that intersection from the Gulf coast was not carrying any significant traffic, and in fact this order was the first time we had been given any geographic objective in the war (it had been a corps decision to seize al-Busayyah). But an order is an order. I said WILCO and called Stan over for a huddle. I had interpreted John's order as one to stop movement through the road junction. The tactics were up to me.
The first thing I wanted to do was make a quick call to the units to change the cease-fire time.
I assumed the time change had been the result of a simple error in converting Zulu time to local time, or a difference of three hours. The use of different times in a single time zone in an operational theater made absolutely no sense to me. I had outlawed the use of anything other than local time use in the corps. We were attacking in one time zone, and I did not want some tired, getting-shot-at soldier having to fool with changing times from Zulu to Charlie or whatever.
But we also had this crossroads business at Safwan to take care of.
Stan circled it on the map hanging in front of us. My first thought was to go after it with the 11th Aviation Brigade. Stan gave them a warning order. With Apaches to interdict traffic, that would get a presence there immediately, and ground troops would follow later. A second look at the map showed that such an attack by corps aviation risked getting in the way of the 1st INF. The Big Red One was not more than twenty to thirty kilometers away from Safwan, which would put the town in the normal deep area for division Apaches to attack. So I said no to the 11th Aviation Brigade option.
I recalled that 1st INF had been attacking on a generally northeast axis before I had ordered the division to go due east until they crossed Highway 8, then north. Now I figured that if they went back to their original attack direction, then they would get to the crossroads. To do that would also mean halting 3rd AD along Phase Line Kiwi, so that they would not now run into the 1st INF. That is what I decided to do.
Just as it was the third change of orders for the corps, it was also the third change of orders for the Big Red One… I could visualize Tom Rhame, forward in his tank, awakened with these orders and wondering if I had gone crazy.
I directed an order go out to all of VII Corps: They were to continue to attack in the same direction and with the same objectives we had been using prior to the early-evening adjustments, they were to continue the attack until 0800 (not 0500), and, until that time, they were to destroy maximum equipment. This order also put the 1st INF back on their earlier line of attack — that is, generally northeast. My assumption was that if our map posting was accurate — if they were indeed twenty to thirty kilometers from Safwan — then the 1st INF would easily get to those crossroads by 0800. I also figured their own Apaches would get there much sooner.
I should have known we would have confusion. Though we did our best to keep things simple, I probably should have realized that I was adding to the confusion simply by transmitting all of these orders. Time was running out.
With the initial cessation order at 2337, the coiled-spring effect had gone out of the corps — after all, soldiers are not machines to be switched on and off at random. Also, big units are harder to move than small units — especially when they have been attacking for the better part of four days. Clausewitz calls this phenomenon the disorganizing effects of victory. That night was the night of maximum friction, all brought on by fatigue, misunderstanding, and miscommunication — the 'countless minor incidents,' Clausewitz writes—'the kind you can never really foresee' that 'combine to lower the level of performance.'
Here is one example. We were attacking in one direction at 1800. Units were about to run into each other and were not oriented for the double envelopment. At 1900, an order went out to stop so that we could reorient the corps for the next day's final attack. However, even though orders to resume the attack were sent to all the other divisions, one was not put out to 1st INF — attention to it had gotten lost in all the cease-fire transmissions. Then, to add to the complexity, we got the cease-fire order and tried to go back to the directions that had been in effect before 1800.
At that point, since there was no time for written orders, all of these orders were going out in verbal radio transmissions over both our standard line-of-sight and our SATCOM radio nets. And finally, though the order announcing the 0800 cease-fire was received and acknowledged by each of the major units, I did not speak personally to any of the commanders at that time.
It was now about 0430. All of this activity had taken the better part of an hour. I looked around the TAC. We'd had three mission changes. Fatigue and frustration had overtaken us. What a hell of a way to end this war, I thought.
Sometime later we received the second written order from Third Army that night: an order to a five-division corps to extend by three hours an operation we had expected to end by now. It was totally unrealistic to believe that so large an organization could react that quickly — and in the middle of the night, after four days of battle. Even if everyone in the corps had been listening to the same radio, they would have had trouble executing on such short notice.
As far as I could see, there was nothing more I could do. I was tired, frustrated, and extremely disappointed that we had not been given the time to finish. I felt like the manager of a ball club that had won the World Series in five games, instead of four. We were proud as hell of what we had done, but I wanted that sweep.
Yet, for all that, I still determined that the frustrations would not cast a shadow over the heroic and skillful execution of VII Corps's soldiers and leaders, and for that reason, I said little more about the missed opportunity to bring our mission to its final conclusion. Nor should it cast a shadow today — six years after Desert Storm — over the strategic significance of the victory in the Gulf and the opportunities it has opened for greater peace in the region.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of strategic, operational, and tactical linkage, there are lessons to learn for the future. If students of military history and operations want to learn the major lesson the Gulf War teaches, they should look at the war's end state.
It was a significant challenge, no doubt about it, to orchestrate the end of a campaign of lightning swiftness that had been conducted by a thirty-five-nation coalition in a region of the world with many opportunities and pitfalls. Nonetheless, it seemed that we gave a lot more thought (at least in the theater) to how to get in and get started than how to conclude it. The intellectual focus seemed to be in inverse proportion. The closer we got to the end, the less we focused.
At the end of my briefing on 9 February, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney asked me, 'How will it all end?' The perfect question at the right time — and a question every Secretary of Defense should ask anytime our military is about to be committed to battle. He should keep asking until it is over. Though I gave Secretary Cheney an answer that reflected my sense of how I expected it to end for VII Corps and Third Army, I'm not aware of anyone at any time giving him a picture of the expected end state for the entire theater.
Here, to the best of my knowledge, is the story of how the decision was made that brought us to the actual end state on the battlefield:
In the evening of 27 February, following General Schwarzkopf's 'mother of all briefings,' General Colin Powell called Schwarzkopf to tell him that the President was thinking of ending the war within a matter of hours, but would defer that decision to the theater commander. General Powell added that he shared the President's view. As far as he could personally tell, it was all over. Yet he too wanted to hear that confirmed by the theater commander.
General Schwarzkopf replied that he would poll his commanders before giving a final judgment.
That poll never got to the tactical battlefield.
In the call back to Powell, General Schwarzkopf confirmed that it was time to end the fighting. After that theater judgment, the Joint Chiefs agreed unanimously that the war had achieved its goals and should stop.
The order went to Third Army, and from Third Army to us.
Could we have gone on? Absolutely. Would that have made good tactical sense? From where I was standing, absolutely. Would another twelve hours have destroyed more of Saddam's army? Absolutely (though not much in our sector).
But wars are not fought to make tactical sense. They are fought to gain strategic objectives. When those who are looking at the entire strategic situation, both present and future, say we are at the end, then for the soldiers on the battlefield, that's the end. Sometimes strategic goals have immediate results, such as the liberation of Kuwait. Others take longer to manifest themselves, and are obtained by taking advantage of the new opportunities that arise from the way the tactical outcomes were gained. Now, six years after our victory in Desert Storm, those results are still being played out, and I believe they are mostly positive.
