Brigade). Second, because of operations security, he simply did not want to get involved in detailed planning while they were still in Germany. With all the media outlets and the intense speculation about what they were about to do, he felt it was best to wait until they were close to going before they did any detailed work. He issued his first guidance to his planners on 27 November.
His planners, meanwhile, had not been sitting on their hands. They had been busy in Riyadh. Heading his planning work was Lieutenant Colonel Tom Goedkoop. Goedkoop had been assigned to VII Corps after graduating from SAMS in the summer of 1989, and had arrived in VII Corps shortly before Franks. Goedkoop, a tanker, bright, focused, positive, and a hard-working officer, made several trips to Riyadh during November to better understand the planning climate there and to do what he could to help Third Army finish enough of its plan so that VII Corps could begin work.
Franks also had dispatched John Landry, VII Corps chief of staff, to Saudi with part of the staff for coordination meetings and, more specifically, to ask CENTCOM if VII Corps could move their Tactical Assembly Areas farther west (Yeosock had told him it would have to be cleared by the CINC). After a helicopter flight on 14 November over the area where the corps was supposed to locate, Franks was convinced they were too far east. To transfer from the planned TAA to the corps's attack positions would mean an extremely long desert move. The distance from the proposed TAA to King Khalid Military City was approximately 200 kilometers, and from there to the attack position — another 160 kilometers. Doing that would cost too much time, as well as too much wear and tear on the vehicles. Franks knew initial disposition of forces on the ground was vital, remembering Molke's dictum that 'an error in initial disposition might not be corrected for an entire campaign.'
Landry got permission from Cal Waller to locate west toward King Khalid Military City.
After Third Army came up on 24 November with a revised plan and mission statement, Franks met with his planners on 27 November and gave them guidance. He focused on three battles: the initial breach of the Iraqi defense, the defeat of the Iraqi tactical reserves, and mass to destroy the RGFC. He also wanted to find a way to keep the Iraqis from knowing where the VII Corps would hit.
At this point, intelligence indicated that the Iraqis had the capability to develop a complex obstacle system of mines, trenches, so-called fire trenches (trenches filled with oil they could ignite in the event of attack), and wire entanglements all across the corps's front. The big question, early on, was how far west the Iraqi barrier system would go.
Franks and his planners knew from the beginning that they did not want to get the corps tangled up in that system. He wanted a flank or to be able to create one. If there was a way in their sector to send heavy forces (at that point 1st AD, 3rd AD, and 2nd ACR) around it, and if the terrain would support heavy forces, and if they could logistically support heavy forces, then they would send as much of the enveloping attack out there as they could. (There were always reasons for making the breach — even if a way west opened up: to keep logistical lines short, for example, and to rapidly defeat the Iraqi tactical reserves.)
When they first looked at their sector, it appeared that the Iraqis would continue to build their barrier system all the way across it. If that happened, VII Corps would have to breach that line in order to achieve a penetration for the heavy forces to move toward the RGFC. After passing through the breach, the heavy forces would move north to a concentration area, and then they would attack to destroy the RGFC.
All of this was slow and deliberate, and Franks did not like it. During this analysis, he started asking about a flank. In fact, since at that time CENTCOM plans for XVIII Corps placed them far to the west of their eventual attack corridor, VII Corps could have gone even farther west than they eventually went, but their terrain analysis showed that traffic ability out there was not good for a large formation. Either it could not move rapidly north or the formation would have to spread out too much and be too far away to concentrate against the RGFC. Thus they assumed they had to punch a breach through the barrier and assemble the attack at a concentration point on the way to the RGFC. (As it happened, when the 3rd ACR traveled that terrain during the war they had a hard time getting through it, and had to move a lot slower than the 1st Armored to their east.)
VII Corps planners analyzed the breach in great detail. They figured its width and its depth, then how many vehicles could pass at what speed, then worked out specific time lines for each type unit in the corps.
Franks still didn't like it. None of his planners did. Not only would it take too much time to bring his forces through the breach, but once they were through, they would be strung out north to south when he wanted them aligned east to west and coiled to strike from south to north.
