeosock to give him a SITREP before his 1900 meeting with General Schwarzkopf. I reported that Iraqi resistance was becoming less coherent, and that 1st INF was in pursuit, but that 1st and 3rd ADs were still in hasty attack mode. I then updated him on our double-envelopment maneuver. We needed another twenty-four hours or so, I told him, and it would be all over: by then we would have run out of maneuver room and would have the remaining Iraqi forces surrounded. John agreed with my assessment. Another twenty-four hours was about what we would get, he thought.

I learned after the war that John had already given what was essentially the same message to the CINC on the morning of the twenty-seventh, and that General Schwarzkopf had used that judgment as the basis of a report he had given to General Powell that afternoon.[52] In that report, General Schwarzkopf stated that he wanted to continue the ground attack one more day to destroy everything to the Persian Gulf.

I was also at that time totally unaware of General Schwarzkopf's briefing the evening of 27 February that has been called 'the mother of all briefings,' during which the CINC essentially said that the escape door was shut and declared victory.

After that call, Stan, Creighton Abrams, and I went over the next day's operation. We looked at the objectives assigned, the fire-control measures (including placement of the FSCL), and other fire-support and control measures. This was the closest to a war game we could get during our attack — that is, we looked at moves and countermoves by the Iraqis. We figured there was nothing they could do to stop us from our double-envelopment maneuver.

I was satisfied that all of it would work, and by the end of the day — or at the latest by Friday morning — it would all be over, and we would have done what we had come to do. The RGFC would be destroyed, not only in our sector but in the Kuwaiti theater of operations, as XVIII Corps closed in from the north.

Our own actions were to continue to attack in the sector while setting the double envelopment in motion. Yet I also was becoming increasingly focused on ensuring that major corps units did not run into one another, since our success was beginning to run us out of maneuver room.

Here is what I was seeing. The 1st INF was approaching Highway 8, and their axis of advance had them moving northeast rather than the more due east I had ordered earlier. Third AD was into Kuwait and also approaching Highway 8, attacking east-southeast. Looking at the map, it appeared we might have to do something to change their directions or establish a limit of advance, or else they would run into each other. First AD also was approaching Highway 8, to the north of 3rd AD.

I left the TAC and walked outside to clear my head. Not much else I could do right now. We had the corps attacking due east against the RGFC, the 1st CAV committed for a first-light attack, and the 2nd ACR (in reserve) also committed to follow the 1st INF, then attack north inside them to Hawk. I also had my one remaining Apache battalion in our 11th Aviation Brigade in reserve for deep attacks, although that appeared unlikely, given the cramped space deep. I walked around, ate some MREs, then relaxed for a few minutes and smoked a cigar in the small tent the troops had put up for me, about twenty feet from the TAC entrance.

At about 1845, when I went back inside the canvas enclosure of the TAC, Stan pointed out to me that the 3rd AD attacks had, in fact, taken them so far east and southeast that if the Big Red One were to keep its current axis of attack, then 3rd AD might run into them. Since all we had to go on was the friendly situation we had posted