He again told his planners that he preferred to flank the Iraqi barrier so that he could achieve a more rapid concentration of forces for the attack on the RGFC. After some thought and examination of that option, he seized on the idea of an 'audible.' What he wanted to do was look over the Iraqi line of scrimmage, as it were, to determine how far west their defense was set. If they were in a defense for the play VII Corps had called — i.e., if the barrier extended across VII Corps's sector — then they would run the breach play. If, on the other hand, the Iraqis left an opening to the west, they would change their plan that put units in that opening and let them race to the RGFC and mass against them much faster.
They did this initial planning with only a few planners, all approved by Franks in their secure room in the basement of VII Corps HQ at Kelly Barracks in Stuttgart. His chief of staff and G-3 also were present.
In early December, he picked the Big Red One to make the breach. They'd had recent NTC experience in breaching, they were an infantry division, and Tom Rhame volunteered to do it.
On 6 December, Franks made a three-day return trip to Saudi Arabia with Corps staff Don Holder and 3rd AD chief Jerry Smith to personally greet the first arriving units from the 2nd ACR. He made this entry in his journal: 'Saw 2/2 ACR. Troops look great. Spirited, cleaning weapons. Chain of command present. Landed in A.M. and right on their vehicles w/o sleep. Inspiring. Gave coins to soldiers cleaning weapons to remind them to continue.' He discussed the plan with John Yeosock, as well as a myriad of other details of deployment, and briefed the breach option, stressing that he thought the VII Corps and XVIII Corps attacks should be mutually supporting. He discussed the need for deception and questioned how CENTCOM would conduct operations deep with air. Franks also met with Cal Waller, vital in any communication with General Schwarzkopf, but not with Schwarzkopf himself.
Franks made his final move to Saudi Arabia on 13 December.
In preparation for the briefing on 20 December for Secretary Cheney and General Powell, Franks briefed General Schwarzkopf on 14 December on his attack plan. His instructions from Schwarzkopf then were to brief the plan in sufficient detail (especially the breach) that when Secretary Cheney and General Powell left they would be convinced the plan was viable, and that it was set in concrete and difficult to change. Schwarzkopf wanted approval of what he was doing, and no more suggestions from Washington. Armed with that guidance, Franks and his planners prepared that type of briefing. The plan had six phases and the audible.
On 20 December, Franks principally briefed the breach-only plan, but explained that there was an audible plan available if the Iraqis gave him an opening farther west. As a point of interest, in the light of General Schwarzkopf's later dissatisfaction with the speed of the VII Corps attack, no one in Franks's superior chain of command commented about the laborious task of passing a three-division corps through a relatively narrow opening, assembling the corps, and then moving toward the enemy 150 kilometers away. Franks had misgivings about the plan, as indicated in his journal, even though he did not yet have an alternative.
'Believe operationally we might be violating principle of mass (if we send all our units thru breach one behind the other in column). In our scheme the principal worry is tight movement thru breach. Do not want a bridge too far (thinking of the WW II operation and piecemeal one-unit-at-a-time commitment on a narrow front).'
He is still pleased that he did not have to execute it.
In answer to a question from Dick Cheney about the mission Franks had for the British 1st AD, he replied that he anticipated giving them the mission to defeat the Iraqi VII Corps tactical reserve so that his heavy forces could move to destroy the RGFC without worrying about their rear, flank, and fuel.
A thornier issue had to do with the 1st CAV, the theater reserve (on which subject the CINC continued to be especially sensitive). As he went through his presentation, Franks explained that even though the 1st CAV was theater ground reserve, since it was a Third Army assumption and logical for the theater reserve to be assigned to the main attack (if it was not needed elsewhere), he was including plans for their use by VII Corps.
This assumption did not go down well with Schwarzkopf. Later, in fact, in his autobiography, he charged that Franks was not prepared to attack unless he had the 1st CAV.
The charge — with all its implications — is not true. In providing a place for the 1st CAV in his scheme of maneuver, Franks was doing what any commander would do and what Third Army had instructed him to do.
